@Vlad said:
Your last sentence, ‘If the player hasn’t stated a line, the director shouldn’t ask him for one.’ is the answer I was seeking all along in confirmation of my interpretation of the law.
If anybody disagrees then that is the point to be debated.
I agree with this. I always make a point of asking "what did you say at the moment when you made the claim?"
Thank you for the excellent advice on what to ask a claimer right at the start. Removes all ambiguity. I will follow it.
Gordon: "I agree with this. I always make a point of asking "what did you say at the moment when you made the claim?"
I always do this too, but I don't agree that we should never ask the claimer how they were intending to take their tricks, i.e. what they would have said had they bothered to make a claim statement. I don't think it's wrong to do this.
If I have to award an adjusted score because a player's call has been judged illegal (e.g. after a break in tempo or misinformation), I will normally ask the players what they would have done in the new set of circumstances to try to work out the likely possible results for a weighted score. I've had disagreements with another director who says you should never do this, as the players will know the hand by now and will swear they will take the action that gets them the most favourable result. Of course there's a danger of this, but that just means we should regard such claims with suspicion and apply our own (or other people's) judgement to what they say.
I remember a claim ruling from the Summer Meeting in 2017 when declarer had put their hand down without a statement, claiming the rest. A defender objected that they hadn't said how they were going to play, and pointed out some losing lines. It turned out that declarer had just worked hard to set up long cards in a suit and claimed as soon as they were good. It was clear from they way he had played the hand that was what he was doing. He did have high cards in other suits that might have been mistaken for winners if he'd forgotten that a higher card was still out, which perhaps put some doubt in the defender's mind.
In the end I got declarer to explain what had happened, and then went back to the defender, asked him to confirm if that was true, and then asked him: "Do you really think declarer was going to go wrong?", to which he answered "No".
So I nearly always ask the claimer what they were going to do after finding out their original claim statement was incomplete or non-existent. I don't always believe it, though.
@VixTD said:
It turned out that declarer had just worked hard to set up long cards in a suit and claimed as soon as they were good.
The timing of a claim and what the claimer was doing immediately before the claim also often provides the TD with an insight on whether the claimer was aware of some particular aspect of the hand such as the fact that a trump was outstanding.
Claiming as soon as trumps are seen to break well suggests that declarer knew the position even if he didn't draw the last one before claiming. Finding that trumps do not break well, and then drawing all but one before claiming is a danger signal, for example.
Comments
Thank you for the excellent advice on what to ask a claimer right at the start. Removes all ambiguity. I will follow it.
Gordon: "I agree with this. I always make a point of asking "what did you say at the moment when you made the claim?"
I always do this too, but I don't agree that we should never ask the claimer how they were intending to take their tricks, i.e. what they would have said had they bothered to make a claim statement. I don't think it's wrong to do this.
If I have to award an adjusted score because a player's call has been judged illegal (e.g. after a break in tempo or misinformation), I will normally ask the players what they would have done in the new set of circumstances to try to work out the likely possible results for a weighted score. I've had disagreements with another director who says you should never do this, as the players will know the hand by now and will swear they will take the action that gets them the most favourable result. Of course there's a danger of this, but that just means we should regard such claims with suspicion and apply our own (or other people's) judgement to what they say.
I remember a claim ruling from the Summer Meeting in 2017 when declarer had put their hand down without a statement, claiming the rest. A defender objected that they hadn't said how they were going to play, and pointed out some losing lines. It turned out that declarer had just worked hard to set up long cards in a suit and claimed as soon as they were good. It was clear from they way he had played the hand that was what he was doing. He did have high cards in other suits that might have been mistaken for winners if he'd forgotten that a higher card was still out, which perhaps put some doubt in the defender's mind.
In the end I got declarer to explain what had happened, and then went back to the defender, asked him to confirm if that was true, and then asked him: "Do you really think declarer was going to go wrong?", to which he answered "No".
So I nearly always ask the claimer what they were going to do after finding out their original claim statement was incomplete or non-existent. I don't always believe it, though.
The timing of a claim and what the claimer was doing immediately before the claim also often provides the TD with an insight on whether the claimer was aware of some particular aspect of the hand such as the fact that a trump was outstanding.
Claiming as soon as trumps are seen to break well suggests that declarer knew the position even if he didn't draw the last one before claiming. Finding that trumps do not break well, and then drawing all but one before claiming is a danger signal, for example.