[One Short]

In anticipation of declarer continuing to lead trumps, declarer’s LHO lifts a trump a little way from his hand. Declarer does not continue with the trump suit but plays his singleton club up to dummy’s AQ.
He then looks up to see LHO replace the card and play a club – also a singleton. The Q is played from dummy and the finesse fails. Dummy has a 6-card club suit.
There is no entry to dummy and so declarer, instead of possibly two club tricks, or a certain one, gets none.
At the end of the hand, declarer claims that had LHO not suggested he might have had more than one club by his “fiddling about” he would have played the A.
Does declarer have a valid claim to redress?
Can LHO receive a penalty?

[sfi]

 One Short, on 2016-September-09, 11:13, said:

Does declarer have a valid claim to redress?

No. Aside from there being no decision if LHO holds the king, LHO may simply have grabbed the wrong card and needed to replace it. Had declarer been paying attention to LHO's actions, it sounds like it would have been clear that the opponent was expecting a different lead - and probably another trump.

It's true that the defender did not follow correct procedure, but there is nothing in the scenario as described to suggest the defender would be able to anticipate the action "could well damage the non-offending side" (Law 23). I would have a polite word to LHO about not anticipating declarer's actions, but declarer did this all to himself.

[barmar]

 sfi, on 2016-September-09, 12:03, said:

It's true that the defender did not follow correct procedure, but there is nothing in the scenario as described to suggest the defender would be able to anticipate the action "could well damage the non-offending side" (Law 23).

According to Lamford in another thread, the criteria is not whether that defender could have anticipated this result, but whether any defender might be aware that it could damage the NOS. A pretty low bar, so SB would argue that the defender is at fault and the score should be adjusted.

[lamford]

 barmar, on 2016-September-09, 12:46, said:

According to Lamford in another thread, the criteria is not whether that defender could have anticipated this result, but whether any defender might be aware that it could damage the NOS. A pretty low bar, so SB would argue that the defender is at fault and the score should be adjusted.

I, and Vampyr, both consider the same test is applied to all players - whether any player (an offender) could have been aware. In this situation however, nothing can be gleaned from the fiddling around as nobody in their right mind would play the king when dummy has AQ. If LHO dithered when dummy had KJ, it could be a different ball game.

[nige1]

 One Short, on 2016-September-09, 11:13, said:

In anticipation of declarer continuing to lead trumps, declarer's LHO lifts a trump a little way from his hand. Declarer does not continue with the trump suit but plays his singleton club up to dummy's AQ. He then looks up to see LHO replace the card and play a club – also a singleton. The Q is played from dummy and the finesse fails. Dummy has a 6-card club suit.There is no entry to dummy and so declarer, instead of possibly two club tricks, or a certain one, gets none.At the end of the hand, declarer claims that had LHO not suggested he might have had more than one club by his "fiddling about" he would have played the A.Does declarer have a valid claim to redress?Can LHO receive a penalty?

IMO, LHO's actual motive for fiddling about is less important than what it might have been, LHO might have known that declarer, would be more likely to finesse, when he has reason to believe that LHO has more than one card in the suit. IMO, the director should rule in favour of declarer (ace instead of queen) but not impose an additional penalty on LHO.

To understand why I feel that the director might rule this way, please consider an extreme case: Suppose that only 2 or 3 cards of the suit are outstanding.