[blml] Clubbed Queen [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[richard.hills at immi.gov.au]

Sven Pran:

>>Declarer called a card that was not in Dummy. According to
>>Law 46B4 this call is void.
>>
>>East "followed suit" to a card that was not led nor could
>>it be led simply because that card did not exist in Dummy.
>>That makes his play of DC a lead out of turn.

Tim West-Meads:

>So, in this end position (S trumps) declarer needs all the
>tricks:
>
>        Q85
>        -
>        -
>        98
>                -
>immat           xx
>                x
>                Qx
>        Jx
>        x
>        x
>        T
>
>Please tell me what you think is the best line for the
>contract?
>Hint: nothing ethical is going to work.
>
>If, as TD, you do nothing to protect players from such
>Alcatraz positions you allow the cheats to walk all over the
>game.  There aren't *many* of such players around but the
>only way to ensure that there aren't more is to keep an eye
>out for nefarious situations and apply L72b1 assiduously
>when they arise.  This won't affect the ethical players
>because they have already said something like "It doesn't
>seem fair that I should benefit from calling the wrong card"
>to which the TD may reply "Would you like to ask me to waive
>the penalty then?"

1997 Law 81C8:

"The Director's duties and powers normally include the
following: to waive penalties for cause, at his discretion,
upon the request of the non-offending side."

Richard Hills:

Edgar Kaplan gave as an example of "for cause" a situation
where declarer accidentally split coffee in a defender's lap,
thus "causing" the defender to expose a card.  It seems to me
that declarer accidentally calling for a non-existent card
from dummy is a similar "cause".

However, it seems to me that the 1997 version of Law 81C8 is
flawed by including the caveat "upon the request of the non-
offending side".

So, if an Alcatraz declarer "accidentally" calls for a non-
existent card from dummy, then I join Tim in suspecting that
that Alcatraz declarer might possibly exercise their 1997
right to decline to request a Law 81C8 waiver.

:-(

Therefore, if I was the El Supremo of the WBF :-), I would
delete "upon the request of the non-offending side" from the
2008 version of Law 81C8.


Best wishes

Richard James Hills, amicus curiae
National Training Branch
02 6225 6285