[blml] This week's defender play.

[Sven Pran]

> On Behalf Of Grattan Endicott
...............
> "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 a penalty card is seemingly a withdrawn card?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."
> 
>                                  ~ Grattan ~   +=+

Law 16: "Players are authorized to base their calls and plays on information
from legal calls and or plays, and from mannerisms of opponents. To base a
call or play on other extraneous information may be an infraction of law."

The premature play by RHO is not a legal play, thus information from this
play is extraneous to LHO, and according to Law 16A LHO "may not choose from
among logical alternative actions one that could demonstrably have been
suggested over another by the extraneous information". 

This extraneous information strongly suggests that LHO does not choose to
ruff, consequently the only way he can abide by Law 16A is to ruff.

If he doesn't ruff then the Director should afterwards judge whether this
infraction of Law 16A has damaged declarer, and if he finds that it probably
did he should award an adjusted score.

There is no need to invoke Law 16C!

(A similarity to this case has since long been a standard item in the
Norwegian TD qualifying courses.)

Regards Sven.