Claims
I have tried to get players to claim more often on BBO.
It is very frustrating waiting for a slow table playing out their winners!
Unfortunately some who do claim are not always diligent in stating a line of play.
(Typing is slow, especially for those who play on tablets.)
This evening, Declarer claimed the remaining 6 tricks.
All but his own 4 remaining trumps had been played.
He was now playing a side suit: A from hand then over to K in dummy.
He now had QJ of that suit, on which he could throw his only 2 non-trumps.
So he claimed.
The opponents objected and wanted him to play one of the suits in which he had losers.
That play doesn't seem 'normal' to me. (Law 70 D)
But the footnote states 'normal' includes 'careless'.
Is playing a loser rather than a winner beyond 'careless'?
Comments
If they are already playing on that side suit then playing a loser rather than a winner is beyond careless by that stage. If they had played the AK earlier and might have forgotten that the QJ were good then there's more of an argument to be made, but the fact that declarer claimed is pretty concrete evidence anyway that they know those are top tricks.
Especially in the context of online claims being increasingly encouraged, and that most people leave that field blank because it confuses the opponents more than anything (covers more of the screen, including the trick count), I would definitely rule in favour of declarer.
Unless the defenders are being slow, it's normally faster to play your side-suit winners than it is to type a claim statement saying that you will play them.
As a result, if you want players to claim sooner, you need to give some leeway in claiming without statements, otherwise the claim will necessarily have to be delayed. Common practice seems to be to claim as soon as the contract is merely a matter of cashing winners; if the defence thinks declarer might not know which cards are winners, they can ask and give declarer an opportunity to make a claim statement at that time (or ask declarer to play a few more cards). This contradicts the claiming Laws, but a lot of other Laws are also contradicted or modified online in order to streamline the game.
According to the advice in the Sky-Blue Book (4.4), claims on BBO should generally be handled by continuing play, unless the TD thinks that the mere fact of the claim being objected to has given the declarer hints about what line the declarer should take (this is likely to be a very rare occurrence, especially as declarer is not told which defender objected). In the case being discussed in this thread, it seems very unlikely that the rejection of the claim gave hints to declarer about which lines would be successful; it seems very likely that declarer already knew that it wasn't the case that every suit would be good, and it's hard to see what other information the claim rejection could give.
Rejecting a claim by mistake is relatively common
Sometimes I am tempted if time is short to go round the tables and award adjusted scores when it is obvious what the final score would be. Who knows - players might think it was BBO doing the adjusting if it was the last pair playing.
What would help though is if declarer (it is usually declarer) would actually make a statement e.g. 4 trumps QJ of diamonds. It doesn't take long.
It doesn't take long for those who used BBO pre-lockdown or are reasonably tech-savvy. For others, just finding the claim button in the first place can be problematic. It depends as always on the type of event you are running, because in some instances it may be important for both pairs to watch the last trick pan out (I've had director calls countless times from less experienced pairs asking me to check the last trick was scored correctly because they had the Ace of an irrelevant suit... and without knowing or wanting to check the hand record themselves, it would take extra effort on my part as director and the players would feel hard done by for not being able to complete the board). In other events, like county or national events, then you would hope the players know how to claim for themselves anyway.
POSTSCRIPT
Turned out one Defender came from a school that thought in the event of a claim
the defence could decide the order in which Declarer should play his cards!
I have come across this before.
He thought that was in the Laws of Bridge.
Has anyone come across this?
I don't have all the past versions of the Laws.
But using a 1967 version of the Laws, I would still rule in declarer's favour!
Maybe they are mixing up what the claimed does not make a statement - I claim the rest when there is a loser.
I've come across several online players who only claim if they have all trumps, and routinely reject any claim (even if explained) that doesn't consists of only trumps.
Very annoying when the TD warns the table for slow-play!
I've had a claim rejected when I've claimed zero tricks.
I've had a claim correctly rejected when I've claimed zero tricks (my partner had a certain trick that I didn't realise, so by Law 79A2, the opponents couldn't legally accept the concession).