Flawed claim: the original RGB case

[richlp]

In an RGB thread, declarer (on lead) claimed "dummy was good" and folded his hand.

Declarer's hand was not all winners and had no entry to dummy! 

 

Clearly, you award some tricks to the defence. 

Do you impose a procedural or disciplinary penalty on declarer? Under which law?

 

Robin

Here are the details on the RGB thread

 

 

Spades were trump and had been completely drawn. With four cards left dummy had four winner in the minors. Declarer had two trumps and two losing hearts. LHO lead a heart, declarer ruffed and then claimed without showing his cards.

 

The claim was agreed to but, before getting cards for the next board the opponents asked declarer about his hand. He admitted to having the two hearts and no minor suit cards.

 

The original question was, what is the technically correct ruling?

[duschek]

Two tricks for the defence via Law 71.

 

In addition, deduct some points from declarer's score for using the old expert trick of claiming without showing his cards, hoping that the defenders will not admit that they are not 100% what everybody has. This is not the way to play the game.

 

Edit: Before the letters come pouring in, whether or not declarer is required to show his hand when claiming, in this case it could easily be a deliberate violation of Law 79A2.

[RMB1]

This was the RGB case:

[hv=d=s&v=n&n=shdkqckj&w=shkxdxxc&e=shaqdcqx&s=sxxhxxdc]399|300|Scoring: IMPs

With 4 tricks remaining here is the layout in a spade contract.

 

West leads HK, the CJ is discarded from dummy, East overtakes with HA and declarer ruffs with Sx. Declarer then claims stating that dummy is good while he folds his cards. Everyone else folds also. But, before hands are pulled from the next board, East asks the declarer what his remaining cards were. Declarer admits that he had 2 hearts and a spade (trump).[/hv]

My ruling on RGB was that the claim establishes the revoke. The claim is not good and a normal line is to lead a spade at trick 11, guessing to throw the wrong king (CK) at trick 12. Awarding the defence two of the last three tricks following the claim, and transfering the other two of the last four tricks for the revoke. Declarer gets none of the last four tricks and a penalty of twice the standard amount for attempting to conceal the revoke and his losers in the claim.

 

Robin

[bluejak]

Oooooooh! I do like macho TDs! :)

[duschek]

My ruling on RGB was that the claim establishes the revoke. The claim is not good and a normal line is to lead a spade at trick 11, guessing to throw the wrong king (CK) at trick 12. Awarding the defence two of the last three tricks following the claim, and transfering the other two of the last four tricks for the revoke. Declarer gets none of the last four tricks and a penalty of twice the standard amount for attempting to conceal the revoke and his losers in the claim.

I overlooked that declarer revoked at trick 10, so I agree that two tricks should be transferred, i.e., the defenders get the last four tricks (unless the TD decides that it is not within normal play to lead the other spade at trick 11, but I agree with Robin). Because the defenders have not yet made a call on the subsequent board, the revoke is still rectified.

 

I also agree about the PP, since that should be issued whether or not declarer gains from his strange techniques.

[mycroft]

Ooh, on the previous thread, I thought it was just a "can't get to board" thing. That's an attempt to gain a trick declarer can't possibly win (if on purpose; if an accident, this is the time to show declarer that looking like someone attempting to violate L79A2 is also a bad idea).

 

But attempting to conceal the revoke is defined as a violation of L72B3 - in fact, the canonical example of it - and, well, yeah. In addition to what RMB does (which seems to be the only correct ruling), a comment of "you're very lucky I don't send this one to C&E - and that's only because there is a small chance you didn't do it on purpose. Don't even think of trying this one again - and show your hand on claims from now on just so that people *know* you're on the level" may come to pass (away from the table, of course).