March 2024 - 36

RULING THE Game
Q
I opened 1NT, and my partner bid 2h, which I
announced as a transfer to spades. I bid 2s, and
everyone passed. My left-hand opponent led the
d8, and I tabled my hand as dummy. I had forgotten that I
was the declarer; after all, the spade suit was partner's.
We called the director. Our director could not find
anything in the Law book which pertained to this situation
and told my partner to play the hand with the d8 lead.
This doesn't seem right. My partner is a better declarer
than I am: If I just wanted partner to play all the hands, I
could just face my hand as dummy each time, right?
A
Q
Your intuition is correct. Declarer cannot voluntarily
become dummy when the proper opening
leader makes the opening lead. Law 54A offers
this as an option when declarer's RHO makes a faced
opening lead out of turn. Law 48 covers a situation where
declarer faces their hand. There is no penalty for a declarer
showing their cards or facing their hand, unless
the director concludes they were intending to claim. They
just pick it back up and play the hand as declarer. Doing
this could solve a lot of problems for the defense, so it is
not something we at RTG recommend.
We were defending 4s. Partner played a club on
the second round of spades. I asked whether they
had any spades, and they said yes. We called the
director who had partner correct their revoke and put
a spade on that trick, leaving the club aside as a penalty
card. Right then, there was a loud call for the director
at another table. The director asked us to call back if we
needed more help. When we got to the end of the hand,
partner was short one card. We called the director back.
They looked at the played cards and revealed that when
partner turned over the s3 from the corrected revoke,
they also put the club penalty card in with their played
cards! How do you sort this out?
A
That is a remarkable sequence of events! I'm sure
if your director had not been called away, this
would not have happened. The director would
have noticed the penalty card that went missing and
would have restored it to its rightful position, face-up on
the table. Law 67B2 deals with tricks that (in effect) had
five cards played to them. It says that when this is discovered,
the excess card is restored to the player's hand. In
this case, it becomes partner's play to trick 13. Failure to
play this club earlier might itself have been a revoke, so
the director will need to review the play with the table to
verify whether there was a revoke. The provision of Law
64B3 that says there is no automatic trick adjustment
36 | Bridge Bulletin | March 2024
Q
MODERATOR: MATT KOLTNOW
NATIONAL TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR
rulings@acbl.org
when a revoke is the result of not having played a penalty
card does not apply here; it applies to a penalty card which
remains face up on the table.
Last week, I held my normal assortment of:
sQ J 4 2 h7 6 dK 9 7 5 cJ 10 8.
The cards had just been so bad. I was so excited when
partner opened 2c. We just learned 2d waiting, so I bid
that. Partner announced, " Hearts, " and my LHO called the
director: Partner had actually opened 2NT, and I bid 2d,
insufficient. Of course I never meant to transfer to hearts
with a doubleton! The director offered me the option of
bidding 3d or 4d as transfers (we play Jacoby and Texas
transfers over 2NT) and said that anything else would bar
partner! I considered my options and chose 3NT. We made
it, but other pairs were able to use Stayman and find a 4-4
spade fit which made 10 or more tricks. Our +600 was a
low matchpoint score. I was annoyed at myself for not
paying attention, but this ruling seems a little odd. I never
meant 2d as a transfer, so why was my only legal option to
show hearts I never meant to show?
A
Your director appears to have erred. Almost every
time someone responds to 2NT at the two level,
they're making a mistake of what level to bid at,
not what bid to choose. If you had intended 2d as hearts,
this would have been the right ruling. Law 27B1a is the
Law that covers correcting an insufficient bid to the
cheapest bid that designates the same denomination as the
insufficient bid. Law 27B1b allows the insufficient bidder
to choose a comparable call to replace their insufficient
bid. In this case, I suggest that 3c (Stayman or puppet
Stayman) is a comparable call to 2d waiting. Directors are
trained to apply Law 23A2 liberally to 2d waiting. This
is the provision which says that if every hand that makes
the legal bid would have made the insufficient bid - that
is, defines a subset of the hands which would have chosen
the withdrawn call - then the new call is comparable. In
this case, we are claiming that all hands which would bid
3c Stayman are hands that would have bid 2d waiting had
partner opened 2c.
The director might have avoided this error by taking the
insufficient bidder away from the table to find out what
they intended to bid. When they returned to the table, if
partner chose to bid 3c, the director could instruct the
table that the Law considers 3c to be comparable, so the
auction simply continues without penalty. One of the advantages
of the new comparable call Law is that directors
do not need to reveal a player's hand or their intention
when ruling on insufficient bids or calls out of rotation. 2
March 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2024
