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.