[blml] establishing a revoke

[David Grabiner]

"Manuela Mandache" <mandache at free.fr> writes:

> Dear all,
>
> South is declarer in 4S. At trick 4, he calls Sx from dummy, East follows Sx, 
> he
> plays SQ, and West discards C4. Declarer plays CA, West pulls C8 from his 
> hand,
> moves it towards the table (everybody sees it, but it's not actually played),
> then withdraws it saying, "Sorry, was that Spades the previous trick? I'm not
> void in Spades..." (my English is betraying me again, what is the right
> translation for "j'ai du pique"?)

"I have some spades."

> Is the revoke established? In other words, should "a defender's card [...] 
> must
> be played" be read "a defender's card [...] is considered played" in L45B1?

I would say yes.  Once East saw West's card, it is considered played, and that 
applies to the normal sequence of play as well as to other rules such as 
establishing a revoke or leading out of turn.

> As I want to ask all my questions in one go, one of the following two parts 
> will
> be meaningless (according to the answer to the first question).
>
> Part I - The revoke is established in the above situation.
> Now let us suppose that East has a MPC, the CK. At trick 4, declarer calls SK
> from dummy, East follows Sx, he plays Sx, and and West discards C4. Now 
> declarer
> calls Cx from dummy and while North is placing the called card in played
> position (!), West says, "Wait, was it Spades the previous trick? J'ai du
> pique..."
>
> Is the revoke established too? Or is the "must" of L50D1 a softer one than the
> one of L45B1...

This does not establish the revoke because East has not yet taken an action. 
This "must" establishes the penalty for a rule violation, but the play doesn't 
happen automatically.

Players can do other things before taking required actions.  For example, East 
could correct his own misexplanation of a call before playing his card, allowing 
dummy to make a different lead.  He could also call the director because the 
lead was not in dummy (not the case here, but if South had played the SA and 
then led from the wrong hand, East could not be required to accept it).

> Part II - just checking
> The revoke of trick 4 is not established, West corrects it and has now two 
> MPC,
> the C4 and the C8 (I could have devised a more interesting example...) 
> Declarer
> is allowed to withdraw his lead for trick 5 and play something else (L47D).

This is correct.