Major penalty card: lead restrictions; declarer's illegal choice

[alphatango]

The case is partly hypothetical, being derived from a recent experience in which my South had lots of trouble understanding anything to do with penalty cards. Unfortunately, she managed three at her table in one round. :rolleyes:

 

My current wording includes, relevantly: "One: You may demand a spade lead, West will pick up the card, and East will have to lead a spade if he has one. Two: You may forbid a spade lead, West will pick up the card, and East may lead any card which is not a spade. In either case, if East can't comply with your request, he can lead anything he likes."

 

So I am inclined to regard an average club East as having attempted to follow my instructions, not realising that declarer did not choose a legal option, but an experienced East as improperly gaining an advantage. That's the main reason I asked whether East's experience was relevant.

 

...And after reading the responses, I still don't know what to do. :P

[Vampyr]

So I am inclined to regard an average club East as having attempted to follow my instructions, not realising that declarer did not choose a legal option, but an experienced East as improperly gaining an advantage.

 

Seems fair enough to me.

 

That's the main reason I asked whether East's experience was relevant.

 

[mrdct]

My current wording includes, relevantly: "One: You may demand a spade lead, West will pick up the card, and East will have to lead a spade if he has one. Two: You may forbid a spade lead, West will pick up the card, and East may lead any card which is not a spade. In either case, if East can't comply with your request, he can lead anything he likes."

The problem here is that your wording doesn't include a direction to East to not act until South has exercised her option. Saying "I don't want a club" is not exercising her option so East has lead the ♥ prematurely.

[blackshoe]

Are we directors going to have to start every table ruling with a recitation of Law 9B2?

 

I suppose we are. B-)

[barmar]

I've never known a player, who had no cards in a suit that he's been asked to lead, to do anything except ask the director what happens next.

But isn't that why East's experience level is relevant? An experienced player has probably heard the answer to that question many times, and knows that he's not constrained.

 

I'm an experienced player and an ACBL certified club director (although I only exercise it infrequently -- I'm one of the backup directors at my club), and I didn't know offhand that the restricted player was required to wait for the director to instruct him. It's a pretty obscure detail that rarely makes a difference.

[WellSpyder]

I've never known a player, who had no cards in a suit that he's been asked to lead, to do anything except ask the director what happens next.

I have, and I have vastly less experience of directing than you have. In any case, I see no reason to think that East has failed to comply with the request.

 

The only question in my mind is whether East should have realised that the request was not a valid exercising of the options declarer had available.

[iviehoff]

East could not comply with South's request

Within the letter of the law, East responded correctly to South's request (assuming it to be a valid request). The director's prior explanation might, possibly even should, have included rubric to explain what to do in this situation. East might just have known it. The fact that East knows enough to know what to do in this situation, or had been told what to do, does not lead to the conclusion that East was trying it on.

 

I think we should at least consider how we would rule if East's actions are bona fide. Then perhaps think how we might modify that if we have good reason to suppose that his actions are not bona fide.

 

Let us suppose East had a club and played it to his own disadvantage, how would we rule then? That should be the starting point for the present discussion.

[gordontd]

I think it's one of those situations where you need to be there to get a sense of what's going on, which is why I started my two initial posts with the caveats:

 

"As long as I did explain the options properly," and

 

"It would depend on how it was done I suppose,"

[RMB1]

I think it's one of those situations where you need to be there to get a sense of what's going on, ...

 

Indeed.

 

At another extreme from "play on", is to start again: get East to pick up his heart, get South to make a legal lead penalty, and take it from there. (I think I can rule East's heart is not a penalty card under Law 50 "... unless the Director designates otherwise.")

[campboy]

Indeed.

 

At another extreme from "play on", is to start again: get East to pick up his heart, get South to make a legal lead penalty, and take it from there. (I think I can rule East's heart is not a penalty card under Law 50 "... unless the Director designates otherwise.")

This seems reasonable to me. IMO a lot of posts in this thread are too concerned about East gaining an advantage from South's illegal request and not concerned enough about South gaining an advantage from it. The director is primarily explaining to South what options she has; she has a greater responsibility to understand what they are than East does (normally he just needs to know what option she has chosen).

 

I don't think East's experience as a bridge player is directly relevant. I'm sure there are lots of experienced players who don't know law 50 intimately. But if East has directing experience then I think we should expect him to realise that South's request is not valid, and therefore treat him as at fault if he leads rather than pointing this out.

[gordontd]

(I think I can rule East's heart is not a penalty card under Law 50 "... unless the Director designates otherwise.")

Yes, Max has said to me on a couple of occasions that the Director's powers here are not limited by anything else.

[lamford]

Yes, Max has said to me on a couple of occasions that the Director's powers here are not limited by anything else.

The most logical solution is: South gets to substitute a valid choice, and we are told will require a spade lead now. I would indeed decide that the heart is not a penalty card (South could have known that her remark "I want a club" would work to her benefit, especially if she is SB's sister), but I would decide that the fact that East has a void club is UI to both sides. The net effect is that play continues as though there were no infraction subsequent to the first penalty card. I am sure a Poznan minute will rule on multiple infractions in due course, and throw in multiple penalty cards for good measure. No doubt it will be worded imperfectly.

[dburn]

I am having difficulty understanding why South's "I want a club" is an infraction of Law - which Law? The only possibility I can see is that it is "a gratuitous comment during the auction and play", hence a breach of Law 74B2. But in the actual case it is close to impossible that East-West have been damaged (in the sense of being innocent parties to deception) by the "comment" that South wants a club lead (but see below).

 

The level of experience of East appears to me completely irrelevant, except insofar as it might convince me to take a very dim view indeed of his performance. The Director should rule that East must lead whatever South legally requires him to lead, and that East's heart is...

 

...well, what is it? East led a heart, so that heart is not directly subject to Law 50 because it was led, not otherwise "prematurely exposed". Law 50 refers to Law 57 in the case of a card prematurely led, but Law 57 makes no reference whatsoever to the position in the actual case. Instead, it waffles on about what happens when a defender leads to the next trick before his partner has played to the current trick, and so on, and so forth. Doubtless the position in the actual case was never envisaged by the Lawmakers, which is to some extent forgiveable.

 

In the actual case, I would not as a Director choose not to designate East's heart as a penalty card - if I have any discretion at all (and the Laws themselves do not appear to cover the case, so I have all the discretion I want), that heart is as bent as a nine-bob note. It is a major penalty card; the fact that East has no clubs is UI to West; and East will be required after the end of play to present himself in front of the local firing squad.

 

Of course, if East had a club and had in all innocence led it in response to South's illegal request for a club lead, then I would rule that South's "comment" might indeed have damaged East-West. That club would still become a major penalty card (though South would presumably require East to lead it in any case), but I might award an adjusted score on the basis of what would have happened if East had been required to lead a spade and not a club. I would then present myself in front of the local firing squad for having allowed the situation to degenerate in the first place, but alphatango won't do it again.

[jhenrikj]

I think this situation is perfectly clear in the laws....

 

LAW 50D

 

2. When a defender has the lead while his partner has a major penalty

card, he may not lead until declarer has stated which of the options

below is selected (if the defender leads prematurely, he is subject to

rectification under Law 49). Declarer may choose:

 

(a) to require the defender to lead the suit of the penalty card, or to

prohibit him from leading that suit for as long as he retains the

lead (for two or more penalty cards, see Law 51); if declarer

exercises either of these options, the card is no longer a penalty

card and is picked up.

 

(b) not to require or prohibit a lead, in which case the defender may

lead any card; the penalty card remains a penalty card. If this option

is selected Law 50D continues to apply for as long as the penalty

card remains.

 

a) or b) is the only options available to the declarer and until he has made his choice from these options the defender may not lead. The declarer in OP did not choose from a) or b) since trying to require another suit but the suit of the penalty cards is not an option. So since the declarer has not made a choice from a) or b) the defender may not lead, and since he did he is subject to

rectification under Law 49.

[Cyberyeti]

With average club players, my suggestion would be that the player who had the options was listening to (but not understanding) the director, and the other side probably weren't listening intently but just did what they were told (or at least the version of what they were told that corresponded to having none). The quality of your average club players may vary.

 

There was certainly a stage when I knew what you did when you didn't have a card in the suit requested by declarer, but didn't know what he was allowed to request.

 

How to sort it out ? The law is something of an ass here, I think by law you have to penalise E with the major penalty card, then give him some restitution for the extraneous comment that led him astray.

 

Practically at most clubs I suspect director would take a "You made your bed, now lie in it" approach to South, and I probably would too UNLESS I thought E was experienced and up on the laws enough to know exactly what he was doing.

[barmar]

I am having difficulty understanding why South's "I want a club" is an infraction of Law - which Law? The only possibility I can see is that it is "a gratuitous comment during the auction and play", hence a breach of Law 74B2. But in the actual case it is close to impossible that East-West have been damaged (in the sense of being innocent parties to deception) by the "comment" that South wants a club lead (but see below).

Calling this a "gratuitous comment" is being way too literal-minded. South clearly intended this as an exercise of his right to require a certain lead, he just misunderstoodthe extent of that right. And East took it as such as well, also misunderstanding declarer's rights, although he apparently DID know his right to lead any other suit if he couldn't comply. This confusion by both sides reminds me of the other recent thread, where all the players were similarly confused by unfamiliar markings on the queens and jacks.

[blackshoe]

"Clearly intended" is, it seems to me, an overbid. I've certainly heard at least once in my life a player complain "I want a club lead" when he knew he couldn't ask for one, and was in fact complaining that he couldn't, and not actually asking for it.

[Vampyr]

The level of experience of East appears to me completely irrelevant, except insofar as it might convince me to take a very dim view indeed of his performance.

 

It is unfortunate that East's level of experience is irrelevant, since this is the whole point of the thread.

[barmar]

"Clearly intended" is, it seems to me, an overbid. I've certainly heard at least once in my life a player complain "I want a club lead" when he knew he couldn't ask for one, and was in fact complaining that he couldn't, and not actually asking for it.

I can't recall anyone but an utter newbie saying something like that (the kind of players who start talking about how they didn't know how to bid their hand before the opponent has selected their opening lead, rather than after they'd put it down as dummy). I've heard people complain "I wanted a club lead" after the fact.

 

Most likely, you'd be able to tell whether he intended it as a command or a comment from his inflection, but I think the opponent should also be able to tell the difference in this case. If it sounds like he's just thinking out loud, it was quite inappropriate for him to then treat it as a command, especially when it wasn't even a legal command.

[blackshoe]

Certainly context is important, and I wasn't at the table. Still, even when it's fairly clear (from body language or whatever) what he meant, people might get it wrong, particularly if they're all wrapped up in themselves, and not really paying attention to anything else.

[alphatango]

FWIW, the case was real up to the point where East led a heart (and he did have a void club). East did not lead at the relevant point; however, South did make the statement "I want a club", and it was clearly an attempt to direct East to do so.

 

In any case, that was the situation in which I was interested; I shall figure out what to do if it was a side comment after I figure out what to do if it was a command. :rolleyes:

[blackshoe]

Actually, you should figure out which it was; then what you would do in the other case you no longer need to worry about.

 

Players frequently try to "speed things up" when the director is making a ruling. You have to firmly put a stop to that.

[barmar]

If it was intended as a command, you simply inform him, "Sorry, that's not one of your options" and restate the options. I suppose you should also inform the defenders that his attempted command is AI to them, so they may take it into account in the rest of their defense. I suppose there's also the possibiity of a 73F adjustment, if declarer didn't actually want a club lead and the defenders misdefend as a result.