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Dummy is reading his/her own convention card

Are there any circumstances whereby Dummy can refer to her/his system, whilst partner is in play?

Comments

  • No - only during the clarification period. Law 40

    (b) Unless the Regulating Authority provides otherwise a player may not consult his own
    system card between the commencement of the auction period and the end of play,
    except that players of the declaring side (only) may consult their own system card during
    the Clarification Period.

    The EBU allows dummy to look at an opponent's convention card at any time though: White Book 1.6.4

    (e) Under Law 40B2 (c) (iii), a player (including dummy) may look at their opponents’ system card at any time, though this may create unauthorised information.

  • I don't think I'd have the time or inclination to implement this Law. What fine or penalty would you give? I'd be more concerned about someone not coming to the club again if I did this. Something for International matches only, I think.

  • Right, this is something that's against the rules but I can't see any way to gain advantage from the rule breach. A procedural penalty would obviously be overkill, so I guess it's best to just leave the situation be.

  • Who would even draw this to the TD's attention? I would be concerned that whoever did so might be doing other things that would persuade opponents not to come back to the club.

  • Personally I would think that dummy is either keeping boredom at bay, or checking that partner's hand is what he thought it was. It is very difficult to imagine a situation where reading your own convention card (quietly) is going to assist your partner who, after all, now knows your hand. If called, I would have to rule that the laws do not permit this - and just regard it as an educational matter. Note that reading your convention card could also be regarded as a breach of Law 74B2 - and thus possibly a BB@B violation.

  • edited April 2019

    @weejonnie said:
    Personally I would think that dummy is either keeping boredom at bay, or checking that partner's hand is what he thought it was. It is very difficult to imagine a situation where reading your own convention card (quietly) is going to assist your partner who, after all, now knows your hand. If called, I would have to rule that the laws do not permit this - and just regard it as an educational matter. Note that reading your convention card could also be regarded as a breach of Law 74B2 - and thus possibly a BB@B violation.

    If you think that dummy reading his own convention card provides an inference that something may have gone wrong with the bidding on this hand, then that can only help the defence - as you say declarer knows the combined assets, and presumably knows whether the bidding was correct per system or not, not that that is going to help him in the play of the hand. It is an inference that the defenders take at their own risk, of course.

    If it were me (and I do reasonably frequently do it when playing with non-regular partners) it would just be checking that my memory of what I play with this particular partner was correct, not having made sufficient time to revise in advance, and it might or might not bear any relation to the sequence on this hand which led to my being dummy.

  • This issue came up at the weekend at the Lady Milne.

    I don't think there is any need for any fine or penalty - just tell dummy to stop and to give the system card back to opponents.

  • Well, I have to confess I've done this on occasion if a hand takes a long time, just to check some detail or if I've not had time to review the card before play. Never occured to me that I shouldn't be doing it, I guess I'll have to watch that in future.
    It's certainly a situation where more than a request not to read the card while dummy would be highly unusual, I guess Victor Mollo could probably have written a story where it somehow prompts a particular play. Also, I suppose the card is meant to be available to the opponents.

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