[mink]

Recently in a German club tourney:

West is declarer in an nt contract. North leads ♦7 and declarer discards a ♠ in both hands. Now North claims the rest. Declarer objects. As the revoke is not established, it is corrected: ♦Q wins the trick with the ♦7, and dummy has the rest. If North had continued to play ♦, the revoke would probably have been established and N/S would have won at least 2 tricks: the ♦7 and the revoke penalty.

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Of course, N/S considered the law to be unfair, and I agree. So I suggest to add a case 4. to Law 63A. with the following text:

[A revoke becomes established]
4. when the non-offending side wins the revoke trick and immediately claims or concedes, and the correction of the revoke might cause the offending side to win this trick.

[gordontd]

The easier solution is for the NOS to start the next trick and claim as soon as the OS has played to it.

[mink]

gordontd, on 2016-April-04, 06:40, said:

The easier solution is for the NOS to start the next trick and claim as soon as the OS has played to it.

Even if North has a clue that the ♦Q is still missing (I doubt that), it is only human to believe to have overlooked it's play, rather than expect declarer to have revoked.

[Vampyr]

mink, on 2016-April-04, 07:02, said:

Even if North has a clue that the ♦Q is still missing (I doubt that), it is only human to believe to have overlooked its play, rather than expect declarer to have revoked.

I think it is somewhat unlikely that North has missed the ♦Q, but if he has then he is, IMO, entitled to the same redress he would be if he had overlooked a card at some other time during the play of the hand; ie none.

On the other hand, once play has ceased, can a revoke still be corrected?

[barmar]

The other requirements for establishment of a revoke require that the revoking side take some action: play to the next trick, or make/agree to a claim/concession. The NOS can't force a revoke to be established entirely on their own.

So I don't think this suggestion is at all in the spirit of the rest of Law 63A.

[barmar]

Vampyr, on 2016-April-04, 07:23, said:

On the other hand, once play has ceased, can a revoke still be corrected?

62A says that a revoke must be corrected if the revoker becomes aware of it before it has become established. Since it's not established until he agrees to the claim, and he hasn't agreed to the claim, I think the above requirement is met.

But since play ceases, the TD adjudicates the claim.

[mink]

barmar, on 2016-April-04, 10:45, said:

The other requirements for establishment of a revoke require that the revoking side take some action: play to the next trick, or make/agree to a claim/concession. The NOS can't force a revoke to be established entirely on their own.

This is true. However, it is also true that a player should not suffer a disadvantage from a apparently valid claim. I think this should have more weight.

There is an alternative solution for the problem that does not touch Law 63A - simply append Law 62A with the following text:

If the correction occurs after the offending player has turned the revoke card face down, the replacement card does never win the trick.

[barmar]

Why don't you just suggest changing 63A to say that the revoke becomes established when the revoke trick has been quitted, rather than when the offending side plays to the next trick?

[mycroft]

The Law tries to avoid cases where it's in someone's best interest to fastplay an offender who might have otherwise figured something out. This is one of those cases. Is it "fair" that if I played it out, it is very likely that declarer would have established the revoke and we would get two tricks? Well, is it "fair" that if you had played it out, it is very likely I would have noticed - in fact, I was just noticing it when you claimed - that I had revoked, and would have corrected it? Your *play* doesn't establish my revoke; why should your claim?

I would be okay with barmar's suggestion; but it's not the way the Law reads now, and would be a huge change; one I'm sure I'd be hearing about being ruled "the old way" at least as long as I have heard about "won a trick with the revoke card" and "in the same breath".

I am reminded, again, of the bridge problem of what do you do against 3NT holding ♦AKQJxxx after your partner shows out on the opening lead.

[mink]

The idea about this suggestion is not to fastplay an opponent, but to avoid that by a claim an opponent who revoked gets enhanced opportunity to recognize his revoke. Even worse, in my example maybe the dummy objected the claim as he knew that the ♦Q had not been played yet. The probability that the revoke is recognized is simply much higher if the non-offendig side claims.

I agree that barmar's suggestion is a change too big, and it is not necessary to avoid the claim problem. If the revoking player cannot win the revoke trick by a correction of his revoke, we have no problem, and everything can be handled as it used to be.