[eagles123]

last night the LOL opps were declaring a 4s contract and at trick 3 did a completely irrelevant revoke:

---

my partner leads AK of hearts and a third heart which declarer ruffs in dummy before revoking by throwing a club from hand

my question is whether its right to call director in this situation. Clearly declarer can just chuck the losing club on the diamond anyway so is it best just to let these things go or do we always call the director

I did call director but felt a bit guilty that we turned a bad result into a good result due to a totally irrelevant revoke
thanks

Eagles

[dicklont]

I see no problem in taking advantage of the opponents mistakes.
Is that not where most of the bridge scores come from?
The rules tell us to let the TD decide instead of judging it by yourself at the table.

But in this case I can see why you feel you should have punished yourself for not cashing that ♣A, punishing partner in that manner might work out badly.

[gordontd]

It's a game. It has rules. Sometimes players lose out by failing to follow them, and their opponents gain in those situations. Nothing wrong with that.

In my experience, waiving rules is as likely to cause problems as following them.

[NickRW]

While you can take a magnanimous attitude in cases like this, it is never wrong to call the director. If you come out of it on the plus side, so be it (and similarly if it is the other way round).

Before Xmas partner and I overbid a slam that really wasn't good. I took a look at dummy and said to myself, "I need trumps to break and such and such a card needs to be with righty and so on". Well it turned out that the cards did lie well, except that lefty revoked on the trumps and I had to change my line to ensure even 11 tricks. I called the director and got awarded a trick. Slam bid and made. Righty was fairly livid, not so much with her partner, but berating me for bidding a slam and virtually cheating to make an "unmakeable slam". I did apologise, as I normally do, for overbidding and getting lucky, but said no more, especially I wasn't 100% certain in the heat of the moment that it was a make on normal play. Later I checked the hand and I was right - the slam was makeable on the lie of the cards. So I felt vindicated and was glad that I called the director.

[helene_t]

I think it is better to follow the rules. The alternative is that you create a precedence for condoning revokes and people would start wondering where to draw the line between relevant and irrelevant revokes.

You can make an exception for players with parkinson maybe but again there is a risk of creating slippery slopes.

[campboy]

You don't have to draw attention to the revoke at all, of course. If no-one does, there is no obligation to call the TD.

[aguahombre]

eagles123, on 2015-January-27, 05:50, said:

last night the LOL opps were declaring a 4s contract and at trick 3 did a completely irrelevant revoke:

I did call director but felt a bit guilty that we turned a bad result into a good result due to a totally irrelevant revoke
thanks

Eagles

Michael Rosenberg would have just "fixed it" as defender in this type of situation. That doesn't mean you were wrong.

Since your question is founded on a specific case, the posters here have been mature enough to ignore the pedantic answer to the question in the title, "Is it always right to call TD for revoke?" The answer is "Yes" for only 3 of the people at the table. Dummy is sometimes wrong to call TD.

[mycroft]

Law 9B1a: "The Director should be summoned at once when attention is drawn to an irregularity."
Law 9B1b: "Any player, including dummy, may summon the Director after attention has been drawn to an irregularity." (Note that dummy can not draw attention to many irregularities during the play, but may after they stop being dummy; but certainly can call the TD if noone else does)

Those are the key Laws. Is it required? No. Is it a problem if you don't? The Law says yes (and certainly failing to call the TD may damage your case later), but there are lots of times that it doesn't happen (probably mostly because the players don't know that what happened was an irregularity, frankly).

But note the key word: "attention has been drawn". Nobody draws attention? No TD (although one of the more common ways to draw attention to an irregularity is to call the TD).

But also note:

Law 10A: "Players do not have the right to determine (or waive; see Law 81C5) rectifications on their own initiative."
Law 81C5: "[the Director's powers include] to waive rectification for cause, in his discretion, upon the request of the non-offending side."

I have both requested (as a player) and granted (as a TD) a waiver of rectification; it usually isn't an issue.

Having said that, I've gone down in a cold contract when I played one trick ahead of myself and ruffed instead of following suit; called the director myself, and took the two trick penalty. I've gone down in many other cold contracts by making purely legal stupidities. *I*, myself, do not see the need to give the opponents advantages I do not grant myself - but I do grant that others' personal ethical bounds are different; don't care as long as they're not abusive or too illegal (despite my nickname).

[whereagles]

I remember there is an item in the laws for "no penalty if offending side wins neither the revoke trick nor any trick afterwards". Such a situation means the revoke was irrelevant.

One can make a case that this particular situation is similar, but you probably can't cast this on the laws without messing up the whole system lol.

[pran]

whereagles, on 2015-January-27, 15:52, said:

I remember there is an item in the laws for "no penalty if offending side wins neither the revoke trick nor any trick afterwards". Such a situation means the revoke was irrelevant.

One can make a case that this particular situation is similar, but you probably can't cast this on the laws without messing up the whole system lol.

When the offending side neither won the revoke trick nor any trick afterwards then there is no way the revoke can have had any impact on the result. You don't need any TD jusgement to establish that for a fact, so the Law simply states in so many Words that no trick won before the revoke trick can ever be transferred to the non-offending side.

But there is no provision in the laws that allows the Director to judge that a trick won by the offending side at any later time in the play could not somehow have been affected by the revoke. Consequently even if the only trick won by the offending side later was won with the Ace of trumps it shall still be a candidate trick for transfer under Law 64A.

[Vampyr]

whereagles, on 2015-January-27, 15:52, said:

I remember there is an item in the laws for "no penalty if offending side wins neither the revoke trick nor any trick afterwards". Such a situation means the revoke was irrelevant.

One can make a case that this particular situation is similar, but you probably can't cast this on the laws without messing up the whole system lol.

The revoke occurred at trick 3, and the OS have a lot of obvious subsequent winners. I do not see a similarity at all.

[whereagles]

@Pran: indeed.

@Vampyr: on legal lingo, one can say the similarity is material (i.e. irrelevance), not formal.

[barmar]

The revoke law is not based only on restoration of equity, this is one of the laws that has a bit of punishment in it. Tricks must be transferred as described regardless of whether the revoke actually caused damage. And if the TD judges that this isn't sufficient compensation, e.g. because the revoke caused declarer to take a wrong line that resulted in losing more tricks, he can assign the score he thinks would have been likely had the revoke not occurred. But he's never allowed to adjust to a result more favorable to the OS than the one obtained from the basic transfer of tricks.

[pran]

barmar, on 2015-January-28, 14:43, said:

The revoke law is not based only on restoration of equity, this is one of the laws that has a bit of punishment in it. Tricks must be transferred as described regardless of whether the revoke actually caused damage. And if the TD judges that this isn't sufficient compensation, e.g. because the revoke caused declarer to take a wrong line that resulted in losing more tricks, he can assign the score he thinks would have been likely had the revoke not occurred. But he's never allowed to adjust to a result more favorable to the OS than the one obtained from the basic transfer of tricks.

A classic misunderstanding.

The revoke Law is not based on any bit of punishment, it is based on implementing a standard restoration that while not being excessive will in most situations be sufficient to compensate for the damage caused, thus simplifying the Director's task as much as reasonably possible.

[blackshoe]

pran, on 2015-January-28, 15:58, said:

A classic misunderstanding.

The revoke Law is not based on any bit of punishment, it is based on implementing a standard restoration that while not being excessive will in most situations be sufficient to compensate for the damage caused, thus simplifying the Director's task as much as reasonably possible.

How is it that you know all this?

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2015-January-28, 18:49, said:

How is it that you know all this?

He knows everything.

Anyway, like others in this thread, I would rather ask for enforcement of the laws always instead of sometimes.

[Trinidad]

pran, on 2015-January-28, 15:58, said:

barmar, on 2015-January-28, 14:43, said:

The revoke law is not based only on restoration of equity, this is one of the laws that has a bit of punishment in it.

A classic misunderstanding.

The revoke Law is not based on any bit of punishment, it is based on implementing a standard restoration that while not being excessive will in most situations be sufficient to compensate for the damage caused, thus simplifying the Director's task as much as reasonably possible.

I don't intend to claim that I know everything, but my understanding has always been that:
- the aim of the revoke law was to provide a simple standard solution that club TDs could handle as pran says.
- the fact that this will usually effectively punish the OS was, if not intended, at least very much welcomed, as barmar says. This was because the requirement to follow suit is one of the fundamental parts of bridge and failing to do something that basic disrupts the game and its enjoyment.

Assuming that my understanding is correct, this means that barmar is entirely correct in stating that the revoke law is not only based on restoration of equity.

Rik

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2015-January-28, 18:49, said:

How is it that you know all this?

I certainly do not know everything, but I still do remember quite a lot of how we were trained when I received my TD authorisation in 1980 and in follow-up seminars.

We were particularly trained to understand the laws, and I have never forgotten a lesson I received when I argued the following situation:

NS ends in 3NT with South as declarer, then North and South happily exchanged their cards (as many players had a habit of doing at that time) and East then deliberately led (out of turn) from his solid 5 (or longer) card suit in Clubs claiming that South must accept this OLOOT as he had seen North's cards.

OK ? NO! And we learned why - and how to deal with such situations. Today's SBs will apparently never be able to understand this.
(Don't ask, I will not bother this forum with that lesson.)

[pran]

barmar, on 2015-January-28, 14:43, said:

The revoke law is not based only on restoration of equity, this is one of the laws that has a bit of punishment in it. [...]

I would like to hear your explanation on the fact that every bit of the (alleged) punishment element vanishes when the damage from the revoke is so great that it is just compensated with the standard Application of Laws 64A and 64C.

Where is the logic that a punishment element shall be effective only when there is little or no damage from the revoke?

[Trinidad]

pran, on 2015-January-29, 03:30, said:

I would like to hear your explanation on the fact that every bit of the (alleged) punishment element vanishes when the damage from the revoke is so great that it is just compensated with the standard Application of Laws 64A and 64C.

Where is the logic that a punishment element shall be effective only when there is little or no damage from the revoke?

Pran, what part of barmar's "not only" is so hard to understand?

Rik