Flippant comment by defender
The contract is NT, we are at trick 12.
Dummy (North) has SKJ, West is on lead.
West has a small spade and a middling heart.
Declarer has 2 boss hearts (KQ).
East comments: "Have you go the right card(s)?" (Not sure if it's singular or plural as they can't remember).
With the dummy has SKJ, I think this suggests a spade lead.
West argues that she knows partner does not have KH because of earlier play (which we're prepared to accept), and her partner has previous signalled for spades, so she will always play the spade.
Is this relevant?
Are willing to allow West to lead a spade?
We must establish whether:
1) The comment suggests a spade lead (I think yes)
2) Whether leading the heart is a logical alternative action? (I'm currently on the fence).
Thoughts?
Comments
That all sounds about right. As far as the UI is concerned you have to determine whether there's logical alternatives. If West can demonstrate that they clearly knew what to play they might be allowed to make the play they always would. It occurs to me that East is likely to make this kind of remark if there's a long pause, and if West was thinking about what to play they didn't know at the time.
And some kind of a warning to East about making this kind of remark
I can't make sense of the comment, so it doesn't suggest anything to me. What did you understand by the comment?
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
I think it means that East thinks West only has one suit left, which he doesn't know if it's spades or not.
Does anyone else want to discipline East for communicating with partner which could be telling partner what to play. Proper behaviour would be to wait (patiently) for a second to see if West will play the right card. Something could be done to teach East patience and not spoil the hand for the other three players.
The specifics and experience of the player would matter to me, but yes. East really shouldn't be making this kind of remark and at the very least should get a warning to that effect.
It was suggested to him that such a remark was unwise (to be fair he knew this immediately after he'd spoken).
My partner, some years ago, played 4S. The opponents cashed 3 Aces and now the contract was on a trump guess. One opponent (a good player) said jovially "Another Ace would be useful" He, of course had the missing trump queen. Whilst his comment was meant in good humour, it was misjudged and it was hard to separate the degree of outrage of partner and of the comment maker when the contract was adjusted to 4S= by the TD. No DP though 😥