m234299

My partner had claimed for the rest of the tricks and play had continued, he inadvertently failed to ruff the first trick to win the trick - this was clearly an irrational play. It was obvious at the table that he thought that he had won it and was about to play the next trick when we called director as we all had seen what had happened - our opponents would have confirmed this. My partner wanted to correct his obvious error but we thought that law 45 still applied. I don't see how this could have been used as evidence of what would have happened if the claim had not been made as it was an inadvertent play, an accident, and the likelihood of an accident reoccurring in different circumstances is very unlikely. Director has now confirmed that he did not give his ruling based on law 45 as I thought that he had and he may not have had all the facts to have made a proper judgement.

The actual cards were equivalent to declarer having ♥AK and a trump with no trumps left. He simply played the ♥K instead of the obvious ruff of the return in the subsequent play. As he said, he accidently took out the wrong card from hand and wished to correct his error but director said that he was deemed to have played the ♥K based on law 45.

At the weekend, we were playing in an inter-club county competition in Manchester, England when my partner made a claim for the rest of the tricks with 3 cards left but did not provide a clarification as there was only one line of play for the rest of the tricks and the room was full of experts. Unfortunately our opponents were not experts and wanted to play on to check the validity of the claim. I know that play should have ceased when partner claimed but we were trying to help opponents understand why the claim was obvious and director was busy attempting to rectify problems with 2 boards that had identical hands. The trick was played round to my partner who made a clear error in not ruffing to win the trick and instead throwing a winner - he stated "I knew exactly what I was planning to do, but, in the confusion caused by opponents, etc. I simply pulled out the wrong card.". Too late - we called director. Director ruled that play ceased when partner made the claim and that partner did not provide a clarification statement. He also ruled that the law about played cards applied in the subsequent play and that this was evidence of an alternative line even though it was not an alternative natural line. We lost 12 IMPS on the board and although it did not make any difference to the result of the competition, I would still like to know whether this ruling was correct or not and which law was actually applicable in this case. Lesson learnt, my partner has promised not to be so careless in future and to always provide a clarification statement even when there is only one line.