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Law 41D

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  • @Abbeybear said:
    My tentative conclusion is that putting a non-bid suit on the right in no-trumps is OK, but putting the suit of the opening lead on the right is not. My reason - the latter is communicating something about the play (i.e. the opening lead) in breach of Law 43A1(c), whereas the former is not.

    @gordonrainsford said:
    Even if it's hard to police, it's right to tell the player that they shouldn't do it, and why.

    Um, I struggle to see the problem with putting the suit of the opening lead down on the right. Yes, you are 'communicating with partner' but the information you are giving him is something that he is quite capable of seeing for himself (and if he wasn't physically capable of seeing it, we'd be allowing dummy to call out the cards played anyway)

    I've seen a number of books that recommend putting the suit led down last (which tends to mean on the right) as a means to encourage partner to think about dummy before playing to trick 1. Philosophical question: is that illegal communication?

    p.s. in some circles the 'Walton echo' is used, when a peter from dummy in a doubled or redoubled contract says that the contract is making. By convention, you aren't allowed to psyche it.

  • @Frances said:
    Um, I struggle to see the problem with putting the suit of the opening lead down on the right. Yes, you are 'communicating with partner' but the information you are giving him is something that he is quite capable of seeing for himself (and if he wasn't physically capable of seeing it, we'd be allowing dummy to call out the cards played anyway)

    Capable of seeing it, but perhaps not capable of remembering it later in the play. But players won't need to remember this if they can rely on this helpful aid to their memory.

  • Kind of like putting the trumps always in the same place...

  • @Martin said:
    Kind of like putting the trumps always in the same place...

    Putting the trumps on dummy's right is required by Law 41D.

  • @weejonnie said:

    @SDN said:
    Whenever I am playing at a table I insist that in a NT contract dummy's cards are placed in suit order, S H D C, left to right facing declarer, irrespective of the opening lead.

    I don't think you can really do that - it is not in the laws. TBH I pretty well put dummy down alternating the colours since that is usually how my hand is sorted - my partner I hope doesn't look where I pull a card from when defending - but I am sure some 'card-sharps' would. (74C5)

    As Gordon says, use of card order to communicate information is to be frowned upon - but hard to spot.

    I should have said 'ask/request' instead of 'insist'. After I request and explain why, the others at the table invariably understand and dummy places the cards accordingly.

    Because it is not in the laws one cannot make it a rule, but one hopes that by showing it to be a desirable practice it will spread.

  • @gordonrainsford said:

    @Martin said:
    Kind of like putting the trumps always in the same place...

    Putting the trumps on dummy's right is required by Law 41D.

    The point I was trying to make is that using the order of cards in dummy to make it clear to the table what suit is trumps is ordained in law and so the spirit of the law is kind of established.

    So, after competing in a long suit and ending in NT, it seems sensible to me not to put that suit on the right of dummy, so that declarer does not get confused and try to trump in a NT contract.

    Others may have their own system (such as placing the lead suit on the right).

    So, as there is no specific law against this, and the spirit of the law is established with the requirement for the placement of the trump suit, these dummy placements seem legit to me.

  • You are saying that because the law specifies precisely one situation in which a particular suit should be placed in a particular place, that makes it ok in a different situation to place a particular suit in a particular place for the purpose of providing an aid to memory, even though aids to memory are specifically disallowed?

  • As I read 40B2(d).. "Unless the Regulating Authority provides otherwise a player is not entitled to any aids to his memory, calculation or technique during the auction period and play."..

    aids to memory aren't disallowed, there is just no entitlement to them. My interpretation of that is that they should be removed if there is objection to them.

  • I don't see the difference between "is not entitled to" and "is not allowed to have". The latter means that it is disallowed.

    I'm with Gordon - any placement of dummy by agreement (explicit or established by practice and known to declarer) that is prone to remind declarer of something that he might have forgotten is at least potentially an aid to memory and not permitted.

  • Fair enough but I don't see the equivalence. In English the two expressions are not the same.

    It seems that the White Book offers guidance for Bridge interpretation... 1.6.4(f) Under Law 40B2 (d), a player is not allowed aids to memory, calculation or technique: for example, looking at the scores on the back of bidding cards during the hand is considered an aide-memoire and therefore illegal.

  • @Tag said:
    Fair enough but I don't see the equivalence. In English the two expressions are not the same.

    I suspect this clause was not written in English but is a vestige of the Kaplanese in which most of the law book was at one time written.

  • So, the order to place ones hand down is not regulated other than the placement of the trump suit. Should dummies not be allowed to order the suits however they wish, should the order not be stipulated? Or should this be done randomly? If random, then what process do you have to order the suits in random order?

    If you dont have a randomising process, then you will be placing them systematically, which would be against the rules if this has any baring on the auction (such as not putting a long suit on the right so that declarer will not get confused and think that they are playing in 4S as apposed to the actual contract of 3NT).

    There seems to be little point in having a law that is impossible to administer/police except where people are recorded for 100s of boards and have the suit orders analysed, to work out if they are signalling, 'this is the lead suit' or ' you are not in trumps'...

    Where do you place the singleton or void suit after the lead of that suit? With a lead against dummies singleton, I tend to place that suit one of the middle 2 spots to make it clear that there is a void :)

    Should dummy happen to place the lead suit on the right, should one call for the director and point out that this looks like communication?

    If it cant be policed, then what is the point?

  • Martin, if your question is why we have Law 41D the answer is that it establishes correct procedure and prevents dummies from putting down their hands in an unfamiliar fashion that might make it harder for the other players to scan and read. I've played against those who put them down horizontally instead of vertically, and those who put them with lower cards beneath higher cards, and I know I'm not alone in finding both of these practices make it harder to read the dummy.

    If your question is why we have Law 40B2d, the answer is to establish a basic principle of the game that prevents players from consulting their system notes during a hand or writing down the play as it goes on. The fact that it might be difficult to demonstrate that this law is being breached by a dummy aiding their partner's memory, by the way in which the dummy is displayed, does not detract from the fact that in my opinion it's not allowed.

    Let's not through the baby out with the bath-water!

  • @Tag said:
    Fair enough but I don't see the equivalence. In English the two expressions are not the same.

    No, they are not the same, but I believe their effect in this context is the same.

    @Tag said:
    It seems that the White Book offers guidance for Bridge interpretation... 1.6.4(f) Under Law 40B2 (d), a player is not allowed aids to memory, calculation or technique: for example, looking at the scores on the back of bidding cards during the hand is considered an aide-memoire and therefore illegal.

    An example does not preclude the existence of others which might or might not have been included if the possibility had occurred to anyone. I think the layout of dummy's cards in no-trump contracts was not likely to have been high on anyone's list of potential examples.

    @gordonrainsford said:
    I suspect this clause was not written in English but is a vestige of the Kaplanese in which most of the law book was at one time written.

    I'd always thought of it as Grattanese. Perhaps Grattano-Kaplanese. :p

  • @Abbeybear said:

    @gordonrainsford said:
    I suspect this clause was not written in English but is a vestige of the Kaplanese in which most of the law book was at one time written.

    I'd always thought of it as Grattanese. Perhaps Grattano-Kaplanese. :p

    Kaplan came first, and I understand he sometimes chose for things to be ambiguous so that directors could rule as they wished. Times change, and often for the better.

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