[blml] This week's defender play.

[Eric Landau]

At 05:47 AM 2/1/07, Grattan wrote:

>"Spades are trumps. Mid-way through the play
>declarer led a high-ish heart from his hand.  LHO
>can ruff it if we wishes; this will be the correct
>thing to do if the heart is a winner, but the wrong
>thing to do if it is a loser. It is less than clear to
>LHO whether or not the heart is good. Whilst
>he's thinking, RHO prematurely plays a higher
>heart (i.e. a heart winner). So, LHO now knows
>not to ruff. Law 57A doesn't help declarer one
>bit - he'd like to force LHO to ruff, but 57A
>doesn't give him that option."
>
>Various suggested rulings surround application of
>Laws 12B, 72B1, 12A1.  I have commented
>"Any card that is played and then becomes
>a penalty card is seemingly a withdrawn card?
>It appears to me that penalty cards of this genre
>are perhaps subject to Law 16C."

This sounds to me like a textbook example of the sort of irregularity 
that L72B1 was intended to cover -- indeed, I expect I'll use it in the 
future when teaching that law.


Eric Landau                     ehaa at starpower.net
1107 Dale Drive                 (301) 608-0347
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