[shevek]

I get this a lot, regretably.

I get called to see East with a faced card. Maybe East revoked some time ago and corrected it in time. The table (who?) then made some ruling & told her to leave it out.

What is the correct procedure here?
I feel like saying "Since I wasn't called at the time, East can pick up the card without penalty." The point being that EW might have been able to get the defence back on track to avoid this lead penalty.

What am I allowed to do?
Also, is it appropriate to admonish the table?

[pran]

shevek, on 2011-October-06, 03:38, said:

I get this a lot, regretably.

I get called to see East with a faced card. Maybe East revoked some time ago and corrected it in time. The table (who?) then made some ruling & told her to leave it out.

What is the correct procedure here?
I feel like saying "Since I wasn't called at the time, East can pick up the card without penalty." The point being that EW might have been able to get the defence back on track to avoid this lead penalty.

What am I allowed to do?
Also, is it appropriate to admonish the table?

Law 10B said:

The Director may allow or cancel any enforcement or waiver of a rectification made by the players without his instructions.

Law 11A said:

The right to rectification of an irregularity may be forfeited if either member of the non-offending side takes any action before summoning the Director. The Director does so rule, for example, when the non-offending side may have gained through subsequent action taken by an opponent in ignorance of the relevant provisions of the law.

(My enhancement)

You are on solid ground if you simply tell East to pick up the card without any penalty or rectification.

[gnasher]

pran, on 2011-October-06, 03:51, said:

You are on solid ground if you simply tell East to pick up the card without any penalty or rectification.

It may be within the Laws to do that, but it would also be a dereliction of your duty.

The director should determine whether the card does, in fact, meet the conditions for a major penalty card. Then he should determine whether the non-offending side has gained by the failure to call the director at the proper time. Then he should decide whether to apply the rules relating to penalty cards.

[bluejak]

As pran say, you can tell him to pick it up, and an alternative approach to Law 10B is to use Law 50 [first paragraph] which says a visible card is a penalty card "unless the Director designates otherwise", so you can designate otherwise.

One interesting idea, which seems fair to me, is that the players all probably understand the notion of a penalty card being left on the table and played at the first legal opportunity: it is the idea that partner has lead penalties they may not realise. So one possibility is to leave the card on the table as a major penalty card, require it to be played at the first opportunity, but not give any lead penalties when the player's partner is on lead.

Is this legal? In my view, yes. The players have given a ruling at the table. Now, if the TD was called he would have warned them about lead penalties, but no doubt the players did not issue such a warning [you should check]. So, in effect they have given a faulty ruling, namely leaving on the table, must play, but no lead restrictions, and under Law 10B I am allowing that ruling to stand.

One thing I really try to do is to find out what the relative strengths of the players are: if both sides are good players, especially if they all look as though lead restrictions are normal, I probably allow the lead restrictions. But I consider it a judgement whether to or not.

You ask about admonishing the table. Yes, I do ["Naughty table, I shall smack one of your four wooden legs ..." ] making it clear to each and every one of the four players that they are required to call the TD. Too many players seem to assume that only non-offenders can call the TD.

[barmar]

It seems like there are two possibilities:

1. They knew there were lead restrictions at the time the card became a penalty card, but decided to postpone calling the director until his partner got on lead while the penalty card was still on the table, so the director could advise about the restrictions.

2. It wasn't until the partner got on lead that someone piped up and said "Wait, I think we should call the director, there may be lead restrictions"

In case 1, I might just treat this as if I'd been called at the appropriate time. Case 2 seems more appropriate to ruling that they'd lost their right to this redress by not calling.

[mycroft]

Barry, if 1. "they" *included both defenders*, then I agree with you. But if the offending side could have played more to their benefit had they known what would happen if one, rather than the other defender got in, or if the defender got in on this, rather than a later trick, but they didn't, then I'm for "designating otherwise."

It's not at the time of the restricted lead that there's a problem with not knowing the Laws; it's the setup to it where not calling the TD may reduce the offending side's ability to follow L10C4 and get the best score possible given their previous misplay.

[pran]

mycroft, on 2011-October-06, 13:55, said:

Barry, if 1. "they" *included both defenders*, then I agree with you. But if the offending side could have played more to their benefit had they known what would happen if one, rather than the other defender got in, or if the defender got in on this, rather than a later trick, but they didn't, then I'm for "designating otherwise."

It's not at the time of the restricted lead that there's a problem with not knowing the Laws; it's the setup to it where not calling the TD may reduce the offending side's ability to follow L10C4 and get the best score possible given their previous misplay.

Precisely!
And that is why it is important to call the Director at once whenever an irregularity occurs and not delay such call to a time which the players believe is "sufficiently early" to properly handle the case.