Law 71b, professional and panel TDs opinions would be highly apreciated

fma67

So, many thanks in advance for the time spent and your opinions!
In first instance please be kind with the bid :)) (posted for a secondary reasons as you will see).

Mitchell Pairs tournament:

Now the whole picture of the situation:

• • the playing time expired by more than 3 minutes so declarer was under time pressure
• • obvious declarer was also marked by partner final bid
• • so after trump lead and and another trump round, he claimed "1 down, outside diamonds are 4-0, then will be 2 down" that was agreed, the whole board beeing:

• in the very next round, beeing dummy after a short bid (I know concession rules) I informed TD that on a normal (and above) play I will make 12 tricks
• TD ruled by Law 71b, and result stand
• now, according with the footnote of Law71b, (about declarer class) declarer bridge skills are some like this:
  . multiple national champion
  . winner of dozens national contests
  . winner of international titles

In this whole context, how youre rating TD decission?

Many thanks for your time

gordonrainsford

I'm not sure how you propose to make 12 tricks because you haven't told us, but in any case you weren't declarer, were you? So your partner would need to show us that one of the tricks conceded could not be lost by any normal play of the remaining cards. I struggle to see how that could be done.

fma67

I was declarer, 12 tricks are easy, discard 4th dd on Acl (ofc after drawing last trump :)) and ruff a dd, dummy loose a single spade

gordonrainsford

I understood you to have said you were dummy.

It's quite normal for someone who didn't at the time notice the line you now propose (because if you had seen the line then you wouldn't have made the claim in that way) not to follow it. Certainly, it's no worse than careless.

fma67

I was dummy in the very next board :))

Senior_Kibitzer

There is a very similar example in the EBED Club TD Training Courses. Declarer is a Grand Master and makes a claim without stating a line that he would need to overcome a 4-1 break. The gist is that if he was careless enough to make a claim without catering for such a break, it would be no more careless to fail to make the safety play should play have continued. Although there is reference in the Law to "class of player", sometimes your class of play can be measured by the standard of the claims you may make.

bluejak

While L71B is quite clear it is a matter of judgement. Directors are always dubious with good reason when declarer points out the winning line later: would he necessarily have seen it if he had played it out? The fact that he sees it later is not relevant. So the question is whether a declarer who has not seen this at the time of the claim will necessarily see it later? Normal play includes careless and inferior. It seems to me that claiming for two off is definitely careless so it is quite possible that such a player would play it that way. So I agree with the director.

gordonrainsford

Worth noting too that only L69B2 is concerned with what would likely have happened if the hand had been played out. L71B is much stricter than that.