[nige1]

EBU. Punch Bowl Teams. Hit next to see how the play started. Against North's game, East led the ten of diamonds, won by North's queen. North exited in diamonds and West cashed all his diamonds. East's first discard was a spade. Declarer asked about discarding style and was told normal count. North discarded a spade and a heart from hand; two hearts from dummy.
West exited with a spade, North revoked, playing a club, and East played the queen of spades. North noticed his revoke before it was established. The director ruled "Declarer may correct his revoke and play on -- East may play a small spade instead of the queen. The fact that East holds the queen of spades is UI to declarer and AI to defenders. Defenders may call me back if they feel they're damaged." North finessed East for the queen of clubs to make the contract. East-West claimed damage. North said he believed East's spade discard and had already committed himself to taking the club finesse by discarding his fourth spade.
Ruling?
Might it affect the ruling that the director had taken South away from the table, to help with another matter, so that declarer couldn't benefit from a "Having none?" enquiry?

---

[ArtK78]

North pitched on the spade return. Doesn't East think this is more than a bit odd? His partner just cashed 4 diamond winners against 3NT and has the AKT84 of spades and led a low one at trick 6?

This is a tough one, as North should not be allowed to benefit from his failure to follow suit leading to his finding the ♠Q is on his left. But East has no one to blame but himself for playing the ♠Q without any thought about the implications of North's having no spades.

[Trinidad]

The question is obviously whether taking the spade finesse is an LA. That depends on the level of the declarer.

Declarer knows that East has at least 2 of the 3 outstanding queens. (If West would have had 2 queens, he would have opened.) Add to this that East has more vacant spaces and it is clear that I would always finesse against East, taking the club finesse. If East then also signals that he has an even number of spades (most likely two) that would definitely nail it. The question is whether North reasons in the same way.

Out of these reasons for taking the club finesse, North picked the one that is least convincing to me (the spade count signal). I find it difficult.

I must say though, that I would feel insulted if they would force me to take a finesse that is so clearly anti-percentage and forbid me to make the normal percentage play, because for me finessing in spades would not be an LA.

Rik

[Vampyr]

Why had the director taken South away from the table? This seems very irregular.

[blackshoe]

Art makes a good point — when North discards a club on the spade lead, East should be thinking "North opened 1NT with a stiff spade?"

I'm reluctant to call this a simple ruling — it depends on the TD's judgement of the LAs, probably helped (we hope) by a poll of North's peers. I would think that "East has at least two queens" is AI, since it doesn't come from the withdrawal of the ♠Q but from the count of West's points in diamonds. Also, North is right about his spade discard: he has seven top tricks once he gets the ♦Q, and a spade finesse with only three cards in hand can't give him two tricks. The club finesse can. Of course, if both finesses work he can get two tricks, but that seems a bit anti percentage, especially considering that if either one fails he can't recover, he's down.

[helene_t]

 Trinidad, on 2014-May-08, 08:31, said:

Declarer knows that East has at least 2 of the 3 outstanding queens. (If West would have had 2 queens, he would have opened.) Add to this that East has more vacant spaces and it is clear that I would always finesse against East, taking the club finesse. If East then also signals that he has an even number of spades (most likely two) that would definitely nail it. The question is whether North reasons in the same way.

Out of these reasons for taking the club finesse, North picked the one that is least convincing to me (the spade count signal). I find it difficult.

I must say though, that I would feel insulted if they would force me to take a finesse that is so clearly anti-percentage and forbid me to make the normal percentage play, because for me finessing in spades would not be an LA.

But for the club finesse to bring declarer to 9 tricks he needs East to have ♣Qxx or shorter. If East has ♣Qxxx, declarer would need to take the spade finese anyway.

So I think the spade finesse is a LA.

Edit: lol at me, of course he has four clubs trick. Thanks, Wayne.

This post has been edited by helene_t: 2014-May-08, 09:26

[manudude03]

A lot doesn't add up in the spade suit. Does East not find it strange that West having won 4 tricks vs 3NT is apparently leading away from AK? I'd be ruling result stands, once he has discarded a spade, then I don't consider a spade finesse a LA. Helene, declarer has 4 club tricks regardless of how many clubs East has as long as he takes a first round finesse.

[wank]

what declarer said about committing to the club finesse is true. he hasn't committed to taking it in any particular direction though. thanks to his UI knowing that east is throwing off a guarded queen of spades suggests he might well have the queen of clubs as well. perforce the UI indicates finessing east for the queen and declarer should be required to take the club finesse the wrong way and go off.

declarer would probably get the club suit right left to his own devices (vacant spaces and HCP considerations from west's pass), but getting them wrong is assuredly a logical alternative.

you're being unfair to east making him responsible for picking up declarer's revoke. regulations sometimes require you to protect yourself, but not from opps being incapable of following suit.

[barmar]

The Laws allow a defender to ask declarer about a revoke, but they don't require it. And doing so is generally not to your advantage, since allowing the revoke to become established means that a trick will eventually be transferred to you. So even though East may be suspicious of the discard, I don't see what you expect him to do differently.

[mamos]

I'm tempted to ring John Probst who sadly can't read Laws Forum these days because of eye-sight problems. Surely this is a Law 23 case. John had a test called the "Cheat's Test" This doesn't imply that North is a cheat, but asks what would a cheat do? Playing the Club is a sure-fire way of finding out the Spade position. (Unless East is incredibly cute - you'd have to think very quickly to play small here)

North "could have known" that this would work to his benefit and so I believe we should adjust.

Mike

[gnasher]

I agree with all of what Wank said.

Why would we use Law 23 when Law 16 already covers the situation?

Quote

Might it affect the ruling that the director had taken South away from the table, to help with another matter, so that declarer couldn't benefit from a "Having none?" enquiry?

No. South didn't have to agree to leave.

[barmar]

 gnasher, on 2014-May-09, 01:01, said:

No. South didn't have to agree to leave.

Did the TD ask him to leave or tell him to? Players are expected to do what the TD tells them to. And they usually agree to most requests as well.

Does this dummy regularly ask his partner about possible revokes in the first place? If not, then that consideration seems irrelevant.

Do we also have to assume that if dummy had been there, his "Having none?" would have caught the revoke before East played the Queen?

[pran]

I don't get this.

I cannot imagine any situation where a TD would ask a player to leave the table or take the player away from the table while another player actually played a card?

So why was the player not present at the table at the critical moment? (if he wasn't, that is.)

[nige1]

 pran, on 2014-May-09, 09:54, said:

I don't get this. I cannot imagine any situation where a TD would ask a player to leave the table or take the player away from the table while another player actually played a card? So why was the player not present at the table at the critical moment? (if he wasn't, that is.)

Arguably, it was South's fault. North-South had played a wrong board in a previous round and South (dummy) was helping the director to sort it out.

[barmar]

 pran, on 2014-May-09, 09:54, said:

I don't get this.

I cannot imagine any situation where a TD would ask a player to leave the table or take the player away from the table while another player actually played a card?

So why was the player not present at the table at the critical moment? (if he wasn't, that is.)

My guess is the TD asked him to participate in a poll. Or maybe he's also a TD, and the TD was asking him for advice on another ruling. Since he was just playing the dummy, his presence wasn't considered crucial.

[pran]

 barmar, on 2014-May-09, 11:56, said:

My guess is the TD asked him to participate in a poll. Or maybe he's also a TD, and the TD was asking him for advice on another ruling. Since he was just playing the dummy, his presence wasn't considered crucial.

Well, that just isn't good enough and I suspect that a Director's error ruling could be in order if he somehow had influenced South to leave the table.

Dummy has some obligations and I do remember a BB final some years ago when the Italian team lost, quite likely because the Italian dummy had left the table (for whatever reason) during the last board of the round (?).

[RMB1]

 barmar, on 2014-May-09, 11:56, said:

My guess is the TD asked him to participate in a poll. Or maybe he's also a TD, and the TD was asking him for advice on another ruling. Since he was just playing the dummy, his presence wasn't considered crucial.

At the event that nige1 played last weekend, I would only take dummy away from the table to gather evidence for a ruling on an earlier hand or (less likely) to give/explain a ruling on an earlier hand.

[RMB1]

The declarer seems to have achieved an Alcatraz coup (according to the definition on wikipedia).
If declarer only lost a trick to ♠Q then perhaps he should count himself lucky - it appears the proposed sanction in 1960s/1970s was long-term imprisonment.