[VixTD]

In the middle of a hand, declarer's LHO leads a club. Dummy's holding in the suit is ♣Q5. Declarer says "club", and dummy says "which one?". Declarer now says "I meant the queen".

Which card is ruled as played from dummy? (If it makes any difference, dummy could not have suspected that either card would have been particularly advantageous for declarer to play from dummy.)

[whereagles]

I believe the laws say the 5 is the played card. Also, dummy's question may not be innocent.

[blackshoe]

Laws 45B and 46B2 say that declarer has played ♣5. The restrictions of 46B2 apply "except when declarer's different intention is incontrovertible". So it would seem that the ♣5 is played. However, Law 45C4{b} seems to indicate that he can change the designation to ♣Q if he does so "without pause for thought". In this case, I don't buy it. I think "incontrovertible" trumps "without pause for thought", and I also think there's some thought involved when dummy asks the question. And any dummy who's been playing for more than a week knows that 46B2 says the low club is played. So I would not allow the change.

I had a similar case a while back. Dummy is a good and highly competitive player. Declarer is his "significant other", who is not a very good player, and wants very much to please him. She called "club", he scowled, she said "oh, I mean the Queen". I disallowed the change. He got very upset. I did not cave. He refused to play where I direct. He still pulls this kind of crap with other directors, and they let him get away with it.

[billw55]

blackshoe, on 2011-May-18, 08:01, said:

He refused to play where I direct.

Sounds like good news

Good for you for sticking to it. This kind of crap (dummy communicating things to declarer during play) goes on a lot. TDs should be more ruthless.

[lamford]

billw55, on 2011-May-18, 12:20, said:

This kind of crap (dummy communicating things to declarer during play) goes on a lot. TDs should be more ruthless.

I agree; double PPs for the slightest whimper.

[iviehoff]

I agree with the above, unless: If this declarer says "I was actually half way through saying 'club queen' when my partner interrupted me. He knows that I always specify which card in a suit, and I was being a bit slow about spitting it out, hence his question." Then I might just buy that, if I could verify it.

[bluejak]

A person has to speak incredibly slowly if someone else can say "Which one?" between the words "club" and "queen" in the statement "club queen".

In other words, I don't believe it.

[lamford]

bluejak, on 2011-May-19, 09:09, said:

A person has to speak incredibly slowly if someone else can say "Which one?" between the words "club" and "queen" in the statement "club queen".

In other words, I don't believe it.

I don't either, but we can just arrange to have the declarer watched on another board, and if we find that he does not always call out the demonination, we can give a PP for lying on this board.

[VixTD]

blackshoe, on 2011-May-18, 08:01, said:

Laws 45B and 46B2 say that declarer has played ♣5. The restrictions of 46B2 apply "except when declarer's different intention is incontrovertible". So it would seem that the ♣5 is played. However, Law 45C4{b} seems to indicate that he can change the designation to ♣Q if he does so "without pause for thought". In this case, I don't buy it. I think "incontrovertible" trumps "without pause for thought", and I also think there's some thought involved when dummy asks the question. And any dummy who's been playing for more than a week knows that 46B2 says the low club is played. So I would not allow the change.

If dummy had correctly played the five and declarer had said quickly "no, I meant the queen", I would probably have let her change it. The non-offenders even said they wouldn't have called me had that happened. We all agree that dummy has done wrong, but does the comment really make it less likely that declarer's designation was inadvertent? Of course it could have done in other circumstances, if dummy had been following the play and knew the queen would have been a better play.

I didn't allow the change of card, but I didn't think the decision was automatic.

[blackshoe]

Well, I did spend time thinking about "incontrovertible" vs. "without pause for thought", so it wasn't an automatic decision for me, either.