[pran]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-06, 09:35, said:

RE: your #5 and #6: which law(s)?

41, 49 and 50

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2013-July-06, 13:01, said:

41, 49 and 50

Quote

Law 41A: After a bid, double or redouble has been followed by three passes in rotation, the defender on presumed declarer’s left makes the opening lead face down*. The face-down lead may be withdrawn only upon instruction of the Director after an irregularity (see Law 47E2); the withdrawn card must be returned to the defender’s hand.

This defines correct procedure — which IMO presumes no irregularity (yet) but we already have an irregularity - a card exposed during the auction period.

Quote

Law 49: Except in the normal course of play or application of law (see for example Law 47E), when a defender’s card is in a position in which his partner could possibly see its face, or when a defender names a card as being in his hand, each such card becomes a penalty card (Law 50).

Note that this law does not say when it becomes a penalty card. Can you have penalty cards during the auction period? I would say not, because you don't know for sure which side is defending yet. Law 24 seems to support this position:

Quote

Law 24: When the Director determines that during the auction period because of a player’s own error one or more cards of that player’s hand were in position for the face to be seen by his partner, the Director shall require that every such card be left face up on the table until the auction period ends. Information from cards thus exposed is authorized for the non-offending side but unauthorized for the offending side. If the offender becomes declarer or dummy, the cards are picked up and returned to the hand. If the offender becomes a defender, every such card becomes a penalty card (see Law 50)…

The emphases are mine. To me, this, particularly the last highlighted part, says that such exposed cards do not become penalty cards until the player actually becomes a defender, and that happens when the opening lead is faced, and not before. So I don't think you can get to law 50 until the opening lead is faced, and if you can't get to law 50 until then, then declarer has no legal right to require or refuse any particular opening lead.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-06, 16:11, said:

The emphases are mine. To me, this, particularly the last highlighted part, says that such exposed cards do not become penalty cards until the player actually becomes a defender, and that happens when the opening lead is faced, and not before. So I don't think you can get to law 50 until the opening lead is faced, and if you can't get to law 50 until then, then declarer has no legal right to require or refuse any particular opening lead.

No, it happens earlier!

Challenge to you: At what exact time does the presumed declarer cease to be presumed declarer and instead becomes the actual declarer?

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2013-July-06, 16:54, said:

No, it happens earlier!

Challenge to you: At what exact time does the presumed declarer cease to be presumed declarer and instead becomes the actual declarer?

What happens earlier? Earlier than what?

Presumed declarer becomes declarer when the opening lead is faced by the presumed declarer's LHO. If presumed declarer's RHO faces an opening lead, Law 54 applies, and presumed declarer may never become declarer. But that's not what happened here.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-06, 19:39, said:

What happens earlier? Earlier than what?

Definitions:
Defender An opponent of (presumed) declarer.

Presumed declarer can execute his rights as declarer earlier than what you believe for the purpose of for instance Law 50 because his opponents already are defenders (by definition) at this time.

blackshoe, on 2013-July-06, 19:39, said:

Presumed declarer becomes declarer when the opening lead is faced by the presumed declarer's LHO. If presumed declarer's RHO faces an opening lead, Law 54 applies, and presumed declarer may never become declarer. But that's not what happened here.

Try your theory on (for instance) Law 26: How can declarer impose restrictions on the opening lead (as explicitly specified in that Law) unless he is declarer at the time the opening lead is to be made?

Similarly Law 24 leading to Law 50 does not make sense unless it takes full effect as soon as it is clear which sides will (definitely) be declaring and defending respectively.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2013-July-07, 01:15, said:

Try your theory on (for instance) Law 26: How can declarer impose restrictions on the opening lead (as explicitly specified in that Law) unless he is declarer at the time the opening lead is to be made?

Similarly Law 24 leading to Law 50 does not make sense unless it takes full effect as soon as it is clear which sides will (definitely) be declaring and defending respectively.

Law 26 is a specific law - specific to the case where a call has been withdrawn. In that specific case, presumed declarer may affect the opening lead. Nothing in that or any other law extends that right to other cases.

[pran]

Definitions said:

Defender An opponent of (presumed) declarer.

Law 24 said:

If the offender becomes a defender every such card becomes a penalty card (see Law 50

so every "such card" becomes a penalty card as soon as we have a presumed declarer, i.e. (long) before the opening lead is made.

Please try to give a reasonable reason why the rectification for a Law 24/Law 50 irregularity should be unavailable to presumed declarer, i.e. the opening lead, and (contrary to AFAIK universal practice) only available on defenders' leads to the second and later tricks.


(PS.: Do you allow the opening leader to lead any card at his own choice when he has a major penalty card from exposure during the auction?)

[aguahombre]

I wonder if INDP regrets his original question. I sure do.

[blackshoe]

His original question was answered in posts 2 and 3 and the answer confirmed in post 8.

Threads drift, but if the original question was answered I don't see that as a problem.

[aguahombre]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-07, 11:22, said:

His original question was answered in posts 2 and 3 and the answer confirmed in post 8.

Threads drift, but if the original question was answered I don't see that as a problem.

Sorry for another attempt at humor.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2013-July-07, 10:02, said:

so every "such card" becomes a penalty card as soon as we have a presumed declarer, i.e. (long) before the opening lead is made.

Please try to give a reasonable reason why the rectification for a Law 24/Law 50 irregularity should be unavailable to presumed declarer, i.e. the opening lead, and (contrary to AFAIK universal practice) only available on defenders' leads to the second and later tricks.


(PS.: Do you allow the opening leader to lead any card at his own choice when he has a major penalty card from exposure during the auction?)

1. When opening leader has an exposed card that's a different situation to this one.
2. That something is "universal practice" doesn't necessarily mean it's correct practice.
3. I read the words of the law. If they tell me X, then it seems to me Y is wrong, universal practice or not.

I have tried to give a "reasonable reason" for it. Your argument is "my way is the right way because everybody does it this way". Most everybody speeds on freeways, so your argument would lead to the conclusion that it's legal to do so.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-07, 12:29, said:

3. I read the words of the law. If they tell me X, then it seems to me Y is wrong, universal practice or not.

I think what you've done is expose another place where the lawmakers didn't consider a particular corner case. Had they realized the problem, I think they undoubtedly would have written "presumed declarer" and "presumed defender", so that the opening lead would be included.

But even without that, I think it's obviously intended, because otherwise it seems to be inconsistent.

[blackshoe]

I don't think it's all that obvious.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-07, 16:46, said:

I don't think it's all that obvious.

It might interest you to know that the EBL "Commentary on the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1987" by Grattan Endicott and Bent Keith Hansen issued in 1992 says

Comment 24.7: The Director must remember that the auction continues until the opening lead is faced

Comment 24.8: The opening lead is part of the play of the hand for the purposes of Law 50D snd 50E.

Although written for the laws of 1987 this work is recognised (AFAIK also within WBC and ACBL) wherever it concerns laws that have not been essentially changed since the 1987 version of the laws.

(Law 50D in the 1987 Version is now Law 50C and Law 50E is now Law 50D, otherwise essentially unchanged.)

[blackshoe]

Has this commentary been officially endorsed by the WBFLC? I'm pretty certain it has not been so endorsed by the ACBL. I will concede though that if comment 24.8 is valid, your interpretation of the law is correct.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-07, 21:56, said:

Has this commentary been officially endorsed by the WBFLC? I'm pretty certain it has not been so endorsed by the ACBL. I will concede though that if comment 24.8 is valid, your interpretation of the law is correct.

Frankly I don't know - and I don't bother.

Grattan Endicott was Chairman and Bent Keith Hansen was one of the members of EBL Laws Committee in 1991 (when the work was done) and I cannot imagine EBLLC acting on its own with an enterprise like this without consent (express or implied) from WBFLC.

What should have alerted you about your understanding of Laws 54E, 24 and 50 is the obvious inconsistencies it leads to. When we teach trainees on the laws of bridge we (at least in Norway) train them to understand the logic and not just the simple letter of the laws.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-07, 12:29, said:

I have tried to give a "reasonable reason" for it.

Sorry, but I have been completely unable to locate any attempt showing reasonable reason why a defender whose partner has a major penalty card should enjoy greater freedom in selecting his opening lead than (given all other relevant circumstances identical) when selecting his lead to a later trick.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2013-July-07, 16:46, said:

I don't think it's all that obvious.

Obviously

[blackshoe]

I don't recall exactly where, but it seems to me the WBF has said that zonal authorities are free, absent an interpretation by the WBFLC, to interpret the laws as they see fit within their zones. I am certain that the ACBL asserts that right in North America whatever the WBF has said. It also seems to me that an interpretation by one zonal authority is not binding on any other.

Speaking of "inconsistency" the combination of comments 24.7 and 24.8 leads to the inconsistency that the opening lead is "part of the play" even though it is chosen during the auction period!

I understand logic, and I can read. I think when you speak of logic, though, you're going beyond the logic of the words themselves. Whatever you're basing your understanding of this "logic" on, it strikes me that it's much the same as the "logic" of "divine revelation" which, funnily enough, is always revealed by some human being, not by a god directly - at least in modern times.

Note that I am not saying that you — or comment 24.8 — are necessarily wrong, only that I don't see it in the words of the law.

[iviehoff]

pran, on 2013-July-07, 18:23, said:

Comment 24.8: The opening lead is part of the play of the hand for the purposes of Law 50D snd 50E.

There's a limit to what we can read to know what the law means, and some interpretation issued by the EBL on an earlier edition of the laws isn't going to be noticed. No one seems to have noticed it sufficiently to have mentioned it last time we discussed it on this forum.

This exact point is the contentiousness I referred to. The reading Endicott and Hansen make is, I consider, desirable, and apparently so did they, sufficiently to assert it as the correct reading. But the law doesn't say that, nor does any official interpretation. Blackshoe read the law and was confident enough about what it actually says to say that it wasn't even contentious.

Endicott was asking for ideas to improve the law last year, and one of my suggestions to him was that this interpretation ought to be in the law, without realising that he had previously suggested the law should be read like that. It is curious that he was already aware of this problem and failed to get the reading into the 2007 laws. Or perhaps he just thought that everyone would see the problem and make the same interpretation as him.