[bluejak]

Declarer led a club to the dummy, won in dummy with an honour. He then said "ten". Dummy duly played the ♦T, dummy's only ten.

RHO did not look at the card played from dummy, but assumed it was the ♣T, so "followed" with a club, though he had diamonds.

Well?

[ahydra]

Well, RHO's revoked. L46B3

ahydra

[barmar]

Haven't we had a Lamford hypo like this, where one of the defenders, who looked and sounded like SB, argued that declarer could well have known that using an incorrect designation might have induced a revoke?

[chrism]

Indeed; I don't think the defenders get off the hook for the revoke; they are obliged to pay sufficient attention. However, declarer has violated the "should" in 46A:
When calling a card to be played from dummy declarer should clearly state both the suit and the rank of the desired card. Although 46B3(b) makes it clear that dummy must play the ♦10, this is still a deviation from correct procedure (others may differ, and the topic has been bludgeoned to death in other threads).

If we judge that this was a deliberate attempt to confuse, it is a violation of 73D2
A player may not attempt to mislead an opponent by means of remark or gesture, by the haste or hesitancy of a call or play (as in hesitating before playing a singleton), the manner in which a call or play is made or by any purposeful deviation from correct procedure.
By virtue of the presumed deliberate nature of the incomplete designation, we can deduce that declarer could have known that it could work to his benefit. If we further deem RHO to be "innocent" the Director awards an adjusted score according to 73F
When a violation of the Proprieties described in this law results in damage to an innocent opponent, if the Director determines that an innocent player has drawn a false inference from a remark, manner, tempo, or the like, of an opponent who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action, and who could have known, at the time of the action, that the action could work to his benefit, the Director shall award an adjusted score (see Law 12C).

In my view this is a big stretch. First, I am reluctant to consider RHO as innocent; a player who was paying proper attention would not have revoked in this case (barring exceptional circumstances such as impaired vision, where the player was reliant on cards being fully designated when played). Second, I am hard pressed to accept the hypothesis that this was "purposeful" and "an attempt to mislead".

So in the end, I am treating this as a simple revoke.

[barmar]

So while we shouldn't adjust the score, we could potentially issue a PP to declarer for violating 46A. This is a "should", so we don't usually penalize it (no harm, no foul), but we could choose to do so in this case because of the damage that ensued to the NOS (there was harm, so foul).

[aguahombre]

At the point where David's OP ends, we don't know even if there is harm, Barry.

We don't know if the revoke will become established and whether the revoke penalties will come into play. (These are not adjusted scores.)

We don't know whether the card exposed (if the revoke is corrected) and the ensuing ruling about that exposed card will be harmful or not.

There is foul, an irregularity or two, but we need to go further into what happened afterward to concern ourselves with an outcome.

[gordontd]

aguahombre, on 2014-April-16, 15:48, said:

At the point where David's OP ends, we don't know even if there is harm, Barry.

We don't know if the revoke will become established and whether the revoke penalties will come into play. (These are not adjusted scores.)

We don't know whether the card exposed (if the revoke is corrected) and the ensuing ruling about that exposed card will be harmful or not.

There is foul, an irregularity or two, but we need to go further into what happened afterward to concern ourselves with an outcome.

Actually we may not need to: if the revoke is not established, it is within our power to deem that the exposed card is not a penalty card. Should we do that?

[aguahombre]

gordontd, on 2014-April-16, 16:00, said:

Actually we may not need to: if the revoke is not established, it is within our power to deem that the exposed card is not a penalty card. Should we do that?

Maybe, but the first couple of posters don't seem to think so. I accept that a defender next to play has an obligation to look at the previous card played by dummy.

[gordontd]

aguahombre, on 2014-April-16, 16:15, said:

Maybe, but the first couple of posters don't seem to think so.

I thought they hadn't considered the possibility, which is why I brought it up.

[mfa1010]

gordontd, on 2014-April-16, 16:00, said:

Actually we may not need to: if the revoke is not established, it is within our power to deem that the exposed card is not a penalty card.

Is it?

The way I read Law 50, this power is only about prematurely exposed cards, not cards that were played.
Law 67 says that the defender's withdrawn revoke card becomes a major penalty card.

--

I would treat this as a simple revoke for the reasons chrism said.

[gordontd]

mfa1010, on 2014-April-17, 07:55, said:

Is it?

The way I read Law 50, this power is only about prematurely exposed cards, not cards that were played.

I'm sure there will be people here who will be fed up with hearing me say this, but I take as my authority Max Bavin who told me that there is no limit in the Laws on the TD's ability to deem that an exposed card is not a penalty card. Indeed when I discussed this very case with him, that was an option that he thought was available and legal, although he said he wouldn't use it unless he thought there had been some deliberate attempt to induce an error.

[mycroft]

Around here, there is a player with a very strong accent who talks into eir cards. It is very difficult to understand, and very easy to mishear. I have had to rule repeatedly that e did call for the card e claimed to (as partner pulled it, usually), and that any play based on the mishearing is defender's own problem. Please speak more clearly in future, but since it never hurts em, e never cares to do it. I tell the defender if they play based on what dummy pulled, and *that* was wrong, they're covered.

Since that is policy as I have been instructed, the difference between "acatrsk" and "Ten", unique declarations as they both be, is zero. Anyone who did that *trying* to get a revoke is guilty of sharp practise, and I'd warn declarer about that (same as I warn the declarer above), but defender played on her own belief, with lack of care and attention to dummy, and has no protection.

[chrism]

gordontd, on 2014-April-17, 00:11, said:

I thought they hadn't considered the possibility, which is why I brought it up.

I did not raise the possibility in this case, because I think it unreasonable to protect an opponent who has "followed suit" to a card that was not called, not played, and not even in the dummy at the time. There are certainly cases where I could be more sympathetic.

[bluejak]

barmar, on 2014-April-16, 11:12, said:

So while we shouldn't adjust the score, we could potentially issue a PP to declarer for violating 46A. This is a "should", so we don't usually penalize it (no harm, no foul), but we could choose to do so in this case because of the damage that ensued to the NOS (there was harm, so foul).

I don't know what it is like where you are, but around here over 90% of players sometimes make an incomplete designation, so the number of times this happens on an average duplicate night with 12 tables is probably in the region of 1200 times. Are you really going to issue 1200 PPs a night?

Oh, I see, you are only going to issue a PP when RHO follows to a card not in dummy. Apart from anything else, if something happens 1200 times a night and does not get penalised 1199 times do you really think that is the correct approach, to only penalise when RHO is an idiot?

[aguahombre]

bluejak, on 2014-April-17, 15:40, said:

Oh, I see, you are only going to issue a PP when RHO follows to a card not in dummy. Apart from anything else, if something happens 1200 times a night and does not get penalised 1199 times do you really think that is the correct approach, to only penalise when RHO is an idiot?

Using your figures and our club, there would be more than one PP out of 1200

[barmar]

bluejak, on 2014-April-17, 15:40, said:

I don't know what it is like where you are, but around here over 90% of players sometimes make an incomplete designation, so the number of times this happens on an average duplicate night with 12 tables is probably in the region of 1200 times. Are you really going to issue 1200 PPs a night?

Of course not. What part of "no harm, no foul" do you fail to understand?

There's a law that says that if you have a pool in your yard, there must be a gate to prevent children from wandering into the yard and potentially falling in and drowning. But as far as I know, there are no inspectors regularly checking every home with a pool, handing out citations to the ones whose gates are not closed properly. But if a child does drown because the pool was not properly gated, the homeowner would likely be arrested for negligence.

I know this analogy is extreme, there's a world of difference between causing a death and affecting the result of a bridge hand. But the point of the analogy is the times when we DON'T punish -- even though an open gate is potentially much more dangerous than an incomplete designation, we don't routinely punish it. But when someone violates a law and it does cause damage, the law allows us to punish them.

[jallerton]

I agree with Bluejak. I suspect that even Barmar does not name both the rank and the suit of every card he plays from dummy.

I disagree with the "no harm, no foul" approach. The bridge Laws distinguish between 'rectifications" and "penalties". If an offender gains from his offence, the Laws provide an appropriate rectiifcation so that the offender's opponents do not lose out. Penalties should be assessed based on the severity of the offence, independent of whether the offence causes a problem. It might not have made a difference this time, but is likely to do so in the future unless the offender can be discouraged from such behaviour.

[Bbradley62]

jallerton, on 2014-April-18, 14:51, said:

... the offender can be discouraged from such behaviour.

I don't think declarer (the only "offender" on this hand was a defender) has behaved in any way that needs to be discouraged.

[blackshoe]

The fact that declarer's failure to state clearly the rank and denomination of the card for which he's calling is a common infraction makes it no less an infraction (see Law 46A) and hence the declarer no less an offender. Should such behavior be discouraged? One would think so, else the many ways of improperly designating such a card enumerated in Law 46B would be defined as proper procedure, not irregularities. It seems to me this should be all the more so in cases where declarer's irregularity may have led a defender astray - whether or not that was intentional, and whether or not we can deem the defender to have been paying insufficient attention, or whatever.

[gordontd]

jallerton, on 2014-April-18, 14:51, said:

It might not have made a difference this time, but is likely to do so in the future unless the offender can be discouraged from such behaviour.

It did make a difference this time, to the tune of one major penalty card.