[iviehoff]

c_corgi, on 2012-October-05, 07:25, said:

If it is unclear from the laws whether both sides have played to the next trick, but the card which may have met this criterion did not advance play in any meaningful way (as here) it seems obvious to err on the side of unwinding the play so that the correct card is played.

It seems to me once you have two cards face up on the table, you have just as much an unwinding job whether they are played regularly or irregularly. So whilst I agree with your initial sentiment, I come to the opposite conclusion.

[c_corgi]

iviehoff, on 2012-October-08, 01:42, said:

It seems to me once you have two cards face up on the table, you have just as much an unwinding job whether they are played regularly or irregularly. So whilst I agree with your initial sentiment, I come to the opposite conclusion.

A card played from declarers hand or a defenders is a less desirable unwind than one from dummy, because sight of a card from a hidden hand might affect the subsequent "bridge result".

A card intended as a lead to the next trick on the assumption that the "correct" cards had been played to the previous is a more desirable unwind than where a card has been deliberately selected in following to the actual lead to the next trick, again because the latter would provide extraneous information.

Both of the above suggest it is less of an unwinding job in the OP case.

Aside from considerations relating to the desirability of unwinding, the laws are unclear whether the point of no return has been reached. That being the case we have one interpretation available which leads to a sensible result and one that does not.

[sailoranch]

I don't get it. Why is the more reasonable interpretation the one that deems declarer's play to have never have been made at all in order to let him correct his partner's misplay after the correction period prescribed in the Laws?

Declarer followed to trick two, and after the trick was quitted, he called for a card while presumably looking at a dummy containing the wrong spades. The Laws specify how long he has to notice the error and correct it, and he didn't.

I don't understand this playing to the trick "in a normal way." Designating a card in dummy seems to be the normal way to play a card from dummy. If the problem is that both players were trying to lead, then 58A applies and North's play is deemed to have been made subsequently. It doesn't say anything about completely erasing one of the plays. If there had been no dummy error before and two players tried to lead at the same time, you wouldn't just wipe out the improper lead; it would be deemed a subsequent play as 58A provides. I don't see why North gets special treatment just because he has an error from a previous trick to correct.

It also doesn't seem right to just take back the play because it would be a revoke or a play out of turn. We apply the same law as we would if there weren't the previous error to correct. Again, I don't see why declarer is entitled to pretend plays didn't happen just because they are illegal AND he has an error that he just noticed that he wants to correct.

I don't buy the argument that both sides weren't playing to the next trick. Both West and declarer seemed to be playing cards because each thought he won the trick that was just quitted, and as a result, each thought he was on lead to the next trick.

Am I nuts for thinking the laws are clear in this case?