I'm a Director, too!

[Codo]

I totally agree with Andy that Blackshoe never tried to cheat or to do something suspicious.

 

He tried to solve a problem a little outside the laws to speed up the game or make the game easier. Well he failed with this ideas.

 

But besides this: I have zero understanding for the blaming of the dummy. Even if she choose the wrong moment and or the wrong wording. She did never ever suggest a game plan for declarer nor is there anything in the case which states that she deliberately waited till a good moment to help declarer.

[bluejak]

I still think most of the responses ignore the timing of dummy's intervention.

Did you not read the post directly above this one? It states what is pretty obvious, that dummy did not know until the end of the trick that her LHO would be on lead to the next trick.

So what? There are other rules to do with major penalty cards.

 

I do not understand what you are suggesting, David. Should dummy, whose partner might not be aware that he had rights, have let play continue?

Absolutely: an ethical and knowledgeable player would do so. But no, she wanted to direct play.

 

I think that "oops" clearly calls attention to the irregularity, but even if this were not the case, I think that allowing a lead to be made when there is an exposed card that has not been deemed a penalty card by director is an irregularity.

Exactly, and if dummy had called the TD when the card was exposed there could be no complaint.

[pran]

Exactly, and if dummy had called the TD when the card was exposed there could be no complaint.

A little thought experiment:

 

Dummy says nothing. East wins the trick and continues with some card without awaiting Declarer to execute his options.

 

Is East guilty of any irregularity?

 

IMO absolutely not. The Director has not been called and East is not expected to know the laws about penalty cards. It is one of the Director's duties to make sure she is aware of both her duties and her rights in all situations.

 

The irregularity: East leading prematurely when her partner has a penalty card is in this case a consequence of the Director not having been called in time.

 

If I as Director had been called at this stage (on East's premature lead) I would simply rule that East takes back the card so led without any rectification and then let Declarer execute his options. I would also warn the players to always call the Director in penalty card situations.

 

So back to the original problem: I shall not penalize Dummy for "rectifying" the error of not calling the Director on the revoke before further consequences of this failure become imminent (so long as Dummy's actions do not violate Law 43A1c. (Dummy must not participate in the play)

 

However, this law actually continues with nor may he communicate anything about the play to declarer so the question still remains whether Dummy violated this last part of that law; I tend to say no in this situation)

[blackshoe]

I had composed a long response regarding among other things your (some of you) assumptions that I had some kind of ulterior motive in not calling the TD in the first place, and then objecting when dummy spoke up. I did not. You want to keep believing I did, fine, do so. I have no more to say about it. :P

 

I posted this in Simple Rulings in the first place because it seemed simple: did dummy violate Law 43A1{c}, or not? Two people have answered this: one says no, the other says yes. The rest of you are busy with other agendas. So be it. I'm done.

[jdonn]

I had composed a long response regarding among other things your (some of you) assumptions that I had some kind of ulterior motive in not calling the TD in the first place, and then objecting when dummy spoke up. I did not. You want to keep believing I did, fine, do so. I have no more to say about it. :)

I don't believe anyone has said you had an ulterior motive. Just that it could appear that way to your opponents. I don't see what's so controversial or offensive about that. Personally I criticized your actions but not your motives. I know you were just trying to save time.

 

Ah I see now, someone did question your motives. As inappropriate as it is, it does back up my point that you have to be careful not only of how things are but of how they seem to others.

 

I posted this in Simple Rulings in the first place because it seemed simple: did dummy violate Law 43A1{c}, or not? Two people have answered this: one says no, the other says yes. The rest of you are busy with other agendas. So be it. I'm done.

At the end of your original post you didn't ask "did dummy violate Law 43A1{c}, or not?" You asked "comments?" So, that's what you got. :) To answer what you want to ask, if you ask me, saying "oops" and putting out a new card constitute 'calling attention to the irregularity' so dummy was within his rights to call the director. Saying "you have lead options" is technically illegal but utterly irrelevant and shouldn't be punished since it's exactly what the director was going to say when he got there.

[pran]

I had composed a long response regarding among other things your (some of you) assumptions that I had some kind of ulterior motive in not calling the TD in the first place, and then objecting when dummy spoke up. I did not. You want to keep believing I did, fine, do so. I have no more to say about it. :)

 

I posted this in Simple Rulings in the first place because it seemed simple: did dummy violate Law 43A1{c}, or not? Two people have answered this: one says no, the other says yes. The rest of you are busy with other agendas. So be it. I'm done.

Fair enough, but may I just post a reminder of Law 11A:

The right to rectification of an irregularity may be forfeited if either member of the non-offending side takes any action before summoning the Director. The Director does so rule, for example, when the non-offending side may have gained through subsequent action taken by an opponent in ignorance of the relevant provisions of the law.

 

I consider Dummy's action here very ethical for the purpose of avoiding this law to come into effect from a possible premature lead by East.

[bluejak]

How do you know, pran, that dummy's LHO would not have ducked rather than winning the trick if he had known about the lead penalties? It is not the fact that dummy spoke up, it is that she let play continue and then spoke up at an inappropriate time and in an inappropriate way.

[iviehoff]

Fair enough, but may I just post a reminder of Law 11A:

The right to rectification of an irregularity may be forfeited if either member of the non-offending side takes any action before summoning the Director. The Director does so rule, for example, when the non-offending side may have gained through subsequent action taken by an opponent in ignorance of the relevant provisions of the law.

 

I consider Dummy's action here very ethical for the purpose of avoiding this law to come into effect from a possible premature lead by East.

But the director call is already late, and the OS are potentially already damaged by the lateness. So this is already precisely the kind of situation where a TD might (might, not must) deny the NOS rectification under 11A.

 

There are two ethical things dummy could have done. They were (1) call the TD at the time Ed drew attention to the irregularity. Or, (2) keep his mouth shut ever thereafter. There is something else dummy might reasonably have done at this point, but it doesn't involve calling the director, and I'll say what it is at the end.

 

The offending side should be warned of the lead restrictions at the time of correction of the revoke, not a trick later, since it can affect their choice of play, so this is precisely an example of the situation in 11A. TD would have been within his rights to deny to declarer the application of the lead restrictions because of the late call. But whilst that would have been a legal ruling, it isn't necessarily what he should have done, as there could be more to the story. I'll tell you what I would have done later.

 

I find it inappropriate to call East's lead "premature", purely because he might have done it before the director was called. The director should have been called a trick ago. Things having been allowed to proceed, East is no longer required to call the director "on himself", or wait longer than normal tempo for another to do it, and so shouldn't normally be punished if he carried on in normal tempo. Certainly if East were on lead immediately after the irregularity and led without allowing time for the director to be called, that would be "premature", and director would require its retraction if necessary if called at that point. But in the present case the NOS has allowed events to proceed, and therefore under 11A lose their automatic rights to insist on rectifications. If N/S had called me after East had led, I do not think I would require the lead to be retracted, unless possibly I thought S was a weak player who did not know about the necessity of calling the director at the right time in order to obtain protection.

 

One might argue that Ed, being a qualified TD, correcting his own revoke and putting out his penalty card, and playing against another qualified TD, had implicitly suggested that his side would suffer the lead restrictions in the laws, and that he was going to mention them at the appropriate point, and did not expect to benefit from the protection in law 11A in relation to earlier mention of the lead restrictions. If you allowed that argument, then you might say that N/S were expecting the lead restrictions to be mentioned by Ed when his partner came on lead, and when they weren't, then they brought it up themselves in an unsurprising manner.

 

But in general that is not how Ed's actions are interpreted. Ed's actions amount to an offer of a table-made ruling, and NS consented to it. Why should the director disturb this? And if the lead restrictions are not volunteered at the initial point, how can we know whether they were ever intended to be part of the agreed table made ruling? In general, if your opponents offer you a penalty card without the intervention of the director, and no lead restrictions are mentioned, you have agreed to a table-made ruling without any reliance on later obtaining the lead restrictions. And that is what commonly happens when directors are called late to table-made penalty card rulings, as I understand it.

 

So if I'd been the director here, unless declarer was a lesser player unaware of the need to call the director for protection of his rights, I'd have told NS that they had consented to a table-made ruling, and therefore any consequentials are for negotiation with the other side. I would further tell them I didn't expect to be bothered by either side further on this matter, or there could be trouble.

 

So the third, reasonable, thing dummy might have done was turn to Ed and say something like "Surely you were intending to tell declarer about the potential lead restrictions at this point". And, since this is Ed, behaving in an uncomplicated matter, I would have expected him to reply "Of course, I temporarily forgot". Even if he didn't like his opponents.

[blackshoe]

Fair enough, but may I just post a reminder of Law 11A:

The right to rectification of an irregularity may be forfeited if either member of the non-offending side takes any action before summoning the Director. The Director does so rule, for example, when the non-offending side may have gained through subsequent action taken by an opponent in ignorance of the relevant provisions of the law.

I disagree with your reading on the applicability of this law here, Sven. The irregularity to which Law 11A here refers is in this case the original revoke. The NOS (in this case, declarer) already (potentially) forfeited his right to rectification of that irregularity (to wit, the right to apply lead penalties) when declarer played a card from dummy after the revoke, not having called the director.

 

I'm not convinced that South (not East, who was dummy) leading to the next trick would be an irregularity, given that there was no director ruling on the original revoke. Unless, of course, every action subsequent to an irregularity to which attention has been called, save calling the director, is also any irregularity. I'm not so sure about that one, either.

[wank]

with regard, to the allegedly dubious timing of dummy's intervention, dummy (and everyone else) must call the director when attention is drawn to an irregularity. i can well imagine not paying a great deal of attention as dummy (i have often read the newspaper as dummy when playing against people i know, for example) and only realising that an irregularity had occurred, that attention had been drawn but no director had been called after a couple of seconds (i.e. the OP's a second of 2 per action), as such she may made her statement immediately from her viewpoint.

 

as to the statement itself, she didn't offer a ruling or do anything else untoward. stating that partner has options prior to summoning the TD is imo just good manners - if my opps suddenly launched into a director call without a preamble in any situation i'd be a little offended, rightly or wrongly. [no i don't object to opps calling the director, but i think it should ideally be done in a non-confrontational fashion] obviously we don't know what she planned to do after making her statement, as the OP intervened by replying to her, but there's no reason to assume she wasn't planning to immediately call the director, after all, she had already declined to volunteer what the options were herself, but must have expected someone to lay them out.

 

as such, i don't consider there's any evidence that north did anything else than what she was directed to do by law.

 

As for the OP, I'd say his actions at the table were 5 star hypocrisy considering he's a TD. If I had more stars available, I would be awarding extras for bringing it up on the forums, especially as he's a moderator here.

[TimG]

One might argue that Ed, being a qualified TD, correcting his own revoke and putting out his penalty card, and playing against another qualified TD, had implicitly suggested that his side would suffer the lead restrictions in the laws, and that he was going to mention them at the appropriate point, and did not expect to benefit from the protection in law 11A in relation to earlier mention of the lead restrictions. If you allowed that argument, then you might say that N/S were expecting the lead restrictions to be mentioned by Ed when his partner came on lead, and when they weren't, then they brought it up themselves in an unsurprising manner.

Though I do not recall what Law 11A says (I know it's up thread somewhere), this is the way I see what happened. I am really surprised that Ed did not stop play upon his partner obtaining the lead and make sure that declarer knew she had rights. It may not be the letter of the Law, but it seems like the spirit of the Law to me.

[MFA]

How do you know, pran, that dummy's LHO would not have ducked rather than winning the trick if he had known about the lead penalties?  It is not the fact that dummy spoke up, it is that she let play continue and then spoke up at an inappropriate time and in an inappropriate way.

iviehoff:

But the director call is already late, and the OS are potentially already damaged by the lateness. So this is already precisely the kind of situation where a TD might (might, not must) deny the NOS rectification under 11A.

 

There are two ethical things dummy could have done. They were (1) call the TD at the time Ed drew attention to the irregularity. Or, (2) keep his mouth shut ever thereafter.

 

But the 11A-thing would be equally true if declarer had called the director instead of dummy.

 

TD may rule that lead restrictions can't be enforced now, that's a good observation. But this point can't have anything to do with the ethics of calling the director in the first place.

[mrdct]

I still think most of the responses ignore the timing of dummy's intervention.

Did you not read the post directly above this one? It states what is pretty obvious, that dummy did not know until the end of the trick that her LHO would be on lead to the next trick.

So what? There are other rules to do with major penalty cards.

What penalty card? There is an exposed card on the table but it's not a penalty card until the real director says so.

[bluejak]

with regard, to the allegedly dubious timing of dummy's intervention, dummy (and everyone else) must call the director when attention is drawn to an irregularity.  i can well imagine not paying a great deal of attention as dummy (i have often read the newspaper as dummy when playing against people i know, for example) and only realising that an irregularity had occurred, that attention had been drawn but no director had been called after a couple of seconds (i.e. the OP's a second of 2 per action), as such she may made her statement immediately from her viewpoint.

Reading a newspaper? Hmmm.

 

Dummy had to move a card to the played position after the irregularity, remember.

 

As for the OP, I'd say his actions at the table were 5 star hypocrisy considering he's a TD.  If I had more stars available, I would be awarding extras for bringing it up on the forums, especially as he's a moderator here.

I do not mind your making observations of this sort too much, though I think they are unfair myself. But when Ed posts an interesting position - count the posts if you do not think it interesting - he does so as any other poster, not as a moderator.

[bluejak]

I still think most of the responses ignore the timing of dummy's intervention.

Did you not read the post directly above this one? It states what is pretty obvious, that dummy did not know until the end of the trick that her LHO would be on lead to the next trick.

So what? There are other rules to do with major penalty cards.

What penalty card? There is an exposed card on the table but it's not a penalty card until the real director says so.

Glad you have finally agreed with me. As you say, that is one of the important rules of penalty cards.

[axman]

Exactly, and if dummy had called the TD when the card was exposed there could be no complaint.

A little thought experiment:

 

Dummy says nothing. East wins the trick and continues with some card without awaiting Declarer to execute his options.

 

Is East guilty of any irregularity?

 

IMO absolutely not. The Director has not been called and East is not expected to know the laws about penalty cards. It is one of the Director's duties to make sure she is aware of both her duties and her rights in all situations.

 

The irregularity: East leading prematurely when her partner has a penalty card is in this case a consequence of the Director not having been called in time.

 

If I as Director had been called at this stage (on East's premature lead) I would simply rule that East takes back the card so led without any rectification and then let Declarer execute his options. I would also warn the players to always call the Director in penalty card situations.

 

So back to the original problem: I shall not penalize Dummy for "rectifying" the error of not calling the Director on the revoke before further consequences of this failure become imminent (so long as Dummy's actions do not violate Law 43A1c. (Dummy must not participate in the play)

 

However, this law actually continues with nor may he communicate anything about the play to declarer so the question still remains whether Dummy violated this last part of that law; I tend to say no in this situation)

In the original case W has committed two irregularities, a revoke and a POOT. Up until W protests dummy’s action these are the only two actionable irregularities.

 

I am reasonably confident that the facts will bear out [given the assumption that N will assert he/she was making ready to then call the TD if no one else gets in his way] that N’s comment was preparatory to summoning help, which N was entitled to do at that time as W had indeed called attention to a revoke.

 

What is disconcerting is that the law has much to say about W’s second card in that it says several things, much without conflict while some that conflicts.

 

Given W’s first card having been played, it then became N’s turn so therefore the second card was not at W’s turn to play. And since this OOT [additional] information comes prior to E’s turn to play to the trick L57 has some fairly gruesome things to say [and rightly so, imo]. I mention this to, if nothing else, provide some food for thought.

 

One more observation- the drawing attention to the revoke and the irregularity of W’s correction are intertwined such that it is impractical to presume that the TD could be summoned about the first prior to the occurrence of the second. And as far as fairness is concerned it is a bit incongruous that dummy is permitted to call the TD over the first but not the second as attention had not yet been legally drawn to it.

 

As for the correct course of action at this point, at least in part, should be that the PC lead penalties be enforced; but action against W’s “change of play” , whatever it might be, is forfeited.

 

But, for the case when E manages to lead before dummy comments, since there had not yet been a correct ruling with regards to the revoke and subsequent correction, the right to enforce at that turn any lead penalty is forfeited, but not at future turns.

 

And what of the case when dummy is mute while declarer is not when E acts in ignorance? The law states that E may not lead before declarer has acted on his PC option [the law states that the withdrawn card is a PC, there not being mentioned a requirement of a ruling to the effect]. It so states without stipulation requiring a ruling prior. So declarer is entitled to enforce PC options which might lead to E thereby having a PC.

[Codo]

I understand the position of Bluejack and fellows as the following:

 

Ed made an irregularity by playing the wrong card.

Afterwards he and his partner did not call the director- nor did declarer or dummy. They all four failed to do so in this right moment.

 

Dummy did call the director two seconds too late.

 

Now you shoot dummy.

 

Did I misunderstood your position?

[pran]

When is a card a penalty card?

 

The laws on penalty cards have been essentially unchanged since 1987, the important clause in this connection is that a card exposed by a defender ..... becomes a penalty card unless the Director designates otherwise.

 

Technically there is no requirement in the laws that the Director shall have been called and ruled that the card is a penalty card, and the EBL commentary to the 1987 laws also stated that "Where the players have agreed amongst themselves that a card is a penalty card, the Director called subsequently to the table should usually rule it to be so and proceed on that basis. He will "designate otherwise" if he feels that rights have been jeopardized by a failure to call him earlier; he may cancel a ruling agreed and carried out by the players before he is called to the table if this action is the best resolution of difficulties which players have created prior to summoning him." (The commentary refers also to Law 11 as relevant in this situation).

 

So what is "the best resolution" in the situation described by OP? In my opinion it is to treat Dummy's remark as a (slightly) delayed initiation of a call for the Director on the revoke and leave it right there. After all Dummy is on the non-offending side and all he actually has done is to protect the rights of his own side without really suggesting any line of play to declarer.

[bluejak]

I understand the position of Bluejack and fellows as the following:

 

Ed made an irregularity by playing the wrong card.

Afterwards he and his partner did not call the director- nor did declarer or dummy. They all four failed to do so in this right moment.

 

Dummy did call the director two seconds too late.

 

Now you shoot dummy.

 

Did I misunderstood your position?

Yes. First of all, it was not two seconds: that is just an attempt to make it sound like dummy did so nearly immediately.

 

Second, he did not call the TD. He said

"Wait a minute, partner has lead options here"

 

If the facts had been as you stated, I would have no problem, but here we have a case where dummy got involved in the play with a suggestion to declarer. The fact that others may have committed irregularities does not affect whether this is an infraction.

 

You may approve of dummies who attempt to direct declarer when others have erred [including dummy himself, let us remember, who moved a card into place after partner called for it after the original infraction]: I do not.

[blackshoe]

In the original case W has committed two irregularities, a revoke and a POOT.

In the original case, I didn't say where anyone was sitting. In fact, I was North, dummy was East. And there was no POOT. As for the "second card" being OOT, read Law 62A.

[barmar]

It's up to declarer to protect himself.

Why, then, give dummy the limited rights that he has, such as to call the TD when attention to an infraction is drawn, or, worse, to prevent declarer from causing an infraction?

I'm not sure why dummy is allowed to prevent an infraction. I think maybe the practice had just become so common (the usual case being dummy preventing declarer from leading from the wrong hand) that they gave up on trying to stop it.

 

Calling the director seems less problematic, though. It's a purely procedural action, since someone else has already drawn attention to the irregularity. Dummy isn't participating in the play, just ensuring that the Laws are followed.

[axman]

In the original case W has committed two irregularities, a revoke and a POOT.

In the original case, I didn't say where anyone was sitting. In fact, I was North, dummy was East. And there was no POOT. As for the "second card" being OOT, read Law 62A.

Let’s rotate the players so that declarer is S.

 

Did not W detach a card and face it on the table twice, once at his turn, and the second time subsequent the aforementioned and prior to N contributing a card subsequent the first play?

 

L45A: Each player except dummy plays a card by detaching it from his hand and facing* it on the table immediately before him.

 

The fact that the law compels a W who knows he has revoked to so correct such unestablished revoke does not mitigate the fact that to do so requires that he play a second time.

 

So, maybe it is worthwhile to clarify. Consider how it is different from correcting a revoke when W originally followed suit and then announces, or flashes, or faces on the table or whatever the SK. In both cases W has played two cards ahead of pard and in both cases the other side could be done in as a direct consequence [if there were no remedy available].

 

As when a revoke is corrected the provisions of L62 come into play does not preclude the fact that there may be other provisions of law to satisfy such as L50 and others.

[VixTD]

I understand the position of Bluejack and fellows as the following:

 

Ed made an irregularity by playing the wrong card.

Afterwards he and his partner did not call the director- nor did declarer or dummy. They all four failed to do so in this right moment.

 

Dummy did call the director two seconds too late.

 

Now you shoot dummy.

 

Did I misunderstood your position?

Yes. First of all, it was not two seconds: that is just an attempt to make it sound like dummy did so nearly immediately.

It's a bit much to accuse others of misrepresenting the facts when you go on to say:

 

You may approve of dummies who attempt to direct declarer when others have erred [including dummy himself, let us remember, who moved a card into place after partner called for it after the original infraction]: I do not.

 

No one is suggesting that they approve of dummy's directing declarer, they are all arguing that dummy's remark was not directing declarer, and in absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary I agree with them.

 

As others have said, it is recommended practice "soften" what might be seen as an accusatory call for the director with a few words of explanation, and surely this is likely to be what dummy was trying to do. As for the timing, in these situations I often give offender a few seconds to do the decent thing and call the director himself before jumping in in an unruly fashion, and sometimes I have to consider whether I want the director at all. I think you're being very hard on dummy for failing to hit on the optimal means of expression and for failing to get the timing exactly right. If you're going to insist on perfection and accuse players of malpractice when they fail to achieve this you're going to frighten them away from calling the director altogether.

 

And of course replacing a card played in error with another one and leaving the former as a penalty card draws attention to the revoke. What do you expect him to have to do, launch a signal flare or something?

 

Stephanie and mrdct seem to be talking the most sense here.

[jdonn]

Very well put by VixTD in the last post.

[bluejak]

If a dummy waits a few seconds, then says something, that is fine: but that is not what happened. It is all very well giving examples of cases where dummies do not follow the rules exactly but do something a little wrong, but these are all different cases, and these are all different from the actual case.

 

When a dummy does not call a TD at the time, takes further action such as moving a card into place, waits until it might be advantageous to exercise lead options, and then does not call the TD but reminds her partner he has lead options, then she is interfering in the play.