Careless or Irrational?
There are no trumps left. The lead is in the South hand. South, an average club player, says ‘The rest are mine.’
West objects on the grounds that declarer did not make it clear that he was going to unblock the clubs and overtake the C10
How do you rule?
Comments
I think, with CAKQJT9 all visible, even a fairly bad club player would be able to get this one right. Playing top honours from the short hand first is one of the very first play techniques that bridge players learn, so even a novice will play CAK first, and then it's hard to imagine them not noticing that the overtake is needed in that situation (even if it wasn't obvious earlier). As such, I'd consider this a valid claim statement on the basis that the lines that get stuck in dummy are irrational, even for players somewhat weaker than this South apparently is.
If some of the high clubs had already been played, the line would be less obvious, because there would be a potential doubt about whether South remembered which clubs and/or diamonds were good, but with this layout no memory is required.
ais523:
That's where I started, but then I thought:
Would it be careless (but not irrational) to play CQ from hand and CT from Dummy before realising? I've seen people do that plenty of times.
That's unlikely with the lead in Dummy, but the lead is in hand...
I think the claim is careless and should fail but in a club setting that won't win any friends
This scenario is from the Club TD training course exercise on claims and the given answer is that it would be beyond "careless or inferior" to get this wrong. I think this is a close ruling because while the remaining tricks are all there off the top, as Jeremy C says, less experienced players are quite capable of being merely careless to block the suit.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
In my experience, the less experienced players do not make claims, even with AKQ of trumps for their last 3 tricks. It seems 50:50 whether such players would block the suit, or not. However, I don't see the standard of player that would regularly blunder like that making claims.
I think a warning to the claimer to make a clear claim statement would be in order though.
In a club setting, West won't win any friends by objecting to the claim.