The defender took a couple of seconds...

[blackshoe]

"Normal" tempo in the middle of a hand, absent skip bids, is about 3 to 5 seconds for most people, and 1-2 for some. For one of my partners, it's about 5 to 10 seconds. "Normal" tempo at trick one is 10 to 20 seconds by declarer playing from dummy and third hand. That is, if declarer thinks for 10 seconds at trick one, third hand thinking for another 10 is still in tempo. Numbers are rough estimates, especially wrt trick one. The point is that you are allowed time to think about the whole hand, even with a singleton.

 

Fast play of a singleton at trick one screams "I have a singleton!" Directors (and players) often overlook that.

[Kaitlyn S]

Fast play of a singleton at trick one screams "I have a singleton!" Directors (and players) often overlook that.

That was my exactly point to the director and head director. Now, a director can have certain ideas, a lapse in judgment, or be swayed by the fact that my opponents were friends, but the head director IMO should never ever give a completely wrong impression of a rule - at the very least, he should say "I think you're wrong but let me check with ACBL headquarters and get back to you." This was a regional tournament for goodness sake, the head director should be one of the best in the country!

 

The net result of the head director's firmness was to give me an idea that despite playing in Flight A, I really didn't understand the rules of the game well enough to continue to play it, or that the rules just made absolutely no sense and why would I play a game where the rules make no sense?

 

Even if the head director had said "IN MY tournament you must not think before playing a singleton as defender", it would leave open the possibility that common sense prevailed except when he was in charge, which is a pretty awful situation, but still better than common sense never prevailing.