[VixTD]

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North was declarer in 2♠. East led ♥J. The play proceeded:

♥J to ace
♥5 to queen
♠K to ace, West discarding ♣7 (revoke)
♦9 to queen
♦2 to ace
♦K, West and East discarding clubs
♥K, ♠8, ♣J
♣A

North eventually made seven tricks, and is due one more from the revoke. Should the TD do more to restore equity? Would it make any difference if one of West's club honours were in the East hand?

[iviehoff]

There looks to be a very good chance of N making more than 8 tricks in the absence of the revoke. The only lines I will consider are ones where E plays a diamond at trick 4 - E doesn't get the benefit of changing his play from that point, but declarer can now just draws trumps and wait to be put back in to take his diamonds.

The law talks about assigning an adjusted score at 64C, so I think you can make a weighted adjustment, rather than just fixing on, say, 9 tricks. Yes, if E held a club honour that would in principle make a difference. If his cards were completely different altogether, that would make a difference too, so a small change must also matter.

I'll leave you to estimate the probabilities of various lines, like W gambling by leading away from the CA when put in with the 4th round of trumps.

[RMB1]

Without the revoke, declarer is very likely to draw two rounds of spades when in hand with ♦Q. This leads to 9 tricks (losing 2 spades, and two side aces). This would be my adjustment.

If West has ♣A and not ♣Q then he could well be in a position that a low club will concede 10 tricks (when North has not got a "guess"). In this case the chance of a small club switch is sufficiently low that I award 100% of 9 tricks.

If West has ♣Q and not ♣A then he will switch to a low club, declarer is likely to get it right (see previous case) but I would award a weighted score: say 70% of 9 tricks, 30% of 8 tricks.

[VixTD]

I was North, so in the interests of fairness I checked that EW agreed that I would probably make nine tricks without the revoke before awarding myself that score. It did cross my mind that if West gained the lead and broached the club suit I might be put to a guess and so have to come up with a weighted score adjustment as Robin suggests, but thankfully that wasn't the case.