Law 62D2: Revoke on Trick Twelve
62D2 says: "If a defender revokes on the twelfth trick before his partner’s turn to play to the trick, Law 16C applies."
I'm struggling to envisage a situation where 16C is relevant.
When the revoke is corrected, revoker's other card becomes a major penalty card, so knowledge of it is authorised to revoker's partner.
What am I missing?
(Of course we still have equity, but we don't need 16C for that.)
Comments
The full section says:
D. Revoke on Trick Twelve
1. On the twelfth trick, a revoke, even if established, must be corrected if discovered before all four hands have been returned to the board.
2. If a defender revokes on the twelfth trick before his partner’s turn to play to the trick, Law 16C applies.
The revoking player only has two cards and is required to correct the revoke, so the other card will have to be played on trick 13 but knowledge of that card is deemed to be UI for his partner in playing to trick 12.
But law 16C merely says that UI cannot be used. Law 50E1 says that the knowledge of the penalty card (the other card) is authorised, so there is nothing for law 16 to apply to.
I think the intent of the law is that the revoke at trick 12
That would make sense (removing an advantage for the offending side), but it doesn't say that!
I was wondering whether the Director would be able to fix the situation by declaring the card to not be a penalty card, but apparently not: some methods of creating penalty cards give the Director the option, but Law 62B1 causes the card to become a penalty card unconditionally, without Director discretion.
I think the only real fix is to edit 62A, 62B and some of 62C to liberally add "before trick 12"
Or in 62D2 put "Law 50 does not apply".
As the law is at the moment I agree with Jeremy that the 13th card is a penalty card, 62D2 does read as if it isn't but the laws don't seem to say that anywhere. So as Robin says, they'd need redrafting.
If we really thought the defence had benefitted through information revealed by the revoke there's always the cath all of law 72C. I suspect this is a theoretical situation though.
I once asked Max Bavin if he thought there was any limit in the laws to the TD's power under Law 50 to designate an exposed card not to be a penalty card, and he said not - you can do it whenever you think it is right.
I'm uncomfortable with that as it requires us to make a moral decision when we have unbounded power.
In this case it also seems contrary to 12B2: The Director may not award an adjusted score on the grounds that the rectification provided in these Laws is either unduly severe or advantageous to either side.
That's not the basis for making the decision. It's usually made when the side that would benefit from it played some part in the creation of the penalty card.
That may not be the case here, but I don't see the problem that the rest of you see: it seems clear to me that because of 62D there is no penalty card.
We're going to have to disagree. Just because we think that's what it meant to say, doesn't mean we can act as if it does. That's not how laws (of any sort) work.
In this case I think 72C is sufficient to redress any damage.