[omarsh10]

Please help about rulings on this case. Playing at a club, my partner (West) over-called South’s opening "strong" 2♣ with 3♥ having 2 surplus cards (AK of ♥) from previous deal. Please, see below.

After 1st pass by N the irregularity was discovered and corrected.

---

North went down one after my ♥A opening lead, ♣4, West ruffs, diamond return, second club ruff. The director was called and ruled: A+ for N/S and 4SN-1 for E/W. I've talked to several people and still am not sure what the correct ruling should be. Experts have suggested:
1) The table result should stand. Laws 13F and 21A were cited.
2) One side have bid with an incorrect number of cards. Therefore, no result is possible for either side. A+ for the non-offenders and A- for the offenders. No reference to any Law was offered.

Please, what do you think the ruling should be?
Thanks.

[Siegmund]

At risk of being dense... what do you want a ruling on? East has UI that West may not have a real bid, but everyone made legal calls and the excess cards were removed before the play. (No, West has no recourse if he misbids because he has done something foolish.)

[Edit to add: OP has more info in it now than it did this morning - but my immediate reaction is still score stands]

[fmsh]

I think that the score must be adjusted to 4SN+1.
West created the mess. Had she had only 13 cards she'd have passed first time... and the contract would be 4S by South. Trump lead from West is in fact at all probable giving N/S 11 tricks. 4SN contract is very easy to beat, as East has a hatural club lead. Wereas to set 4SS is difficult since leading one of the West's red suits might be disastrous...

[Cyberyeti]

fmsh, on 2012-March-04, 12:56, said:

I think that the score must be adjusted to 4SN+1.
West created the mess. Had she had only 13 cards she'd have passed first time... and the contract would be 4S by South. Trump lead from West is in fact at all probable giving N/S 11 tricks. 4SN contract is very easy to beat, as East has a hatural club lead. Wereas to set 4SS is difficult since leading one of the West's red suits might be disastrous...

Yeah I always lead a trump with a side suit void ... NOT

J♦ is the most natural lead in the world. Whether E finds the club switch all the time is up for debate

Also while E has UI, even if he bid 4♥, I think NS would reach 4♠ (probably encouraging a heart lead), and if they didn't, N wouldn't find the diamond lead or switch to beat it anyway (I'd like to know what the pass over 3♥ showed, but expect it to give away that he doesn't have K♦ as well as ♠QJ which he'll lead, so S's K will be dropped).

4♠-1, no damage.

[blackshoe]

Step 1: the ruling on the two extra cards discovered during the auction. It appears that the Director has removed those two cards (Law 13F) and allowed play to continue (Law 13A). That's fine.
Step 2: the ruling on the final outcome. Law 13A permits the TD to adjust the score, but gives no further guidance on this case. However, Law 13E says that knowledge that (in this case) West thought he had more cards than he should have had is UI to East. However, if East did not become aware which two cards were removed from West's hand, I'm not sure that the UI suggests anything. So we are left with an adjustment under Law 12. Law 12A says the TD can adjust the score when the laws empower him to do so, and Law 13A does precisely that. So far, so good. Now 12B speaks of the objective of score adjustment, which is "to redress damage to a non-offending side and to take away any advantage gained by an offending side through its infraction". So the question is whether East's defense was "an advantage gained by an offending side through its infraction", and whether the damage was a result of the infraction. I think you can make a case for this, particularly if East knows that the "♥AK" were removed from West's hand. However, clearly after the ♥A lead and seeing the dummy, a heart continuation is useless, a diamond continuation isn't going to help, and neither is a spade. So there's no LA to a club lead at trick two. So the damage was not caused by the infraction, and the result stands.

If it were to be correct to adjust the score, the correct adjustment would depend on where this occurred, which was I suspect in ACBL-land. So there, the adjustment would be under Law 12C1e: 4♠+1 NS for -650 to EW (or perhaps 4♠+2 NS for -680 to EW), 4♠+1 NS for +650 to NS. In other jurisdictions, a weighted score under 12C1c would be normal. In no case is the table TD's ruling of A+ for NS and 4♠-1 for EW correct, or even legal.

[iviehoff]

fmsh, on 2012-March-04, 12:56, said:

West created the mess. Had she had only 13 cards she'd have passed first time... and the contract would be 4S by South.

Players are permitted to make daft bids owing to their own misunderstanding. West's 3H bid is not an infraction, and thus is not of itself grounds for an adjustment. In the long run, it seems likely that a pair would benefit from the opponents making daft bids owing to looking at 15 cards. They are not due an adjustment merely because on this hand they got a poor score.

Blackshoe's analysis looks spot on.

[campboy]

I do not think law 13A applies here. It applies when "the Director determines that one or more hands of the board
contained an incorrect number of cards", but it appears from OP that the board contained the correct number of cards and the extra cards were ones the player had failed to return to the previous board.

Anyway, I agree that this is rub of the green and no adjustment should happen.

[blackshoe]

The hand had an incorrect number of cards. Where they came from doesn't matter.

[ggwhiz]

iviehoff, on 2012-March-05, 04:37, said:

Blackshoe's analysis looks spot on.

I agree. The score stands and the illegal Ave+ to N/S may have been just to molify some regular paying customers?

[bluejak]

omarsh10, on 2012-March-04, 11:53, said:

Please help about rulings on this case. Playing at a club, my partner (West) over-called South’s opening "strong" 2♣ with 3♥ having 2 surplus cards (AK of ♥) from previous deal

There were 52 correct cards and two irrelevant bits of cardboard that were not taken out of the board. No reason for any adjustment. The only case for adjustment would be for UI since East is aware that West's bid was based on 15 cards but we all seem agreed that East's actions were routine.

Law 13 does not apply since that refers to cases where the board contained the wrong number of cards. Other cards added to the hand do not come under this Law. Note also that there is no reason to split the ruling n any way: what is correct for one side is correct for the other.

[blackshoe]

Law 13A says "When the director determines that one or more hands of the board contained an incorrect number of cards…" I can see how this might be interpreted that the hands in the board must have contained the incorrect number of cards, but how do you reconcile this interpretation with Law 13D1: "A call is canceled if it is made by a player on cards that he has picked up from a wrong board"?

Given your interpretation, David, what Law(s) do you apply in rectification?

[campboy]

You mean 17D1. I would interpret that law as applying when all his cards came from the wrong board, though I accept that your interpretation makes sense too. However, if we do interpret it as applying here, would it apply if he only had one card, rather than "cards", from a wrong board? That seems a weird place to draw the line, if not.

[barmar]

I also have always interepreted 17D1 as campboy suggests, when a player takes his entire hand from the wrong board.

[blackshoe]

Yes, 17D1. And yes, drawing the line between one card and two does seem weird.

[kenrexford]

Cool deal, btw. North probably leads the spade Queen, overtaken by South to lead back his diamond King to sneak away with 4 tricks against a heart contract. Otherwise, the Rabbit likely catches the diamond anyway for 4♥ making (and hence 4♠ actually a good sacrifice).

[bluejak]

Table result stands: no infraction that had any particular effect apart form the partner of the player with 15 cards has UI.