[blml] Réf. : played or not?

[Sven Pran]

> On Behalf Of Herman De Wael
.............
> > The contract is 3NT but declarer is confused and he thinks  he's
> > playing 5 diamonds. He plays a card from hand and instructs dummy to
> > "ruff". When the table stops laughing, the director is called.
> > Has the lowest diamond been played or not?
> >
> >
> > We had a similar case two years ago (in 2NT vs spades).
> > Since there is no trump suit, there is no card designated by the words
> > "trump" or "ruff".
> 
> Three answers, all the same.
> And all wrong, I think.
> The laws authorize a declarer to call the cards by whatever means.

Herman is incredible!

Law 46A prescribes the proper form for designating Dummy's card.

Law 46B specifies the applicable restrictions on Declarer's play from Dummy
when he has called a card from Dummy in a manner different from that
prescribed in Law 46A, but Law 46B definitely does not authorize such
manners.

> Calling for "the Beer card" is certainly a full indication of the
> diamond seven. 

I suppose this is true in the Low Countries; it is definitely not true in my
part of the world. Incidentally, as for "the bear card" it might be relevant
that there is an absolute ban on drinking any alcohol (and/or smoking) at
all serious events (and also at most other events) in Norway. 

> So is the word "ruff". 
> So saying that the word ruff
> does not refer to a card in dummy is, IMO, wrong. 

Excuse me? How can the word "ruff" be a full indication of any card when
playing at No Trump? Even in a trump contract this would be an incomplete
designation resulting in the application of Law 46B2.

> Consider what would happen if declarer, rather than saying "ruff",
> just points at the low diamond, or picks it up. All kinds of ways to
> indicate that the 2 of diamonds is the card he intends to play.

Please don't indicate that you do not know the difference between
specifically designating a particular card by its rank and denomination or
by touching it directly and using some more or less obscure alias for that
card?
 
> > Come to think of it, if declarer doesn't say himself what suit he
> > believes to be trumps, how would you rule which suit he has in mind ?
> > That's the way André Leplat ruled, and he was right IMHO.
> >
> 
> I don't think a declarer can honestly claim to be confused about the
> trump suit in more than one of them. I think we can settle that
> problem easily if it ever came up.

So you have not met boards where the declarers (all in the same position)
split more or less evenly between those playing 3NT and game in at least two
different denominations?

I still remember a board from many years ago where I had the opening lead
against a contract at 4 Hearts after dummy had shown a 4-4-4-1 distribution
with a stiff Club. For various reasons I lead a Club to partner's Ace and he
returned another club; neither of us wanted to open any of the other suits.

I covered declarer's club and he told Dummy to discard [sic!] a Heart. Then
declarer apparently considered the play of the board, and some ten minutes
passed away before he suddenly looked surprised at the three of us and asked
why we all had that last trick marked to him!

He had not intentionally ruffed, but all the same that was what he did. He
would of course have achieved exactly the same by calling a small trump or
by calling for a ruff, but that is only because we were playing at trump.
Had we been playing at No Trump his call in those cases would have been void
under Law 46B4 regardless of which trump contract he had preferred. 

Sven

PS. There will be no further comment from me on this matter. It is too
stupid.