[lamford]

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At the Friday lunchtime group at the Ely Culbertson centre in London, the above hand occurred. North did well to add a seventh, and West led a top club. Declarer drew trumps in two rounds, and then claimed, stating "I will draw the last trump and ruff a heart in dummy". The TD was called, and declarer repeated this statement. How would you rule?

[ArtK78]

Making 7. The statement itself is nonsensical after drawing 2 rounds of trump. Clearly declarer cannot ruff a heart in dummy if he plays a third round of trump. Declarer must have been living in the past.

He has already drawn the last trump. I will not force him to play a third round of trump as that would be in direct contractiction to his stated intention of ruffing the losing heart in dummy.

This is in addition to the fact that playing a third round of trump is an absurd play. I don't know what the stakes were or whether this was a tournament, but if I defeated a grand slam by requiring declarer to play a third round of trump under these circumstances, I would feel dirty.

By the way, given the hand as shown, declarer is cold even if he does not ruff a heart in dummy, as West is going to be squeezed on the run of the spades. So, even if the ruling is that declarer must play a third round of trump, as he can no longer ruff a heart in dummy he cannot be required to play three rounds of hearts.

[iviehoff]

Why have you become so obsessed with incoherent claim statements? I think we must be unsurprised if players making incoherent statements are unable to obtain uniform rulings.

I am afraid on this occasion I cannot say which among various alternatives was going on in declarer's head and thus exclude the possibility he was about carelessly to play a third round of trumps. Giving him it because the squeeze still works would not be appropriate either, as you have to play in a precise order to make it work.

[lamford]

iviehoff, on 2011-September-16, 10:31, said:

Why have you become so obsessed with incoherent claim statements? I think we must be unsurprised if players making incoherent statements are unable to obtain uniform rulings.

I am afraid on this occasion I cannot say which among various alternatives was going on in declarer's head and thus exclude the possibility he was about carelessly to play a third round of trumps. Giving him it because the squeeze still works would not be appropriate either, as you have to play in a precise order to make it work.

I promise this will be last new thread on the subject ... for at least a month. The fact that we would get completely different rulings from different TDs is important. The underlining theme however, which is quite important, is "do we force the claimant to do exactly what he said?" And they do seem to be averaging 100 posts even if half of them are by me. Can it be right that the first two replies on this one are making and one down?

No doubt gordontd will rule that the second reply is a solitary "idiosyncratic" reading of the Law and the contract makes.

[gnasher]

I'd rule that the board was fouled. Looking at the NS hands, it's obvious that West is supposed to be 0337, with declarer drawing a third trump so as to be able to demonstrate his compound-squeeze technique.

[ahydra]

I'd actually rule one down here - interpreting "draw the last trump" as "playing 1 more round of trumps". Declarer made no mention of the squeeze, so one down.

ahydra

[1eyedjack]

This is a clear one-down in my view. *WILL* draw the last trump is a statement of intent of a future action and demonstrates a lack of awareness that there is no last trump outstanding. Anyone with the mental capacity to miscount the outstanding trumps is easily capable of failing to visualise a lack of trumps in dummy having played another round.

[Bbradley62]

Director's follow-up question to Declarer, asked immediately after he states his "line": ok, so which card do you play next?

[Cyberyeti]

1eyedjack, on 2011-September-16, 14:20, said:

This is a clear one-down in my view. *WILL* draw the last trump is a statement of intent of a future action and demonstrates a lack of awareness that there is no last trump outstanding. Anyone with the mental capacity to miscount the outstanding trumps is easily capable of failing to visualise a lack of trumps in dummy having played another round.

So he follows his stated line, cashes ♥AK and it falls into his lap on the squeeze when he realises dummy has no more trumps to ruff the third heart with.

I don't think he should be forced to cash the third spade, but even if he does, the contract is still cold. Basically he's made the correct claim a trick too late.

[AlexJonson]

Cyberyeti, on 2011-September-16, 15:40, said:

So he follows his stated line, cashes ♥AK and it falls into his lap on the squeeze when he realises dummy has no more trumps to ruff the third heart with.

I don't think he should be forced to cash the third spade, but even if he does, the contract is still cold. Basically he's made the correct claim a trick too late.

Pretty sure I read this or something like in the menagerie, but of course they were never so foolish as to claim.

[campboy]

lamford, on 2011-September-16, 10:54, said:

The underlining theme however, which is quite important, is "do we force the claimant to do exactly what he said?"

I don't understand what this theme has to do with this hand, since it is not possible for declarer to do exactly what he said.

The claim statement makes it clear that declarer intends to play another round of trumps and ruff a heart in dummy. I think the critical question is whether we hold him to doing things (or trying to do them) in the order they were mentioned in his statement, given that the statement does not make the order explicit.

[gnasher]

Cyberyeti, on 2011-September-16, 15:40, said:

So he follows his stated line, cashes ♥AK and it falls into his lap on the squeeze when he realises dummy has no more trumps to ruff the third heart with.

Or he follows his stated line, cashes ♥AK, plays another heart, then realises dummy has no more trumps to ruff the third heart with, so goes down one.

Or he follows his stated line, but after the third trump he realises dummy has no more trumps to ruff the third heart with. Instead he plays for the double squeeze with hearts as the pivot, and goes one down when that turns out not to work.

[iviehoff]

Bbradley62, on 2011-September-16, 15:22, said:

Director's follow-up question to Declarer, asked immediately after he states his "line": ok, so which card do you play next?

I don't think it is appropriate for the director to prompt the claimant in this way. He had his chance to repeat his statement of claim, and took advantage of it, and now the Director should rule. I think the most a director can do is to investigate whether the claimant was given the reasonable opportunity to make his full statement of claim before the opposition complained, and in the case he was not, then I will let him say what he was going to say before he was interrupted.