[iviehoff]

 pran, on 2011-May-16, 09:42, said:

I just don't see the point (maybe because I am not looking hard enough?)

Law 14 applies whenever the total number of cards in use is found to be less than 52, whether the missing card (or cards) is found on the floor, in the Director's pocket, anywhere else or not at all.

It doesn't say that explicitly, you deduced it. It says it applies "When one or more hand(s) is/are found to contain fewer than 13 cards, with no hand having more than 13". In the case when play has not started, your deduction plainly applies. In the case when play has started, and cards are both in hand and played, what that means depends upon what one thinks a "hand" is and what kind of evidence that the hand contains "fewer than 13 cards" is accepted. A card which has been played, quitted, and then lost could be argued to be a card in use. This is just the kind of argument you are making in relation to Law 67.

 pran, on 2011-May-16, 09:42, said:

Law 67 applies (at duplicate) for a player whenever his total number of cards is 13, but the number of cards he has in his hand is inconsistent with the number of tricks yet to be played.

Nowhere does it say that it is inapplicable when the total number of cards for the player is not 13. It seems to me that it is self-evident that Law 67 is actually about "When a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick", which has the advantage of actually occurring in the law. It says that explicitly in 67A, but unfortunately not 67B. In 67B, it offers us the options of 67B1 "When the offender has failed to play a card to the defective trick" and 67B2. "When the offender has played more than one card to the defective trick", and nothing else, so it doesn't actually tell us what to do when neither of these is the reason for what we have discovered. So Law 67 works just fine when you try to apply it to "When a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick", and treat the parenthetic comment "(from the fact that one player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards)" as an example of how that might be discovered, rather than the criterion for applicability of the law.

[dburn]

 pran, on 2011-May-16, 07:30, said:

Legal "problems" can often be created by confusing laws that have nothing in common. Here Laws 14 and 67. The example is no problem.

Of course it is a problem. Let us assume that, the Atlantic Ocean having been successfully dredged and the missing three of hearts recovered, we apply pran's beloved Law 14:

Laws of Duplicate Bridge said:

1. if the card is found among the played cards, Law 67 applies.
2. if the card is found elsewhere, it is restored to the deficient hand. Rectification and/or penalties may apply (see 4 following).

Well, the card was not found among the played cards - it was found at the bottom of the ocean. So, despite its somewhat soggy state and a disagreeable odour of rotten fish that emanates from it, we restore it to the player's hand and we apply "rectification and penalties" accordingly.

Of course, this is absurd and no Director in his right mind would actually do it. We may try to correct the absurdity by deciding that the card actually belongs among the played cards (because it was played), but we are then compelled by Law 14 to apply Law 67, which manifestly does not apply because there was manifestly no defective trick. As I have remarked, Law 14 is in itself seriously defective - but not as defective as the kind of reasoning that attempts to apply it in a position where it does not and cannot hold.

[bluejak]

 mjj29, on 2011-May-13, 02:35, said:

So a trick once not defective can become defective?

How many cards were played to a defective trick which originally had 4 cards played to it now that it is defective?

(I assume you're glossing over the defective tricks which contain exactly 4 cards)

Of course. If a trick contains four cards, one from each player, it is not defective. If you look at it later, and that is no longer the case it is now defective.

Your second question as to how many cards were played to it depends, strangely enough, on how many cards were played to it. If, as is normally the case, four cards were played to it, the answer is four. If three were played to it then the answer is three. I do not see the point of your question.

I am only glossing over other defective tricks because of simplicity. If a trick contains two cards from the same player, or a card from another pack, then it is defective even if it contains four cards.

 blackshoe, on 2011-May-13, 08:48, said:

What does "contains" mean in this context? Given that the four cards played to a not defective trick are not co-located.

Is a trick still in progress (not all four players having played to it yet) defective?

Tricks are kept in order. So if no tricks are defective the fifth card in every player's pile constitutes the fifth trick. A search through these cards will often show that a trick is defective, especially since tricks won by a side should always be facing the same way.

A trick is not defective because it is unfinished.

 dburn, on 2011-May-16, 04:01, said:

At duplicate, it is meaningless to say that a trick "contains" any number of cards at all. There is no physical object, or aggregation of objects, that can be called a "container" that holds, or "contains", cards.

Instead, a trick is an abstraction that comes into (virtual) existence when four players in rotation play exactly one card. The winner of the trick is determined according to the relevant Laws, and the next trick is instantiated (or play ceases for whatever reason). Provided that a trick is properly initiated and properly completed, what happens later to the physical cards that comprised the trick is utterly irrelevant: the trick was played, it was not defective, and it cannot thereafter be rendered defective by removing some card from or adding some card to a non-existent "container".

By contrast, bluejak's trick of denying that he said what he said, because the words he used mean something other than what they mean, is grievously defective.

As explained before, there is a physical place for a trick: the fifth trick should be the four fifth cards of each player.

Sounds good, but I do not accept it: if it is defective it is defective.

Your method of arguing a losing position by using derision does not alter the fact that you and not I decided that a card could "become unplayed", a farcical idea.

[mjj29]

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 09:29, said:

Of course. If a trick contains four cards, one from each player, it is not defective. If you look at it later, and that is no longer the case it is now defective.

Your second question as to how many cards were played to it depends, strangely enough, on how many cards were played to it. If, as is normally the case, four cards were played to it, the answer is four. If three were played to it then the answer is three. I do not see the point of your question.

I at least understand your position (although for once I disagree, and this is why). To be clear, in this next example all the players are certain of which cards were played to which trick. There is no question that any trick did not have four cards played to it originally. In the case where a card is dropped, knocked off the table or otherwise disarranged from it's quitted position (and yet everyone knows to where it should be restored), do you think it is correct or equitable to allow the original owner of the card to substitute any other card and possibly replay this card to another trick, with associated revoke penalties? Why can we not just take the card and restore it to the correct quitted position?

Matt

[pran]

 mjj29, on 2011-May-17, 10:31, said:

I at least understand your position (although for once I disagree, and this is why). To be clear, in this next example all the players are certain of which cards were played to which trick. There is no question that any trick did not have four cards played to it originally. In the case where a card is dropped, knocked off the table or otherwise disarranged from it's quitted position (and yet everyone knows to where it should be restored), do you think it is correct or equitable to allow the original owner of the card to substitute any other card and possibly replay this card to another trick, with associated revoke penalties? Why can we not just take the card and restore it to the correct quitted position?

Matt

That is exactly what is done if a card somehow has just disappeared (after play begins) from among the 13 cards at a player's disposal and is then found again. It is then restored to where it belongs, among the quitted cards or in the player's hand as the case may be. This is as specified in Law 14B2. There is no question of Law 67 in this case (but there can be a question of revoke if the card is restored to the player's hand).

However, if the card (again somehow) has disappeared from among the played cards and is found in the player's hand (or vice versa) then we must rule Law 67.

[dburn]

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 09:29, said:

Of course. If a trick contains four cards, one from each player, it is not defective. If you look at it later, and that is no longer the case it is now defective.

No, it is not. If at the time a trick was played it "contained" four cards, one from each player, it has not become defective merely because one of those cards has been transported elsewhere.

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 09:29, said:

Tricks are kept in order. So if no tricks are defective the fifth card in every player's pile constitutes the fifth trick.

This is simply and obviously false. If no tricks are defective, but a played card by (say) North to (say) the fourth trick has fallen to the floor, then the fifth card in North's pile will be a card that he has played to the sixth trick. This does not imply that the fourth trick, or the fifth or the sixth, was defective - it was not, nor will it ever be.

Quote

As explained before, there is a physical place for a trick: the fifth trick should be the four fifth cards of each player.

So it should. But when it is not, the Director should not consider that the only possible explanation for this is a defective trick. As I have wearied of explaining to pran, this is the fallacy of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc".

Of course, pran is quite right when he says that if a player has mixed his played cards so that the order of play cannot be ascertained, any decision as to the facts of the play will go against that player. If North claims that he played a card to the fifth trick, but that card later fell to the floor, and if nobody else at the table confirms that this in fact occurred, then a Director might very well rule against North-South on the preponderance of evidence. But if everyone is in agreement that North did in fact play to the fifth trick the card that was later found on the floor, then there is no question of applying Law 67, or Law 14, or any other Law to the detriment of North-South.

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 09:29, said:

Your method of arguing a losing position by using derision does not alter the fact that you and not I decided that a card could "become unplayed", a farcical idea.

I have never averred that a card can become unplayed; indeed, such derision as I have employed has been entirely against the very idea that a card can become unplayed, and I am pleased that at last there is some agreement that such a notion is farcical.

What I have consistently averred is that a trick to which each of four players have contributed exactly one card is not defective and can never be regarded as, or become, defective. What you seem to assert (indeed, the first quote above repeats this assertion) is that even if all four players have contributed exactly one card to a trick, that trick can later become defective. It cannot, and the only way in which it could would be if the missing card were regarded as not having been played to the trick. Since it was played to the trick, it would have to be regarded as "not played" to the trick, or "unplayed" to the trick, for your assertion to make sense.

[bluejak]

 mjj29, on 2011-May-17, 10:31, said:

I at least understand your position (although for once I disagree, and this is why). To be clear, in this next example all the players are certain of which cards were played to which trick. There is no question that any trick did not have four cards played to it originally. In the case where a card is dropped, knocked off the table or otherwise disarranged from it's quitted position (and yet everyone knows to where it should be restored), do you think it is correct or equitable to allow the original owner of the card to substitute any other card and possibly replay this card to another trick, with associated revoke penalties? Why can we not just take the card and restore it to the correct quitted position?

That is what the Law says, I think you will find.

 dburn, on 2011-May-17, 18:26, said:

No, it is not. If at the time a trick was played it "contained" four cards, one from each player, it has not become defective merely because one of those cards has been transported elsewhere.

Says who? Ok, says you. But this assertion seems against the English language and common sense, so perhaps we need rather more of an authority than you to say so.

 dburn, on 2011-May-17, 18:26, said:

This is simply and obviously false. If no tricks are defective, but a played card by (say) North to (say) the fourth trick has fallen to the floor, then the fifth card in North's pile will be a card that he has played to the sixth trick. This does not imply that the fourth trick, or the fifth or the sixth, was defective - it was not, nor will it ever be.

"Simply and obviously"? Well, I would say the reverse: it is simply and obviously true. Your idea seems to be that a trick containing some number of cards other than four is not defective is strange, to put it mildly.

 dburn, on 2011-May-17, 18:26, said:

I have never averred that a card can become unplayed; indeed, such derision as I have employed has been entirely against the very idea that a card can become unplayed, and I am pleased that at last there is some agreement that such a notion is farcical.

What I have consistently averred is that a trick to which each of four players have contributed exactly one card is not defective and can never be regarded as, or become, defective. What you seem to assert (indeed, the first quote above repeats this assertion) is that even if all four players have contributed exactly one card to a trick, that trick can later become defective. It cannot, and the only way in which it could would be if the missing card were regarded as not having been played to the trick. Since it was played to the trick, it would have to be regarded as "not played" to the trick, or "unplayed" to the trick, for your assertion to make sense.

Completely wrong. Your logic is clearly false. If you have a jar that you say contains an even number of carrots, and you remove a carrot, to say it still contains an even number of carrots because it once did is neither correct nor logical. Also it does not mean that a carrot has become not a carrot: it means it is no longer there.

A defective trick is one that does not contain four cards, one from each player. History has nothing to do with it. Your suggestion that it can only happen if a card is unplayed is "simply and obviously" wrong. It may happen in other ways, of course, but a card cannot become unplayed.

[dburn]

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 18:42, said:

"Simply and obviously"? Well, I would say the reverse: it is simply and obviously true. Your idea seems to be that a trick containing some number of cards other than four is not defective is strange, to put it mildly.

But that is not "my idea" at all, nor can I place any construction on anything I have written that would compel the conclusion that it was "my idea".

In the first place, I have argued that because of the mechanics of duplicate bridge, it is meaningless or almost meaningless to speak of a trick's "containing" any cards whatsoever. It is pran, not I, who argues that because at rubber bridge one player picks up the four cards played to a trick and puts them in front of him, thus creating a physical aggregation that can be referred to as "a trick", this physical aggregation should be assumed to exist at duplicate bridge. This assertion is so ridiculous as to be put into a category referred to by scientists as "not even wrong", but he believes it, and I assume from what you have written that you believe it also.

In the second place, I have consistently asserted that when four cards, one from each of four hands, are played to a trick (whether by being physically faced on the table or by being called by declarer from dummy), that trick is complete and inviolate. What happens thereafter to the physical objects contributed to the trick is a matter of supreme irrelevance, always provided that the players at the table confirm that the trick actually was played in the manner described. This means that:

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 18:42, said:

Completely wrong. Your logic is clearly false. If you have a jar that you say contains an even number of carrots, and you remove a carrot, to say it still contains an even number of carrots because it once did is neither correct nor logical. Also it does not mean that a carrot has become not a carrot: it means it is no longer there.

A defective trick is one that does not contain four cards, one from each player. History has nothing to do with it. Your suggestion that it can only happen if a card is unplayed is "simply and obviously" wrong. It may happen in other ways, of course, but a card cannot become unplayed.

is more or less unmitigated bilge, though it contains (as I have already remarked) an element of truth.

The trouble is that you (and pran) are wedded to the idea of a physical "trick" that "contains" a "number of (physical) cards". There is no such thing at duplicate bridge, as I have been at pains to explain. But we will pursue your analogy further, because it is not entirely hopeless.

Once four carrots have been placed in a jar, we label that jar "complete". Once a jar is labelled "complete", we forget about it - we do not change the label on the jar, even if a malevolent wombat steals therefrom a carrot for some purpose that may range from global destruction to sexual gratification. For our purposes, that jar is "complete" and, because it has been consigned by us to the dustbin of history, nothing that happens thereafter can render it "incomplete".

In so doing, we do not say that the jar still, or "now", contains an even number of carrots. We do not care how many carrots the jar is later found to contain. Nor should we; suppose we were paid by the hour to produce "complete" jars, and we claimed to have produced 100 but our employers paid us for 99. No tribunal in the land would uphold our employers' decision to pay us for only 99 jars if it turned out that the 100th jar had a carrot stolen from it by a wombat.

In the third place:

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 18:42, said:

A defective trick is one that does not contain four cards, one from each player.

is true insofar as the word "contain" is meaningful, which by and large it is not. Rather, a defective trick is one to which some player has contributed some number of cards not equal to one. That is:

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 18:42, said:

History has nothing to do with it.

is bunk. History has everything to do with it: if the historical record shows that each player contributed exactly one card to a trick, that trick was not defective and cannot later be shown in any manner whatsoever to have been, or now to be, defective

 bluejak, on 2011-May-17, 18:42, said:

Your suggestion that it can only happen if a card is unplayed is "simply and obviously" wrong. It may happen in other ways, of course, but a card cannot become unplayed.

Of course a card cannot become unplayed. But would you (or pran) mind explaining to me how a trick to which four players each contributed one card can later be regarded as defective (that is, by now containing three cards), other than by assuming that in fact one player did not contribute a card to the trick?

[axman]

 dburn, on 2011-May-17, 20:22, said:

But that is not "my idea" at all, nor can I place any construction on anything I have written that would compel the conclusion that it was "my idea".

In the first place, I have argued that because of the mechanics of duplicate bridge, it is meaningless or almost meaningless to speak of a trick's "containing" any cards whatsoever. It is pran, not I, who argues that because at rubber bridge one player picks up the four cards played to a trick and puts them in front of him, thus creating a physical aggregation that can be referred to as "a trick", this physical aggregation should be assumed to exist at duplicate bridge. This assertion is so ridiculous as to be put into a category referred to by scientists as "not even wrong", but he believes it, and I assume from what you have written that you believe it also.

In the second place, I have consistently asserted that when four cards, one from each of four hands, are played to a trick (whether by being physically faced on the table or by being called by declarer from dummy), that trick is complete and inviolate. What happens thereafter to the physical objects contributed to the trick is a matter of supreme irrelevance, always provided that the players at the table confirm that the trick actually was played in the manner described. This means that:


is more or less unmitigated bilge, though it contains (as I have already remarked) an element of truth.

The trouble is that you (and pran) are wedded to the idea of a physical "trick" that "contains" a "number of (physical) cards". There is no such thing at duplicate bridge, as I have been at pains to explain. But we will pursue your analogy further, because it is not entirely hopeless.

Once four carrots have been placed in a jar, we label that jar "complete". Once a jar is labelled "complete", we forget about it - we do not change the label on the jar, even if a malevolent wombat steals therefrom a carrot for some purpose that may range from global destruction to sexual gratification. For our purposes, that jar is "complete" and, because it has been consigned by us to the dustbin of history, nothing that happens thereafter can render it "incomplete".

In so doing, we do not say that the jar still, or "now", contains an even number of carrots. We do not care how many carrots the jar is later found to contain. Nor should we; suppose we were paid by the hour to produce "complete" jars, and we claimed to have produced 100 but our employers paid us for 99. No tribunal in the land would uphold our employers' decision to pay us for only 99 jars if it turned out that the 100th jar had a carrot stolen from it by a wombat.

In the third place:


is true insofar as the word "contain" is meaningful, which by and large it is not. Rather, a defective trick is one to which some player has contributed some number of cards not equal to one. That is:


is bunk. History has everything to do with it: if the historical record shows that each player contributed exactly one card to a trick, that trick was not defective and cannot later be shown in any manner whatsoever to have been, or now to be, defective


Of course a card cannot become unplayed. But would you (or pran) mind explaining to me how a trick to which four players each contributed one card can later be regarded as defective (that is, by now containing three cards), other than by assuming that in fact one player did not contribute a card to the trick?

What this thread has demonstrated is that everyone, which includes especially burn, does not know what a defective trick is. What I have appreciated thus far is an expansion of my British vocabulary. Yet, that is neither here nor there. Until you commit to the notion that law does not provide a definition for defective trick [which it does not] you will not accomplish anything that resembles progress. Now, some of you point to L67A and say that that is the definition of defective trick [which it is not]. What it is is the ‘definition’ of ERROR. Some have pointed to the parentheses in L67B and say that that is the definition of defective trick [which it is not]. What it is is the notice that a defective trick exists [but not what a defective trick is].

So, all of you who know what a defective trick is, answer this: contestant B plays card X to T4; then at T9 he plays card X [to which the other three also play exactly one card]. Is T9 defective? And why?

[blackshoe]

Well, I'm not going to worry about defective tricks or wombats or whatever. If each player places, from amongst the unplayed cards in his hand, a card in the played position when a trick is in progress, then that trick is complete as far as I'm concerned, and if one of the cards is later found on the floor, or in the kitchen, or in somebody's pocket, or in the player's hand, I'm going to tell the players concerned that the card goes amongst the quitted tricks belonging to the player concerned, in the appropriate place. And then I'm going to tell them to get on with the game. Granted, if the card is later found to have been "played" to a different trick, I'll have a bigger problem, but that's a different problem, and I'll deal with it when it happens.

[dburn]

 blackshoe, on 2011-May-17, 22:04, said:

Well, I'm not going to worry about defective tricks or wombats or whatever. If each player places, from amongst the unplayed cards in his hand, a card in the played position when a trick is in progress, then that trick is complete as far as I'm concerned, and if one of the cards is later found on the floor, or in the kitchen, or in somebody's pocket, or in the player's hand, I'm going to tell the players concerned that the card goes amongst the quitted tricks belonging to the player concerned, in the appropriate place. And then I'm going to tell them to get on with the game. Granted, if the card is later found to have been "played" to a different trick, I'll have a bigger problem, but that's a different problem, and I'll deal with it when it happens.

It may or may not console you to know that this, almost word for word, was exactly the reaction of the Chief Tournament Director of the World Bridge Federation when I mentioned the "problem" to him a couple of weeks ago.

In fairness, I should say that I did not mention the specifics of the original post, in which a card had not been placed among the played cards yet had been played by being called from dummy by declarer. No doubt bluejak, the original poster, had some idea in mind involving this distinction, and perhaps he will at some point share with us what that idea was despite the "distinction" being of no import whatsoever. After all, it is possible that both the WBF CTD and I may be wrong, though this is not necessarily the way to bet.

As to axman's musings: I (and gordontd) know what a defective trick is. It is a trick to which at least one player has failed to contribute exactly one card. We also know what to do when a player contributes to a trick a card that he has played to an earlier trick: we regard the later trick as defective, because the card in question was ineligible for play to the later trick having already been contributed to the earlier trick. As blackshoe correctly remarks, the logistics of such a ruling may constitute a "bigger problem", but that's why they pay him the big bucks.

I presume from an earlier post by gordontd that he does not believe (as I don't believe, but pran does believe) that a player with n played cards in front of him and 13-n unplayed cards in his hand cannot at some point have created a defective trick. Gordontd is by nature a far more polite and restrained person than I, which is the only thing that has so far prevented him from correctly describing this belief as complete and utter codswallop. But the truth is this: any trick properly constituted according to Laws 44 through 48 is not and can never be defective according to Law 67.

[gnasher]

 dburn, on 2011-May-17, 23:43, said:

I (and gordontd) know what a defective trick is. It is a trick to which at least one player has failed to contribute exactly one card.

Given this definition, can you describe how a defective trick of only three cards might have come into existence?

[gordontd]

 gnasher, on 2011-May-18, 01:38, said:

Given this definition, can you describe how a defective trick of only three cards might have come into existence?

Two ways spring to mind: three players play to a trick (usually with some variation of tempo between them) and turn over their cards not noticing that the fourth has not played.

The other is that at an earlier trick one player put a played card back in his hand. If he now attempts to play such a card again and no-one notices, it creates a defective trick.

[gordontd]

 dburn, on 2011-May-17, 23:43, said:

I presume from an earlier post by gordontd that he does not believe (as I don't believe, but pran does believe) that a player with n played cards in front of him and 13-n unplayed cards in his hand cannot at some point have created a defective trick.

I confirm that this is the case.

[gnasher]

 gordontd, on 2011-May-18, 02:19, said:

Two ways spring to mind: three players play to a trick (usually with some variation of tempo between them) and turn over their cards not noticing that the fourth has not played.

In this scenario, the first trick hasn't been completed yet, has it? If someone attempts to lead to the next trick, and the fourth player now plays a card, that card belongs to the original incomplete trick rather than to the new trick.

[Blue Uriah]

So, after 8 pages of this I'm still confused. Is the Myles Coup allowed or not?

[pran]

 Blue Uriah, on 2011-May-18, 03:27, said:

So, after 8 pages of this I'm still confused. Is the Myles Coup allowed or not?

For Bluejak (I assume) and me this is no problem, we apply Law 67B in due time.

But I do wonder about our "opponents"?

A significant part of those 8 pages is the result of confusing the situation where a player at any instance is actually missing a card (in which case Law 14 applies) and the situation where a player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards (in which case Law 67 applies). It would help a lot if contributors were kind enough to avoid mixing up these situations.

[gordontd]

 gnasher, on 2011-May-18, 02:28, said:

In this scenario, the first trick hasn't been completed yet, has it? If someone attempts to lead to the next trick, and the fourth player now plays a card, that card belongs to the original incomplete trick rather than to the new trick.

A read of L44B doesn't lead me to that conclusion.

[blackshoe]

It is unfortunate that the laws do not specify that the lead to a subsequent trick cannot be made until the current trick is quitted. However, Law 65A does say "When four cards have been played to a trick, each player turns his own card face down near him on the table" (The emphasis is mine), so turning one's card before there are four cards played to a trick is an irregularity. So per Law 65A, trick n is still in progress if a player has not played to it, even if some other player has led to trick n+1. I suppose if it becomes a sufficient problem that the TD is called, he's going to have to ask to which trick the "slow" player is playing, but I would probably believe his answer, particularly if he says "trick n".

[axman]

 dburn, on 2011-May-17, 23:43, said:

It may or may not console you to know that this, almost word for word, was exactly the reaction of the Chief Tournament Director of the World Bridge Federation when I mentioned the "problem" to him a couple of weeks ago.

In fairness, I should say that I did not mention the specifics of the original post, in which a card had not been placed among the played cards yet had been played by being called from dummy by declarer. No doubt bluejak, the original poster, had some idea in mind involving this distinction, and perhaps he will at some point share with us what that idea was despite the "distinction" being of no import whatsoever. After all, it is possible that both the WBF CTD and I may be wrong, though this is not necessarily the way to bet.

I presume from an earlier post by gordontd that he does not believe (as I don't believe, but pran does believe) that a player with n played cards in front of him and 13-n unplayed cards in his hand cannot at some point have created a defective trick. Gordontd is by nature a far more polite and restrained person than I, which is the only thing that has so far prevented him from correctly describing this belief as complete and utter codswallop. But the truth is this: any trick properly constituted according to Laws 44 through 48 is not and can never be defective according to Law 67.

As to axman's musings: I (and gordontd) know what a defective trick is. It is a trick to which at least one player has failed to contribute exactly one card. We also know what to do when a player contributes to a trick a card that he has played to an earlier trick: we regard the later trick as defective, because the card in question was ineligible for play to the later trick having already been contributed to the earlier trick. As blackshoe correctly remarks, the logistics of such a ruling may constitute a "bigger problem", but that's why they pay him the big bucks.

David, how is it that you fail to quote a passage of law that so demonstrates? Is it because there is no such passage to quote?

Am I to therefore believe that if you were to have done anything about it, that you would have card X transported from its place among defective trick ‘T9’ to the place of ‘T4'? And upon what basis?