Losing the Ace of Trumps?
It has always been a puzzle to me how, for example say a 7H-Doubled contract (with the AH in a defenders hand) can be made with the defence accidentally revoking by ruffing with the AH.
I know they are the Laws and the prescribed Trick-Penalty awards the extra trick to be transferred (Contract made). No doubt 100%.
Of course this is impossible when playing online.
I once asked an experienced TD many years ago, and his advice was to Lead the AH at trick one to prevent this happening.
One would have thought, logically the Ace-of-Trumps could never be lost to a trick in these circumstances.
I know they are the Laws and the prescribed Trick-Penalty awards the extra trick to be transferred (Contract made). No doubt 100%.
Of course this is impossible when playing online.
I once asked an experienced TD many years ago, and his advice was to Lead the AH at trick one to prevent this happening.
One would have thought, logically the Ace-of-Trumps could never be lost to a trick in these circumstances.
Comments
To change the Laws so that you don't lose tricks you can't normally lose would create other problems. While the OP is one end of a spectrum where would you draw the line? We don't want to create extra work for TDs.
I can see a potential rule along the lines of the rules for cancelling concessions (i.e. if you score 0 tricks as a consequence of a revoke penalty, you get the same score that you would if you had claimed 0 tricks and then attempted to cancel the concession).
Actually, this suggests that the same problem could happen in reverse: suppose, against 7HX, the defence concede immediately after the opening lead (partner not objecting), and subsequently discover they have the Ace of trumps. I would assume this would be scored as 1 trick, being a trick that they could not lose. But due to the possibility of a revoke, there are theoretical situations where they could lose it.
I suspect that this is all theoretical, though; impossible concessions are very rare, and those early in a hand even rarer (and in most cases, the opponents will reject the concession, given that you're not allowed to accept a concession of a trick you could not win).
Maybe rare at F2F, but I frequently do Law 71 rulings online. Declarers claiming in the middle of a trick can fail to claim the trick in play, or they make some other mistake when selecting how many tricks to claim.
That may seem reasonable, but I can't find any specific Law that says so. I find generally that if declarer concedes the remaining tricks, defenders don't go looking for tricks that declarer can't lose. That seems reasonable to me. What then tends to happen is that declarer is surprised by his bad score and there is general agreement that something wasn't right with the concession, and I get a Law 71 request.
On the OP, I agree with Manchester Rambler.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
The Law saying that you can't accept a concession of a trick that you can't win is Law 79A2 (although it conditions it on "knowingly accept", which allows for accidentally accepting the concession, or possibly even being wilfully ignorant).
Well spotted! I won't miss that again! :))
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
I see no downside to adding in a clause like 71b into the revoke laws - but that's just moving the line a bit.
I'm not a fan of the automatic adjustment - making the TD's life easier doesn't seem a sufficient justification for such a draconian rule.
Did we have a problem with the volume of revokes where we had to apply equity before 64A came along (assuming anyone can remember that far back)?
In my mind, the automatic trick adjustment is more that it's too easy to gain from revokes, and sometimes this can be intangible in how it affects the play. So the automatic trick adjustment is to ensure the non offending side aren't damaged in these situations. I don't really disagree with that.
Although, yes, sometimes it leads to strange situations, usually where the play is very simple and clear. Such as just losing the ace of trumps. Usually I can rationalise these as thinking of a revoke as something equivalent to just playing a queen under a king in a moment of distraction, there's usually some way to lose the trick. I suppose you could add an "actually can't lose the trick" clause.
Hence the word "normal" in Law 71 - revokes go beyond 'careless or inferior'.
I am sure I read a story about a player who had revoked and then lost all the subsequent tricks - up to trick 12 where they had a guess which card to keep. As he dithered the Director said "Even if you guess right, I am just going to take it away from you."
Contrary to Jeremy, personally I am in favour of fixed penalties: it saves time (always a director's main resource) and it is relatively rare (other than in TD examinations) for a side to lose more than the one or two tricks - although I always ask.
One of my favourite hands ever as a playing director was playing in 4H with xxxx opposite xxxx. Dummy came down as as you might imagine there were plenty of tricks to take in side suits, so making depended on the trump split.
They split 5-0!
AKQJ10 all in one hand and they didn't double!
Then they went on to revoke at trick 3, ruffing when they could (should) have followed suit. Obviously they won the revoke and subsequent tricks, so that 2 tricks were transferred to me and an impossible contract made.
Incidentally, all night, "Director! this result is impossible".
Is this rule fair? Perhaps not. Is a fairer rule possible? Perhaps. However, lets assume that AKQJ of trumps all fall in 1 round. Then the 9 and 10 fall together and defender has the now established boss of 8 of trumps. They revoke, ruffing with this 8 trumps - trick is transferred and the contract makes. Will all players realise that this 8 was a boss and could not possibly not take a trick? Now, players with better memories or more experience are more likely to recognise this fact and request the "impossible to lose card/trick" back, whereas less experienced/more forgetful players are now disadvantaged.
But those one or two tricks can effectively be a penalty. I suspect that in the majority of non-trumping revoke cases, the revoke does not actually gain the revoking side a trick (I base this on noting that pairs who have revoked on a hand often get a bad score).