Which Law would I change?

[bluejak]

A player makes a claim. Another player objects. The TD is called, comes, listens to what has occurred, and tells the players to play on.

 

What do you think?

[aguahombre]

i don't think the game was bridge. Last I heard play stops when a claim is made.

Unless that is one of the different rules in different locales.

[NickRW]

Don't think I like it - the player objecting may have, for example, an undrawn trump that declarer has forgotten about - the objection may wake declarer up.

 

It might work for many situations at club level - usually the person objecting is merely asserting that they can't follow declarer's claim statement (often because they can't think that many tricks ahead). But if you allow it in some situations and not in others, where exactly do you draw the line?

 

Nick

[JoAnneM]

Totally wrong.

 

However, one of my worst nightmares - I am the non-playing director at table 1 and table 2 calls me with just that problem and may six tricks left. Now, I am going to play the board next round, but I have to ask the contract and get my bearings with the situation so I can make a ruling. Do you think I can then play that hand?

 

Maybe it's better to just tell them to play it out.

[kenrexford]

What I don't get is that I think there is some rule about not even allowing Declarer to just show his cards to the damn fool sitting there thinking what to do for no reason rather than claiming and trying to explain the play to the same damned fool.

[blackshoe]

Aqua, I think David is suggesting that the law be changed to allow the TD to permit play to continue if a claim is contested.

 

I think there may be times when that will work okay, but there will also be times when it won't, so it needs to be left to TD discretion.

 

As for non-playing directors, imo when you do that, you and your partner have to accept that sometimes you will learn about a board you have yet to play, and will not be able to play it. Some would score such boards as "not played" but I don't think that's fair to the opponents, who are due average plus in such cases. I would give myself no better than average if I were the director concerned, even though technically it's not my fault somebody called me! :D

[blackshoe]

What I don't get is that I think there is some rule about not even allowing Declarer to just show his cards to the damn fool sitting there thinking what to do for no reason rather than claiming and trying to explain the play to the same damned fool.

Actually, the law to which I think you're referring is that if declarer (or a defender for that matter) shows his hand to an opponent, that act constitutes a claim unless he "demonstrably did not intend to claim". Showing your hand to LHO while saying something like "I'm not claiming, but perhaps this will help your decision" clearly fits the exception in the law.

[helene_t]

AFAIAC it's oke if the TD allows play to go on after a claim. Maybe the way the play continues gives him some info that makes it easier to rule. If not, they wasted maybe half a minute or so and the TD is now in the same situation as he had been in if he hadn't allow play to to continue.

[mjj29]

Actually, the law to which I think you're referring is that if declarer (or a defender for that matter) shows his hand to an opponent, that act constitutes a claim unless he "demonstrably did not intend to claim". Showing your hand to LHO while saying something like "I'm not claiming, but perhaps this will help your decision" clearly fits the exception in the law.

I really hate it when people do this.

 

There is a particularly bad offender in the local club who refuses to claim properly, despite being told to directly by the director (me), who he was playing against at the time. On that occasion he just returned his cards to the board after the lead to trick 2 without saying anything (he was in 6H and had the last 11 tricks after I cashed my ace king, but that's not the point).

 

However, he often shows (usually at about trick 6) all his cards and says "I'm not claiming, I'm just showing you what I've got". I think it's very bad bridge etiquette, intimidating for opponents who feel inferior when they don't acquiesce and likely to cause bad claims to be accepted either because opponents are pressurised into accepting and not checking his line, or because he never makes a bad claim because he never actually claims...

 

People should either claim or they should continue playing

[iviehoff]

A player makes a claim. Another player objects. The TD is called, comes, listens to what has occurred, and tells the players to play on.

 

What do you think?

In what circumstances do you anticipate the TD might be permitted to exercise a power to order them to play on?

 

If it was common/customary/normal for the TD to order the players to play on following a claim and objection, I think that gives too much advantage to the claimer. Can't remember whether there is another trump out? Want to know whether a suit is breaking badly? Well, just claim and see if they object: the director will just order you to play on. If you make the objection to the claim UI, well you'll just end up with even more horrendous UI adjustment than adjudicating the claim.

 

But maybe the TD should be permitted to allow play to continue if the side objecting to the claim want to play on. That would be a "quiet life with all customers satisfied" law. But it must be illegal for the claimer to make an unsolicited offer to play on without the attendance of the director. Maybe it ought further be illegal for the claimer to play on in any circumstances when the other side ask him to, without first calling the director the director for permission to do so - place the onus on the claimer to call the director. Need to think about exposed cards, which tends to happen in claims.

 

Maybe not the most urgent thing, but one change that should be made in this area of law is that the legal distinction between a concession and a claim should be removed. A claim for fewer than all of the remaining tricks should not be treated differently from a claim for all of the remaining tricks.

[jeremy69]

However, he often shows (usually at about trick 6) all his cards and says "I'm not claiming, I'm just showing you what I've got". I think it's very bad bridge etiquette, intimidating for opponents who feel inferior when they don't acquiesce and likely to cause bad claims to be accepted either because opponents are pressurised into accepting and not checking his line, or because he never makes a bad claim because he never actually claims...

 

People should either claim or they should continue playing

 

Couldn't agree more. I've heard "The rest are mine on a double squeeze" If that isn't supposed to intimidate I don't know what is and in another case a waft of the cards at RHO only in a six card ending with the comment "If you ruff low I do x and if you ruff high I do y" Both of these were correct. One board later RHO said "and if I don't ruff at all?" The claimer now said that becuase he had showed his cards to one opponent it was not a claim. The TD ruling had little sympathy for this and I don't blame him. However because it was a board later the ruling was based on the law concerning acquiesence rather than claiming. Of course this decided the match!

[iviehoff]

...if declarer (or a defender for that matter) shows his hand to an opponent, that act constitutes a claim unless he "demonstrably did not intend to claim". Showing your hand to LHO while saying something like "I'm not claiming, but perhaps this will help your decision" clearly fits the exception in the law.

I'm not convinced. One could argue that his reason for stating it is not a claim is to obtain the advantages of making a claim, while attempting to persuade the opposition (and indeed the TD) into not enforcing upon him the responsibilities and legal consequences of making a claim. When one puts that construction upon it, it is no longer demonstrably not a claim. He is in effect making a suggestion play be curtailed, if only by saying implicitly "you can see you don't need to play on, go on, concede": a suggestion play be curtailed is a claim.

[bluejak]

A player makes a claim.  Another player objects.  The TD is called, comes, listens to what has occurred, and tells the players to play on.

 

What do you think?

To say I am disappointed is putting it mildly. First, there are the people who basically have said "I am not going to even think about the question posed but how about this one?" Since we have a whole forum for this type of question hi-jacking a thread on a totally different subject seems completely unnecessary, and in fact I shall take those postings out and put them in different threads.

 

So, perhaps we can get back to the question posed: this time please concentrate! ;)

 

I shall reword it to make it clearer.

 

I make a claim in an international event. Another player objects. The best TD in the world is called, comes, listens to what has occurred, and tells us to play on.

 

So?

[cherdanno]

I am sure everyone understood "Which Law would I change?" as an invitation to add different suggestions. That's how I understood it, anyway.

(Ok, others understood it as "which ACBL regulation would I change?". Well, happens in the internetz.)

[bluejak]

We have a forum for which Law anyone else would change, and totally mixed-up threads are a complete pain. This is which Law I, David Stevenson, would change.

[awm]

Well, pose a bad question, get a bad answer. Sorry you wanted to know about the law you would change -- you still asked "which law would I change?" rather than saying "what do you think of this change?"

 

Anyway, I concur with most other people who commented that this is a bad idea. If I can claim, see which opponent objects, then modify my line of play accordingly this gives a huge advantage to bad claims. Of course, you could take Helene's approach of "let them play on, but then adjust the result" -- but this doesn't really help anything and creates upset players who say "but I claimed all the tricks, and then you said play on, and I MADE all the tricks -- why did you adjust?"

 

Seems better to just stick with the current laws. I see this change as doing little that's positive and creating new avenues for bad rulings and upset players.

[bluejak]

So far I have suggested no change: I am saying this is what the TD does: what do you think?

[aguahombre]

I guess everyone should be clever and industrius enough to do all the research and always place their topics and replies in just the perfect place. Sorry, I am not that good. But, when blue finishes moving things around to where they belong, I hope I can still use "my assistant" to track them.

[iviehoff]

So far I have suggested no change: I am saying this is what the TD does: what do you think?

I understand now. And in fact I obliquely referred to the situation in the last paragraph of my first post, without realising that this was precisely what you were talking about.

 

You are talking about 68B2.

 

Regardless of 1 preceding, if a defender attempts to concede one or

more tricks and his partner immediately objects, no concession has

occurred. Unauthorized information may exist, so the Director should

be summoned immediately. Play continues. Any card that has been

exposed by a defender in these circumstances is not a penalty card but

Law 16D applies to information arising from its exposure and the

information may not be used by the partner of the defender who has

exposed it.

 

Yes, its a terrible law. And even the more ridiculous for applying differently to a claim for all the tricks and a claim for less than all of the tricks.

[bluejak]

When I have finished, the alerting posts will be under alerting, the insufficient bid posts will be under insufficient bid, the posts about Jeremy's general change will be under Jeremy's something-or-other, and any posts on my little question - a few so far, but not one single one who actually assumes I am telling the truth, interestingly enough - they will be under the Law I would change. I do not think it will be difficult to find them.

[awm]

So far I have suggested no change: I am saying this is what the TD does: what do you think?

Seems to violate law 68D (Play ceases after a claim).

 

It also seems likely to lead to a ruling which violates law 70, since the result of "play on" could easily be different from the result which should be adjudicated (i.e. declarer changes his line due to the reject of the claim), although one supposes the director could ignore the result obtained by the "play on" and apply law 70 regardless.

[iviehoff]

but not one single one who actually assumes I am telling the truth,

2 mins before you posted...

[bluejak]

Yes, great. At last people think. So what do you [note, this is "you" not "I" :) ] think of this wonderful Law?

[Hanoi5]

I think the situation described shouldn't be accepted. With the current laws play has to cease and the director must make a decision. Many bridge laws require directors to excercise their judgement and make a decision and this is one of them. Maybe you could add to law 68D or 70C3 adding somewhere 'The Director can ask the play to continue if he deems no UI has been produced by the claim, the rejection or the Director's call.' But that would only makes matters worse than they already are.

[jeremy69]

Have I got this correct? The title of this thread is "Which law would I change?" The OP meant one thing but quite a few responders thought he meant something else. Thus, of course, he is right, we are all wrong and will have our posts removed to a forum in Outer Mongolia concerned with knitting, macrame or all-in wrestling. Abuse of the moderator's powers or what? :)