[Siegmund]

Something I had never seen before happened at the club yesterday. (I was not the table director, but got summoned by the table director for a second opinion because it was a sufficiently odd situation.)

West is declaring a notrump contract.

South wins trick 10, then claims all the rest in a position like this (sorry, I don't remember the spots in declarer's hand, and I don't know the previous play):

.....♠K
.....♥---
.....♦T
.....♣A

♠x(x?)..........♠J
♥---..........♥---
♦---..........♦---
♣x(x?)..........♣xx

.....♠---
.....♥72
.....♦---
.....♣---

"Hey, wait a minute, you have only 2 cards and the rest of us have three!"
"There is a five of spades under your chair."
"Hmmm... director!"

First things first: the ♠5 is deemed to have been continuously present in South's hand. She has not revoked; but she has made a bad claim.

So, "obviously," she wins her two hearts and then leads her losing spade.

But North has the highest spade left (and the highest club left and the highest diamond left.)

Do we automatically rule that the ♠K must be discarded on one of the hearts so trick 13 must be awarded to the declaring side? Do we provisionally rule that the spade is discarded and wait to see if North tries to argue with us? Do we try to reconstruct the hand to find out which discards on the hearts are normal-but-not-irrational plays for North? (More generally, do we take into account North's level as a player?) Do we pretend South made a normal claim of 2 tricks and a concession of 1 trick and allow North to object to the concession?

[RMB1]

It appears that the TD must decide what is normal for declarer to discard from dummy on a heart, given that declarer does not know what his thirteenth card is. To me it appears obvious that all three possible discards are normal plays, and so I award the defence one trick (♠5 losing to ♠J).

I am not convinced that South even claimed the last trick.

[bluejak]

The WBFLC decided that claims that were faulty by including infractions were not to be played out as stated, despite the basic unfairness of this. I believe that the effect of the WBFLC decision is that the claim is ruled as if when you claim the card would be automatically found at that time and restored to the relevant hand, so all the tricks are made. No, I don’t like it.

[gordontd]

 bluejak, on 2011-December-17, 11:03, said:

I believe that the effect of the WBFLC decision is that the claim is ruled as if when you claim the card would be automatically found at that time and restored to the relevant hand, so all the tricks are made.

I don't think this conclusion follows from that premise: aren't we now in L70D2 territory?

[Fluffy]

You are all missing that declarer is WEST, and south can´t play for his partner, so north is forced to discard ♠K I supose.

[gordontd]

 Fluffy, on 2011-December-18, 05:19, said:

You are all missing that declarer is WEST

I think it's clear that we haven't all missed that.

[RMB1]

 Fluffy, on 2011-December-18, 05:19, said:

You are all missing that declarer is WEST, ...

Oops! Sorry.

It is possible that the ♠5 has become an exposed and a minor penalty card. If so, the knowledge of the ♠5 in South is unauthorised to North. If all discards from North are logical alternatives then keeping ♠K is suggested by the unauthorised information and so not permitted by Law 16.

Otherwise, the TD has to determine whether discarding ♠K and keeping ♣A is a normal play for North, playing independently.

From the diagram, it looks as if there is uncertain about the club/spade suits. So keeping either a top ♠ or ♣ looks normal.

[lamford]

It would be interesting if North was known to have the king of spades and the ace of clubs, as otherwise declarer would have cashed them. Now a South who finds he possesses the five of spades may cash only one heart before putting his partner in, avoiding the pseudo-squeeze. The question then is whether South's claim when he thought he had only two cards dictates in any way his play when he finds the missing card. I think not, and he is given the least successful 'normal' line in the new scenario. Similarly if South were declarer (in RMB1's perceived situation), I do not believe he is only allowed to discover the missing card at trick 13, so the only normal line when holding the five of spades would be to keep the king of spades. And of course he is allowed to know he is a defender not declarer!

[Siegmund]

Quote

Otherwise, the TD has to determine whether discarding ♠K and keeping ♣A is a normal play for North, playing independently.

From the diagram, it looks as if there is uncertain about the club/spade suits. So keeping either a top ♠ or ♣ looks normal.

This is the type of situation I was afraid of getting into. Since North is discarding after West, it seemed possible that a sufficiently expert North who had a correct count on the hand could argue he would pitch the diamond first and thereafter pitch whatever was indicated by West's plays to trick 11 and 12.

As it happened, both the other director and I ruled the SK might be discarded and awarded EW the last trick. Neither defender was anything close to the level of expert and neither protested overly. But I was disturbed that I really couldn't point to a clear basis for forcing the SK discard had I been challenged, and could imagine an argument from some Norths that would talk me out of my ruling.

After reading the replies in this thread, I remain equally disturbed.

[bixby]

I would say that the basis for your ruling, with which I agree, is Law 70A: ". . . any doubtful point
as to a claim shall be resolved against the claimer."

Also supporting the ruling is Law 70D2, "The Director shall not accept any part of a defender’s claim that depends on his partner’s selecting a particular play from among alternative normal* plays," with "normal" defined as including "play that would be careless or inferior for the class of player involved."

It is certainly possible that North could know from the play thus far that South is down to two hearts and a spade. But even an expert sometimes loses concentration and fails to count all the suits. Faced with the choice of discarding two out of three cards, all of which are winners, it would be no worse than "carelesss or inferior" for North to discard the card he should really keep. Therefore, which card North would keep is a "doubtful point," and I would resolve it against the claimer and rule two tricks to N/S, one to E/W. (I would rule differently if South has already shown out in both minor suits.)

It is true that, under this ruling, North is deprived of the opportunity to show that he has counted the suits carefully and knows to keep the spade. But that is South's fault. South has failed to keep track of his cards and has also made an improper claim, and N/S must suffer the consequences. Otherwise we are saying that a defender can protect against careless play by his partner by claiming.

[barmar]

Has South already showed out of both minors? If he has, then there's no reason for North to hold on to those cards, and it's only rational for him to save the spade.

But if South could still have a minor, North has to guess if his last card is a spade or the minor. The UI tells him, so he has to guess wrong.

[Siegmund]

I had a chance to look at the hand record today. Claimer started the hand with 3-6-2-2; I don't know how the play went but she had almost certainly failed to follow in clubs, and North started the hand with 5 diamonds and likely knows there are none left for South to hold.

I get the strong suspicion that a good North would have known the spade was the clearly correct card to keep. (The actual decent-C-player North probably was not certain of the position, but I hate having to guess about how good someone is to make a ruling.)

[Fluffy]

 gordontd, on 2011-December-18, 06:09, said:

I think it's clear that we haven't all missed that.

sorry gordon, I don´t know the laws by number so couldn´t understand what you meant.

[gordontd]

 Fluffy, on 2011-December-18, 19:23, said:

sorry gordon, I don´t know the laws by number so couldn´t understand what you meant.

No problem. I apologise for being grumpy!