Defective trick?

[blackshoe]

I disagree with your comment as to the relevance of my question, but if you insist on refusing to answer it, so be it. It wasn't directed at you, anyway.

[pran]

I disagree with your comment as to the relevance of my question, but if you insist on refusing to answer it, so be it. It wasn't directed at you, anyway.

I believe there is reason for a concentrated summary:

 

When Bridge is played with the four cards in each trick being collected by a player on the side winning the trick and kept together as a trick in front of that player then a defective trick is such a trick that does not contain exactly four cards.

 

When Bridge is played with each player retaining control of his thirteen cards throughout the play (as in duplicate) then a defective trick exists whenever a player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards (Law 67B). (Note that there is never any question of a defective trick so long as each player holds the correct numbers of cards in his hand and as played cards quitted in front of him regardless of the sequence in which he has his quitted cards placed.)

 

When, according to either of these definitions the existence of a defective trick is established before a player on each side has played to the following trick then the error is simply rectified as specified in Law 67A, otherwise Law 67B applies.

[gordontd]

When Bridge is played with each player retaining control of his thirteen cards throughout the play (as in duplicate) then a defective trick exists whenever a player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards (Law 67B). (Note that there is never any question of a defective trick so long as each player holds the correct numbers of cards in his hand and as played cards quitted in front of him regardless of the sequence in which he has his quitted cards placed.)

So I can play a card, put it back in my hand, play it again to a later trick, and then put two cards down as played to yet another trick, and you say there is no question of a defective trick?

[pran]

So I can play a card, put it back in my hand, play it again to a later trick, and then put two cards down as played to yet another trick, and you say there is no question of a defective trick?

Correct (after you eventually have put down the two cards to rectify the number of cards held in your hand).

 

But then you will have violated enough of other laws to have all the fun taken away from you.

[iviehoff]

When Bridge is played with the four cards in each trick being collected by a player on the side winning the trick and kept together as a trick in front of that player then a defective trick is such a trick that does not contain exactly four cards.

 

When Bridge is played with each player retaining control of his thirteen cards throughout the play (as in duplicate) then a defective trick exists whenever a player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards (Law 67B). (Note that there is never any question of a defective trick so long as each player holds the correct numbers of cards in his hand and as played cards quitted in front of him regardless of the sequence in which he has his quitted cards placed.)

 

When, according to either of these definitions the existence of a defective trick is established before a player on each side has played to the following trick then the error is simply rectified as specified in Law 67A, otherwise Law 67B applies.

 

So I can play a card, put it back in my hand, play it again to a later trick, and then put two cards down as played to yet another trick, and you say there is no question of a defective trick?

 

Correct (after you eventually have put down the two cards to rectify the number of cards held in your hand).

 

I think we can go through the quitted cards in the duplicate method of play, and also discover from that there are the wrong number of cards in a trick. It seems very wrong if the director is restrained from ruling that there are defective tricks simply because a player has the correct number of cards in his hand and quitted cards in the table, when as a matter of fact wrong numbers of cards were played to certain tricks, or cards were returned to hand and played again later, and that is recorded in the sequence of quitted cards.

[pran]

I think we can go through the quitted cards in the duplicate method of play, and also discover from that there are the wrong number of cards in a trick. It seems very wrong if the director is restrained from ruling that there are defective tricks simply because a player has the correct number of cards in his hand and quitted cards in the table, when as a matter of fact wrong numbers of cards were played to certain tricks, or cards were returned to hand and played again later, and that is recorded in the sequence of quitted cards.

The Director should not bother with Law 67 in a (hypothetical) case like that, there is no inconsistency between the number of cards apparently played and still remaining to be played, and the number of tricks played.

 

However, the revealed ordering of the cards played will obviously be evidence of apparent violations of Laws 44 (in particular 44C), 47F2, 61, 65, 72B3 and 79 (possibly also other laws).

 

The Director will have power to apply rectifications and penalties that make the provisions in Law 67 seem very lenient and insignificant.

[dburn]

If a trick contains a number of cards other than four it is defective.

At duplicate, it is meaningless to say that a trick "contains" any number of cards at all. There is no physical object, or aggregation of objects, that can be called a "container" that holds, or "contains", cards.

 

Instead, a trick is an abstraction that comes into (virtual) existence when four players in rotation play exactly one card. The winner of the trick is determined according to the relevant Laws, and the next trick is instantiated (or play ceases for whatever reason). Provided that a trick is properly initiated and properly completed, what happens later to the physical cards that comprised the trick is utterly irrelevant: the trick was played, it was not defective, and it cannot thereafter be rendered defective by removing some card from or adding some card to a non-existent "container".

 

By contrast, bluejak's trick of denying that he said what he said, because the words he used mean something other than what they mean, is grievously defective.

[pran]

At duplicate, it is meaningless to say that a trick "contains" any number of cards at all. There is no physical object, or aggregation of objects, that can be called a "container" that holds, or "contains", cards.

 

Instead, a trick is an abstraction that comes into (virtual) existence when four players in rotation play exactly one card. The winner of the trick is determined according to the relevant Laws, and the next trick is instantiated (or play ceases for whatever reason). Provided that a trick is properly initiated and properly completed, what happens later to the physical cards that comprised the trick is utterly irrelevant: the trick was played, it was not defective, and it cannot thereafter be rendered defective by removing some card from or adding some card to a non-existent "container".

 

By contrast, bluejak's trick of denying that he said what he said, because the words he used mean something other than what they mean, is grievously defective.

This is quite correct - up to a certain point. but it seems to me that it reveals a "defective" understanding on what constitutes a "defective trick" in duplicate (for which Law 67 still applies).

 

The Director must establish which "virtual" trick is defective, he does so by examining the quitted cards (for all four hands if necessary) in exactly the same way as he should examine the quitted cards in order to establish (for instance) a revoke.

 

If, for whatever reason, a card that originally was played to a trick finds its way back to the hand from which it was played so that by the definition in Law 67 there is a defective trick, the consequence is of course that a trick that originally was complete has become defective later during the play.

[iviehoff]

The Director should not bother with Law 67 in a (hypothetical) case like that, there is no inconsistency between the number of cards apparently played and still remaining to be played, and the number of tricks played.

 

However, the revealed ordering of the cards played will obviously be evidence of apparent violations of Laws 44 (in particular 44C), 47F2, 61, 65, 72B3 and 79 (possibly also other laws).

We can also deal with all sorts of things, such as revokes, through laws like 41 and 44 if we don't have a specific revoke law. The advantage of the revoke law is that it gives a defined rectification for a revoke.

 

Law 67 seems to say it is a law about what happens when people don't play the correct number of cards to a trick. After all it starts "When a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick..." It would be useful to have a defining rectification for such events, rather than scrabble around with more basic laws without defined rectifications.

 

But actually you have made it a law, at least in section B when both sides have played cards to the next trick, a law about whether a player has the correct number of cards in his hand, and the correct number of cards quitted on the table, regardless of how that occurred. This is a problem because (1) it actually says "when one player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards", and to get that meaning you are interpreting "played cards" as meaning <cards quitted on the table, regardless of whether they were played or not, or whether the played card can be found somewhere else> (2) the rectifications only make sense if the reason for those incorrect totals are because "a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick", and (3) in order to apply those rectifications, we have to look at which cards are in which tricks, so the assumption seems to be that we can identify which cards are in which tricks, and not merely count the total number of quitted cards.

 

As I said, it would seem much more sensible to have a law about "When a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick...", regardless of how many cards in total we find in his hand and quitted on the table, and another law about what to do when a card has been played, but that played card has not been quitted properly. A law about what to do <when one player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of quitted cards on the table> would appear to be a law we don't really need.

 

But actually, we really already have that law, provided we take one small piece of reinterpretation. And taht is a good solution, because you needed one small piece of reinterpretation to get your version. Swap one for the other, and we have a sensible, useful law. All we have to do is assume that "when one player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards" is an example of how we might detect defective tricks, rather than a determining definition. Now we have a law that works and is a law we actually want.

[iviehoff]

At duplicate, it is meaningless to say that a trick "contains" any number of cards at all. There is no physical object, or aggregation of objects, that can be called a "container" that holds, or "contains", cards.

Nevertheless, whenever we claim that there has been an irregularity in the play, such as a revoke, or playing the wrong number of cards to a trick, the examination and rectification of these situations by the director tends to revolve around examining the quitted cards, and working out which cards were actually played to which trick on the basis of those quitted cards. (Of course sometimes the quitted cards will be so disarranged, or players comments about what happened when so conflicting that the quitted cards make no sense in relation to what anyone is saying, that the director will have to rule on other information, but this is a rare case.) So I think it is reasonable to say in general that the cards located among the quitted cards in positions which indicate that they were played to a specific trick are the cards "contained" in that trick.

 

In general I find your position persuasive, but not this particular objection.

[pran]

Nevertheless, whenever we claim that there has been an irregularity in the play, such as a revoke, or playing the wrong number of cards to a trick, the examination and rectification of these situations by the director tends to revolve around examining the quitted cards, and working out which cards were actually played to which trick on the basis of those quitted cards. (Of course sometimes the quitted cards will be so disarranged, or players comments about what happened when so conflicting that the quitted cards make no sense in relation to what anyone is saying, that the director will have to rule on other information, but this is a rare case.) So I think it is reasonable to say in general that the cards located among the quitted cards in positions which indicate that they were played to a specific trick are the cards "contained" in that trick.

 

In general I find your position persuasive, but not this particular objection.

Law 66D explicitly states that if a player mixes his cards in such a manner that the Director can no longer ascertain the facts, the Director shall rule in favour of the other side.

[dburn]

So I think it is reasonable to say in general that the cards located among the quitted cards in positions which indicate that they were played to a specific trick are the cards "contained" in that trick.

It is reasonable to say that, yes. But is is not reasonable to say the converse: that a card not in a position indicating that it was played to a specific trick is not "contained" in that trick. As I have explained before, the truth of "if x then y" does not imply the truth of "if y then x".

 

Suppose that declarer calls for the three of hearts from dummy. And suppose that instead of turning the three of hearts face down in front of him when the trick is complete, dummy hurls the three of hearts out of the window by way of communicating to declarer that he ought to have played some other card (see some other thread for a discussion of the legality of such a manoeuvre).

 

The three of hearts has been played to the trick, and the trick "contains" (if such word has any meaning at all in this context) the three of hearts. The fact that on being defenestrated, the card was seized in mid air by a passing albatross who mistook it for a flying fish before spitting it out in disgust, so that it is now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, is neither here nor there. The physical pack of cards with which the players were playing has now become defective - but the trick to which the three of hearts was played has not.

[pran]

It is reasonable to say that, yes. But is is not reasonable to say the converse: that a card not in a position indicating that it was played to a specific trick is not "contained" in that trick. As I have explained before, the truth of "if x then y" does not imply the truth of "if y then x".

 

Suppose that declarer calls for the three of hearts from dummy. And suppose that instead of turning the three of hearts face down in front of him when the trick is complete, dummy hurls the three of hearts out of the window by way of communicating to declarer that he ought to have played some other card (see some other thread for a discussion of the legality of such a manoeuvre).

 

The three of hearts has been played to the trick, and the trick "contains" (if such word has any meaning at all in this context) the three of hearts. The fact that on being defenestrated, the card was seized in mid air by a passing albatross who mistook it for a flying fish before spitting it out in disgust, so that it is now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, is neither here nor there. The physical pack of cards with which the players were playing has now become defective - but the trick to which the three of hearts was played has not.

Legal "problems" can often be created by confusing laws that have nothing in common. Here Laws 14 and 67. The example is no problem.

[iviehoff]

Legal "problems" can often be created by confusing laws that have nothing in common. Here Laws 14 and 67. The example is no problem.

Whether Law 14 applies depends upon whether you interpret "hand" to mean the sum of a player's unplayed and quitted cards, or just the unplayed cards. B1 refers to the possibility of finding the missing card among the played cards, which tends to suggest that only the unplayed cards form the hand for this purpose, and thus the arithmetic of "13 cards" refers to the number of cards in the hand before any were played. So Law 14 would not apply if a player had the correct number of unplayed cards, in view of the number of tricks he had contributed to.

 

It seems to me that this perhaps a point of interpretative disagreement between you and Bluejak, because Bluejak agreed that a quitted card dropped onto the floor made a trick defective. If you don't believe in assessing defective tricks according to what cards were played to the trick, but rather in relation to the arithmetic of the cards in hand and those on the table, surely you count the cards in the hand and those on the table; then the total (12) tells you a trick must be card short - that must be a defective trick. So if you are disagreeing with Bluejak on this point, it seems to me you aren't even consistent.

[pran]

Whether Law 14 applies depends upon whether you interpret "hand" to mean the sum of a player's unplayed and quitted cards, or just the unplayed cards. B1 refers to the possibility of finding the missing card among the played cards, which tends to suggest that only the unplayed cards form the hand for this purpose, and thus the arithmetic of "13 cards" refers to the number of cards in the hand before any were played. So Law 14 would not apply if a player had the correct number of unplayed cards, in view of the number of tricks he had contributed to.

 

It seems to me that this perhaps a point of interpretative disagreement between you and Bluejak, because Bluejak agreed that a quitted card dropped onto the floor made a trick defective. If you don't believe in assessing defective tricks according to what cards were played to the trick, but rather in relation to the arithmetic of the cards in hand and those on the table, surely you count the cards in the hand and those on the table; then the total (12) tells you a trick must be card short - that must be a defective trick. So if you are disagreeing with Bluejak on this point, it seems to me you aren't even consistent.

I just don't see the point (maybe because I am not looking hard enough?)

 

Law 14 applies whenever the total number of cards in use is found to be less than 52, whether the missing card (or cards) is found on the floor, in the Director's pocket, anywhere else or not at all.

 

Law 67 applies (at duplicate) for a player whenever his total number of cards is 13, but the number of cards he has in his hand is inconsistent with the number of tricks yet to be played.

[iviehoff]

I just don't see the point (maybe because I am not looking hard enough?)

 

Law 14 applies whenever the total number of cards in use is found to be less than 52, whether the missing card (or cards) is found on the floor, in the Director's pocket, anywhere else or not at all.

It doesn't say that explicitly, you deduced it. It says it applies "When one or more hand(s) is/are found to contain fewer than 13 cards, with no hand having more than 13". In the case when play has not started, your deduction plainly applies. In the case when play has started, and cards are both in hand and played, what that means depends upon what one thinks a "hand" is and what kind of evidence that the hand contains "fewer than 13 cards" is accepted. A card which has been played, quitted, and then lost could be argued to be a card in use. This is just the kind of argument you are making in relation to Law 67.

Law 67 applies (at duplicate) for a player whenever his total number of cards is 13, but the number of cards he has in his hand is inconsistent with the number of tricks yet to be played.

Nowhere does it say that it is inapplicable when the total number of cards for the player is not 13. It seems to me that it is self-evident that Law 67 is actually about "When a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick", which has the advantage of actually occurring in the law. It says that explicitly in 67A, but unfortunately not 67B. In 67B, it offers us the options of 67B1 "When the offender has failed to play a card to the defective trick" and 67B2. "When the offender has played more than one card to the defective trick", and nothing else, so it doesn't actually tell us what to do when neither of these is the reason for what we have discovered. So Law 67 works just fine when you try to apply it to "When a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick", and treat the parenthetic comment "(from the fact that one player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards)" as an example of how that might be discovered, rather than the criterion for applicability of the law.

[dburn]

Legal "problems" can often be created by confusing laws that have nothing in common. Here Laws 14 and 67. The example is no problem.

Of course it is a problem. Let us assume that, the Atlantic Ocean having been successfully dredged and the missing three of hearts recovered, we apply pran's beloved Law 14:

 

1. if the card is found among the played cards, Law 67 applies.

2. if the card is found elsewhere, it is restored to the deficient hand. Rectification and/or penalties may apply (see 4 following).

Well, the card was not found among the played cards - it was found at the bottom of the ocean. So, despite its somewhat soggy state and a disagreeable odour of rotten fish that emanates from it, we restore it to the player's hand and we apply "rectification and penalties" accordingly.

 

Of course, this is absurd and no Director in his right mind would actually do it. We may try to correct the absurdity by deciding that the card actually belongs among the played cards (because it was played), but we are then compelled by Law 14 to apply Law 67, which manifestly does not apply because there was manifestly no defective trick. As I have remarked, Law 14 is in itself seriously defective - but not as defective as the kind of reasoning that attempts to apply it in a position where it does not and cannot hold.

[bluejak]

So a trick once not defective can become defective?

 

How many cards were played to a defective trick which originally had 4 cards played to it now that it is defective?

 

(I assume you're glossing over the defective tricks which contain exactly 4 cards)

Of course. If a trick contains four cards, one from each player, it is not defective. If you look at it later, and that is no longer the case it is now defective.

 

Your second question as to how many cards were played to it depends, strangely enough, on how many cards were played to it. If, as is normally the case, four cards were played to it, the answer is four. If three were played to it then the answer is three. I do not see the point of your question.

 

I am only glossing over other defective tricks because of simplicity. If a trick contains two cards from the same player, or a card from another pack, then it is defective even if it contains four cards.

 

What does "contains" mean in this context? Given that the four cards played to a not defective trick are not co-located.

 

Is a trick still in progress (not all four players having played to it yet) defective?

Tricks are kept in order. So if no tricks are defective the fifth card in every player's pile constitutes the fifth trick. A search through these cards will often show that a trick is defective, especially since tricks won by a side should always be facing the same way.

 

A trick is not defective because it is unfinished.

 

At duplicate, it is meaningless to say that a trick "contains" any number of cards at all. There is no physical object, or aggregation of objects, that can be called a "container" that holds, or "contains", cards.

 

Instead, a trick is an abstraction that comes into (virtual) existence when four players in rotation play exactly one card. The winner of the trick is determined according to the relevant Laws, and the next trick is instantiated (or play ceases for whatever reason). Provided that a trick is properly initiated and properly completed, what happens later to the physical cards that comprised the trick is utterly irrelevant: the trick was played, it was not defective, and it cannot thereafter be rendered defective by removing some card from or adding some card to a non-existent "container".

 

By contrast, bluejak's trick of denying that he said what he said, because the words he used mean something other than what they mean, is grievously defective.

As explained before, there is a physical place for a trick: the fifth trick should be the four fifth cards of each player.

 

Sounds good, but I do not accept it: if it is defective it is defective.

 

Your method of arguing a losing position by using derision does not alter the fact that you and not I decided that a card could "become unplayed", a farcical idea.

[mjj29]

Of course. If a trick contains four cards, one from each player, it is not defective. If you look at it later, and that is no longer the case it is now defective.

 

Your second question as to how many cards were played to it depends, strangely enough, on how many cards were played to it. If, as is normally the case, four cards were played to it, the answer is four. If three were played to it then the answer is three. I do not see the point of your question.

 

I at least understand your position (although for once I disagree, and this is why). To be clear, in this next example all the players are certain of which cards were played to which trick. There is no question that any trick did not have four cards played to it originally. In the case where a card is dropped, knocked off the table or otherwise disarranged from it's quitted position (and yet everyone knows to where it should be restored), do you think it is correct or equitable to allow the original owner of the card to substitute any other card and possibly replay this card to another trick, with associated revoke penalties? Why can we not just take the card and restore it to the correct quitted position?

 

Matt

[pran]

I at least understand your position (although for once I disagree, and this is why). To be clear, in this next example all the players are certain of which cards were played to which trick. There is no question that any trick did not have four cards played to it originally. In the case where a card is dropped, knocked off the table or otherwise disarranged from it's quitted position (and yet everyone knows to where it should be restored), do you think it is correct or equitable to allow the original owner of the card to substitute any other card and possibly replay this card to another trick, with associated revoke penalties? Why can we not just take the card and restore it to the correct quitted position?

 

Matt

That is exactly what is done if a card somehow has just disappeared (after play begins) from among the 13 cards at a player's disposal and is then found again. It is then restored to where it belongs, among the quitted cards or in the player's hand as the case may be. This is as specified in Law 14B2. There is no question of Law 67 in this case (but there can be a question of revoke if the card is restored to the player's hand).

 

However, if the card (again somehow) has disappeared from among the played cards and is found in the player's hand (or vice versa) then we must rule Law 67.

[dburn]

Of course. If a trick contains four cards, one from each player, it is not defective. If you look at it later, and that is no longer the case it is now defective.

No, it is not. If at the time a trick was played it "contained" four cards, one from each player, it has not become defective merely because one of those cards has been transported elsewhere.

 

Tricks are kept in order. So if no tricks are defective the fifth card in every player's pile constitutes the fifth trick.

This is simply and obviously false. If no tricks are defective, but a played card by (say) North to (say) the fourth trick has fallen to the floor, then the fifth card in North's pile will be a card that he has played to the sixth trick. This does not imply that the fourth trick, or the fifth or the sixth, was defective - it was not, nor will it ever be.

 

As explained before, there is a physical place for a trick: the fifth trick should be the four fifth cards of each player.

So it should. But when it is not, the Director should not consider that the only possible explanation for this is a defective trick. As I have wearied of explaining to pran, this is the fallacy of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc".

 

Of course, pran is quite right when he says that if a player has mixed his played cards so that the order of play cannot be ascertained, any decision as to the facts of the play will go against that player. If North claims that he played a card to the fifth trick, but that card later fell to the floor, and if nobody else at the table confirms that this in fact occurred, then a Director might very well rule against North-South on the preponderance of evidence. But if everyone is in agreement that North did in fact play to the fifth trick the card that was later found on the floor, then there is no question of applying Law 67, or Law 14, or any other Law to the detriment of North-South.

 

Your method of arguing a losing position by using derision does not alter the fact that you and not I decided that a card could "become unplayed", a farcical idea.

I have never averred that a card can become unplayed; indeed, such derision as I have employed has been entirely against the very idea that a card can become unplayed, and I am pleased that at last there is some agreement that such a notion is farcical.

 

What I have consistently averred is that a trick to which each of four players have contributed exactly one card is not defective and can never be regarded as, or become, defective. What you seem to assert (indeed, the first quote above repeats this assertion) is that even if all four players have contributed exactly one card to a trick, that trick can later become defective. It cannot, and the only way in which it could would be if the missing card were regarded as not having been played to the trick. Since it was played to the trick, it would have to be regarded as "not played" to the trick, or "unplayed" to the trick, for your assertion to make sense.

[bluejak]

I at least understand your position (although for once I disagree, and this is why). To be clear, in this next example all the players are certain of which cards were played to which trick. There is no question that any trick did not have four cards played to it originally. In the case where a card is dropped, knocked off the table or otherwise disarranged from it's quitted position (and yet everyone knows to where it should be restored), do you think it is correct or equitable to allow the original owner of the card to substitute any other card and possibly replay this card to another trick, with associated revoke penalties? Why can we not just take the card and restore it to the correct quitted position?

That is what the Law says, I think you will find.

 

No, it is not. If at the time a trick was played it "contained" four cards, one from each player, it has not become defective merely because one of those cards has been transported elsewhere.

Says who? Ok, says you. But this assertion seems against the English language and common sense, so perhaps we need rather more of an authority than you to say so.

 

This is simply and obviously false. If no tricks are defective, but a played card by (say) North to (say) the fourth trick has fallen to the floor, then the fifth card in North's pile will be a card that he has played to the sixth trick. This does not imply that the fourth trick, or the fifth or the sixth, was defective - it was not, nor will it ever be.

"Simply and obviously"? Well, I would say the reverse: it is simply and obviously true. Your idea seems to be that a trick containing some number of cards other than four is not defective is strange, to put it mildly.

 

I have never averred that a card can become unplayed; indeed, such derision as I have employed has been entirely against the very idea that a card can become unplayed, and I am pleased that at last there is some agreement that such a notion is farcical.

 

What I have consistently averred is that a trick to which each of four players have contributed exactly one card is not defective and can never be regarded as, or become, defective. What you seem to assert (indeed, the first quote above repeats this assertion) is that even if all four players have contributed exactly one card to a trick, that trick can later become defective. It cannot, and the only way in which it could would be if the missing card were regarded as not having been played to the trick. Since it was played to the trick, it would have to be regarded as "not played" to the trick, or "unplayed" to the trick, for your assertion to make sense.

Completely wrong. Your logic is clearly false. If you have a jar that you say contains an even number of carrots, and you remove a carrot, to say it still contains an even number of carrots because it once did is neither correct nor logical. Also it does not mean that a carrot has become not a carrot: it means it is no longer there.

 

A defective trick is one that does not contain four cards, one from each player. History has nothing to do with it. Your suggestion that it can only happen if a card is unplayed is "simply and obviously" wrong. It may happen in other ways, of course, but a card cannot become unplayed.

[dburn]

"Simply and obviously"? Well, I would say the reverse: it is simply and obviously true. Your idea seems to be that a trick containing some number of cards other than four is not defective is strange, to put it mildly.

But that is not "my idea" at all, nor can I place any construction on anything I have written that would compel the conclusion that it was "my idea".

 

In the first place, I have argued that because of the mechanics of duplicate bridge, it is meaningless or almost meaningless to speak of a trick's "containing" any cards whatsoever. It is pran, not I, who argues that because at rubber bridge one player picks up the four cards played to a trick and puts them in front of him, thus creating a physical aggregation that can be referred to as "a trick", this physical aggregation should be assumed to exist at duplicate bridge. This assertion is so ridiculous as to be put into a category referred to by scientists as "not even wrong", but he believes it, and I assume from what you have written that you believe it also.

 

In the second place, I have consistently asserted that when four cards, one from each of four hands, are played to a trick (whether by being physically faced on the table or by being called by declarer from dummy), that trick is complete and inviolate. What happens thereafter to the physical objects contributed to the trick is a matter of supreme irrelevance, always provided that the players at the table confirm that the trick actually was played in the manner described. This means that:

 

Completely wrong. Your logic is clearly false. If you have a jar that you say contains an even number of carrots, and you remove a carrot, to say it still contains an even number of carrots because it once did is neither correct nor logical. Also it does not mean that a carrot has become not a carrot: it means it is no longer there.

 

A defective trick is one that does not contain four cards, one from each player. History has nothing to do with it. Your suggestion that it can only happen if a card is unplayed is "simply and obviously" wrong. It may happen in other ways, of course, but a card cannot become unplayed.

is more or less unmitigated bilge, though it contains (as I have already remarked) an element of truth.

 

The trouble is that you (and pran) are wedded to the idea of a physical "trick" that "contains" a "number of (physical) cards". There is no such thing at duplicate bridge, as I have been at pains to explain. But we will pursue your analogy further, because it is not entirely hopeless.

 

Once four carrots have been placed in a jar, we label that jar "complete". Once a jar is labelled "complete", we forget about it - we do not change the label on the jar, even if a malevolent wombat steals therefrom a carrot for some purpose that may range from global destruction to sexual gratification. For our purposes, that jar is "complete" and, because it has been consigned by us to the dustbin of history, nothing that happens thereafter can render it "incomplete".

 

In so doing, we do not say that the jar still, or "now", contains an even number of carrots. We do not care how many carrots the jar is later found to contain. Nor should we; suppose we were paid by the hour to produce "complete" jars, and we claimed to have produced 100 but our employers paid us for 99. No tribunal in the land would uphold our employers' decision to pay us for only 99 jars if it turned out that the 100th jar had a carrot stolen from it by a wombat.

 

In the third place:

 

A defective trick is one that does not contain four cards, one from each player.

is true insofar as the word "contain" is meaningful, which by and large it is not. Rather, a defective trick is one to which some player has contributed some number of cards not equal to one. That is:

 

History has nothing to do with it.

is bunk. History has everything to do with it: if the historical record shows that each player contributed exactly one card to a trick, that trick was not defective and cannot later be shown in any manner whatsoever to have been, or now to be, defective

 

Your suggestion that it can only happen if a card is unplayed is "simply and obviously" wrong. It may happen in other ways, of course, but a card cannot become unplayed.

Of course a card cannot become unplayed. But would you (or pran) mind explaining to me how a trick to which four players each contributed one card can later be regarded as defective (that is, by now containing three cards), other than by assuming that in fact one player did not contribute a card to the trick?

[axman]

But that is not "my idea" at all, nor can I place any construction on anything I have written that would compel the conclusion that it was "my idea".

 

In the first place, I have argued that because of the mechanics of duplicate bridge, it is meaningless or almost meaningless to speak of a trick's "containing" any cards whatsoever. It is pran, not I, who argues that because at rubber bridge one player picks up the four cards played to a trick and puts them in front of him, thus creating a physical aggregation that can be referred to as "a trick", this physical aggregation should be assumed to exist at duplicate bridge. This assertion is so ridiculous as to be put into a category referred to by scientists as "not even wrong", but he believes it, and I assume from what you have written that you believe it also.

 

In the second place, I have consistently asserted that when four cards, one from each of four hands, are played to a trick (whether by being physically faced on the table or by being called by declarer from dummy), that trick is complete and inviolate. What happens thereafter to the physical objects contributed to the trick is a matter of supreme irrelevance, always provided that the players at the table confirm that the trick actually was played in the manner described. This means that:

 

 

is more or less unmitigated bilge, though it contains (as I have already remarked) an element of truth.

 

The trouble is that you (and pran) are wedded to the idea of a physical "trick" that "contains" a "number of (physical) cards". There is no such thing at duplicate bridge, as I have been at pains to explain. But we will pursue your analogy further, because it is not entirely hopeless.

 

Once four carrots have been placed in a jar, we label that jar "complete". Once a jar is labelled "complete", we forget about it - we do not change the label on the jar, even if a malevolent wombat steals therefrom a carrot for some purpose that may range from global destruction to sexual gratification. For our purposes, that jar is "complete" and, because it has been consigned by us to the dustbin of history, nothing that happens thereafter can render it "incomplete".

 

In so doing, we do not say that the jar still, or "now", contains an even number of carrots. We do not care how many carrots the jar is later found to contain. Nor should we; suppose we were paid by the hour to produce "complete" jars, and we claimed to have produced 100 but our employers paid us for 99. No tribunal in the land would uphold our employers' decision to pay us for only 99 jars if it turned out that the 100th jar had a carrot stolen from it by a wombat.

 

In the third place:

 

 

is true insofar as the word "contain" is meaningful, which by and large it is not. Rather, a defective trick is one to which some player has contributed some number of cards not equal to one. That is:

 

 

is bunk. History has everything to do with it: if the historical record shows that each player contributed exactly one card to a trick, that trick was not defective and cannot later be shown in any manner whatsoever to have been, or now to be, defective

 

 

Of course a card cannot become unplayed. But would you (or pran) mind explaining to me how a trick to which four players each contributed one card can later be regarded as defective (that is, by now containing three cards), other than by assuming that in fact one player did not contribute a card to the trick?

 

What this thread has demonstrated is that everyone, which includes especially burn, does not know what a defective trick is. What I have appreciated thus far is an expansion of my British vocabulary. Yet, that is neither here nor there. Until you commit to the notion that law does not provide a definition for defective trick [which it does not] you will not accomplish anything that resembles progress. Now, some of you point to L67A and say that that is the definition of defective trick [which it is not]. What it is is the ‘definition’ of ERROR. Some have pointed to the parentheses in L67B and say that that is the definition of defective trick [which it is not]. What it is is the notice that a defective trick exists [but not what a defective trick is].

 

So, all of you who know what a defective trick is, answer this: contestant B plays card X to T4; then at T9 he plays card X [to which the other three also play exactly one card]. Is T9 defective? And why?

[blackshoe]

Well, I'm not going to worry about defective tricks or wombats or whatever. If each player places, from amongst the unplayed cards in his hand, a card in the played position when a trick is in progress, then that trick is complete as far as I'm concerned, and if one of the cards is later found on the floor, or in the kitchen, or in somebody's pocket, or in the player's hand, I'm going to tell the players concerned that the card goes amongst the quitted tricks belonging to the player concerned, in the appropriate place. And then I'm going to tell them to get on with the game. Granted, if the card is later found to have been "played" to a different trick, I'll have a bigger problem, but that's a different problem, and I'll deal with it when it happens.