[lamford]

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The North London club ventured forth into the Garden Cities Regional Final yesterday and the Rabbit, North, was lucky to survive a ruling on this board. He wasn't sure whether 4C was Gerber, and whether they played DOPI and ROPI when it was doubled, so he just rebid his six-card spade suit. Dummy was put down with the ace of diamonds in with South's hearts. East led a club and West switched to the king of diamonds which held, and another diamond ruffed by North. Declarer ruffed a club, drew the trump with the ace, and led a small heart from North and called for the ace from dummy. South played the ace of diamonds, nobody noticing still, and now RR led a second heart from South. West put in the king, and when RR won with the real ace of hearts, the TD was called, as TT, South, thought it was unlikely that there were two aces of hearts in the same deck. The TD ruled that dummy had revoked, but had not "won" the revoke trick and then declarer had led a heart out of turn and West had accepted this. He ruled ten tricks.

However, in the pub afterwards, Oscar the Owl, who joined the team, thought that this ruling was wrong, as the trick that declarer thought he had won with dummy's ace of diamonds had actually been won by West with the four of hearts, and dummy's revoke was now established when North captured the king of hearts with his ace. Also declarer still had a heart and a diamond to lose, so was actually two down (including what he thought was the penalty for the revoke). The question now is what is the correct ruling, and if there was TD error, what is the correction time for that? As it happens, the North London club qualified anyway.

[Vampyr]

The dummy, the revoker, also won the diamond ruff. I do not think you should have embellished the facts.

[lamford]

Vampyr, on 2017-May-07, 06:53, said:

The dummy, the revoker, also won the diamond ruff. I do not think you should have embellished the facts.

I have checked the facts and they are stated, other than the anthropomorphism of the players, in accordance with BBO guidelines. The only revoke was the discard of the ace of diamonds by dummy, South, on the first round of hearts.

[Vampyr]

lamford, on 2017-May-07, 07:12, said:

I have checked the facts and they are stated, other than the identity of the players, in accordance with BBO guidelines.

Sorry, misread the OP.

[blackshoe]

lamford, on 2017-May-07, 04:28, said:

Dummy was put down with the ace of diamonds in with South's hearts. East led a club and West switched to the king of diamonds which held, and another diamond ruffed by North. Declarer ruffed a club, drew the trump with the ace, and led a small heart from North and called for the ace from dummy. South played the ace of diamonds, nobody noticing still, and now RR led a second heart from South. West put in the king, and when RR won with the real ace of hearts, the TD was called, as TT, South, thought it was unlikely that there were two aces of hearts in the same deck. The TD ruled that dummy had revoked, but had not "won" the revoke trick and then declarer had led a heart out of turn and West had accepted this. He ruled ten tricks.

However, in the pub afterwards, Oscar the Owl, who joined the team, thought that this ruling was wrong, as the trick that declarer thought he had won with dummy's ace of diamonds had actually been won by West with the four of hearts, and dummy's revoke was now established when North captured the king of hearts with his ace. Also declarer still had a heart and a diamond to lose, so was actually two down (including the penalty for the revoke). The question now is what is the correct ruling, and if there was TD error, what is the correction time for that? As it happens, the North London club qualified anyway.

Hm. So what irregularities have occurred?
1. Dummy put down his hand with the ♦A in with the hearts. Law 41D.
2. Declarer played the ♦A to a heart lead, so he revoked. Law 61A.
3. Who called attention to the problem? Sounds like South, which would be a third irregularity. Law 43A1b.

41D is a "does" law, so a penalty is not suggested. 43A1b, OTOH, is a "may not" law, so a penalty should be issued "more often than not".

As for the established revoke, We deal with that after the play is completed, and apparently the director was called when declarer played the ♥A, so we aren't there yet.

I originally thought the director was wrong, but on reflection I think he was right. Three hearts were played to the revoke trick, and the highest of those was West's four, so declarer led out of turn from dummy, and West accepted it by playing the king. Law 44G, Law 53A. The table result appears to have been 9 tricks for declarer, losing a club, a diamond, and two hearts. Now we look at the revoke. Dummy didn't win the revoke trick (West did, and he got credit for it) so it's a one trick penalty. Law 64A2. Declarer is down two.

If instead the correct ruling is that ownership of the revoke trick remains with the declaring side, then the table result was ten tricks to declarer, losing a club, a diamond, and one heart. Now we apply the revoke penalty, which is two tricks. Law 64A1. Declarer is again down 2.

The director's ruling of "ten tricks" seems to be in error whoever "owns" the revoke trick, so Law 82C applies within the correction period, and the director must correct the error, resulting in down 2. As this is a normal result, the last part of 82C, about treating both sides as non-offending, does not apply.

The correction period for a director's error is as specified by Law 79C, unless overridden by regulation. So thirty minutes after the score are posted.

[lamford]

blackshoe, on 2017-May-07, 09:41, said:

Declarer is down two.

I agree, and the rest is just embellishment. However EW did not know there was possible director error and accepted the ruling of 4S=. I guess that they are now out of time, and the result stands.

[chrism]

Law 64B3: There is no rectification as in A following an established revoke ... if the revoke was made in failing to play any card faced on the table or belonging to a hand faced on the table, including a card from dummy’s hand.

So we can only restore equity, if necessary, not award an automatic rectification to the defenders.

[lamford]

chrism, on 2017-May-07, 18:58, said:

Law 64B3: There is no rectification as in A following an established revoke ... if the revoke was made in failing to play any card faced on the table or belonging to a hand faced on the table, including a card from dummy’s hand.

So we can only restore equity, if necessary, not award an automatic rectification to the defenders.

I don't think that is right. Declarer did play a card faced on the table, the ace of diamonds. But he played it on the first round of hearts. I would expect blackshoe's ruling to be correct, as he is very good on the technical stuff! (He is no slouch on the other stuff, too)

[blackshoe]

he didn't fail to play a card, he played a card of the wrong suit.

[sanst]

blackshoe, on 2017-May-07, 21:06, said:

he didn't fail to play a card, he played a card of the wrong suit.

If you're right, what is the use of Law 64B3? Anyway, I've been taught that a revoke in the dummy doesn't result in an automatic adjustment.

[Zelandakh]

I think your reasoning might be backwards here Ed. If Dummy fails to play a card then we have a defective trick that is ruled under Law 67 and the trick transfer occurs under 64A without the 64B protection. If Dummy plays a card of the wrong suit then we have a true revoke and the non-rectification is now protected under 64B. You have a lot more experience on these matters so I am interested why you treat these cases the other way around.

[lamford]

Zelandakh, on 2017-May-08, 03:21, said:

I think your reasoning might be backwards here Ed. If Dummy fails to play a card then we have a defective trick that is ruled under Law 67 and the trick transfer occurs under 64A without the 64B protection. If Dummy plays a card of the wrong suit then we have a true revoke and the non-rectification is now protected under 64B. You have a lot more experience on these matters so I am interested why you treat these cases the other way around.

I am coming round to the thinking of you and sanst and believe you are right. The revoke is not the playing of the ace of diamonds; it is the failure to play a heart of which there was one or more in dummy. So there is no penalty for the revoke, and the contract is only one off; the defence win a club, diamond and TWO hearts, even though the first of the two heart tricks was claimed by declarer.

I think Law 64B3 should just read: There is no rectification as in A following an established revoke if the revoke was a failure to play a card belonging to dummy.

Perhaps this should not have been Simple Rulings!

[Vampyr]

lamford, on 2017-May-08, 03:39, said:

I am coming round to the thinking of you and sanst and believe you are right. The revoke is not the playing of the ace of diamonds; it is the failure to play a heart of which there was one or more in dummy. So there is no penalty for the revoke, and the contract is only one off; the defence win a club, diamond and TWO hearts, even though the first of the two heart tricks was claimed by declarer.

I think Law 64B3 should just read: There is no rectification as in A following an established revoke if the revoke was a failure to play a card belonging to dummy.

Perhaps this should not have been Simple Rulings!

So the director did not restore the first heart trick to the defenders?

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2017-May-07, 21:06, said:

he didn't fail to play a card, he played a card of the wrong suit.

Isn't that the definition of a revoke?

What that law clearly means is if you could have followed suit by playing a card faced on the table, but you failed to do so and revoked instead, there's no automatic rectification.

If it were only talking about players with closed hands, it might have meant failed to play a card faced on the table (i.e. a penalty card) but instead played a card from hand. But since it specifically pointed out that dummy is included, and all those cards are faced on the table, this couldn't be what was intended.

[barmar]

lamford, on 2017-May-08, 03:39, said:

I think Law 64B3 should just read: There is no rectification as in A following an established revoke if the revoke was a failure to play a card belonging to dummy.

I think it's written that way so that penalty cards are also included.

Basically, if the NOS can potentially see that you could have followed suit, but didn't notice or didn't call attention to it, they lose the right to automatic rectification. You have to pay attention.

[blackshoe]

On reflection, and after re-reading the relevant laws, I was wr… my ruling was incor… I made a mistake. :-)

64B3 does apply. The revoke trick still belongs to the defending side, though, so the table result is still down 1. Since the revoke garners no penalty per 64B3, the table result stands.

Yeah, it's a simple ruling.

[lamford]

Vampyr, on 2017-May-08, 07:03, said:

So the director did not restore the first heart trick to the defenders?

No, he or she ruled 4S=. Mind you the score is shown as 4S+1 in the results of the event!

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2017-May-08, 09:03, said:

On reflection, and after re-reading the relevant laws, I was wr… my ruling was incor… I made a mistake. :-)

Am I the only one who's reminded of Fonzie from Happy Days?

[blackshoe]

Well, at least somebody got it.

[Vampyr]

It is a pity that this hand was played not in our match, but in our teammates' match; otherwise we would have heard about it before the pub and would have appealed. When I first heard about it, I was not aware that the trick won with a small heart was not restored to the defenders. It would be really sad if this had prevented us from qualifying, but luckily it didn't.