[blml] claim

[Eric Landau]

At 01:55 PM 7/10/06, twm wrote:

>Eric wrote:
>
> > We are differing over semantics here.  If I'm playing a seven-card
> > fit, LHO follows once, and I convince myself that the suit must have
> > started 3-3 or 4-2, did I think I already saw LHO discard one (a
> > miscount by Ed's definition), or did I just "forget" that six cards
> > can divide 5-1 (which I'd call a "miscount", but Ed would not)?
> > Should it make any difference to the ruling on my claim?
>
>Ok, consider for a moment that claimer said "OK, the ST will drop now".
>He's wrong, but I have clear evidence that he is aware of the "outness"
>of the ST.  In projecting lines of play I will focus on those at which
>he discovers the non-droppingness of the ST at the least favourable
>possible moment - but I won't consider lines that involve him playing
>the S9 to the outstanding ST when doing so would be irrational.
>Declarer having said something different I will try to establish whether
>I have doubts as to his awareness of (and possible attention to) the ST.
>
>I find that doing this sort of thing helps me explain the number of
>tricks I am ruling to both sides - generally that assists in acceptance
>but if not accepted it helps whichever side wants to appeal to focus on
>the key issue.
>Thus:  "From what has been said I am convinced that declarer was aware
>that the ST was out and would not have played the S9 but I also believe
>that because he was expecting the ST to drop he might have carelessly
>discarded a Diamond on the 2nd/3rd round of spades."

Sure; I'd give the same ruling.  But in Tim's counter-example, declarer 
holds the S9, and has specifically mentioned the S10 in his claim 
statement.  That makes it easy.

But we don't care about the mention of the S10 if declarer holds AKQJ4 
opposite 32, as we "allow" the hand holding the five-card suit to 
"falsecard" the 10 to keep the 5.

The question, ISTM, is whether we need to know declarer's unrevealed 
thought process in order to rule on the faulty claim.  If all he has 
told us is "five spade tricks", can we rule, or do we first need to 
question the claimer to find out what was in his mind, such as whether 
he was relying on the S10 specifically to fall, or whether he was just 
relying on "the break".  Personally, I don't think we need to go into 
this, but that's been proven arguable.  L70D directs us to "not 
accept... any unstated line", but it also tells us to restrict our 
presumptions to "normal line[s]".  So perhaps it all comes back to our 
interpretation of the dreaded footnote.  When someone 
miscounts/misreads/misremembers/miswhatevers, resulting in a bad claim, 
do we need to ascertain his "class of player" (or, in this case, "class 
of misplayer") to decide whether or not we can presume he would "wake 
up" to the flaw in his claim in time to adjust his line of play?

My personal opinion is that we shouldn't care; we should be making the 
same ruling for everybody.  AFAIC, any player who makes a bad claim 
belongs in "the class of player that makes bad claims".


Eric Landau                     ehaa at starpower.net
1107 Dale Drive                 (301) 608-0347
Silver Spring MD 20910-1607