Declarer and FOLOOT
After a faced opening lead out of turn the presumed declarer (for example lets say North in 4S) elected to exercise the option to spread her own hand making her partner the actual declarer (Law 54A - "Dummy becomes declarer."). I was asked is it still 4S in N for Bridgemate scoring purposes or is it now 4S in S? I instructed 4S in South as "Dummy is now declarer." This was questioned / challenged. Given that we all know that the same hands can play out better from one side versus the other, I felt that this was the right decision and worthy of being properly recorded. Any thoughts?
Comments
If you have your bridgemates set up to check that the opening leader actually has the card recorded as having been led then there seems no option but to record it as 4S by South.
Even without this I agree with your decsion.
Recording which of the two partners played a contract is mostly used for two purposes: a) statistical purposes when letting people know how good they typically are on declarer play (which requires working out whether they were declarer or not), b) letting card analysis / hand replay tools working out what information the players would have had while playing the hand, who was on lead, etc.. In the case of presumed declarer becoming actual dummy, both these goals are satisfied by recording the actual (rather than presumed) declarer as the declarer on the hand; it's almost entirely their declarer play that matters for the result on the hand (rather than that of their partner), as the only decision presumed declarer/actual dummy made was about what to do with the LOOT; and the opening lead, visibility of dummy, etc. all match what would have happened if presumed dummy/actual declarer was declaring.
The more complex situation is if presumed declarer decides to accept the lead but stay as declarer (thus meaning that dummy plays last to trick 1). In this case, goal b) becomes internally inconsistent, as you can't use one compass point to describe both the opening leader and the visibility of dummy. I'd be inclined to enter the presumed declarer as declarer for scoring purposes in this case, even though the opening lead would be inconsistent with the stated declarer.
In the latter case, where the Bridgemate will not accept the (undisputed) declarer and the lead (out of turn), I favour recording the declarer correctly and fudging the opening lead - e.g. enter the card played by designated opening leader to the first trick.
Surely either way you would correct in the scoring program?
Certainly I could correct it, but there might be other systems downstream that would get confused by the apparent contradiction.