Revokes (again)
North was declarer playing a contract of 4 Spades. Three tricks in North led spades and West discarded a small D (North won that trick). E/W won two subsequent tricks and on the 10th card West declared that she had found a Spade. West followed suit on the 11th and 12th tricks and played her small l Spade trump on the 13th trick (taking that trick).
E/W did not win a trick on the revoke - no penalty
E/W did win subsequent tricks – 1 trick penalty.
E/W won a trick with the trump she had which they should not have had - ??
Comments
Automatic penalty: 1 trick
This is no longer an explicit consideration in the laws for an automatic trick penalty.
Instead we look at equity if the revoke had not happened (Law 64C). From the description, if West had followed suit with the small trump, all would have been the same, except West would not have won trick 13.
It appears the the Law 64A (automatic trick penalty) and Law 64C require the same adjustment of 1 trick, so the adjustment is 1 trick.
Thanks Robin - the first part - Automatic penalty: 1 trick is simple enough.
The question is - on the last trick W wins that trick becausew she had a trump that she should not have had - what is the rule there - i.e. surely E/W cannot take that a trick won with a trump card she should not have
They can win the trick with the trump card, since for the purposes of playing out the hand they still have the trump.
As Robin says, we might then adjust the score. So we transfer one trick, then look at whether there's still been damage. Here probably not, the revoke seems to have gained one trick which they get back.
Thanks James . . If they a penalised 1 trick for the revoke but allowed to win the last trick with a card they should not have it ends up with a zero penalty for the revoke - surely that can't be right?
The law is automatic penalty trick(s) or an adjustment for equity.
The offenders did win trick 13, by trumping. That is part of the result to which the automatic revoke penalty is applied.
The offenders should not win trick 13, because they should have followed suit earlier. This is the 'equity' outcome.
We apply one or the other - and both give the same answer.
Thnaks Robin - that is the ruling I made on the night but I wanted to revisit it here - thansk again
The way that I put it to players and club TD trainees is "If an opponent revokes, you do not have the right to gain, (even though you might gain), but you do have the right to be no worse off."
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
One more thing here: it's really important that the TD checks whether there were any more rounds of trumps played between tricks 4 and 9. If declarer continued attempting to draw trumps then there has been a second revoke in the same suit. Although there's no automatic penalty for the second revoke, there's a high chance of a 64C adjustment because if the defender had followed suit the second time they would not have made their trump at trick 13.