[grcuthbert]

I recently had a ruling and subsequent appeal ruling on the following situation and I am not convinced that either was correct. I would be grateful for your views. Played in England.

The contract was 6S played by E. My partner led a heart and dummy had Axxx void KJxx AKQxx. Dummy ruffed and after some thought declarer asked for "spade". The lowest spade was played from dummy and declarer also played his lowest spade! My partner's 6 of spades held the trick. At this point declarer said "I asked for top spade". The other 3 players had all heard unambiguously "spade". Declarer was very forceful in his assertion.

The director was called and gave a ruling that the play to the trick should be rolled back and the AS was deemed to have been led. The contract made 13 tricks. It would have made 12 tricks had the original trick been allowed to stand. Given that it was teams scoring I wasn't bothered about the score it was more the principle I was concerned about. So I asked for an appeal ruling. The appeals committee was set up and heard the facts. Their ruling was to uphold the director's ruling.

This concerns me for a few reasons. Firstly, had declarer noticed that dummy's card was not as expected before he played, my understanding is that he would only be allowed to change it if the balance of probability was that he had actually called for the correct card and dummy had played a different one. In this case with 3 players at the table disagreeing with him that would suggest that the card played by dummy should stand. Secondly, as a defender the onus is on me to play to the card actually played by dummy. If I mishear and play to what I think dummy was asked to play then I am correctly judged to be at fault. So should the same onus not be placed on declarer to actually look at the cards played? Thirdly, if declarer has an aberration and plays small rather than the king say, then he now has a remedy to correct his aberration. Lastly, if this is how the laws are to be interpreted then it leaves to way open to malpractice. For example, with AJxxx in dummy and KTxxx in hand you lead small from dummy and if RHO follows just play small and insist that you called for the top card from dummy.

I would be interested to know which laws apply to this situation. My tentative search found only words which seemed to support my view!

[pran]

grcuthbert, on 2011-February-26, 05:05, said:

I recently had a ruling and subsequent appeal ruling on the following situation and I am not convinced that either was correct. I would be grateful for your views. Played in England.

The contract was 6S played by E. My partner led a heart and dummy had Axxx void KJxx AKQxx. Dummy ruffed and after some thought declarer asked for "spade". The lowest spade was played from dummy and declarer also played his lowest spade! My partner's 6 of spades held the trick. At this point declarer said "I asked for top spade". The other 3 players had all heard unambiguously "spade". Declarer was very forceful in his assertion.

The director was called and gave a ruling that the play to the trick should be rolled back and the AS was deemed to have been led. The contract made 13 tricks. It would have made 12 tricks had the original trick been allowed to stand. Given that it was teams scoring I wasn't bothered about the score it was more the principle I was concerned about. So I asked for an appeal ruling. The appeals committee was set up and heard the facts. Their ruling was to uphold the director's ruling.

This concerns me for a few reasons. Firstly, had declarer noticed that dummy's card was not as expected before he played, my understanding is that he would only be allowed to change it if the balance of probability was that he had actually called for the correct card and dummy had played a different one. In this case with 3 players at the table disagreeing with him that would suggest that the card played by dummy should stand. Secondly, as a defender the onus is on me to play to the card actually played by dummy. If I mishear and play to what I think dummy was asked to play then I am correctly judged to be at fault. So should the same onus not be placed on declarer to actually look at the cards played? Thirdly, if declarer has an aberration and plays small rather than the king say, then he now has a remedy to correct his aberration. Lastly, if this is how the laws are to be interpreted then it leaves to way open to malpractice. For example, with AJxxx in dummy and KTxxx in hand you lead small from dummy and if RHO follows just play small and insist that you called for the top card from dummy.

I would be interested to know which laws apply to this situation. My tentative search found only words which seemed to support my view!

The all-important law is: (my emphasize):

Quote

LAW 46 – INCOMPLETE OR ERRONEOUS CALL OF A CARD FROM DUMMY
B. Incomplete or Erroneous Call

In case of an incomplete or erroneous call by declarer of the card to be played from dummy, the following restrictions apply (except when declarer’s different intention is incontrovertible):
......
2. If declarer designates a suit but not a rank he is deemed to have called the lowest card of the suit indicated.

So the question that must be judged and answered, first by TD and next (in case of an appeal) by AC is whether declarer's intention to play the Ace was incontrovertible.

It is very difficult for anyone not having been there to overrule a judgement, but the facts that all the other three players apparently clearly heard just "spade" and nothing more and (not the least) this was IMP scoring with probably just a minor consequence of the ruling either way (max 1 IMP) I would have ruled that a low spade was led. If not for any other reason this would teach declarer a lesson to be more careful when calling cards from dummy in the future.

(The situations you meantion where declarer can try some sort of a coup to locate a key card is doomed to fail with a "grown up" TD. He has both Law 16A1a (use of information not derived from own legal calls or play) and Law 23 ("could have known") available to adjust the final outcome of the board and take away any possible gain from the irregularity)

[RMB1]

Did the TD give a reason for his ruling, quoting a particular law?

There are at least two possible reasons for allowing a high spade from dummy:

• Despite what you say, the TD found that declarer explicitly called for a high spade;
  
• The TD found that declarer's incontrovertible intention was different (from a small spade).

It is hard to believe that declarer's intention to play a high spade from dummy is incontrovertible: surely declarer could be intending to play a high spade from hand on a small spade from dummy. (If it was declarer's incontrovertible intention to play a high spade from hand but he did play a small spade, then he can not recover.)

[axman]

pran, on 2011-February-26, 05:56, said:

The all-important law is: (my emphasize):


So the question that must be judged and answered, first by TD and next (in case of an appeal) by AC is whether declarer's intention to play the Ace was incontrovertible.

It is very difficult for anyone not having been there to overrule a judgement, but the facts that all the other three players apparently clearly heard just "spade" and nothing more and (not the least) this was IMP scoring with probably just a minor consequence of the ruling either way (max 1 IMP) I would have ruled that a low spade was led. If not for any other reason this would teach declarer a lesson to be more careful when calling cards from dummy in the future.

(The situations you meantion where declarer can try some sort of a coup to locate a key card is doomed to fail with a "grown up" TD. He has both Law 16A1a (use of information not derived from own legal calls or play) and Law 23 ("could have known") available to adjust the final outcome of the board and take away any possible gain from the irregularity)

I should think that the question that must be answered is "what happened?"

Once this question has been answered it generally ought to be pretty plain what ruling the law prescribes. I will point out that in the event that dummy moves a card after being given instruction by declarer, and if declarer does not assert pretty quick that he called for a different one [whether he actually intended a different one- or not] it becomes rather dubious to believe that he incontrovertibly intended a different one. That not withstanding, once declarer subsequently contributes a card I would believe that incontrovertible no longer matters.

As an aside, do not underestimate the amount of care needed in dealing with such seemingly innocuous events as the explosiveness that can be generated by this situation can be immense :

Twenty years ago I was in the process of going for a huge number against a partscore. I called for ‘diamond ten’ and dummy moved the DT; after some thought RHO demanded and then LHO demanded that the small D be played instead because he claimed I said ‘diamond’. The TD was called and after hearing what was said ruled that the DT was played.

At the end of the hand LHO got 8 inches from my face and accused me of cheating. This was almost as unpleasant as what happened after the TD was called. The only thing I’ll add is that both LHO and RHO knew that I was in dummy for the last time and the DT was the only winner in dummy.

[blackshoe]

I hope you called the TD about the accusation, and that your accuser was appropriately drawn and quartered. And no, I'm not kidding.

[iviehoff]

axman, on 2011-February-28, 13:44, said:

I will point out that in the event that dummy moves a card after being given instruction by declarer, and if declarer does not assert pretty quick that he called for a different one [whether he actually intended a different one- or not] it becomes rather dubious to believe that he incontrovertibly intended a different one. That not withstanding, once declarer subsequently contributes a card I would believe that incontrovertible no longer matters.

That's what I would have thought too, until I checked the law. You actually have until both sides have contributed to the next trick to spot the error. So the present case is in time for the correction.

Law 45D Card Misplayed by Dummy
"If dummy places in the played position a card that declarer did not name, the card must be withdrawn if attention is drawn to it before each side has played to the next trick, and a defender may withdraw and return to his hand a card played after the error but before attention was drawn to it; if declarer’s RHO changes his play, declarer may withdraw a card he had subsequently played to that trick. (See Law 16D.)"