[vigfus]

Scoring: MP

W...N....E...S..
P....P....P...1♣
P...1♠...P..1NT
All Pass

---

Lead is 5♥. East cashes AK and plays more ♥. South plays small ♣ to the queen and plays ♦Jack.

Easts is moving his cards in hand ( West and South say that East hesitated ). East has ♦6 and ♦2 at the most left side in the cards, and preventing south from seeing that East takes a card so far left in his hand, then Easts takes his cards together and moves 2 or 3 cards to his left, and then he puts ♦ into the trick. ( I forgot to ask if he put the 2 or 6 into the trick ). East denied that he had been thinking.

South said that he was going to cash the ♦Ace if East would not cover, but when East began thinking, he changed his orginal plan. Souths comes to that conclution that East was thinking of what card to play on the Jack, and what else than the king ?. So South plays small diamond, and West cashes 3 tricks more, and plays ♠queen

Now south has 8 top tricks, but he finesses for the ♦ ten in Easts hand (because of easts previous thinking ). 7 tricks.

I ruled that E/W gets the score of 150 NS (1NT 9 tricks ). But what about South ? Does he deserve 150 ? I say no. Law 12C1B

I really thinked of ruling 7 tricks, but I came to the conclution of weigted score. 90 =50% 150= 50%. Because south did not play well at trick 4, and did not count his 8 tricks at trick 7, and no reason to think that east has the ♦10

My ruling was appealed, and the AC changed the score for NS to 150, because of South's statement of cashing the ♦A for 9 tricks if East had not hesitated.

[jdonn]

vigfus, on Apr 14 2010, 06:24 PM, said:

My ruling was appealed, and the AC changed the score for NS to 150, because of South's statement of cashing the ♦A for 9 tricks if East had not hesitated.

Agree with them. Also agree with you in ignoring the possibility of 8 tricks since east's fumbling around may suggest the king of diamonds but suggests nothing about the ten.

[lamford]

vigfus, on Apr 14 2010, 06:24 PM, said:

<snip> Because south did not play well at trick 4, and did not count his 8 tricks at trick 7 <snip>

First of all, there is no doubt the cheating East deserved -150, plus a PP in my book. However, you say that South did not play well at trick 4. I don't see why, as he is playing matchpoints, and can indeed cash out for 9 tricks, but quite reasonably tries for at least 10 by running the jack of diamonds. And given that the hearts appear to be 5-3, this is a play that will make 10 tricks over half the time (but not as much as 10/18th, as West looked at his hand before leading).

I agree that his practice finesse at trick 7 is a serious error, unrelated to the infraction by East, and he fails to get redress for the proportion of the bad result attributable to this. Say that the matchpoints are 30% for +150, 18% for +120 and 0% for +90, as I assume most pairs will be in game. He should get 12% of the matchpoints, which was the loss caused by East's deceptive BIT, and he forfeits the 18% caused by his own serious error. At least that is my reading of the Laws.

[campboy]

Agree with Lamford.

[bluejak]

Note that the OP says

Quote

Because south did not play well at trick 4, and ....

Not playing well is not a SEWoG. It needs to be much worse.

Finessing when holding the rest of the tricks is different: that is a serious error.