Substitutes mid-hand

[ocelynx]

Partner was playing 3NT and with seven tricks remaining had 10 tricks with "normal" play. Apparently his connection was lost and almost immediately a substitute was put in place. The sub had no clue as to the auction or play to that point and managed to turn 10 tricks into 8 (even discarded a winner to hold a loser). Not only that, partner retuned almost immediately but wasn't reseated until the end of the hand.

 

Seems if a declarer has to be replaced in the middle of a hand the first option for the director should be to let dummy complete the play.

[steve2005]

Can happen on defense too. You come in and you have no idea what has been played on the previous tricks.

At least the bidding you can still look at as a sub (as declarer or defender)

[dsLawsd]

I recommend the Director give an adjusted score rather than seat a new declarer midway through any hand. If necessary both E-W and N-S could be given different scores.

The reasons you provide are quite cogent to me anyhow.

[diana_eva]

We just released an upgrade today that allows the directors to complete a hand with robot. The robot takes over and finishes playing the hand (single dummy, it knows what has passed but doesn't see the rest of the cards). At the end of the deal the seat is reserved for the original player.

 

This should alleviate the issues with players hopping in mid-way without knowing what has passed.