[Fluffy]

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South plays 6 hearts, wins a spade lead in hand, cashes ♥KQ east pitching. While West plays ♥9J. On the third heart west pitches a spade.
Declarer is happy that nobody has trumps left and plays 3 rounds of diamonds noticing that the jack didn't fall, next eliminates spades and plays 2 rounds of clubs, East wins and plays another. Declarer claims 1 down.

Nobody notices the revoke so they go to play next round.


What heppens when south later on discovers the revoke? can he ask for rectification?
What happens when EW find the revoke? can they ask for a missclaim because declarer will carelessly ruff low the third round of clubs?

Are the rectification periods the same? could one of them claim for a rectification without the other getting it? it would be really bizarre for EW to get -2 because a missclaim has a longer period than a revoke.

[pran]

Read (and understand) laws: 64B4, 64B5, 64C, 79A2 and 79C.

[lamford]

There was a revoke by our team discovered after the end of an eight-board match in Sweden. That was deemed to be out of time (after the round has ended), and there is no penalty unless the declarer gained equity from the revoke, in which case the TD still restores equity.

In this example, the revoke does not gain equity, as declarer cannot make the contract if West follows. Therefore the table result stands.

[blackshoe]

 Fluffy, on 2014-September-20, 02:50, said:

What heppens when south later on discovers the revoke? can he ask for rectification?
What happens when EW find the revoke? can they ask for a missclaim because declarer will carelessly ruff low the third round of clubs?

Are the rectification periods the same? could one of them claim for a rectification without the other getting it? it would be really bizarre for EW to get -2 because a missclaim has a longer period than a revoke.

Anyone can ask for just about anything.

In your first case, what should happen is that South should call the director and explain the problem, and the director will rule according to 64B5 that it's too late for normal rectification, that absent the revoke South would be down one anyway, and that the result stands.

In your second case, what should happen is that one of EW should call the director and explain the problem. The director will rule the same way. I would clarify what EW are asking for: "you want me to give you another trick which you might win with the card you should have played when you revoked?" Sorry, no, that's not going to happen.

The fact that there's no rectification under 64B for a revoke after you move to the next round (or play to the next board) while there is no restriction on resolution of an allegedly bad claim (other than the Correction Period of 79C) does not mean that the "rectification periods" are different, because 64C exists and is only limited by Correction Period of 79C.

[ehhh]

This was a response to a similar question posed to the ACBL rules dept.

Law 64B5 says there is no rectification (the “book penalty” of one or two tricks) for a revoke if the non-offending side has made a call on the subsequent deal. Law 64B6 says the same is true if the round has ended. But, Law 64C says that even those revokes not subject to the “book penalty” need to be dealt with to restore equity. This is not always possible after the cards have been mixed and returned to the board.

When a revoke by the opponents is discovered by a player who is counting out the previous hand, after the start of the next round or hand, he should notify the Director and briefly state the basics of his claim. The Director can look for an appropriate time to get the players together and go over the play, but should not interrupt the flow of the game to do so. These are difficult situations, since the Director first must determine, from sometimes different memories of the cardplay, whether a revoke actually occurred. There are going to be times where there is no way to tell which side is correct. However, the side that may have revoked does need to cooperate in the investigation! Invoking the right to remain silent tends to convince the Director that the claim of a revoke is accurate!

If the Director is satisfied that there was a revoke, then he adjusts the trick score to what was likely without the revoke, the one or two trick automatic penalty in Law 64A does not apply.

The revoke section of the Laws covers what happens if a revoke is discovered or suspected later on, as I've explained. Because of the nature of revokes, this is spelled out: it is a fairly common event for a player to discover a revoke after the cards are returned to the board by counting out the hand from memory. As you say, the Laws don't say a lot about other infractions discovered later. Law 11A does indicate that infractions discovered later are unlikely to be rectified, since the non-offenders have taken action instead of calling the Director, and may have gained by doing so. But Law 81C3 gives the Director the ultimate judgment to “rectify an error or irregularity of which he becomes aware in any manner,” at least until the correction period expires. So the ultimate answer to your question is that while putting the cards back in the board makes it more difficult to prove an irregularity, there really is no such time limit except for the expiry of the correction period. For revokes especially, Directors should try to get whatever information is available and decide as best they can.