[inquiry]

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A player of your acquaintance holds the above lovely collection as east. The opponents bid to 5♦X over WEST has shown a big hand and bid to 4♥'s on his own. NS bid DIamondsb, West doubled and bid hearts only. East never bid anything other than pass.

You observe the opening lead of the HEART ACE, Delarer thinks about a minute before playing from dummy. East plays the six. The heart King, and EAST goes into a tank. After quite a while he plays the JACK. Partner continue the queen, which is ruffed in south. followed the Ace and small diamond, partern had teh Queen doubleton. The JACK of clubs comes off the dummy, and yet again, East goes into a tank. This time less long, but clearly out or tempo. Declearer runs the jack to the stiff king, and West takes the spade ace for down (playing club ace and a club allows the dummies spades to be discarded and make).

Would you take East aside and talk to him about the tempo of his plays, or is it none of your business. If you were a director and noted this, what would you do, if anything? What if South complained saying, he was going to play WEST for club king but the hesitation was so obvious it coudl be nothing else?

Thanks for your opinions

[jtfanclub]

FtF or online?

[pork rind]

YES YES YES

[inquiry]

Jlall, on Mar 2 2007, 05:37 PM, said:

The slow heart jack is clearly bad. East should be given a lecture for that one. If west played anything other than a heart that should be considered taking advantage of the UI.

The out of tempo play in clubs is bad, but it really matters how much out of tempo we're talking about. If we're talking 4 seconds out of tempo nothing can be done, east can just say he wasn't paying attention or whatever and he's protected. That's why the laws say you take these kind of inferences at your own risk. But if we're talking like 15 seconds east should get a procedural penalty at least, and maybe a scoring adjustment if declarer can demonstrate that dropping the king was a plausible play.

HEart jack was painfully slow, 45 seconds is my guess, but then i couldn't believe he would have a problem after the six, so maybe it was 30 seconds. The club was probably on the order of 15 to 20 seconds, when other plays had been fast as lightening.

[kenberg]

What should you do? Is it conceivable he does not already know that this is wrong? Is he an utter novice? The main thing I would do is never, under any circumstances, play with him. My partners can make many errors and remain my partners. They cannot act like jerks.

If I were the director? I have happily avoided that fate. Probably I would tell him to find another place to play.

If I were declarer? I would probably suffer in silence but I might ask him if he was considering whether to revoke.


Added later: Do I have this right? W was dealt one club and two diamonds. From the early play he was dealt five hearts. Ergo five spades. He bid to 4H on his own? Did he mention spades? Further, if E plays normally, playing his hearts in whatever fashion normally denies a doubleton, presumably W would have the wit to take the setting trick in spades at trick 3? I'm guessing that W had bid Michaels, had every intention of cashing the ace of spades trusting that his partner was not holding an unmentioned six spades in his hand, then after the coffee housing decided to continue the hearts as a matter of principle. He should have kept up the good work by underleading his ace of spades after winning the stiff king of clubs. This whole episode stinks.