14th card

[suprgrover]

A director of my acquaintance asked me about the following situation, and I was not quite sure of the right answer. Perhaps the group has some ideas.

 

The TD is called to the table. East is declarer at 4♠ and all of East's cards are on the table, while North and South are still holding up one card. East is claiming that North has revoked. East has gone down one in the 4♠ contract.

 

The TD goes through the play of the hand from the beginning one trick at a time, and discovers that East has a 14th card, a trump, which came from the previous deal. East had miscounted trumps and did not pull North's last trump, so North was able to ruff in for the setting trick.

 

The TD gave A-/A+ to East-West/North-South, but I thought that an adjusted score was possible without resorting to artificial scores. The question is what is the right adjusted score here?

[axman]

A director of my acquaintance asked me about the following situation, and I was not quite sure of the right answer. Perhaps the group has some ideas.

 

The TD is called to the table. East is declarer at 4♠ and all of East's cards are on the table, while North and South are still holding up one card. East is claiming that North has revoked. East has gone down one in the 4♠ contract.

 

The TD goes through the play of the hand from the beginning one trick at a time, and discovers that East has a 14th card, a trump, which came from the previous deal. East had miscounted trumps and did not pull North's last trump, so North was able to ruff in for the setting trick.

 

The TD gave A-/A+ to East-West/North-South, but I thought that an adjusted score was possible without resorting to artificial scores. The question is what is the right adjusted score here?

 

It's all well and nice that you present a puzzle to be solved. But it does not compute that E has played 14 cards to twelve tricks.

[mgoetze]

The TD gave A-/A+ to East-West/North-South, but I thought that an adjusted score was possible without resorting to artificial scores. The question is what is the right adjusted score here?

 

No, the question is why you think an adjusted score would be a good idea.

[gordontd]

No, the question is why you think an adjusted score would be a good idea.

L12C1a tells us:

When after an irregularity the Director is empowered by these laws

to adjust a score and is able to award an assigned adjusted score, he

does so

So, if it's possible to award an assigned adjusted score rather than an artificial score, it's not only a good idea - it's required.

[mgoetze]

That sounds rather silly (not saying it ain't so, I've found that reading the laws literally often leads to silly results). Surely I'll always be able to come up with some assigned adjusted score or other - even if the players played an entirely different board than they were supposed to, I can fantasize about what might have happened had they played the board they were supposed to play.

[barmar]

The Laws doesn't say you can assign an adjusted score whenever you can come up with one, it says you do it when the laws "empower" you to do so. So you have to find a Law that addresses the situation, and see whether it says you can assign an adjusted score or an artificial score.

[gordontd]

The Laws doesn't say you can assign an adjusted score whenever you can come up with one, it says you do it when the laws "empower" you to do so. So you have to find a Law that addresses the situation, and see whether it says you can assign an adjusted score or an artificial score.

And if it says you are empowered to award an adjusted score in this situation, and you are able to (ie a result has been obtained and it is not the case that "the possibilities are numerous or not obvious"), then you must do so rather than awarding an artificial score.

 

That's why I think the original ruling is unlikely to have been lawful, though we won't really get to the bottom of it until the original poster clarifies what happened.

[barmar]

Actually, I misread 12C1a. "empowered" refers to awarding an adjusted score, not to awarding an "assigned adjusted score" -- the qualification for the latter is simply whether he's "able" to do so once he's empowered to adjust.

 

Law 13 empowers the TD to award an adjusted score in this situation, so the question to the TD is whether he's able to award an assigned score. Often club TDs just punt and award artificial scores because they don't want to try to figure out what the appropriate adjusted score should be -- they're conflating able with willing, or maybe with "competent to".

 

I also think that some of them just feel uneasy trying to work out how an entire hand would have been bid and played with somewhat different cards. The whole point of this game is that players with the same cards do different things, how can a TD be expected to predict what would have happened if the players held the correct cards? If a problem is caught shortly into a hand, you may be able to back up, but it feels wrong to do this when the hand has been completed. So they declare it impossible to reconstruct, and award A- to the bad guys, A+ to the good guys.

[iviehoff]

I presume the opponents took their 4th trick, probably at trick 12, and declarer has faced his hand to claim the remainder and accuses a revoke.

 

There is a law for this situation, 13F:

 

"Any surplus card not part of the deal is removed if found. The auction and play continue unaffected. If such a card is found to have been played to a quitted trick an adjusted score may be awarded."

 

So if one of declarer's unplayed cards is the surplus card, then one off stands. If he has played the surplus card, then there may be an adjustment to a more disadvantageous score for him. A+/A- is not legal.

[iviehoff]

I also think that some of them just feel uneasy trying to work out how an entire hand would have been bid and played with somewhat different cards. The whole point of this game is that players with the same cards do different things, how can a TD be expected to predict what would have happened if the players held the correct cards?

TDs are rarely asked to reconstruct a whole hand from the start. If they did have to do that, they usually would award an artificial score under 12C1d. Normally sufficient has happened that one can reasonably guess what might happen thereafter.

 

In the present case, everything is assumed to happen as it would have done, up until the point where the offender plays the surplus card to a trick (if he ever did). The TD only has to ask what would have happened if he played a card he legally held at that point. After all, the player with 14 cards is responsible for his own folly for playing with 14 cards.

[gordontd]

I presume the opponents took their 4th trick, probably at trick 12, and declarer has faced his hand to claim the remainder and accuses a revoke.

 

There is a law for this situation, 13F:

 

"Any surplus card not part of the deal is removed if found. The auction and play continue unaffected. If such a card is found to have been played to a quitted trick an adjusted score may be awarded."

 

So if one of declarer's unplayed cards is the surplus card, then one off stands. If he has played the surplus card, then there may be an adjustment to a more disadvantageous score for him. A+/A- is not legal.

Finally I think I understand - and I agree with you! The confusion arose from the OP's "all of East's cards are on the table, while North and South are still holding up one card".

 

Thanks.

Edited March 21, 2012 by gordontd

[suprgrover]

That's why I think the original ruling is unlikely to have been lawful, though we won't really get to the bottom of it until the original poster clarifies what happened.

 

Sorry for taking so long to reply--I did not realize just how extraneous the revoke claim was until you folks commented. (I had already edited the original email buyt obviopusly did not do enough of it!)

 

Thanks for the replies, everyone. It seems clear upon reflection that if the surplus card remains unplayed, we have our result, and if it was played, we may have to adjust (perhaps to the same -1 as at the table) but should not be giving out A-/A+ here.