chrism

That was my ruling.

I was called to the table in the middle of trick 5 to face a novel (to me) situation. South was declarer; on this trick, West had led SA, dummy followed with SJ, and East played S3. At this point, South noticed that he himself held SA. They looked at the card backs and found that the spurious ace belonged to West, having been retained from the previous board. At this point, they called me. Primarily a 13C ruling, with no adjusted score to be awarded since the surplus card had not been played to a quitted trick. Consideration of a PP to West for not counting her cards before the deal (in this case, a verbal warning to an inexperienced player). But what is the correct unscrambling of the trick currently in progress, with West on lead and two cards already played?

Forget that last comment, East is on lead. Next time I need to remember that morning coffee comes before posting.

If a double of the final contract by East would have meant "Don't lead a club", then failing to double looks like an error to me; not serious enough to deny EW redress, however. Either a heart or DA beats the slam. Based on the larger poll, assigning a score in 5Cx seems appropriate.

One thing that I find slightly odd about 26B is that as worded, it applies even when the withdrawn denomination had been specified by the offender elsewhere in the auction. For example (3S) 4C (4S) X; (P) 4C Not accepted, Pass substituted, and the auction is now passed out in 4Sx. When offender's partner is first on lead, declarer can still prohibit the lead of a spade, heart or diamond. My understanding is that this was indeed the intent of the lawmakers; I don't understand the rationale (other than simplicity of application).

The law does not distinguish "heart"and "small" but a player who calls "small" incontrovertibly intends "small" whereas a player who calls "heart" may be thinking "the obvious heart" when he says it. So there is a difference for the TD who is trying to determine a player's intention.

It is pretty much incontrovertible that when declarer led the H2, he intended to call the queen from dummy. However, explicitly calling "small" means that his mind had wandered between leading and calling, in my opinion. Had he called "heart" or "play" I might give consideration to the possibility that he had mis-designated rather than losing concentration, but it still would not be clear-cut. If he had called "heart" while making some sort of upward gesture, I would certainly rule in declarer's favour. "Intention" is what you meant at the instant of the action in question, not what you intended at any earlier (or later!) moment.

Who called the TD, when, and what ruling was made at the table that NS are appealing?

Did East speak up before the opening lead was faced to advise the opponents that at the time the 2H call was made, there was no agreement on its meaning? If he knowingly failed to correct the misinformation, that could merit a PP. It would also have enabled the director to give South an opportunity to change his final pass to 3D.

In North America, alerts of artificial bids above the level of 3NT, from opener's first rebid on, are delayed until the end of the auction. Note that the regulation refers to bids, not calls: artificial passes, doubles and redoubles continue to require immediate alerts.

So would you argue that if OL asks questions, partner is precluded from asking any questions before the lead is faced, since all such questions would be supplementary? While the Laws certainly frequently say something other than their apparent intent, it certainly does not seem to me that the intent of the reference to 20F1 is to defer all questions by partner under these circumstances. As for the original case, if partner had a full ten seconds to ask a question then indeed SB had selected a lead prior to asking, which as Cyberyeti notes undermines his argument. If not, then SB wilfully ended the clarification period prematurely by facing his lead too quickly. And I reserve my right to invent supplementary facts not in evidence as needed to support my argument.

20F1 does not preclude SB's partner from all questions during the clarification period, merely from "supplementary" ones. While the term is not defined in the Laws, normal usage would be follow-on questions from the original question or its answer. So partner is still allowed, for example, to ask about the normal minimum length for the 1S opening, whether opener's strength is limited, whether RR had other game forcing raises available ... The fact that SB "knew" that his partner would have no such questions (and that declarer would have no questions either) does not condone his shocking failure to follow correct procedure. He gets the standard PP (which would usually be a quarter of a board in the ACBL, but I understand is typically smaller in English clubs, inter alia). And because his forestalling of ChCh's clarification, depriving ChCh of his opportunity to ask questions, was the direct cause of any purported damage, he gets no redress on the board. RR gets a warning (for what good it will do) for violating the "should" - neither "shall" nor "must" - of 20F1.

But 40B states "Before the opening lead is faced, the leader’s partner and the presumed declarer (but not the presumed dummy) each may require a review of the auction, or request explanation of an opponent’s call" so it is incumbent on the opening leader to delay facing the lead until partner and declarer have had this opportunity.

My remarks here consider only the accusation that Team A may have been trying to throw the match without the collusion of Team C. On board 4, the action chosen could easily have succeeded. If it were my plan to throw the match, I would not try to do so by making high variance choices that have a big up-side. It does seem a little odd that a strong pair had no way to find out about controls after a 1NT opening bid, however, so that assertion should be verified. On board 12, the actual cost of the sacrifice was 1 IMP. If my team were trying to throw the match, they needed to avoid bidding the D slam at the other table, or have a keycard accident to reach 7D off a cashing ace. On board 15, the finesse is again a high variance action with a big up-side. If I wanted to throw the match, I wouldn't choose that way to do it; I would go with the expected action at the other table to minimize the chance of a big accidental gain. If I had found no credible way to stay out of slam, then I might play on side suits for a few tricks "to get a better count" in the hope of giving EW a ruff. Or just wait for a better opportunity on a different board. I see no prima facie evidence of unilateral match-throwing in the hands presented.

Well, not exactly. It gives two ways to compare ranking, one by suit and one by face value, and lists one of those ways before the other. I would agree that a credible interpretation is the one you offer, but compare Law 26, where it is explicitly stated that the number of tricks named takes precedence over suit ranking in determining whether a bid supersedes a previous one.