[dburn]

pran, on 2011-April-24, 06:12, said:

So you assert that if in trick twelve a defender is found to have three cards in his hand and ten cards quitted, then Law 67 does not apply if he states that one of his last three cards was actually played to trick two?

If he states that he played the card to trick two, that it later fell to the floor, that he picked it up again and mistakenly replaced it in his hand, and that it has remained there ever since - and if the other players at the table corroborate this account - then of course Law 67 does not apply. There was no defective trick, since four cards were played to trick two.

pran, on 2011-April-24, 06:12, said:

Sorry, this is not how Law 67 works, not even if his statement is confirmed by the other players. No card a player holds in his hand (or dummy has faced in front of him) as remaining to be played is considered "played" for the purpose of applying Law 67.

I see no reason that this should be so, nor am I prepared to accept a simple assertion that it is so.

pran, on 2011-April-24, 06:12, said:

(If you want to split hairs: The play of a card is not completed until the card has been positioned as specified in Law 65A so that it can clearly be distinguished from the cards not yet played.)

Suppose a player drops a card on the floor rather than putting it in the position specified by Law 65A. And suppose that had he placed the card in that position it would have constituted a revoke. May the player claim that he did not in fact revoke because he has not in fact played the card?

[pran]

campboy, on 2011-April-24, 07:17, said:

That's nonsense. In fact what law 65A says is that you position the cards as specified "when four cards have been played to a trick" -- past tense -- so the play is already complete before you start turning them.

Was it very welcome or convenient being able to comment on a side note of mine without bothering about the main part of my post?

(So you assert that if in trick twelwe a defender is found to have three cards in his hand and ten cards quitted, then Law 67 does not apply if he states that one of his last three cards was actually played to trick two? Sorry, this is not how Law 67 works, not even if his statement is confirmed by the other players. No card a player holds in his hand (or dummy has faced in front of him) as remaining to be played is considered "played" for the purpose of applying Law 67.)

[campboy]

That is not a side issue. Law 67B does not say what you claimed it said; law 65A says the opposite of what you suggested; you have no legal justification for your position whatsoever.

[pran]

dburn, on 2011-April-24, 07:36, said:

If he states that he played the card to trick two, that it later fell to the floor, that he picked it up again and mistakenly replaced it in his hand, and that it has remained there ever since - and if the other players at the table corroborate this account - then of course Law 67 does not apply. There was no defective trick, since four cards were played to trick two.

Law 67B:
After both sides have played to the following trick, when attention is drawn to a defective trick or when the Director determines that there had been a defective trick (from the fact that one player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards), the Director establishes which trick was defective. . . . .

Law 67 applies whenever a player holds an apparently incorrect number of cards in his hand and a correspondingly incorrect number of cards are found among his played cards. That the player can assert that he had indeed played (to an earlier trick) the surplus card he now held in his hand does not help him, nor does the alleged reason why the situation has occurred. The simple fact is that he has a certain number of cards "marked as played" and the corresponding number of remaining cards yet to play, and that these numbers are inconsistent with the progress of the play so far.

[dburn]

pran, on 2011-April-24, 11:28, said:

Law 67B:
After both sides have played to the following trick, when attention is drawn to a defective trick or when the Director determines that there had been a defective trick (from the fact that one player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards), the Director establishes which trick was defective. . . . .

Law 67 applies whenever a player holds an apparently incorrect number of cards in his hand and a correspondingly incorrect number of cards are found among his played cards. That the player can assert that he had indeed played (to an earlier trick) the surplus card he now held in his hand does not help him, nor does the alleged reason why the situation has occurred. The simple fact is that he has a certain number of cards "marked as played" and the corresponding number of remaining cards yet to play, and that these numbers are inconsistent with the progress of the play so far.

Suppose that the card is still on the floor. Is there now a defective trick?

[pran]

dburn, on 2011-April-24, 13:57, said:

Suppose that the card is still on the floor. Is there now a defective trick?

If you read and understand the laws you will know that this is a Law 14B and not a Law 67B situation.

[blackshoe]

Don't dodge the question, Sven.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2011-April-24, 14:36, said:

Don't dodge the question, Sven.

I mean it: His example is clearly a case for Law 14B; I see no reason for confusing this thread with it.

[blackshoe]

Declarer calls for the ♠3 from dummy. The ♠3 ends up, not amongst dummy's quitted tricks, but on the floor. Is there a defective trick?

Put it another way: once a card has been played, is it always a part of the trick, still in play or quitted, regardless where it (the card) is? Or if it is somewhere else (i.e., not in front of the player in the played position, in the case of a trick still in progress, or amongst the player's quitted tricks, for tricks no longer in progress) is the trick to which that card "belongs" defective?

As far as I'm concerned, 14B is a red herring here. There are three questions; please provide an answer to each one.

[barmar]

campboy, on 2011-April-24, 05:02, said:

No, it doesn't. It applies when the director determines there has been a defective trick, such as when "one player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards". No mention is made of the number of cards quitted.

The use of "correspndingly" implies that a card can either be in your hand or has been played. Except for cards being played to the current trick, all played cards are quitted.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2011-April-24, 16:04, said:

Declarer calls for the ♠3 from dummy. The ♠3 ends up, not amongst dummy's quitted tricks, but on the floor. Is there a defective trick?

Put it another way: once a card has been played, is it always a part of the trick, still in play or quitted, regardless where it (the card) is? Or if it is somewhere else (i.e., not in front of the player in the played position, in the case of a trick still in progress, or amongst the player's quitted tricks, for tricks no longer in progress) is the trick to which that card "belongs" defective?

As far as I'm concerned, 14B is a red herring here. There are three questions; please provide an answer to each one.

A deck of cards that contains less than 52 cards is defective, the handling of this deck is completely (and uniquely) specified in Law 14. No other law applies to this deck of cards whether the error is discovered before the auction, during the auction or during the play. Where the missing card is placed is irrelevant, it may be found on the floor, within another board which in case contains more than 52 cards or it may not be found at all.

A defective trick is most often discovered by a player noticing that he holds an incorrect number of cards in his hand, early during the play also often by anybody noticing that one of the players has an incorrect number of cards positioned as played in front of him. Whenever that happens the Director should be called and he shall right away proceed as specified in Law 67 (after verifying that the deck of cards itself is not defective). If the Director finds that a player has a total of thirteen cards at his disposal, but that the number of cards found among his played cards and in his hand respectively is inconsistent with the number of tricks played then Law 67 instructs the Director to proceed as if the player has failed to play to a trick or has played more than one card to a trick as the case may be.

If the player has too many cards in his hand (and correspondingly too few cards among his played cards) possibly as the result of incorrectly picking up a played card and restoring it to his hand then that card is no longer considered played to the trick in which it was originally played. Just imagine the consequences if that player subsequently plays the same card to another trick.

So the trick to which the ♠3 belongs is not defective while the ♠3 remains missing (Law 14 applies), but it becomes defective if the player restores the ♠3 to his hand instead of placing it among his played cards (Law 67 applies).

Although this appears to be only two answers I believe I have answered all your questions? (And Law 14 is certainly no red herring here.)

[bluejak]

blackshoe, on 2011-April-24, 16:04, said:

Declarer calls for the ♠3 from dummy. The ♠3 ends up, not amongst dummy's quitted tricks, but on the floor. Is there a defective trick?

Put it another way: once a card has been played, is it always a part of the trick, still in play or quitted, regardless where it (the card) is? Or if it is somewhere else (i.e., not in front of the player in the played position, in the case of a trick still in progress, or amongst the player's quitted tricks, for tricks no longer in progress) is the trick to which that card "belongs" defective?

As far as I'm concerned, 14B is a red herring here. There are three questions; please provide an answer to each one.

Yes, there is a defective trick.

Sorry, I am unconvinced that it is always part of the trick. Law 67 has been used in the obvious way over the years and this novel idea of not using Law 67 for a defective trick by saying it was not originally defective does not seem based in Law.

When a trick has any number of cards other than four I believe it to be defective. If the card is found on the floor, Law 14 applies.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2011-April-24, 17:21, said:

A deck of cards that contains less than 52 cards is defective, the handling of this deck is completely (and uniquely) specified in Law 14. No other law applies to this deck of cards whether the error is discovered before the auction, during the auction or during the play. Where the missing card is placed is irrelevant, it may be found on the floor, within another board which in case contains more than 52 cards or it may not be found at all.

A defective trick is most often discovered by a player noticing that he holds an incorrect number of cards in his hand, early during the play also often by anybody noticing that one of the players has an incorrect number of cards positioned as played in front of him. Whenever that happens the Director should be called and he shall right away proceed as specified in Law 67 (after verifying that the deck of cards itself is not defective). If the Director finds that a player has a total of thirteen cards at his disposal, but that the number of cards found among his played cards and in his hand respectively is inconsistent with the number of tricks played then Law 67 instructs the Director to proceed as if the player has failed to play to a trick or has played more than one card to a trick as the case may be.

If the player has too many cards in his hand (and correspondingly too few cards among his played cards) possibly as the result of incorrectly picking up a played card and restoring it to his hand then that card is no longer considered played to the trick in which it was originally played. Just imagine the consequences if that player subsequently plays the same card to another trick.

So the trick to which the ♠3 belongs is not defective while the ♠3 remains missing (Law 14 applies), but it becomes defective if the player restores the ♠3 to his hand instead of placing it among his played cards (Law 67 applies).

Although this appears to be only two answers I believe I have answered all your questions? (And Law 14 is certainly no red herring here.)

I don't know, Sven. Are you familiar with the Internet abbreviation tl;dr? It means "too long; didn't read". I will read it later, but not right now.

FWIW, my answers to my three questions are "yes", "no", and "yes". But why use one word when we can use one hundred?

Edit: Okay, I'm reading this now.

"No other law applies to this deck". Not even Law 1?

I don't need lessons in how things should go, thank you.

I'm afraid I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall, and I have enough headaches already. I won't say you're wrong. I won't say you're right. I will say I can't make sense of this post, in the context of the problem which started this thread.

[Cascade]

bluejak, on 2011-April-24, 17:40, said:

Yes, there is a defective trick.

Sorry, I am unconvinced that it is always part of the trick. Law 67 has been used in the obvious way over the years and this novel idea of not using Law 67 for a defective trick by saying it was not originally defective does not seem based in Law.

When a trick has any number of cards other than four I believe it to be defective. If the card is found on the floor, Law 14 applies.

What made the card unplayed after it had been played?

Does not quitting a trick make the card unplayed?

[Cascade]

pran, on 2011-April-24, 04:14, said:

Sure the card had been played to the trick, but Law 67 (and in particular Law 67B) applies whenever a player has an incorrect number of cards in his hand and a corresponding incorrect number of cards among his quitted tricks.

It doesn't matter whether the reason is that he never played a card to the deficient trick or if he (for whatever reason) put the played card back to his hand instead of turning it over among his quitted cards. (A common cause for such failures is that a player discovers one of his cards lying on the floor and, not remembering that it had been played, restores that card to his hand.)

The rectification in Law 67 assumes that a card has not been played

Law 67B1 for example "When the offender has failed to play a card to the defective trick..."

It is hard to apply this law when a card was in fact played to the trick.

It does matter that the card has been played.

It wouldnt occur to me to apply Law 67 when a card had in fact been played.

[nige1]

Yet another law that needs clarification and simplification. As a mere player, however, who doesn't understand current laws, I prefer Bluejak's and pran's interpretation -- penalising the side that has the hand with the wrong number of cards. The practical argument for this is that, yet again, deterrence is more appropriate than so-called "Equity": Retaining played winners or "mislaying" unwanted losers, carelessly or otherwise, may well work in your favour, if opponents don't notice. The law should discourage such habits. Revoking is another candidate for a more deterrent approach.

[Cascade]

nige1, on 2011-April-24, 21:10, said:

Yet another law that needs clarification and simplification. As a mere player, however, who doesn't understand current laws, I prefer Bluejak's and pran's interpretation -- penalising the side that has the hand with the wrong number of cards. The practical argument for this is that, yet again, deterrence is more appropriate than so-called "Equity": Retaining played winners or "mislaying" unwanted losers, carelessly or otherwise, may well work in your favour, if opponents don't notice. The law should discourage such habits. Revoking is another candidate for a more deterrent approach.

There is nothing in the OP that suggests the ♥3 would later be a winner. Sure it could happen especially if trumps.

[dburn]

bluejak, on 2011-April-24, 17:40, said:

Yes, there is a defective trick.

Sorry, I am unconvinced that it is always part of the trick. Law 67 has been used in the obvious way over the years and this novel idea of not using Law 67 for a defective trick by saying it was not originally defective does not seem based in Law.

When a trick has any number of cards other than four I believe it to be defective. If the card is found on the floor, Law 14 applies.

The novel idea of using Law 67B to say that there has been a defective trick when there has not been a defective trick does not seem to be based in rationality. Indeed, it is one of the most absurd pieces of thinking I have ever encountered. A player who plays a card to a trick, and later picks that card up again by mistake and puts it back in his hand, has not thereby unplayed the card to the trick so that the trick becomes defective in retrospect. Four cards, no more and no fewer, were played to the trick, which was not defective then and is not defective now.

The Director may use Law 67B to determine that there has been a defective trick if there is no other explanation for the fact that a player has too few or too many cards in his hand. But when there is another explanation, and it is an explanation consistent with reality on which all the players at the table are agreed, then the Director may not determine that there has been a defective trick when this is plainly not the case.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2011-April-24, 18:30, said:

I don't know, Sven. Are you familiar with the Internet abbreviation tl;dr? It means "too long; didn't read".
...........
I don't need lessons in how things should go, thank you
............

I used fairly brief statements in my early comments.
With your post I understood that a more comprehensive explanation was neccessary and tried to give a lesson like we do when explaining the laws to candidates.
In the meantime Bluejak has given a concentrated comment on the question with little or no "extraneous" explanation, and I feel happy noticing that his response is very much the same as my own early comments.

[pran]

Deleted, duplicate.
For some strange reason my first attempt to "Add reply" seemed to fail?