Tales from the Table
The other afternoon I was directing and I got called to a table. Three hands hand 13 cards, the 4th only 12. A brief search revealed no missing card.
After considering for a moment, I asked if anyone had the 7H (having not seen the hands). No one had. I went away, got a matching 7H, agreed with all the players the the knowledge of who had 7H did not prevent the board from being played, and play continued.
Comments
How did you figure out what card was missing, having not seen the hands? (Did you happen to come across the matching H7 earlier?)
I did. The previous day in the bridge office I'd spotted a lone H7 with the same back. At the table I eventually put two and two together.
None of the players worked out how I did it. :)
A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a card on the floor at the end of a round and asked the players to check the hands of each board to see if one only had 12 cards. One player, taking my instructions literally, started to check the hands of one of the boards where the cards were of a different colour.
I was called to a table, the caller was North. He said "a fourteen twelve problem" and pointed to East/West.
I took East's hand, looked at it as I counted it (I had already played the board) and noted the 4-4-3-2 distribution.
I placed East's hand face down in front of him.
I took West's hand, counted it and noted the 2-3-4-4 distribution.
I placed it face down in front of West.
Then I said "problem solved" and left them to it.
West later came to me and asked how I'd done it.
We don't give our secrets away, do we?
One secret that should be publicised:
When the hand is restored, nobody knows who had 12 cards, so the player with 14 cards does not know who now holds their surplus card.
I thought it was well-known that a 14-card hand was more fixable than a 12-card hand (to the extent that, when playing, I'll call the Director for a 14-card hand immediately, but wait for the other players to finish counting if I have a 12-card hand in case one of them calls for a 14-card hand.)
Here's something I wrote in 2004 on rec.games.bridge, after one of my first directing sessions at the Young Chelsea:
`Having dealt with table money that didn't tally because people put in
amounts that differed from what they claimed to have put in, rejigged
the movements to accommodate those who had put themselves down to play in
both sections but wouldn't play in the one that suited me, and persuaded
extra players to make up a full number of tables, I then had three
difficult judgment rulings (two of which were on the last round, with
none of my regular experts there to consult, just as I was starting to
score and marking the shared tables to indicate when they had been
entered on the travellers in the wrong order).
Oh, yes, and one table played the same board twice - ON THE SAME ROUND -
one of the players psyching when playing the board for the second time.
On that same set of boards, the previous table put down incorrect pair
numbers, just to make the challenge of sorting out the mess that little
bit more rewarding.
I'm beginning to see why so many directors have the demeanour they do.`