[dburn]

pran, on 2011-April-26, 07:29, said:

Don't try to tell me what I am going to do in a particular case when you (ought to) know that it is not true.

If it is clear that the heart originally played by South to the (now) defective trick was the Ace I shall require South to select this Ace (and not the four) to be placed among his played cards in order to avoid a PP (in addition to the automatic revoke rectification specified in Law 67B1a).

This is beyond a joke. Instead of making two tricks with his ace of hearts, South is now in effect going to make no tricks with his ace of hearts, because pran is going to award a penalty that he has no right at all to award in law in an attempt to deny South a choice that the Law clearly allows him. If South is going to lose a trick because of the revoke penalty that pran is (illegally and absurdly) going to impose in following a Law that ought not to be followed at all (because there has been no defective trick), then South must in equity be allowed the choice given to him by that Law.

But these words:

"If it is clear that the heart originally played by South to the (now) defective trick was the Ace"

mean:

"If it is clear that the card played by South to a trick to which he did not play a card was the Ace"

and these words alone are sufficient to convince me that I am dealing here with a truly insane viewpoint. Of course, this does not imply that pran is a lunatic - from what he says, this insane viewpoint has been part of his training as a Director, so is not his doing and not his fault. But even the WBFLC could not be that stupid... although given its insane decision not to let a player look at the IMP scale during play, perhaps it could.

[bluejak]

Trinidad, on 2011-April-25, 18:42, said:

All very fine. But the original problem doesn't give any interpretation problem. It was clear to all that the ♥3 was played to trick 9. The OP actually states that the card was called, therefore it has been played. Each player played a card to trick 9, hence the trick wasn't defective. The fact that the ♥3 wasn't quitted properly doesn't in any way make trick 9 defective. There is no room for misinterpretation.

No room for misinterpretation? Well, I interpret it differently from you: is that impossible?

Despite the scorn being poured, to me, if you go back and look at trick three, and it has three cards [or five] it is now defective. And, to be honest, I do not see how that can be misinterpreted, either.

[dburn]

I don't know how much more plainly I can put this.

Law 67B1 applies "when the offender has failed to play a card to the defective trick".

But the offender (against Law 65, not Law 44) has not failed to play a card to the defective trick. So, Law 67B1 does not apply.

[pran]

dburn, on 2011-April-26, 09:11, said:

I don't know how much more plainly I can put this.

Law 67B1 applies "when the offender has failed to play a card to the defective trick".

But the offender (against Law 65, not Law 44) has not failed to play a card to the defective trick. So, Law 67B1 does not apply.

A false statement never becomes true just because it is repeated, however many times.

[campboy]

pran, on 2011-April-26, 09:15, said:

A false statement never becomes true just because it is repeated, however many times.

Not so. How about "this statement has been made three times before"?

[pran]

dburn, on 2011-April-26, 08:29, said:

This is beyond a joke. Instead of making two tricks with his ace of hearts, South is now in effect going to make no tricks with his ace of hearts, because pran is going to award a penalty that he has no right at all to award in law in an attempt to deny South a choice that the Law clearly allows him. If South is going to lose a trick because of the revoke penalty that pran is (illegally and absurdly) going to impose in following a Law that ought not to be followed at all (because there has been no defective trick), then South must in equity be allowed the choice given to him by that Law.

But these words:

"If it is clear that the heart originally played by South to the (now) defective trick was the Ace"

mean:

"If it is clear that the card played by South to a trick to which he did not play a card was the Ace"

and these words alone are sufficient to convince me that I am dealing here with a truly insane viewpoint. Of course, this does not imply that pran is a lunatic - from what he says, this insane viewpoint has been part of his training as a Director, so is not his doing and not his fault. But even the WBFLC could not be that stupid... although given its insane decision not to let a player look at the IMP scale during play, perhaps it could.

If it is clear that a player won a trick with the ♥A and now is in a position trying to win another trick with the same Ace I strongly suspect an attempt to cheat and will treat it correspondingly. The Director's power to apply a PP in such cases is indisputable.

Whenever a player is required by Law 67B to submit a card to a previously played trick because he has too many cards in his hand he will always be subject to the standard one-trick revoke rectification provided a trick is available for such rectification.

I this doesn't clear up the ignorance of Law 67 I suspect that nothing will.

[axman]

dburn, on 2011-April-26, 08:29, said:

This is beyond a joke. Instead of making two tricks with his ace of hearts, South is now in effect going to make no tricks with his ace of hearts, because pran is going to award a penalty that he has no right at all to award in law in an attempt to deny South a choice that the Law clearly allows him. If South is going to lose a trick because of the revoke penalty that pran is (illegally and absurdly) going to impose in following a Law that ought not to be followed at all (because there has been no defective trick), then South must in equity be allowed the choice given to him by that Law.

But these words:

"If it is clear that the heart originally played by South to the (now) defective trick was the Ace"

mean:

"If it is clear that the card played by South to a trick to which he did not play a card was the Ace"

and these words alone are sufficient to convince me that I am dealing here with a truly insane viewpoint. Of course, this does not imply that pran is a lunatic - from what he says, this insane viewpoint has been part of his training as a Director, so is not his doing and not his fault. But even the WBFLC could not be that stupid... although given its insane decision not to let a player look at the IMP scale during play, perhaps it could.

I am convinced that burn does not believe all that he writes. I come to the conclusion because of his sentence containing:

…..(because there has been no defective trick),…..

When inspecting TFLB2008 I find no specification as to what a defective trick is; additionally, I find no specification as to what a defective trick is not. Yet burn claims that there was no defective trick. As he has not quoted a law that would lead to such a conclusion**. That begs the question, ‘how does he know so?’ Certainly, as the law stands, even though one might in fact make a true assertion [as in guessing which square root of 1 someone is imagining since can quite easily tell you it is the other one], it is dubious to assert the trick is not defective; as well as the converse, the trick is defective.

** yes, he has quoted law, just not law that leads to that conclusion

TFLB is bountiful in instances where a concept is created and then nothing is done with it, or worse, bad things are done with it.

[dburn]

axman, on 2011-April-26, 09:49, said:

I am convinced that burn does not believe all that he writes. I come to the conclusion because of his sentence containing:

…..(because there has been no defective trick),…..

When inspecting TFLB2008 I find no specification as to what a defective trick is

I infer from the opening words of Law 67A that a defective trick occurs "when a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick". I believe this inference to be valid (and obvious), and since everything I have written in this thread has been based on that inference, I believe everything I have written in this thread to be true (and obvious).

Pran, on the other hand, believes that a defective trick occurs when despite four cards having been played to that trick, one or more cards subsequently become "unplayed" to the trick. I believe this inference to be invalid (and absurd), and since everything pran has written in this thread has been based on that inference, I believe everything pran has written in this thread to be false (and absurd).

However, pran asserts an authority for his belief: his training as a Director and his consequent "familiarity" with the "reality of the law", which he would have us believe is something different from the real meaning of the real words in the law. Pity the poor local Director attempting to resolve questions such as these with nothing but his knowledge of language and his common sense to guide him. Pity also the poor local player who puts his unplayed cards down for a moment to wipe his spectacles, picks them up again but inadvertently includes one of his played cards among their number, and is told by one of pran's disciples that not only has he revoked on a trick on which he has clearly not revoked and must lose a trick thereby, but he may very well have been trying to cheat by playing a card twice and will be penalised therefor. He won't believe it, and I don't believe it either - the difference between us is that I won't actually give up the game in disgust.

[bluejak]

I would have thought a "poor local Director" would find the term defective trick clear and helpful if one trick has three or five cards in it. The suggestion that he will logically infer that such a trick is not defective is ludicrous.

[dburn]

bluejak, on 2011-April-26, 11:22, said:

I would have thought a "poor local Director" would find the term defective trick clear and helpful if one trick has three or five cards in it. The suggestion that he will logically infer that such a trick is not defective is ludicrous.

A defective trick is not a trick that currently "has three or five cards in it" (since cards are kept separately in front of players at duplicate bridge, rather than gathered into tricks as at rubber bridge, no trick actually has any cards "in it" at all).

A defective trick is a trick to which three or five (or any number other than four) cards were played, either because one or more players failed to contribute a card, or because one or more players each contributed more than one card.

In order to establish the existence of a defective trick, it is a necessary condition that at least one player should not have the same number of played cards as at least one other player. But it is not, as pran or his trainers seem to believe, a sufficient condition (and nor do the words of the Law stipulate that it is).

[gordontd]

axman, on 2011-April-26, 09:49, said:

When inspecting TFLB2008 I find no specification as to what a defective trick is;

I do: when I look at Law 67: DEFECTIVE TRICK, I see:

Quote

When a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards
to a trick,

That looks like a specification to me.

[bluejak]

dburn, on 2011-April-26, 11:31, said:

A defective trick is not a trick that currently "has three or five cards in it" (since cards are kept separately in front of players at duplicate bridge, rather than gathered into tricks as at rubber bridge, no trick actually has any cards "in it" at all).

That may or may not be true, but it certainly is not obvious, and when you are talking about what a "poor local Director" would understand I see no reason why your logic should apply.

As someone else pointed out, you will repeat it until everyone gives up, but that does not make it right.

[axman]

dburn, on 2011-April-26, 10:09, said:

I infer from the opening words of Law 67A that a defective trick occurs "when a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick". I believe this inference to be valid (and obvious), and since everything I have written in this thread has been based on that inference, I believe everything I have written in this thread to be true (and obvious).

Pran, on the other hand, believes that a defective trick occurs when despite four cards having been played to that trick, one or more cards subsequently become "unplayed" to the trick. I believe this inference to be invalid (and absurd), and since everything pran has written in this thread has been based on that inference, I believe everything pran has written in this thread to be false (and absurd).

However, pran asserts an authority for his belief: his training as a Director and his consequent "familiarity" with the "reality of the law", which he would have us believe is something different from the real meaning of the real words in the law. Pity the poor local Director attempting to resolve questions such as these with nothing but his knowledge of language and his common sense to guide him. Pity also the poor local player who puts his unplayed cards down for a moment to wipe his spectacles, picks them up again but inadvertently includes one of his played cards among their number, and is told by one of pran's disciples that not only has he revoked on a trick on which he has clearly not revoked and must lose a trick thereby, but he may very well have been trying to cheat by playing a card twice and will be penalised therefor. He won't believe it, and I don't believe it either - the difference between us is that I won't actually give up the game in disgust.

burn,

I placed a nettle beneath the nail of your pinky finger not to cause irritation but to induce you examine your arguments, as well as the arguments, in the minutest detail. You are broaching matters of incalculable importance. But what I wanted from you were sound arguments- all of which are sound. And as I am of the opinion that of all those of high intellect who are on these forums, only you are of superior intellect as well as of superior tongue- and if a suitable argument is to be made the best opportunity is that it comes from you.

Well, what have I done? I have irritated. And what haven’t I done? I haven’t induced. For both of which I apologize. Please do me the favor of removing the nettle.

regards

[Cascade]

pran, on 2011-April-26, 09:29, said:

If it is clear that a player won a trick with the ♥A and now is in a position trying to win another trick with the same Ace I strongly suspect an attempt to cheat and will treat it correspondingly. The Director's power to apply a PP in such cases is indisputable.

Whenever a player is required by Law 67B to submit a card to a previously played trick because he has too many cards in his hand he will always be subject to the standard one-trick revoke rectification provided a trick is available for such rectification.

I this doesn't clear up the ignorance of Law 67 I suspect that nothing will.

Perhaps rather than cheat he is trying to expose the absurdity of the ruling.

You are trying to apply this provision of Law 67:

Law67B1.

Quote

When the offender has failed to play a card to the defective trick, the
Director shall require him forthwith to expose a card face-up in front of
him and then place it appropriately among his played cards (this card does
not affect ownership of the trick);

despite the fact that a card has been played.

As far as I can tell there is no requirement in this law to expose the card that had already been played - well there couldn't be because the premise of the law is that "... the offender has failed to play a card ..." - therefore the player who is to expose "... a card ..." ought to be free to expose "... a card ...".

Then you are trying to, without reference to law, restrict which card should be exposed so as to maximize the penalty to the offender when the law is clear that it is appropriate and legal to choose a rectification that is the most advantageous to one's side.

Law 10C4.

Quote

Subject to Law 16D2, after rectification of an infraction it is
appropriate for the offenders to make any call or play advantageous to
their side, even though they thereby appear to profit through their own
infraction (but see Laws 27 and 50).

[Trinidad]

Trinidad, on 2011-April-25, 18:42, said:

All very fine. But the original problem doesn't give any interpretation problem. It was clear to all that the ♥3 was played to trick 9. The OP actually states that the card was called, therefore it has been played. Each player played a card to trick 9, hence the trick wasn't defective. The fact that the ♥3 wasn't quitted properly doesn't in any way make trick 9 defective. There is no room for misinterpretation.

bluejak, on 2011-April-26, 09:00, said:

No room for misinterpretation? Well, I interpret it differently from you: is that impossible?

Despite the scorn being poured, to me, if you go back and look at trick three, and it has three cards [or five] it is now defective. And, to be honest, I do not see how that can be misinterpreted, either.

Law 67A has been quoted a few times in this thread. If you read it, you will see that it doesn't mention how many cards the trick has. It mentions only how many cards have been played -by each player- to the trick. So if the TD establishes that each player played one card to trick three, then trick three was not defective. The mere fact that a trick now contains three cards doesn't necessarily mean that three cards were played to it. There are other possible explanations for a disappearing card. And you have mentioned in your OP that this was actually the case (the card was played, but never turned).

Law 67A: "When a player has omitted to play to a trick, or has played too many cards to a trick, the error must be rectified if attention is drawn to the irregularity before a player on each side has played to the following trick." This clearly doesn't apply when all players have been playing exactly one card to each trick.

It doesn't apply when nothing strange happens to the cards played, and it also doesn't apply if played cards later disappear, end up being added to a hand or start singing La Marseillaise for all I care. A card played is a card played. And 4x1 played card equals a "non defective trick".

If you want to misinterpret "play" for "have" or "contain", that is entirely up to your misinterpretation. But the Lawbook doesn't leave you room for it.

Rik

[Trinidad]

dburn, on 2011-April-26, 09:11, said:

I don't know how much more plainly I can put this.

Law 67B1 applies "when the offender has failed to play a card to the defective trick".

But the offender (against Law 65, not Law 44) has not failed to play a card to the defective trick. So, Law 67B1 does not apply.

pran, on 2011-April-26, 09:15, said:

A false statement never becomes true just because it is repeated, however many times.

Just for clarification: Is it your point of view that the offender did fail to play the ♥3 in the OP?

If you rule that ♥3 was never played, then of course, the trick was defective and that is the end of this (part of the) discussion. However, if you rule that the ♥3 was actually played to the trick (and the other players played 1 card to this trick) the discussion should also end, since in that case 4 x 1 cards were played to the trick and therefore it isn't defective.

Rik

[pran]

Trinidad, on 2011-April-26, 16:09, said:

Just for clarification: Is it your point of view that the offender did fail to play the ♥3 in the OP?

If you rule that ♥3 was never played, then of course, the trick was defective and that is the end of this (part of the) discussion. However, if you rule that the ♥3 was actually played to the trick (and the other players played 1 card to this trick) the discussion should also end, since in that case 4 x 1 cards were played to the trick and therefore it isn't defective.

Rik

No, and I believe I have made it perfectly clear a number of times that this is not the point.

So one more time:

The point is that whenever a player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards then the Director shall determine that there has been a defective trick and handle this situation as prescribed in Law 67B.

There is nothing in this law making the history of cards played relevant; what is important is the situation at a particular time. Law 67 does not bother about whether an extra card in a player's hand had at some time been played to a trick, the law only concerns the situation with an incorrect number of cards in the player's hand and among his played cards respectively.

The ♥3 may have been played correctly to a trick, this is irrelevant. What matters is that if the ♥3 later appears in a player's hand instead of among his played cards where it should be then the situation at that time is to be treated as if the card was never played to that trick.

[nige1]

dburn, on 2011-April-26, 11:31, said:

In order to establish the existence of a defective trick, it is a necessary condition that at least one player should not have the same number of played cards as at least one other player. But it is not, as pran or his trainers seem to believe, a sufficient condition (and nor do the words of the Law stipulate that it is).

All this quibbling is fun.
After two defective tricks (containing say 3 & 5 cards), it is possible for each hand to have the same number of cards.

[PeterAlan]

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the Laws of Duplicate Bridge are imperfectly worded. It behoves us, therefore, when interpreting what they are intended to mean, to have regard to what indications the lawgivers have given us, and I can't help feeling that an excellent starting point is the second sentence of the text:

Introduction to the 2007 Laws of Duplicate Bridge said:

They [the Laws] are primarily designed not as punishment for irregularities but rather for the rectification of situations where non-offenders may otherwise be damaged.

I suggest that it is also better to prefer interpretations that conform to common sense rather than ones which do not.

pran, on 2011-April-26, 16:51, said:

No, and I believe I have made it perfectly clear a number of times that this is not the point.

So one more time:

The point is that whenever a player has too few or too many cards in his hand, and a correspondingly incorrect number of played cards then the Director shall determine that there has been a defective trick and handle this situation as prescribed in Law 67B.

There is nothing in this law making the history of cards played relevant; what is important is the situation at a particular time. Law 67 does not bother about whether an extra card in a player's hand had at some time been played to a trick, the law only concerns the situation with an incorrect number of cards in the player's hand and among his played cards respectively.

The ♥3 may have been played correctly to a trick, this is irrelevant. What matters is that if the ♥3 later appears in a player's hand instead of among his played cards where it should be then the situation at that time is to be treated as if the card was never played to that trick.

So, one more time, Pran:

Law 67B said:

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)

Neither dburn nor I think as a matter of English construction that this mandates that the Director "shall" determine that there has been a defective trick; instead, it says what (s)he should do IF (s)he so determines. Both of us think that it would be very sensible to make no such determination. Moreover, I also consider that this would be in accordance with the worthy sentiment from the Introduction that I have quoted at the top of this post.

But if you insist on your construction of this clause, then let us at least follow through such a strict approach to the construction of the rest of the Law.

Law 67B1 starts "When the offender has failed to play a card to the defective trick,": here the putative offender has manifestly played a card to the supposedly defective trick, so this clause does not apply. If you want to deny this then, as dburn has already said on several occasions, you have to be able to say how, in accordance with the Laws, a card that has been played somehow becomes unplayed, and you have failed to do this - for the very good reason that there is no such provision.

Similarly, Law 67B2 starts (in (a)) "When the offender has played more than one card to the defective trick,": not even you is suggesting that the putative offender has done this, so we can no doubt put this on one side.

We conclude, therefore, that Law 67B is silent as to the consequences in the case in question. This is, of course, as it should be, since it is abundantly clear that Law 67B was not written to cover the case posed in the OP: it was written to cover the cases where a player either played no card to a trick, or played more than one. The case of a failure to turn properly a card that had already been played to a trick was evidently not uppermost in the Law writers' minds, so perhaps there was an oversight.

In such circumstances, is it not best to adopt a sensible approach in keeping with the overall purpose of the Laws instead of trying to stretch interpretation to breaking point and beyond in an attempt to support an arbitrary position?

PeterAlan

[dburn]

nige1, on 2011-April-26, 17:33, said:

All this quibbling is fun.
After two defective tricks (containing say 3 & 5 cards), it is possible for each hand to have the same number of cards.

Quibbling? Not in the least, for one imagines a Bermuda Bowl final in which:

South plays no card to trick three, and two cards to trick seven. The cameras in the vugraph room record beyond doubt what actually happened, but the situation was so tense and the problems in play and defence so complex that the twin infractions passed unremarked at the time they occurred.

Pran is summoned to the table after trick nine, when it occurs to someone what has actually happened and that something ought perhaps to be done about it. Pran carefully counts South's played cards (nine) and South's unplayed cards (four). The world of bridge (sorry, Bridge) waits with bated breath for his ruling.

"No defective trick can possibly have occurred here, for there is no discrepancy between the number of played cards South presently has and the number of played cards he presently ought to have. I don't care what the video evidence shows, for I have been trained in the reality of Law 67B1, and that supersedes anything that might in reality have happened. Play on, please - there will be no adjustment."