[blackshoe]

Trick 9. Declarer plays ♥A from his hand, and after LHO plays, ♥3 from dummy.
Trick 10. Declarer leads from his hand, LHO plays from his hand, and declarer sees that the ♥3, which he played to the previous trick, is still in the dummy. Director!

I was originally of the opinion that this was a Law 67 case, because after all, dummy is supposed to have four cards, and he has five (and correspondingly eight cards amongst his quitted tricks). Then I suggested that perhaps, since the ♥3 had already been played, Law 67 might not apply. At the time, I said, I was not convinced that this was the correct reading of the law.

Now I am.

The arguments of those who say that Law 67 does not apply because its criteria are not met are valid, reasonable, and correct.

In this case, I would rule there has been an infraction of Law 65A, instruct dummy to place the ♥3 amongst his quitted tricks, where it belongs, and to pay more attention to his job. And then I would tell the players to play on.

In other cases, I might consider that the circumstances were such that the NOS have been damaged by the infraction of Law 65. If so, I would adjust the score under Law 12A1.

One last comment: Law 45B specifies that a card in dummy is played when the declarer names it. IOW, declarer naming the card is both a necessary and a sufficient condition to determine that the card has been played. Since there is no provision in law (save those of Law 47, which do not apply here) that would, as dburn put it, make a card "unplayed", there can be no determination that "such-and-such law applies because the declarer played no card from dummy to the trick".

BTW, a trick may contain four cards and still be defective, if one player played two cards to it, and another none. There are other such cases, unlikely though they may be.

[dburn]

 axman, on 2011-April-26, 14:43, said:

burn,

I placed a nettle beneath the nail of your pinky finger not to cause irritation but to induce you examine your arguments, as well as the arguments, in the minutest detail. You are broaching matters of incalculable importance. But what I wanted from you were sound arguments- all of which are sound. And as I am of the opinion that of all those of high intellect who are on these forums, only you are of superior intellect as well as of superior tongue- and if a suitable argument is to be made the best opportunity is that it comes from you.

Well, what have I done? I have irritated. And what haven’t I done? I haven’t induced. For both of which I apologize. Please do me the favor of removing the nettle.

regards

I am not in the least irritated by your request for a specification of what constitutes a defective trick - I think it an entirely reasonable one. But both gordontd and I have adduced, or perhaps have been induced to say, that a defective trick is one to which at least one player has played a number of cards not equal to one. We base our adduction on our induction, or perhaps deduction, from the opening words of Law 67A. Given those words, neither of us believes that some further definition of "defective trick" is required elsewhere in the Laws.

An anecdote: some years ago I played against a man who was suffering an attack of hay fever. On one occasion during the match, he put down his unplayed cards for the purpose of snatching from his pocket his handkerchief, into which he sneezed violently for some minutes before being able to resume play. He picked up all of his played cards and none of his unplayed ones, and battled on for at least a trick and a half before someone said "Hang on a minute - you've already played the jack of spades."

We didn't call the Director, for this was a private match and there was no official to hand. We just rewound the play, having for the purpose re-equipped the poor fellow with his actual unplayed cards. As it transpired, this was an error on my side's part - he could (and did) beat the contract with what he had left, but he couldn't beat it with what he had already played. Had we but known, we could have invested in a telephone call to Norway and had the chap found guilty of about four revokes.

[Cascade]

 dburn, on 2011-April-26, 19:08, said:

I am not in the least irritated by your request for a specification of what constitutes a defective trick - I think it an entirely reasonable one. But both gordontd and I have adduced, or perhaps have been induced to say, that a defective trick is one to which at least one player has played a number of cards not equal to one. We base our adduction on our induction, or perhaps deduction, from the opening words of Law 67A. Given those words, neither of us believes that some further definition of "defective trick" is required elsewhere in the Laws.

An anecdote: some years ago I played against a man who was suffering an attack of hay fever. On one occasion during the match, he put down his unplayed cards for the purpose of snatching from his pocket his handkerchief, into which he sneezed violently for some minutes before being able to resume play. He picked up all of his played cards and none of his unplayed ones, and battled on for at least a trick and a half before someone said "Hang on a minute - you've already played the jack of spades."

We didn't call the Director, for this was a private match and there was no official to hand. We just rewound the play, having for the purpose re-equipped the poor fellow with his actual unplayed cards. As it transpired, this was an error on my side's part - he could (and did) beat the contract with what he had left, but he couldn't beat it with what he had already played. Had we but known, we could have invested in a telephone call to Norway and had the chap found guilty of about four revokes.

Even in Norway I would be surprised if a trick and a half gave enough opportunity for four revokes.

[pran]

 dburn, on 2011-April-26, 18:31, said:

Quibbling? Not in the least, for one imagines a Bermuda Bowl final in which:

South plays no card to trick three, and two cards to trick seven. The cameras in the vugraph room record beyond doubt what actually happened, but the situation was so tense and the problems in play and defence so complex that the twin infractions passed unremarked at the time they occurred.

Pran is summoned to the table after trick nine, when it occurs to someone what has actually happened and that something ought perhaps to be done about it. Pran carefully counts South's played cards (nine) and South's unplayed cards (four). The world of bridge (sorry, Bridge) waits with bated breath for his ruling.

"No defective trick can possibly have occurred here, for there is no discrepancy between the number of played cards South presently has and the number of played cards he presently ought to have. I don't care what the video evidence shows, for I have been trained in the reality of Law 67B1, and that supersedes anything that might in reality have happened. Play on, please - there will be no adjustment."

1: This just proves the old saying that it is impossible to make a specification so precise that no stubborn idiot is able to misunderstand it.
2: The first thing I clarify when called to a table is the precise reason why I am called. In this case the reason will obviously be that "someone" remembers that a player did not play to the trick 6 tricks ago.
3: My reaction will probably be: "Are you kidding? Why didn't you call me then?"

Yes, after establishing that there seems to be no anomality in the number of cards held by the four players I would instruct them to just play on, not because of Law 67 but because I shall handle the call as a joke (made up by you to just try pulling my leg).

[dburn]

 Cascade, on 2011-April-26, 20:28, said:

Even in Norway I would be surprised if a trick and a half gave enough opportunity for four revokes.

It would not have to. You see, in Norway as soon as you pick up four of your already-played cards, you have unplayed them to the tricks to which you in fact played them, and are considered to have revoked on each and every one of those tricks.

[nige1]

Once more, directors cannot agree what the law-book means.
Again, the lesson for players is to take care to call the director who will make the most favourable ruling..

[jallerton]

 pran, on 2011-April-26, 09:15, said:

A false statement never becomes true just because it is repeated, however many times.

Good point, Sven.

 pran, on 2011-April-26, 16:51, said:

No, and I believe I have made it perfectly clear a number of times that this is not the point.

So one more time:

The point is that whenever a player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards then the Director shall determine that there has been a defective trick and handle this situation as prescribed in Law 67B.

There is nothing in this law making the history of cards played relevant; what is important is the situation at a particular time. Law 67 does not bother about whether an extra card in a player's hand had at some time been played to a trick, the law only concerns the situation with an incorrect number of cards in the player's hand and among his played cards respectively.

The ♥3 may have been played correctly to a trick, this is irrelevant. What matters is that if the ♥3 later appears in a player's hand instead of among his played cards where it should be then the situation at that time is to be treated as if the card was never played to that trick.

The cards played to the original trick have been defined by Law 44, in particular Laws 44A and 44B. The four cards played (one from each hand) belong to this original trick, irrespective of what happens next. Furthermore because the correct number of cards was played to the trick (one from each player) the trick is not defective.

Yes, there might have been a breach of Law 65A:

Quote

When four cards have been played to a trick, each player turns his own card face down near him on the table.

or Law 66C:

Quote

Thereafter, until play ceases, the cards of quitted tricks may not be inspected (except at the Director’s specific instruction; for example, if necessary to verify a claim of a revoke).

but Law 67 does not deal with breaches of these Laws.

[dburn]

In a match last night, dummy left the table to go to the bathroom. Declarer, being somewhat short in stature and unable to reach very far across the table, asked an opponent if he would kindly turn dummy's cards for her. Imagine for the purposes of the experiment that she had obtained the Director's permission for this procedure, in order not to violate Law 7B.

The opponent agreed, and play proceeded. At trick six, East (who was turning North's cards as well as playing his own) inadvertently placed dummy's played card face down among his own quitted cards.

At trick nine, the Director was summoned to the table to deal with a lead out of turn. As it happens, it did not occur to him to count anyone's cards, but had he done so, he would have discovered that dummy had four unplayed cards and eight quitted cards while East had four unplayed cards and ten quitted cards.

Should the Director thereupon rule that there had been a defective trick?

[Trinidad]

The obvious answer is: No, of course not.

But I am not sure that everybody can be convinced of the obvious.

Rik

[iviehoff]

 dburn, on 2011-April-25, 16:34, said:

Meanwhile, it remains the case that no trick is defective to which exactly four cards were played. In the case of the original post, the card remaining in dummy was played to the trick on which declarer called for the card and was played at the moment declarer called for it. What happened to the card afterwards is neither here nor there: it might have been left face up in dummy; it might have been stolen by a passing beaver to form a sluice gate for a dam; it might have been transformed by a malevolent wizard from the three of hearts to the jack of diamonds in order to confuse everyone. But it was played to a trick, and that trick was not defective then, is not defective now, and will be defective never.

I return from holiday to this very entertaining thread, in which any rational and logical spectator is surely astonished that the powerful logic of David Burn's argument has failed to prevail utterly over those who insist 67B applies when the conditions of 67B are not met.

Unfortunately I find one slight hole in your argument. The paragraph I quote - are you sure about it? Consider the following situation and see if you reconsider.

Suppose a card is played from dummy at trick 2 and not turned, but gets back among dummy's unplayed cards. No one notices and it gets played again at trick 7, and turned. Things go on a bit longer until someone notices dummy has too many cards. Now, which trick is it that is defective, trick 2 or trick 7? Did the card always belong to trick 2 and the playing of the card again at trick 7 was a vain performance which merely gave the impression of a card being played? If we decide it actually was played at trick 7, then somehow in determining that it is trick 2 that is defective, the fact that it was played at trick 2 means that it must now be unplayed.

I think actually in this situation we prefer the Pran approach. If we follow that approach in that situation, then I think we have concluded that a played card can become unplayed, certainly at least in the case if it is played again.

The real question here, which the laws fail adequately to address, is the following:

Suppose a card that was played to a trick is not found as the played card for that trick, but we find it somewhere else, under what conditions can we restore it to its position as a played card for that trick, and treat it as a played card for that trick?

Obviously if it was at some point quitted for that trick and merely knocked off the table, we will put it back. If we find it in the played card position for a different trick, and determine that the played cards have merely been muddled up, rather than played a second time, we will put it back. But in some other cases, the card can get somewhere that it is no longer obvious that we can place it there.

I think in the present case, things have not gone so far that we can't just quit the trick a bit late, that is the obvious thing, a "technical offence" that does not merit the full weight of the law book that could be applied to it, like all the other naughty things we do (such as failing to formally make the final pass of the auction by the prescribed method) that no one puts the full weight of the law book to. But if dummy had played again to a heart trick, probably we would say things had gone far enough that the trick is defective and throw the law book at it.

[gordontd]

 iviehoff, on 2011-April-28, 04:59, said:

Suppose a card is played from dummy at trick 2 and not turned, but gets back among dummy's unplayed cards. No one notices and it gets played again at trick 7, and turned. Things go on a bit longer until someone notices dummy has too many cards. Now, which trick is it that is defective, trick 2 or trick 7?

Trick 7

 iviehoff, on 2011-April-28, 04:59, said:

I think actually in this situation we prefer the Pran approach.

We?

[iviehoff]

 gordontd, on 2011-April-28, 05:21, said:

We?

"We" - I presumed that most people would think so. I presumed so because when it came up on the forum in its old home, most people did. I was laughed at (or so I felt) for suggesting that the card had not actually been played to trick 7 and that trick 7 was defective.

[dburn]

 iviehoff, on 2011-April-28, 04:59, said:

I return from holiday to this very entertaining thread, in which any rational and logical spectator is surely astonished that the powerful logic of David Burn's argument has failed to prevail utterly over those who insist 67B applies when the conditions of 67B are not met.

Unfortunately I find one slight hole in your argument. The paragraph I quote - are you sure about it? Consider the following situation and see if you reconsider.

Suppose a card is played from dummy at trick 2 and not turned, but gets back among dummy's unplayed cards. No one notices and it gets played again at trick 7, and turned. Things go on a bit longer until someone notices dummy has too many cards. Now, which trick is it that is defective, trick 2 or trick 7? Did the card always belong to trick 2 and the playing of the card again at trick 7 was a vain performance which merely gave the impression of a card being played? If we decide it actually was played at trick 7, then somehow in determining that it is trick 2 that is defective, the fact that it was played at trick 2 means that it must now be unplayed.

Trick seven is defective, since the card played to trick two remained played to trick two and could not be played again to trick seven. It is true that the Laws do not make this explicit, but it is obvious to everybody except sven and bluejak that it is not actually possible to deem a card "unplayed" when it has been played.

[gordontd]

 iviehoff, on 2011-April-28, 06:21, said:

"We" - I presumed that most people would think so. I presumed so because when it came up on the forum in its old home, most people did. I was laughed at (or so I felt) for suggesting that the card had not actually been played to trick 7 and that trick 7 was defective.

Does anyone have a link to the discussion on the old forum? I've tried to look, but the search facility there doesn't seem to work.

[mjj29]

 gordontd, on 2011-April-28, 07:40, said:

Does anyone have a link to the discussion on the old forum? I've tried to look, but the search facility there doesn't seem to work.

Yeah, it's a static mirror (and not of the whole thing, as much as I could pull off), so nothing like search will work.

[bluejak]

 dburn, on 2011-April-28, 06:24, said:

Trick seven is defective, since the card played to trick two remained played to trick two and could not be played again to trick seven. It is true that the Laws do not make this explicit, but it is obvious to everybody except sven and bluejak that it is not actually possible to deem a card "unplayed" when it has been played.

Oh, yes? When did I say that?

[Trinidad]

 dburn, on 2011-April-28, 06:24, said:

Trick seven is defective, since the card played to trick two remained played to trick two and could not be played again to trick seven. It is true that the Laws do not make this explicit, but it is obvious to everybody except sven and bluejak that it is not actually possible to deem a card "unplayed" when it has been played.

 bluejak, on 2011-April-28, 11:50, said:

Oh, yes? When did I say that?

Let me see... The OP:

 bluejak, on 2011-April-18, 18:54, said:

Trick nine. Declarer leads the ♥A and calls for the ♥3 from dummy. When the trick is turned down, dummy fails to turn his card down - no-one notices.

Trick ten. Declarer leads the ♠K, LHO follows, and when declarer looks at dummy he sees the ♥3 which he had played to the previous trick! He counts dummy's cards and finds there is one too many!

Director!

I put some emphasis in your OP to show that you considered the ♥3 played. So far, so good. We are with you.

 Trinidad, on 2011-April-25, 18:42, said:

All very fine. But the original problem doesn't give any interpretation problem. It was clear to all that the ♥3 was played to trick 9. The OP actually states that the card was called, therefore it has been played. Each player played a card to trick 9, hence the trick wasn't defective. The fact that the ♥3 wasn't quitted properly doesn't in any way make trick 9 defective. There is no room for misinterpretation.

 bluejak, on 2011-April-26, 09:00, said:

No room for misinterpretation? Well, I interpret it differently from you: is that impossible?

Despite the scorn being poured, to me, if you go back and look at trick three, and it has three cards [or five] it is now defective. And, to be honest, I do not see how that can be misinterpreted, either.

When it later turns out that the trick only has three cards, you call the trick defective. Law 67 says fairly clearly that it is a requirement for a defective trick that a player doesnt play a card [or plays too many cards] to the trick. This means that you must consider the ♥3 as not played.

First played, then not played.

In Burn's words: At some point you must have "unplayed" the ♥3.

Rik

[bluejak]

Quoting what I say is fine. But your deductions are not.

In my view a trick containing three cards is defective.

There is no such thing as a cared becoming unplayed once played. [For the pedants: in this type of situation: sometimes cards are withdrawn but that is a different matter.]

Kindly stop misquoting me.

[Trinidad]

 bluejak, on 2011-April-28, 17:12, said:

Quoting what I say is fine. But your deductions are not.

In my view a trick containing three cards is defective.

- You are entitled to your view.
- If you want to make a case that Law 67 could have been formulated better, you did a good job and I hope that this will be improved in the next edition of the Laws.
- However, there is nothing in the Law book that explicitly supports your view, not Law 67A, not Law 67B and certainly not the introduction to the Laws.
- At least the view that a trick to which 4x1 card has been played is not defective does have support in Law 67A as well as in the introduction to the Laws.

Quote

There is no such thing as a cared becoming unplayed once played. [For the pedants: in this type of situation: sometimes cards are withdrawn but that is a different matter.]

I am glad we agree on that.

Quote

Kindly stop misquoting me.

I didn't misquote you at all. I used the quote feature in the forum software. Everything that I quoted is literally what you wrote and nothing else (apart for the fact that I emphasised some parts for clarity where I clearly indicated that the emphasis was mine).

Kindly refrain from making false accusations.

Rik

[LH2650]

 blackshoe, on 2011-April-23, 15:34, said:

That case (dummy is discovered to have an extra card after a claim) isn't a more general case, it's a different case. Once there's a claim, play ceases. In our case, there was no claim, so play is still ongoing. Also, there's no indication in the minute that the extra card in dummy had already been played. I don't think the minute is germane.

I think that a careful reading of the Minute and the Laws must lead to the conclusion that the two cases are the same in that dummy failed to quit a card specified by Declarer, but If the WBFLC was a little careless in the wording, then it does does not care who committed the irregularity, so neither do I. If you think that the claim affects how the Director should rule with respect to that irregularity, please explain why. The central point of this discussion must be whether a score adjustment might be made due to this type of irregularity, and the Minute does not consider that to be a possibility.