Checking Opponents Hands for Revokes

[wank]

I had this situation a while ago....

 

One player revoked during the play, repeatedly ruffing a suit. Eventually, declarer (my partner) got to the stage where she could claim. She did so. The opponents accepted.

 

The play had made perfect sense. It wasn't a situation where the revoker needed to have started with a maximum of 11 cards or some such. The revoke therefore never came to the attention of the non-offenders until the hand records were reviewed that night in the bar.

 

The revoker was a sponsor. His partner is a globe-trotting professional. Assuming the globetrotting pro was aware of his partner's revoking (100% imo bearing in mind he saw declarer's hand following the claim), does he have any duty to comment? If the sponsor became aware of his own revoke, does he have a duty to point it out?

 

The match was actually on BBO vugraph (good luck inputting the play of the cards), should this have any impact?

 

I suspect the answer is they can keep schtum. When I queried the matter with the directors, I was told that I should check my opponents' cards to look for revokes after the board. I was a trifle shocked by this. Firstly, people frequently put their hands back in the board immediately and I was once told it was technically not allowed to remove them again, unless told to do so by a director (is that true? the person who told me this was a director, albeit a club one.) Secondly, and more importantly, asking to check one's opponents cards after every hand would seem incredibly rude.

[bluejak]

It is legal not to point out your own side's revokes. Many people do, either out of ignorance or personal/active ethics, but it is not necessary.

 

Just occasionally, I ask to see an opponent's hand, which I expect him to show me [you do not touch another player's cards]. If he did not show them when asked I would be so suspicious I would quite likely call a TD.

 

Of course, this depends where you play. In much of Europe, including in clubs, copies of the hands are available, and it is easy to look through them. I play at Deva BC [Chester], Merseyside B Centre [birkenhead] and Garden Village BC [Wrexham]. Naturally, all their hands and scores are on the web: you can find them easily via Google.

[roghog]

Deja Vu. A similar thing happened in a knock-out match (played privately) against a sponsored team a couple of years ago, although that time it was a globe-trotting pro who defeated a game by revoking. We only realised what had happened during the half-time refreshment break. The opponents had great difficulty remembering the sequence of play, but eventually allowed the result to be changed and no harm was done.

 

Just goes to show that even the top players have the odd absent-minded mishap!