dalevine

In a live bridge club, dummy should not say anything to explain claims made by declarer -- in other words, it's declarer's job (alone) to persuade the opponents to accept. At BBO, however, "chatting" takes time (especially if you don't type that fast) and so I was wondering if people thought it was OK for dummy to speak up in order to move the game along. Consider this situation: All trumps are drawn, 5 tricks remain, declarer has 5 winners and on those winners he can slough any remaining losers. One seat is occupied by a beginner who can see that he (the beginner) has a winner but does not notice that it will disappear when declarer sloughs his loser. Thus, the beginner rejects the claim. Sometimes in a situation like this a simple message like "5 winners, only 5 tricks left" can persuade the person who rejected the claim to accept it. But if declarer spends time typing that (and waiting for a reply -- or just waiting a bit and then reclaiming) it will really slow things down if (as sometimes happens) the beginner STILL does not "get it" and rejects again. The game was slowed up because no cards were played while this chatting was going on. So, I think, it should be OK for declarer to resume play and for Dummy to try to persuade the opponent. Final variation: Usually the person opposite that beginner DOES see that the claim is valid, but sometimes they are new enough to BBO that they do not realize that they can concede (by claiming 0 of 5 tricks) and then only Declarer need accept. So, it might be useful for dummy to type a message like "an opponent who sees this is valid can concede by claiming zero tricks." Again, if declarer continues to play the cards while dummy types that message, no time will have been wasted by the "chat". Opinions please?