Card exposed during the auction
Just a boring technical query I'm sure someone knows. But I did have to make this ruling the other day and wasn't quite certain I got it right. If the card exposed during the auction later becomes a penalty card, is the rank of the penalty card determined as normal?
Specifically, assuming a player drops a single card below honour rank during the auction, does that later become a minor penalty card (what I thought)?
Comments
Law 24 E refers to Law 50, where under 50B a single card below the rank of an honour exposed unintentionally becomes a minor penalty card.
One would imagine that exposure of a card during the auction would be deemed unintentional, therefore its rank would be determined by Law 50B.
So in my opinion you were right.
I think so to: Law 24 applies
the Director shall require that every such card be placed face up on the table until the auction ends.
Information from cards thus exposed is authorized for the non‐offending side but unauthorized
for the offending side (see Law 16C).
A. Low Card Not Prematurely Led
If it is a single card below the rank of an honour and not prematurely led, there is no further
rectification (but see E following).
E. Defenders
If at the conclusion of the auction the offender is to become a defender, every such card becomes
a penalty card (see Laws 50 and 51).
Law 50 (in part)
B. Major or Minor Penalty Card
A single card below the rank of an honour exposed unintentionally (as in playing two cards to a
trick, or in dropping a card accidentally) becomes a minor penalty card. Any card of honour rank,
or any card exposed through deliberate play (for example in leading out of turn, or in revoking
and then correcting), becomes a major penalty card; when one defender has two or more penalty
cards, all such cards become major penalty cards.
Law 24E is required since otherwise law 50 would not apply since
A card prematurely exposed (but not led, see Law 57) by a defender is a penalty card unless the
Director designates otherwise (see Law 49 and Law 72C may apply).
The player at the time the card was exposed was not a defender.
The only thing to note is that the card must be exposed by the player's own error. A player picking up a hand and counting the cards only to find one of them the wrong way round would not be caught by this law. (IMHO)
It's possible that the card would become a major penalty card, but only if the player in question was trying to lead it (e.g. because they thought the auction was over even though it wasn't). A minor penalty card is far more likely.
In terms of the "own error", that reminds me of another situation: suppose in a teams game where the teams are sharing boards, a card is accidentally exposed by a player and seen only by their partner's counterpart (who, due to the order in which the boards are played, knows which board it belongs to). Are there any restrictions on the counterpart in question when playing that board (given that they know one card in their partner's hand through no fault of their own)? I don't think penalty cards can possibly apply here, but the UI rules might.
If the intention of Law 24E was that the exposed card always became a major penalty card, the law would say so - or so one would like to think. In the absence of the word "major" in Law 24E, it is open for an exposed card to become a minor penalty, and Law 50B tells us that a card below honour rank, dropped accidentally, becomes a minor penalty card. Law 50B does not care whether the card was dropped during the auction or play.
The fact that the player thought the auction was over does not alter the fact that the auction was not over, it was still on, and the card was exposed during the auction. The player's mistake in thinking that the auction was over would fall into the category of his 'own error'. IMHO it makes no difference to the status of the penalty card.
For a start - see Law 16D1 - the player should draw attention to the fact that he has seen a card, and if the rest of the players confirm that they have not seen it it is simple enough to rotate the board through 180 degrees so that the player who has seen the card holds it when the hand is played.