November 2017 - 36

Ruling the Game
rulings@acbl.org
MODERATOR: MATT SMITH
NATIONAL TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR

The Laws of Duplicate Bridge 2017
are now in effect. This article and the
ones that preceded it (beginning with
the July 2017 issue) highlight changes
made to the previous Laws that are
important for club directors and players
to know.
Law 53: Lead out of Turn Accepted. A lead out of turn to trick 13 may
not be accepted and must be retracted.
Law 57: Premature Lead or Play.
Among the existing options declarer
has when a defender leads before his
partner has played to the current trick
or plays out of turn before his partner
has played, declarer may now also
choose to require offender's partner to
play a card of another suit specified by
declarer. Note that this law continues
not to apply in cases where the action
of partner is a claim or concession of
more than just the trick in progress.
See Law 68.
Law 65: Arrangement of Tricks.
A player may point out a card pointed
incorrectly, but only until his side leads
or plays to the following trick. Declarer
is now bound by the same time limit as
the other players at the table.
Law 66: Inspection of Tricks. Declarer or a defender may inspect (but
not expose) his own last card played
until his side has led or played to the
next trick. This is a change from the

36 Bridge Bulletin November 2017

current time limit of until a card is led
by either side to the next trick.
Law 68: Claim or Concession of
Tricks. The major change in this law
is that at the request of the non-claiming or non-conceding side and with the
concurrence of all four players, play
may continue without the need to summon the director. Previously, play was
supposed to cease once a claim or concession was made. If the players agree
to play on, the table result achieved
will stand. The claimer/conceder picks
up his faced hand in such cases and
play continues. Silence in response
to a request to play on is deemed to be
concurrence. If instead someone does
not agree, the director is called. Once
the director is called, there is no second chance to play on. He arrives and
applies Law 70.
Law 73: Communication, Tempo,
and Deception. Part E of this law
continues to recognize a player's right
to deceive an opponent by a call or
play so long as that call or play is not
protected by concealed partnership
understanding or experience. Players may purposely violate partnership
agreements (excluding certain psychic
bids prohibited by regulation) in an
attempt to deceive an opponent. For
example, players may deliberately play
a deceptive card in an attempt to make
an opponent go wrong. Now explicit
to the law, though, is that it is not legal

to emphasize that deception with
"unwonted haste or hesitancy." For example, it is not legal to take a long time
to decide which of two low equal cards
to play in order to deceive an opponent
when the effect of the hesitation is
to give that opponent the reasonable
impression you were considering winning the trick.
Law 75: Mistaken Explanation
or Mistaken Call. This law has been
restructured with examples removed,
and it is now more clear that failure
to disclose information accurately
constitutes misinformation that may
lead to a score adjustment. Players
should always disclose partnership
agreements fully and freely upon request, but they also need to realize that
answering inquiries from an opponent
with words such as "I take it to mean"
or "I think it means" is improper. If no
agreement exists, players are expected
to state that fact, not guess what a bid
means. Doing otherwise not only can
cause misinformation leading to a
score adjustment, it also gives partner
unauthorized information that may
lead to a score adjustment.
Elections: Exceptions to the
new Laws, in the form of elections
adopted by the ACBL Board, are not
available in the 2017 printed version.
They are available online at acbl.org/
lawsoptions.
◾
http://www.acbl.org/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November 2017
