[blml] Law 12A1 and Law 12B

[Robert Geller]

Actually a few months ago we had a case where dummy (South) had only 12 cards
(she left her 13th card, the king of spades, in the board).  After consulting 
overseas authorities we reached the following cconclusions.

(1)    First, there is Law 7B1 which requires players to count their cards 
correctly.  Either South did not count them, or counted wrong, which is 
an infraction.

(2)   Second there is Law 41D.  South is required to put down 13 cards in a 
particular way, and failed to do so.

(3) Neither East nor West are responsible for checking that South is 
following the Laws, so E/W are non-offending. 

(4)  Law 64B3 and Law 64C apply.  But the defence might go wrong 
and lose a trick by not realising what cards are in dummy, even if there 
is no revoke.  Since there is an infraction as above but no specified 
way of dealing with it Law 12A1 applies.

-Bob


Eric Landau writes: 
>At 12:24 AM 10/12/06, richard.hills wrote:
>
>>Eric Landau:
>>
>> >"principle" that all three players are responsible for noticing that
>> >dummy's cards are misarranged.  That is nowhere to be found in TFLB
>> >(perhaps it should be considered?), but is in some sense "suggested"
>> >by L64B3 (commonly stated as "dummy can't revoke"), and seems to be
>> >widely accepted.
>>
>>No such principle.
>>
>>Law 64B3, which states, "The penalty for an established revoke does
>>not apply: if the revoke was made in failing to play any card faced
>>on the table or belonging to a hand faced on the table, including a
>>card from dummy's hand", is specifically subject to the over-riding
>>Law 64C, which states, "When, after any established revoke, including
>>those not subject to penalty, the Director deems that the non-
>>offending side is insufficiently compensated by this Law for the
>>damage caused, he shall assign an adjusted score".
>>
>>Ergo, a revealed error by dummy does not define both sides as two
>>offending sides if that revealed error is initially unobserved.
>
>Quite so; as I wrote above, the "principle" in question "is nowhere to 
>be found in TFLB".
>
>But:
>
>(a) It does seem to accord with many, perhaps most, players' "common 
>sense".
>
>(b) It is widely cited and applied, notwithstanding that it doesn't exist.
>
>(c) Sophisticated adjudicators know it doesn't exist, but will enforce 
>it "de facto" by ruling that the damage to the NOS was a direct 
>consequence of their own failure to notice that dummy was short (or 
>missorted), therefore "self-inflicted", subsequent but not consequent 
>to dummy's infraction, no adjustment.  That's theoretically a matter of 
>judgment rather than law, but is well within the TDs/ACs authority.
>
>Given all that, we might ask if we'd be better off in the future if 
>such a principle *were* to be found in TFLB.
>
>
>Eric Landau                     ehaa at starpower.net
>1107 Dale Drive                 (301) 608-0347
>Silver Spring MD 20910-1607 
>
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-----------------------------------------------------
Robert (Bob) Geller,     Tokyo, Japan        geller at nifty.com