[blml] Law 24

[Matthias Berghaus]

Hello Ed,

Ed Reppert schrieb:
> Law 24: "When the Director determines, during the auction, that 
> because of a player's action one or more cards of that player's hand 
> were in position for the face to be seen by his partner, the Director 
> shall require that every such card be left face up on the table until 
> the auction closes; and (penalty) if the offender subsequently becomes 
> a defender, declarer may treat every such card as a penalty card (Law 
> 50)."

this is possibly thr most stupid law in the book, insofar as I am at a 
loss to comprehend how any declarer could choose not to treat it as a 
penalty card. Only if I do not want the suit to be led by an opening 
leader having a penalty card could this make any sense at all, but any 
thinking defender will now lead the suit anyway (probably much faster 
than he would have done otherwise), and this time with a systemic card, 
and not a more or less random one. A couple of years ago Max Bavin 
explained to me that the current L24 is only the remnant of a longer 
L24, and that  part of the former text has been cut, leaving today`s 
version, leading to vertain difficulties to understand why it is there. 
Not being in possession of those older versions of the laws I have to 
take his word for it (anyone know where to get them?).

>
> Can anyone explain to me why declarer, rather than the TD, gets to 
> decide whether such a card is a penalty card? 

See above. Another reasoning may be that declarer should have the chance 
to make the most of it, but see above again.

> In practice, has any TD ever offered this option to declarer?

Yes (raises his hand). I expect it to happen again around 2015, players 
not being very prone to produce such penalty cards.

Have a nice weekend
Matthias

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