Claim: is it illogical to throw a higher card
Contract is 4 hearts, we are at trick 10
Declarer has DAQ, SQ
Dummy has CQ8, D9
Declarer claims saying "They're all winners".
They are not - there is a trump out.
If declarer pays SQ and throws CQ, she will lose two tricks, otherwise only one.
Given that declarer believes her hand to be high, is it illogical to throw CQ on SQ?
Comments
You have implied that the lead at the start of Trick 11 is in declarer's hand, in which case, declarer seems to think his hand is high. So is it now beyond "careless or inferior" to play SQ and throw CQ? I would say "no, it isn't". If declarer thinks his hand is high, it can't possibly matter to him which order he throws cards from dummy.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Yes it is - sorry I should have stated this.
I think any card from dummy is normal if declarer has stated that declarers cards are high, including the highest card. "normal" both in the sense of the footnote and in natural language.
But if the SQ is ruffed by the next defender then (I suppose) declarer is deemed to wake up and think that dummy's cards may be relevant and throw 8 from Q8.
"Normal includes...careless or inferior..."
If dummy had, say, a singleton CQ & small doubleton spades, I would say it's quite 'normal' to discard the CQ first. But it takes a conscious decision to call for the CQ ahead of the C8, which goes beyond carelessness, IMO. The only reason even an inferior declarer would actively choose to play the CQ is if they were showboating: "Look, I can afford to throw away all of dummy's winners!" Perhaps showboating might be considered normal.
Having said that, what might also be considered 'normal', if play had continued, would be for declarer to call "any card" at dummy's turn. In this case the defenders would be entitled to insist that the club queen be played. Is this sufficient to be able to consider the play of the CQ normal?
Reverse Declarer & Dummy, & I think discarding from hand might be a different matter. If you think all your cards in hand are equals (or equally useless), you might just throw away the one 'nearest your thumb', whether that's the CQ or otherwise. A similar argument might apply to online bridge
I can remember years ago John Probst ruling that a declarer claiming their hand was high might discard a high card from dummy rather than a low one in the same suit. The conversation went something like:
"Why would I discard my ace?"
"Well, players do sometimes [be flamboyant], don't they?"
When ruling on disputed claims I'm always mindful that the law does not ask the TD to rule on the basis of what is likely to have happened had the hand been played out. It asks them to consider normal (including not very good) lines of play, so I don't think the extra effort of calling for the queen rather than just "a spade" or choosing the card nearest their thumb should come into it.
When an opponent of mine claimed and the director was called I managed to find a line of play consistent with the claim statement that involved declarer chopping and changing suits when cashing winners that would have been quite unusual to see played out, giving us an extra trick. I think that should have been considered "normal", but the TD didn't.
A lot of the contention around adjudicating claims comes from the wording of law 70A:
"the Director adjudicates the result of the board as equitably as possible to
both sides, but any doubtful point as to a claim shall be resolved against the claimer"
which contains two contradictory instructions to the director. The outcome depends on whether they favour equity to both sides over resolving doubt against the claimer.
I think more firm guidance on the "top-down" (when leading) and "bottom-up" (when discarding) would be useful and lead to greater consistency.
It sounds like I would agree with your TD. My paper on claims includes:
"Having once started to play a suit by cashing winners, it is normal to
continue that suit until it is exhausted before switching to another suit.
If a player is conceding a trick as part of the claim, unless it has been
otherwise specified in the claim it is normal for the player to either play
to lose the trick immediately or at the end of play, so once again we rule
according to the more disadvantageous of the two. It is not normal to
play some winners and then attempt to concede the trick in the middle
of the play."
That's the kind of thing I would welcome as guidance to TDs, Gordon, and one I would support wholeheartedly if it's going to become "standard" for EBU TDs. That sort of thing should be (in abbreviated form) in the White Book where TDs will look for it if they're stuck when ruling on a claim.
The general guidance could be tightened up to say, for example, "suits will be played from the top down unless the need to do so is in doubt" (so claimer with 8 4 of trumps when the seven is out loses a trick if they say "you get your top trump"). That would be an improvement over the current "top down if the highest card is a big one".
It could specify that suits be played in any reasonable order to fulfil the claim to the detriment of the claimer if the order hasn't been stated.
I remember seeing guidance on an ACBL site along the lines: assume cards are played in a sensible order, including noticing if someone shows out, BUT, find the worst possible order for suits to be played in.
Sometimes the most advantageous order to play cards is top down, other times it's bottom first.
I think one argument for top-down plays after a claim may be: if a player does remember which cards are out / what the layout is they will probably play it in the best possible order, whereas if a player doesn't, they don't have the information to know that an order other than top-down may be best. So for most players, if they play the cards in an order other than top-down, it's because they know what they are doing (and thus a player who incorrectly claims would have played top down if they hadn't claimed).
This reasoning doesn't, however, allow for players who think they know what they are doing but actually don't, which makes me suspicious that it's always valid (but there might be enough truth in it to nonetheless make for a good principle on deciding claims).
It's interesting that the Laws leave this kind of decision up to the RA (Law 70E2) rather than explicitly stating a principle to use, but I don't know what to conclude from that.
If it matters, then it belongs in the claim statement.
The discussion is about how to deal with claim statements that don't include the information.
If declarer (South), on lead, claims without statement in either of these two trump layouts I wouldn't want them to gain from a "top-down" or "bottom-up" rule:
(a)...Q3...................7
...................84
(b)...73....................Q
....................84
The wording would need some careful thought.
It's a little hard to see how declarer would think their trumps were good in either of those situations (unless they forgot about three trumps, somehow). Maybe the declarer thought they were in NT and were planning to run the side suits?
Assuming the declarer knows what the contract is, it seems a little more plausible that declarer might think the 8 is high than that they think there are no trumps out at all, so I'd lean towards assuming that trumps would be played top-down in that situation (but maybe not by enough to avoid the presumption that declarer would get it wrong!).
(If you give dummy the 5, and leave the layout otherwise the same, then I think that might change the reasoning somewhat, as there would be a legitimate reason to play the 4 first.)
I agree it's an unlikely scenario, particularly if declarer is claiming the rest. To make it more believable, perhaps South claims one trick, saying "you get the trump queen". I want to give the defence two tricks on either layout.
I had just one observation, where is the trump held by defenders? is it in the hand ahead of dummy or behind and is it ruffing the 11th trick, It becomes illogical if the ruff is ahead of dummy on the 11th trick to throw the Q otherwise it is logical to chuck the Q if ruff is behind the dummy or if the ruff is on the 12th trick wherever the trump is
The trump is with LHO (ahead of Dummy), but the opportunity to throw Q (trick 11) occurs before the ruff does (trick 12)