[antonylee]

Law 67 B2a states that if a player played two cards to an earlier trick and director is unable to determine which one was faced, the higher of the two cards is ruled to have been played and the other card ruled to have been in the player's hand until the irregularity has been noticed (with possible revoke penalties, etc.). What happens if the two cards played were two pitches of same-valued cards?

[chrism]

I would arbitrarily rank equal spots by suit if all else failed.

[blackshoe]

Fixed the title.

I would do as Chris suggests, but not arbitrarily. Law 1 specifies the order of ranking for both suits and cards within suits. Thus the ♠2 is higher in rank than any other 2 in the deck. However, this is subject also to Law 44C: the requirement to follow suit takes precedence over all other provisions of the laws. So if one of the cards in question was a card of the suit led, that card is the "played" card, whatever else may be the case.

Note that Law 1 implies that the highest ranking card in the deck is the ♠A, and the lowest ranking is the ♣2, so if the cards concerned were the ♠2 and the ♣A, the deuce is considered played, assuming clubs were not led.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-03, 23:12, said:

Note that Law 1 implies that the highest ranking card in the deck is the ♠A, and the lowest ranking is the ♣2, so if the cards concerned were the ♠2 and the ♣A, the deuce is considered played, assuming clubs were not led.

[PeterAlan]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-03, 23:12, said:

Note that Law 1 implies that the highest ranking card in the deck is the ♠A, and the lowest ranking is the ♣2, so if the cards concerned were the ♠2 and the ♣A, the deuce is considered played, assuming clubs were not led.

There's ambiguity in the use of "rank" in the Laws - cf its specific use as a designator of 'A' to '2' in Law 46.

Law 1 specifies the ordering of suits, and the ordering of cards within a suit. It's not at all obvious to me that it was intended that these should be combined to give the total order ♠A, ♠K, ..., ♣3, ♣2 for the purposes of Law 67B2a, as opposed to the order ♠A, ♥A, ♦A, ♣A, ♠K, ... , ♦2, ♣2 that would apply if "rank" in "highest ranking" is given the meaning that it has in Law 46 (with equality of such rank being split by suit order as in Law 1).

[helene_t]

antonylee, on 2015-March-03, 19:58, said:

Law 67 B2a states that if a player played two cards to an earlier trick and director is unable to determine which one was faced, the higher of the two cards is ruled to have been played and the other card ruled to have been in the player's hand until the irregularity has been noticed (with possible revoke penalties, etc.).

I don't understand. Until the irregularity has been noticed, presumably only one of the two cards was vissible so then it is known which one was played. At least, it is known which one was assumed to be played by the other players. Or are we talking about a situation in which a player quited two cards and nobody remembers which one was faced at the time?

By the way, the title say "defensive trick", doesn't this apply to declarer also?

[chrism]

helene_t, on 2015-March-04, 05:23, said:

... Or are we talking about a situation in which a player quited two cards and nobody remembers which one was faced at the time?

Yes. Of course the director tries very hard to find out which card was actually played. This Law covers the case when that proves impossible.
Has anyone ever encountered this boundary case at the table? Even the extra-card defective trick is quite uncommon; on the few occasions that I have had to rule on it I have always been able to determine which card was played, and the additional equal-spot condition would seem to render it almost vanishingly improbable.

[pran]

PeterAlan, on 2015-March-04, 04:53, said:

There's ambiguity in the use of "rank" in the Laws - cf its specific use as a designator of 'A' to '2' in Law 46.

Law 1 specifies the ordering of suits, and the ordering of cards within a suit. It's not at all obvious to me that it was intended that these should be combined to give the total order ♠A, ♠K, ..., ♣3, ♣2 for the purposes of Law 67B2a, as opposed to the order ♠A, ♥A, ♦A, ♣A, ♠K, ... , ♦2, ♣2 that would apply if "rank" in "highest ranking" is given the meaning that it has in Law 46 (with equality of such rank being split by suit order as in Law 1).

As far as I am aware there is nothing in the laws to be understood that a card in a higher ranking suit outranks a card in a lower ranking suit.

Consequently the (for instance) ♠2 and ♣2 have equal rank.

[blackshoe]

PeterAlan, on 2015-March-04, 04:53, said:

There's ambiguity in the use of "rank" in the Laws - cf its specific use as a designator of 'A' to '2' in Law 46.

Law 1 specifies the ordering of suits, and the ordering of cards within a suit. It's not at all obvious to me that it was intended that these should be combined to give the total order ♠A, ♠K, ..., ♣3, ♣2 for the purposes of Law 67B2a, as opposed to the order ♠A, ♥A, ♦A, ♣A, ♠K, ... , ♦2, ♣2 that would apply if "rank" in "highest ranking" is given the meaning that it has in Law 46 (with equality of such rank being split by suit order as in Law 1).

From Law 1: "The suits rank downward in the order spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs. The cards of each suit rank downward in the order ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2."

I see no ambiguity, the fact that Law 46 does not refer to the rank of suits notwithstanding.

[PeterAlan]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-04, 07:01, said:

From Law 1: "The suits rank downward in the order spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs. The cards of each suit rank downward in the order ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2."

I see no ambiguity, the fact that Law 46 does not refer to the rank of suits notwithstanding.

I know what Law 1 says, Ed.

The first part of what you quote tells you what order the suits rank in, for when you need to rank suits (reflected later in the ranking of denominations in Law 18E, but I speculate also as an historical relic from rubber bridge antecedents - see the comment below about the cut). The second part tells you how you rank cards within a suit for when you need to do that (essentially to decide which card wins a trick). But I do not see any evidence that there was any intention to meld these separate rankings to determine a combined ranking to relate, say, the ♣7 and ♥3. In particular, I do not read that the first part, which refers to suits and not cards, says that all spade cards rank ahead of all heart cards when, for all other purposes of the game, their relative status is determined by other considerations (such as whether they are trumps, or not the suit led to a trick) and traditionally, when cutting for partners, seats etc at rubber bridge, the contrary is the norm (♣7 outranks ♥3). (*)

Here, in Law 67B2a, we have the term "highest ranking". Laws 24, 41D, 46, 50 and 57C all refer to the "rank" of a card in the same sense of whether it is an A, K, ... or 2, and Law 41D specifically uses the term "lowest ranking" in the same sense.

None of this supports your contention, and I continue to maintain that the use of the term "highest ranking" in Law 67 is either intended to refer primarily to the rank in the sense of Laws 24 etc, and when I would use suit order only to distinguish between cards of the same rank, as in cutting for partners, or, at worst, is insufficiently well-defined.

Edit: (*) Since writing this, I looked for interest at the Laws of Contract [Rubber] Bridge 2014. Law 2 is essentially the same as Duplicate Law 1: "The suits rank downward in order - spades (♠), hearts (♥), diamonds (♦), clubs (♣). The cards of each suit rank in descending order: ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2." There follows Law 3, which deals with the draw cut, and specifies (in that context) "When cards of the same rank are drawn, the rank of suit determines which is higher." The law that corresponds to Duplicate Law 67B2A is 67(b)(ii), and is even vaguer: "... the offender ... withdraws all but one card, leaving the highest card he could legally have played to that trick". What's "highest" here? Is a trump higher than a plain card (a question that might also apply to the meaning of "highest-ranked" in the Duplicate Laws)?

[Vampyr]

Don't you people have a sense of humour? Blackshoe was joking.

[blackshoe]

Was I?

Perhaps Law 67B2 is flawed in that it does not contemplate two cards from different suits "played" to the same trick. As to whether the 2 of spades outranks the ace of clubs, well, I continue to disagree with Peter, or he with me, take your pick.

[PeterAlan]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-04, 10:03, said:

Was I?

Perhaps Law 67B2 is flawed in that it does not contemplate two cards from different suits "played" to the same trick. As to whether the 2 of spades outranks the ace of clubs, well, I continue to disagree with Peter, or he with me, take your pick.

Agreed, Ed!

Peter

[barmar]

chrism, on 2015-March-04, 06:43, said:

Yes. Of course the director tries very hard to find out which card was actually played. This Law covers the case when that proves impossible.
Has anyone ever encountered this boundary case at the table? Even the extra-card defective trick is quite uncommon; on the few occasions that I have had to rule on it I have always been able to determine which card was played, and the additional equal-spot condition would seem to render it almost vanishingly improbable.

I'd expect this situation to be most likely if someone accidentally quits a second closely-ranked spot card in the same suit. Players would usually notice and remember what suit someone played to a trick, but it's easy to not notice whether it was a 3 or 5 -- you just remember that it was small enough that it doesn't matter. One of the abilities that tends to distinguish expert players is keeping track of all the spots. But in a more typical game, it wouldn't be surprising if none of the players at the table could remember something like this.

Which basically means that even if this law is unclear, it's really unlikely that it will ever cause a problem in practice.

[antonylee]

What actually happened in the case brought to my attention was an accidental quitting of two cards of the same suit while following suit, so none of this mattered; but I didn't know what the laws said, so I checked out, made the proper ruling, and started thinking about whether all the cases were really covered.