pran, on 2015-May-03, 06:38, said:
Who says I wouldn't ask?
But according to OP North didn't give any reason for his hesitation.
I believe we have a well established rule on this forum that the description given in OP shall be considered complete?
Perhaps everybody else in the forum realizes
from the description given that North does have a decision to make and that therefore a hesitation is
expected. They also realize that when North reacts exactly as he is expected to do, we don't have any reason to suspect that he is performing some kind of act to attempt to mislead declarer.
And if we don't have any reason to suspect an irregularity by North, there is little reason to ask him for his motives. (Though lots of posts ago someone was already suggesting that it might be wise to ask North why it took him some time to play to the trick... Just to be sure. I would certainly not be against that. And, yes, in the unlikely case that North should happen to say: "I hesitated to make declarer think that I had QJ." then we adjust. But we don't even think of adjusting as soon as North starts with anything that sounds like: "Well err... I thought he was in dummy" or "It was a lead out of turn and " or "I somehow didn't expect that I would be on play already" or "I was considering my options" or "I was wondering what to do" or "I was thinking of calling the TD" or ...)
A few years ago they past a law in the Netherlands that required everybody over 14 years to carry an ID. The police (or other authorities) are not allowed to ask for an ID, unless they have a good reason to know your identity (or age).
IMO, but this is an opinion, TDs should go about the same way when it comes to asking players about their thought processes or motives. As a TD, we do not ask North for his thought processes or motives, just because they might give us information. We need to have a good reason. In this case that good reason would be a suspicion of an irregularity. From the description in the OP I don't see any reason to suspect North of an irregularity. I can see that anybody who overlooked the LOOT will see lots of reasons to suspect an irregularity, but as soon as the LOOT is in the picture all suspicions are gone. North has been behaving exactly as we expected him to.
Of course, it is entirely possible that North was hesitating in an attempt to mislead declarer, just like it is entirely possible that the South player at the next table used UI. But there is no indication whatsoever that the South player at the next table used UI, so we are not going over to ask him some questions. In a similar way, there is no indication whatsoever that this North was hesitating to mislead declarer. So there is no reason to ask any questions.
Rik
I want my opponents to leave my table with a smile on their face and without matchpoints on their score card - in that order.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!), but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov
The only reason God did not put "Thou shalt mind thine own business" in the Ten Commandments was that He thought that it was too obvious to need stating. - Kenberg