[gordontd]

mjj29, on 2012-February-23, 11:01, said:

So, how about dummy 'leads' everyone else 'follows', with one of the defenders 'winning' the 'trick' (since neither defender intended to lead, these are all in the auction period). Now, the defender with the highest exposed card in the auction period leads to the next trick. Is this now the faced opening lead? They definitely _intended_ to lead...

I think we'd have reached the point where the board is unplayable, if we tried to go down that route.

[iviehoff]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-24, 02:42, said:

So a defender who happens to be the putative opening leader puts a card down on the table, and willy-nilly he must lead it, regardless of the circumstances.

Of course not. That is not what Law 24 says, nor what I said. The circumstances are crucial.

Those circumstances that lead to an exposed card, not intended to be led, that must nevertheless be led are the following, and both must be satisfied. First, the player must expose the card due to his own error. Second, the card must either be an honour card, or be cards plural. If both these circumstances are satisfied, then Law 24, in conjunction with the penalty card laws, says that the card must be led. In the case of it being cards plural, then one of the cards must be led, according the penalty card laws on more than one penalty card.

[bluejak]

One thing that has come out of many years of directing is that while there seems no such definition for "lead" the Laws assume a card led is intentionally played as a lead. Sure, it would be better if they said so, but that's not our fault. So a card dropped or faced accidentally or whatever is not a lead.

[RMB1]

bluejak, on 2012-February-25, 14:18, said:

So a card dropped or faced accidentally or whatever is not a lead.

So a card played to an apparent trick (where the previous apparently played cards had not in fact been played) is still a card played, and it is the first card played to the trick, therefore it is a lead.

[bluejak]

In my view, no: it has to be intended as the first card played to a trick to be a lead.

[iviehoff]

bluejak, on 2012-February-25, 18:48, said:

In my view, no: it has to be intended as the first card played to a trick to be a lead.

But even when clearly not a lead, a card exposed under certain circumstances - not all circumstances, but some circumstances - may be a card that now must be led.

[blackshoe]

During the play period, perhaps. At the risk of repeating myself, we're not in the play period.

[iviehoff]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-27, 09:37, said:

During the play period, perhaps. At the risk of repeating myself, we're not in the play period.

And at risk of repeating myself, a card exposed in the auction period may, under certain circumstances, be a card that must be led once the auction finishes, or, if the auction is already complete at that point, immediately. If there is such an exposed card that must be led at that point, it would appear to me that we immediately move into the play period. That normal hiatus between the end of the auction and the end of the auction period, where normally one or two things can/should happen, is cancelled or immediately terminated, and there is no longer any (further) opportunity for those things that might normally happen in that hiatus to happen: they have been pre-empted by the fact of an exposed card that must, at that point, be led.
Edited for clarity.

This post has been edited by iviehoff: 2012-February-27, 10:04

[blackshoe]

I do not agree with your interpretation. There is nothing in the law that supports it. For one thing, we're not in the play period, so there's no such thing as a card that must immediately be led. You can only lead cards during the play period. Further, the basic part of Law 24 is clear that the eventual defender's exposed cards are not penalty cards until he becomes a defender, which happens when the play period starts. So the law on dispositions of penalty cards is irrelevant until the play period begins. You cannot reason that "there is a law that will apply later, when the play period begins, so therefore the play period begins now".

[bluejak]

iviehoff, on 2012-February-27, 02:58, said:

But even when clearly not a lead, a card exposed under certain circumstances - not all circumstances, but some circumstances - may be a card that now must be led.

Maybe so [I shall leave Ed to argue with you whether it si so]. But that's irrelevant.

When the Law refers to a lead that has been made, in my view, it has to have been intended as a lead to be treated as a lead.

[iviehoff]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-27, 11:30, said:

I do not agree with your interpretation. There is nothing in the law that supports it. For one thing, we're not in the play period, so there's no such thing as a card that must immediately be led. You can only lead cards during the play period. Further, the basic part of Law 24 is clear that the eventual defender's exposed cards are not penalty cards until he becomes a defender, which happens when the play period starts. So the law on dispositions of penalty cards is irrelevant until the play period begins. You cannot reason that "there is a law that will apply later, when the play period begins, so therefore the play period begins now".

I agree the law doesn't fit together seamlessly at this point. But it does seem to me that there is a rather obvious interpretation to be made, albeit that it does seem to require doing precisely what you put in inverted commas and don't like.

Suppose you have exposed an honour card during the auction. At completion of the auction presumed-declarer is the player on your right. What do we know:
Law 24 says that this exposed card becomes a major penalty card when you become a defender. As soon as you become a defender on lead, you must lead this penalty card.
Law 22B says that you don't become a defender until you face an opening lead.

So apparently the obligation of the defender to lead the penalty card does not arrive until after that player has led a card. Are we going to conclude from that that he can lead something else? If you really hate what you put in inverted commas, you might come to that conclusion, but it seems pretty daft to me.

[blackshoe]

Let me see if I can summarize this. We have two cases, both based on the same situation.

Case 0 (the basis): You are called to a table where you find that supposed-to-be-dummy has faced a lead, supposed-to-be opening-leader's-partner has faced his entire hand, and two "tricks" have been "played", supposed-to-be-opening-leader acting as declarer. You do not, at this point, know who "won" either of the two "tricks". I hope we're agreed that the starting point for your ruling is

Quote

Law 54E: If a player of the declaring side attempts to make an opening lead, Law 24 applies.

Now Law 24 starts "When the director determines that during the auction period because of a player’s own error one or more cards of that player’s hand were in position for the face to be seen by his partner, the director shall require that every such card be left face up on the table until the auction period ends." Are we in the auction period?

Quote

Law 22B1: the auction period ends when, subsequent to the end of the auction as in A2 above, either defender faces an opening lead.

So far as we know, this has not happened, the auction period has therefore not ended, and we're still in that period. However, further investigation unearths:

Case 1: neither supposed-to-be-opening-leader nor his partner won either "trick". In this case, neither defender can have led to a subsequent trick. Therefore, there is no way we can be in the play period, the criterion for ending the auction period and beginning the play period not having been met. So we apply Law 24, the eight cards from the two "tricks" are faced, the hand of the supposed-to-be-defender who thought he was dummy remains faced. Now, says Law 24, "Information from cards thus exposed is authorized for the non-offending side but unauthorized for the offending side". Both sides are offending here, so for the moment at least information from exposed cards is UI to everybody. Next, "if the offender becomes declarer or dummy, the cards are picked up and returned to the hand". So supposed-to-be-declarer and supposed-to-be-dummy pick up their two cards (each) and put them back in their respective hands. Next, "if the offender becomes a defender, every such card becomes a penalty card (see Law 50)" so supposed-to-be-opening-leader has two major penalty cards, and his partner has thirteen major penalty cards. Next, says Law 24, we apply Law 24C: "if two or more cards are so exposed, offender’s partner must pass when next it is his turn to call," but this is irrelevant in this case, since no one gets another turn to call (the auction, as opposed to the auction period, is over). What happens next? Well, ordinarily we would apply Law 41A, and opening leader would make a face down opening lead. But opening leader has two major penalty cards, so instead we apply

Quote

Law 51: if it is a defender’s turn to play and that defender has two or more penalty cards that can legally be played, declarer designates which is to be played at that turn.

Now we're in the play period, and play proceeds normally, with due attention to the remaining penalty cards. Can we agree on this case?

Case 2a: one of the supposed-to-be-defenders "won" the second "trick", but not the first, so is, theoretically, now on lead. Since he has not led, neither defender can be deemed to have made an opening lead, and we are in essentially the same situation as in Case 1. Do you agree?

Case 2b: one of the supposed-to-be-defenders "won" the first trick, and perforce "led" to the second. It is your contention, as I understand it, that this lead constitutes an "opening lead" in the context of the laws. That being the case, you say, we are perforce already in the play period when the TD arrives at the table. Assume for the moment that you are correct. It is still the case that the thirteen cards exposed by not-supposed-to-be-dummy, and the three cards exposed by the other players in "trick one" are cards exposed during the auction period, and Law 24 applies to them just as it did in case 1. So the supposed-to-be-declaring side picks up their cards from this "trick", the one card exposed by supposed-to-be-opening-leader is a penalty card (major or minor?) and the thirteen cards exposed by his partner are major penalty cards. Now we deal with the second "trick". The lead to that trick, if made by supposed-to-be-opening-leader's-partner was perforce an "opening lead" out of turn which invokes the play period, and Law 54 applies. As I read it, declarer must accept the lead (Law 54C) because he saw the card supposed-to-be-dummy played to this second trick. We can argue, I suppose, whether declarer must apply Law 54B, or still has the option to apply 54A, but that should be a separate thread. The normal penalty card rules apply from here on, and play proceeds. If the "opening lead" was made by supposed-to-be-opening-leader, then supposed-to-be-dummy faces his hand and play proceeds normally, except... what happens to this "trick"? Must it stand? Which law(s)? In fact, if we're applying Law 54, does the "trick" stand? Again, which law(s) say so? If the trick does not stand, what happens to the cards played to it?

Have I described the cases accurately? Do you disagree with anything here? If so, please specify the matter of disagreement, and which laws you would apply instead. I'd appreciate an answer to the questions I raised in case 2a as well.

[iviehoff]

The essence of our disagreement is that I argue that we do get into the play period. Thus the tricks played are played and can't be undone. As someone else said, if you rule all those initial tricks are undone, and there are millions of penalty cards, you ought to rule the hand unplayable and award an artificial adjusted score.

I appreciate that my argument is based upon filling in a couple of holes in the laws. But those holes exist, and we need to know how to fill them. Thus we ought to look at those holes in their basic, simple cases as well as this complicated case. I exposed the most important of those two holes in its minimal case in my previous post, but disappointingly you didn't respond to it. It is the key to this. I think it is a sensible interpretation. I think you would do well to look at my previous post and consider how you would rule there.

I have now identified a second hole I filled. It is a pretty small hole, but it is there. Here it is in its simplest form.

A player with a major penalty card, necessarily a defender, wins a trick, and the cards are quitted. Now before the player with the penalty card makes any conscious movement to play a card, declarer/dummy next in turn, knowing the player to be on lead, looks up and sees the exposed card, thinks it played, and simply plays a card following to the card that must be led - and that is what they will tell you they did if you ask them, they were not leading out of turn. Two more cards are now played. All four cards are now quitted. Play proceeds so that at least the defending side play to the next trick. Now the partner of the penalty card holder pipes up that he didn't think that his partner had played to the previous trick. He acknowledges it is too late to change his card to the previous trick, but begs to argue (secretary-bird like) that the previous trick is defective. Do we agree that the trick is defective? I think not. Once things have gone on, the card that must be played is treated as played.

A player with a card that must be played ought to go through the process of playing it. Indeed the law provides for what should be done if they attempt to play a different card, and allows that the opposition can accept that alternative card. But if it is just assumed to be played, and play proceeds far enough into the next trick, we are not going to go back and say that it wasn't played and the trick is defective.

So, on the basis of those two arguments, the core of my argument is the following. My belief is that once there is an exposed card that must be led, and someone else has exposed a card thinking they were following to it, and people have quitted cards and played on, then that card has now been led and the following card played to it was played, and we are now in the play period. The minimum requirement to achieve getting into the play period is that the player on lead had major penalty cards that must be led, and which were treated assumptively as played. The distinction you draw between case 1 and case 2 is not relevant to my arguments, and the argument you attribute to me in case 2 is not the argument I am making.

[blackshoe]

iviehoff, on 2012-February-29, 05:24, said:

So, on the basis of those two arguments, the core of my argument is the following. My belief is that once there is an exposed card that must be led, and someone else has exposed a card thinking they were following to it, and people have quitted cards and played on, then that card has now been led and the following card played to it was played, and we are now in the play period. The minimum requirement to achieve getting into the play period is that the player on lead had major penalty cards that must be led, and which were treated assumptively as played. The distinction you draw between case 1 and case 2 is not relevant to my arguments, and the argument you attribute to me in case 2 is not the argument I am making.

Then I still don't understand your argument. What laws are you applying?

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-29, 11:24, said:

Then I still don't understand your argument. What laws are you applying?

He said he's filling in holes in the law. I.e. I think he's saying that the Laws never anticipated such an extreme situation.

[blackshoe]

And so, what? He can do whatever he likes? He can write new law?

What I see is "I want us to be in the play period here, therefore we're in the play period". This is much more than a stretch.

[iviehoff]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-29, 11:24, said:

Then I still don't understand your argument. What laws are you applying?

As I explained, by use of a simpler case, at my short post #31, the core of it is that I am applying laws 24 and law 50, and filling in the hole where those two laws fail to join up, clearly exposed in my short post at #31. And of course 47F2 (too late to withdraw a card) is crucial.

My joined-up approach to 24 and 50 gets me to the point where I can argue that there was at some point in the clarification period an exposed card that must be led. Once there is an exposed card that must be led in the clarification period, nothing else can (legally) be done in the clarification period other than lead such a card - other things may happen but they are irregular.

Saying that we don't move into the play period at this point without a defender consciously leading is technically correct but splitting hairs: there's nothing else to be done, a card to be led is already exposed, and everyone has treated the card as played and quitted the trick, and then moved on too far for it to be undone. As I argued in my last post, one ought to go through the motions of leading a exposed card that must be led: but if everyone treats an exposed card that must be led as if it has been played, and the player quits it, and both sides play to the next trick (47F2), we would normally treat that trick as a completed trick, even though no one at any point consciously led to that trick. More generally, it is apparently "impossible" for any trick ever to have occurred without someone having consciously led to it at some point. But such "impossible" things are in general not undone nor even a problem (apart from possible revokes) any more if the tricks are now all quitted too far back to be undone, and have the right number of cards in them, and we know who won the trick.

As we know, the law does not deal well with multiple irregularities. I have shown that the law fails to deal with some rather briefer subsets of what happened here, let alone the whole thing.

It seems to me that the director has licence to head off into unknown territory in these cases - multiple irregularities, places where the law doesn't add up. A ruling that extemporises a little with identifiable lacunas in the law is surely a permissible approach - it isn't completely making it up, it is smoothing over places where the law never added up in the first place.

I do not seek to argue that this is the only reasonable approach; there is usually more than one reasonable approach in such cases. Your arguments are well-founded, but profoundly unattractive. But I would suggest if you are going to rule that there are about 20 exposed cards none of which has been played, when people thought they had played out 3 or 4 tricks, you really have to cancel the hand and award an artificial score. After all, hands get cancelled for much less ex post fixing-up than that (see for example Law 13B). People got into a situation where they thought they were playing cards. Whilst you can argue that no cards were ever played, by analogy with Law 47 I think you should be very uncomfortable with any situation where you seek to argue that any more than 5 cards that people thought they were playing were not actually played and must be undone.

[blackshoe]

iviehoff, on 2012-March-01, 06:51, said:

As I explained, by use of a simpler case, at my short post #31, the core of it is that I am applying laws 24 and law 50, and filling in the hole where those two laws fail to join up, clearly exposed in my short post at #31. And of course 47F2 (too late to withdraw a card) is crucial.

My joined-up approach to 24 and 50 gets me to the point where I can argue that there was at some point in the clarification period an exposed card that must be led. Once there is an exposed card that must be led in the clarification period, nothing else can (legally) be done in the clarification period other than lead such a card - other things may happen but they are irregular.

I think this is where you have gone astray. What, in the normal course of events, happens during the clarification period?

• A player may consult his opponent's system card (Law 40B2c(ii)).
  
• Before the opening lead is faced, declarer or either defender may require a review of the auction or request an explanation of an opponent's call (Law 41B)

I don't think either of these things need be prohibited in this case. Note that if we are in the clarification period, there are no penalty cards — there may be, and are in this case, cards that will become penalty cards once the opening lead is faced. That a player has a faced card that will become a required opening lead does not mean it is an opening lead. Not until the TD says so, at least. Law 24 says that when a player with an exposed card becomes a defender, that card becomes a penalty card. Only after it becomes a penalty card must it be led (and then only if it's major, Law 50D1a). If it's not led, we're not in the play period, and it's not a penalty card. There are two ways out of this circularity: you would say that we are perforce in the play period. I would say that when the play period starts is up to the TD. You say that my approach is "unattractive". I'd say yours is downright ugly. <shrug> I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, at least until one of our respective RAs issues an official interpretation (I'm not holding my breath).