[lamford]

---

IMPs. Lead 8♣

Playing against a Belgian side
I reached a dodgy contract where
My faulty claim I tried to hide
By stating that all tricks were there

The jacks and queens looked just the same
Those awful vees and dees we hate
And when they noticed our bum claim
The TD said it was too late

The above auction seems a bit pushy, but was perpetrated at a table at an invitation event in Antwerp for an EBL director's 50th birthday recently. North-South, visitors from England, were unfamiliar with the Belgian cards that were accidentally in use on this deal. South showed 17-19 balanced, thinking that all the jacks were queens, and North invited seven with 5NT, thinking the same. South bid the grand with his good intermediates. West led a passive club, and declarer claimed four clubs, and three tricks in each of the other suits. East-West accepted but at the end of the sesssion when hand records with the normal Q and J were handed out, East-West noticed that they might have made tricks in any of the three suits that were not led, but the TD ruled it was too late as there was no trick that it was "likely" they would have made. In fact, as far as he could see, the opponents were exactly 50% to make a trick in each suit. How do you rule?

[ahydra]

Surely the pictures on the D and V cards give away which is which? I'll assume not for the rest of my post.

From the poem it appears E/W were Belgian. So surely they understood the D and V on the cards, and hence could have seen the claim required 3 finesses? On the other hand the text implies they didn't... maybe they'd only ever played with English cards or something.

IMO result stands. Both sides at fault for mixing up the QJ, both sides agreed the board result, NS just got lucky. There's some law that says a side can't be awarded tricks they couldn't make, but here NS could make all 13 tricks.

The only caveat is: there must be nothing in the laws (specifically, the laws that apply for this tournament eg the Belgian version) that states the cards have to have certain letters/designs on them - if there is I would award A+/A+.

ahydra

[campboy]

If declarer were to play it out under the impression thet all the jacks were queens then he would certainly lose at least one trick in whichever non-club suit he first attempted to win a trick with the "queen".

[blackshoe]

So?

[mgoetze]

ahydra, on 2011-June-26, 05:19, said:

The only caveat is: there must be nothing in the laws (specifically, the laws that apply for this tournament eg the Belgian version) that states the cards have to have certain letters/designs on them - if there is I would award A+/A+.

Law 1 is not quite that specific.

[nige1]

campboy, on 2011-June-26, 05:34, said:

If declarer were to play it out under the impression thet all the jacks were queens then he would certainly lose at least one trick in whichever non-club suit he first attempted to win a trick with the "queen".

Paul's construction is cunning Glossing over what happens in clubs at the first trick -- which might have woken everybody up -- declarer's other "queens" all make tricks, provided declarer leads towards them, and defenders play "second-hand low"

[campboy]

nige1, on 2011-June-26, 06:39, said:

Paul's construction is cunning Glossing over what happens in clubs at the first trick -- which might have woken everybody up -- declarer's other "queens" all make tricks, provided declarer leads towards them, and defenders play "second-hand low"

Ah, ok. So if he plays tricks in some valid order then there is about a 50% chance of playing the ace before the "queen" and about a 50% chance of leading from the other hand on the trick he intends to win the "queen". So he is merely about 75% for the first "queen" to unexpectedly lose. It doens't really affect my point which was that the penultimate sentence of the OP is inaccurate: defenders are significantly above 50% to take at least one spade trick (ditto "heart" and "diamond"). The first trick will not give anything away, since playing low from dummy guarantees four tricks in the hypothetical suit, whereas putting up the "queen" doesn't.

[lamford]

campboy, on 2011-June-26, 07:13, said:

Ah, ok. So if he plays tricks in some valid order then there is about a 50% chance of playing the ace before the "queen" and about a 50% chance of leading from the other hand on the trick he intends to win the "queen". So he is merely about 75% for the first "queen" to unexpectedly lose. It doens't really affect my point which was that the penultimate sentence of the OP is inaccurate: defenders are significantly above 50% to take at least one spade trick (ditto "heart" and "diamond"). The first trick will not give anything away, since playing low from dummy guarantees four tricks in the hypothetical suit, whereas putting up the "queen" doesn't.

Surely the claim must be adjudicated on the cards that are actually there, not the cards declarer thinks might be there. To lead out the ace followed by the king in a side suit will not be normal. South's statement was that he was making four clubs, and three in each of the other three suits. He made no other statement, so his claim has to be judged based on what he said. If the opponents had contested the claim at the time, they would, I think, be given all three side-suit queens, but after the next board has started they are only given tricks they are "likely" to have made. Adopting normal play. Which is to guess in each suit, so there is no specific trick that the opponents are likely to make, although they are likely to make 1.5 tricks on average!

And it would seem unfair to punish North-South by making them give up tricks to the queens which their opponent were not aware they have. Surely it would not be normal for the opponents to win declarer's "queens" with their "jacks", if you force the players to continue to misread the cards.

[blackshoe]

Sure, let's force 'em. Waterboard 'em, give 'em the "death of a thousand cuts", whatever it takes.

[campboy]

lamford, on 2011-June-26, 15:44, said:

Surely the claim must be adjudicated on the cards that are actually there, not the cards declarer thinks might be there.

I don't see why. We are asked to determine what would be likely to have happened if play had continued, and there is no reason to think declarer would realise that he had misread the cards until it was obvious. Is this not what we always do when there is a duff claim? In general when declarer thinks that all his cards are winners we rule that he might normally play them out in any order, but that is ruling based on what might happen given declarer's misconception of the position, not "the cards that are actually there". I would struggle to think of a duff claim I have seen which didn't involve declarer having some misconception of the position, and we never rule on the basis that once declarer realises what the actual position is he will take the winning line.

Quote

And it would seem unfair to punish North-South by making them give up tricks to the queens which their opponent were not aware they have. Surely it would not be normal for the opponents to win declarer's "queens" with their "jacks", if you force the players to continue to misread the cards.

This, though, I think is a fair point; I had not registered that the defenders were similarly unaware of what the symbols on the cards meant. If they are under the same misconception as declarer, then, there is no reason why they will wake up either, and declarer will take 13 tricks unless he "squeezes" East.

[lamford]

campboy, on 2011-June-26, 18:06, said:

We are asked to determine what would be likely to have happened if play had continued, and there is no reason to think declarer would realise that he had misread the cards until it was obvious. Is this not what we always do when there is a duff claim?

If the claim had been contested immediately, then we would indeed need to decide that. After the next board has started, however, the onus moves to the defenders, and they are only given such tricks that they "likely" would have won. So, for an individual queen to be won by a defender it would need a misguess if declarer is aware which are jacks and which are queens. But it also requires the defender to be aware that queens are higher than jacks, regardless of how the declarer plays, so one could argue that the opponents are much less than 50% to win each trick. Note that the defender's queens are all guarded three times, so there is little chance of a defender winning a jack with a queen without realising it!

Declarer makes three tricks in a side suit:
a) always when he "finesses" the right way, just by chance
b) always when the opponent thinks that jacks are higher than queens
c) always when he leads out the jack first, thinking it is a queen, and the opponent with the queen does not cover. Even if the person with the queen is last to play, if he does not realise it is higher than a jack.

Now I have insufficient information to work out the true odds, but I am certain that the correct decision is "no adjustment".

[lamford]

ahydra, on 2011-June-26, 05:19, said:

Surely the pictures on the D and V cards give away which is which? I'll assume not for the rest of my post.
ahydra

The picture on the "valet" was possibly one reason why the declarer thought he was a "queen".

http://www.playingca...ages/bel013.htm

[campboy]

lamford, on 2011-June-27, 07:35, said:

If the claim had been contested immediately, then we would indeed need to decide that. After the next board has started, however, the onus moves to the defenders, and they are only given such tricks that they "likely" would have won.

Yes, we have to decide whether a specific event is likely rather than what the most likely event is. I just meant to say that it is normal to interpret "likely" as "likely, given the misapprehensions the various players were under prior to the claim".

Quote

Now I have insufficient information to work out the true odds, but I am certain that the correct decision is "no adjustment".

So long as the defenders were as confused as declarer, I agree.