[bluejak]

Declarer puts his hand down, and says "all mine".

He is nearly right: he has two spade winners, a heart winner, no diamonds, and his clubs are T976. Of course, one opponent has the singleton eight of clubs!

Incidentally, the last trick played was a diamond, led by LHO, won by declarer. There are no trumps.

Do you allow the claim?

[jdonn]

I vote emphatically yes. I have long believed, and still do, anyone who claims and has a long suit is implying they run it from the top, and I believe that should be applied consistently unless there is some specific reason to believe otherwise. I don't want to discourage claims by giving away tricks that the opponents would virtually never win if the hand were played out, since claims are good for everyone.

Frankly, I really look down on an opponent who tries to dispute this kind of claim at the table.

[Jlall]

If there is only 1 or 2 clubs left, then yes certainly.

If there are 3+ but declarer knows the clubs are splitting via counting and can demonstrate this, then yes.

If there are 3+ clubs left, and declarer has no idea how they split, then no I do not allow it because he forgot the 8 was out and thinks all of his clubs are equal.

Strongly disagree with jdonn, if someone forgets a card is out they should lose a trick to it. This is very different than if there were 2 clubs out and declarer knew that the T and 9 would draw the remaining clubs, in which case he should not lose a trick.

[jdonn]

Glad to see we haven't changed our minds!
http://forums.bridge...pic=35001&st=15

[duschek]

Jlall, on Jan 23 2010, 12:04 AM, said:

If there is only 1 or 2 clubs left, then yes certainly.

I agree. Otherwise everyone should stop claiming.

Jlall, on Jan 23 2010, 12:04 AM, said:

If there are 3+ clubs left, and declarer has no idea how they split, then no I do not allow it because he forgot the 8 was out and thinks all of his clubs are equal.

I would allow the claim if the clubs split. Declarer probably believes there are only the ♣8x missing and would certainly play the clubs from the top.

If clubs were 3-0, I would base my ruling on declarer playing the ♣10, ♣9, ♣7, the defenders making all diamond tricks available, declarer discarding ♣6, ♠K, and if possible misguessing at trick 12.

[bluejak]

Let's assume - as is likely from this sort of claim and is what I meant anyway - that there is only one club out. Obviously, if declarer knows there is a club out at all, he does not know it is the eight.

[RMB1]

Although not strictly relevant, I look to Law 70C2: Is it likely declarer was unaware of the C8 remaining in an opponent's hand?

The claim statement suggests that declarer knows the AKQJ of clubs have been played and there are at most two clubs left. The claim statement did not say there were no clubs left nor did it imply that.

I would allow the claim.

Robin

[helene_t]

Agree with Josh.

[Jlall]

bluejak, on Jan 23 2010, 08:33 AM, said:

Let's assume - as is likely from this sort of claim and is what I meant anyway - that there is only one club out. Obviously, if declarer knows there is a club out at all, he does not know it is the eight.

Why is this obvious? If the T and the 9 are 100 % to draw the 8, I think he can say "all mine." Just like if he had AKQJT5432 and he said "all mine" I would have no problem with it.

[TimG]

Jlall, on Jan 23 2010, 12:04 AM, said:

Strongly disagree with jdonn, if someone forgets a card is out they should lose a trick to it.

This just discourages claims. If they hadn't claimed, they would have played their tricks from the top and taken all the tricks.

Perhaps claimers should always state "from the top" along with "all mine". But, as Josh suggests, it ought to be implicit.

[bluejak]

I do not think it is our job to decide whether such-and-such an approach encourages or discourages claims. That is the job of the law makers and TOs.

The problem with this hand for me is simple: I know how I play. If I lead a winner from AK2, knowing they are all winners, I still instinctively lead the ace or king: if I lead a winner form T976, knowing they are all winners, I am quite likely to lead the 6 or 7. Some times ago, after an argument of this sort [I think on RGB] I watched how opponents played when they were all winners: about 80% lead top down. You may think that a high figure, but it worries me: one in five people do not lead top down.

It is our job to resolve doubtful points against the claimer, the Law says so, not to resolve doubtful points so as to encourage claiming: are you sure that giving him all the tricks follows the Law?

Note that this is not a question from the ACBL, where the RA has said that claims are assumed to be top down, but from England, where the advice is more circumspect.

[jdonn]

What did you watch exactly, how opponents played T976 or how they ran any suit that was good? Also, were any of your observations after both opponents had already shown out?

Btw when I said something along the lines of encouraging claims I wasn't looking at it from the perspective of the director making a ruling. I was looking at it from the player who decides to call the director, over a trick he wasn't going to win, all because he forgot that when his opponent claims it is doing him a favor.

[Jlall]

TimG, on Jan 23 2010, 09:53 AM, said:

Jlall, on Jan 23 2010, 12:04 AM, said:

Strongly disagree with jdonn, if someone forgets a card is out they should lose a trick to it.

This just discourages claims. If they hadn't claimed, they would have played their tricks from the top and taken all the tricks.

Perhaps claimers should always state "from the top" along with "all mine". But, as Josh suggests, it ought to be implicit.

No it doesn't, it discourages claims from people who don't know if their cards are actually high or not. I would like to discourage such claims. By all means claim if you know you have the rest, as I said if there are only 2 clubs out I will obv give it to you without any statement, but if you forget a card and happen to get lucky that it drops, you don't get the benefit of the doubt that you would have played top down imo.

There is a fundamental difference in these two cases to me:

1) You forgot a card and think all of your cards are high
2) You know that the suit will come in by playing top down, because you can count the suit.

The latter case is analagous to having AKQJTxxx opp void, and claiming. Obviously you don't think the small ones are high, but you know that the suit will become high 100 %. That is fine, you don't have to say anything. But if you have T976 and there is 8xxx out and you claim "all mine" and it happens to be stiff 8, then you have clearly forgotten the 8. Since it is reasonable to play your cards in any order if they're all the same, then you have to play the 6 first.

For the same reason if you have AKQJ of trumps opp xxxx and you draw 1 round and everyone follows and you immediately claim without saying anything obviously you get it, but if you draw 3 rounds of trumps and then claim you have obviously forgotten about a trump, and you don't get the benefit of drawing the last trump. There is a fundamental difference in cases where you forgot a card and where you didn't.

If this discourages people from claiming if they don't know what the cards out are, that's fine. It is not my fault if you forget a card and then don't get the benefit of the doubt after your bad claim.

If it were actually true that people "always" played top from equals, then I would agree with you, but I don't think that is true. And it is not fair to the non offending side to take away the equity they had from the definite non zero chance that people would play smaller of equals. If "from the top" was implicit because they're not sure if the 8 is out or not, then they wouldn't claim.

Honestly if you know me I'm never nitpicky about claims, and at higher levels it is routine to claim without saying anything on pretty much every hand, but it is also routine not to forget about a card/make a false claim, and in the latter case you lose your option to receive the benefit of the doubt imo.

Again, I am NOT trying to punish someone who claims here when it is a lock that the suit will come in like if there are only 2 cards left in the suit, then the claim is fine and should be encouraged since it is a correct claim.

[gnasher]

I often claim in this sort of situation, typically saying "I have the rest" or "My hand is high" or possibly "The clubs are good". Do I really have to add "I'm playing each suit from the top"?

[Mbodell]

I agree that the claim should be ruled good. I can't imagine where playing the 6 before the T is a good idea, and certainly don't assume anyone plans to do so if they don't say they plan to do so.

[FrancesHinden]

I pretty much agree with Jlall here, I don't think I can give a ruling without knowing how the play has gone to date.

When one of these hands come up, I remember the last time I made a bum claim (I'm pleased to say I don't do them very often, this was quite a while ago). I had a trump suit of something like

KQ

opposite

976543

The king lost to the ace
I cashed the queen and everyone followed
I claimed conceding a trump trick

I hadn't noticed that the opposition trumps were A82 opposite J10, so I could have drawn the last trump with the 9.

However, I know myself, and I know that had I continued to play the hand out in the 'knowledge' that someone had a trump honour, I would have had a 3/4 chance of playing one of my remaining low spades rather than the 9.

This isn't totally revelant to the stated case, but an indication that I know that when somebody believes all their cards are equal, they do not necessarily start from the top just in case they aren't.

So in the original case I basically have to determine if declarer believes all his clubs are equals or not.

[FrancesHinden]

gnasher, on Jan 24 2010, 10:57 AM, said:

I often claim in this sort of situation, typically saying "I have the rest" or "My hand is high" or possibly "The clubs are good". Do I really have to add "I'm playing each suit from the top"?

If I know there are cards outstanding in a suit when I claim and I'm relaying on 'long' cards in the suit being good, I usually say something like "clubs from the top" just to indicate I know they aren't all good. It doesn't really take much effort.

[NickRW]

Speaking as a player, unless my hand is high and I'm sure that it is, I never just table the hand with a "my hand is high". If something has to be drawn, then I will table it one card at a time, saying "this, which draws the last club, then this, this, this", precisely because you get a***hole defenders who want to be given free tricks, TDs that pander to them and a set of rules that permit such rubbish.

This is one of the rules I loathe having to enforce as a TD and why I would never want to be a TD for any serious competition. If in ACBL land it says specifically that the TD can assume top down, then for once the ACBL has got something right and we are in an inferior position.

Nick

Edit: Better yet, the law should be changed to give more specific guidance as to what can and cannot be assumed so that it is a level playing field everywhere.

[david_c]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 24 2010, 01:36 PM, said:

However, I know myself, and I know that had I continued to play the hand out in the 'knowledge' that someone had a trump honour, I would have had a 3/4 chance of playing one of my remaining low spades rather than the 9.

This isn't totally revelant to the stated case, but an indication that I know that when somebody believes all their cards are equal, they do not necessarily start from the top just in case they aren't.

That seems a very different situation to me. If someone is cashing winners (or cards that they believe to be winners), then I'll usually be prepared to believe they would cash them from the top. But if they are conceding a trick - particularly if they are conceding a trick to the last card outstanding in that suit - then it seems perfectly natural to me to do that by playing a low one.

[campboy]

FWIW, if forced to play out a bunch of cards I believe to be equal and winning, what I will do depends on where those cards are. If in hand I will play from the top. If in dummy, I might play from the bottom as it is easier to say "club" than "top club".

Of course, things are quite different if one of them is the ♦7