[mink]

gnasher, on 2013-March-18, 12:36, said:

I don't believe it was a claim. East didn't suggest that play be curtailed, he suggested that it be accelerated.

Ok, you don't believe, but you did not explain why. And I fail to see the relevance of East's intentions.

Law 68B1 reads: "Any statement to the effect that a contestant will lose a specific number of tricks is a concession of those tricks; ..."

There is nothing else required for a statement to qualify as a concession, not even East's intention to concede. There was a statement, and this statement clearly implies that East believes he is currently at least down 4. If South and North knew the Laws well enough, they would have accepted the concession and returned their cards into the board. And East would probably not have objected, because this is what he wanted to achieve by his statement, the play would have been accelerated a lot.

By the way, even if East tried to have his concession canceled, this cannot be done via Law 69B, which only deals with a withdrawn agreement by the opponents of the player who conceded. Rather, it could be only done via Law 71, but there is a normal play that leads to -4, so this Law is not applicable in this case.

gnasher, on 2013-March-18, 12:36, said:

However, I do believe that it was an irregularity, it damaged the opponents, and East could well have known that this damage would occur.

I doubt that. East's statement shows resignation. If you imply that maybe he only acted like he was sure to lose a fortune, and tried talk opps into some bad play, this would qualify for removal from the tourney site. Rather, my impression is that he was honestly sad about his bad contract and truly believed he was about to go down for sure.

gnasher, on 2013-March-18, 12:36, said:

Fining East seems completely over the top - it doesn't sound as though he had any malicious intent.

Right, it doesn't sound like this. However, I believe that it is one of the holiest rights of a player to be able to think as long as he needs. Any statement that criticizes a player for thinking is truly rude. In this case, the criticism is about South not being able to see that his thinking will yield no significant benefit and he should know that the score will be a top for him anyway. A bad score is not enough to show East that this is not acceptable.

Karl

[gnasher]

mink, on 2013-March-19, 17:53, said:

Ok, you don't believe, but you did not explain why.

I was participating in the conversation that took place in posts 5-12. I don't see any point in repeating arguments that others have already made, so I just addressed the part that I didn't think had already been refuted.

Quote

And I fail to see the relevance of East's intentions.

Law 68B1 reads: "Any statement to the effect that a contestant will lose a specific number of tricks is a concession of those tricks; ..."

See post no 8.

Quote

I doubt that. East's statement shows resignation. If you imply that maybe he only acted like he was sure to lose a fortune, and tried talk opps into some bad play, this would qualify for removal from the tourney site.

Of course I didn't imply that. I implied exactly what I said: "it was an irregularity, it damaged the opponents, and East could well have known that this damage would occur".

"Could well have known" does not mean the same as "intended".

Quote

Rather, my impression is that he was honestly sad about his bad contract and truly believed he was about to go down for sure.

Yes, that's my impression too.

[barmar]

wyman, on 2013-March-19, 06:57, said:

Isn't this the crowd that usually jumps all over defenders for not calling the director when the claim is made and tells people who continue to play the hand out at the table that making their own ruling tends to forfeit their right to rectification?

The disagreement in this forum is clear evidence that it's not obvious to everyone that this should be considered a claim. So I think the defenders can be forgiven for not acting as if it were.

[Zelandakh]

If Declarer in 7NT, on seeing dummy, says something along the lines "Hmmm, I see 12, now where is the 13th?" would anyone consider this a claim? I think the whole claim argument is a red herring because the Law uses the term "specific number of tricks". A range is not a specific number from any player and it is wrong to treat it as such.

[iviehoff]

Zelandakh, on 2013-March-21, 03:29, said:

If Declarer in 7NT, on seeing dummy, says something along the lines "Hmmm, I see 12, now where is the 13th?" would anyone consider this a claim?

Of course it isn't, that's obvious. And the law, I paraphrase, says that something that obviously isn't a claim, isn't. Curiously, this is one of those cases where the law is asking for a bit of common sense to be applied. Common sense is that people who imply to their opponents that there is nothing to think about because a certain outcome is assured can reasonably be treated as having claimed the assured outcome.

[Zelandakh]

There it is again. "A certain outcome" sounds remarkably like "a specific number of tricks". "6 or 7 tricks" does not sound like a specific number, nor a certain outcome. The situation is clearly different if declarer does provide a specified number. Here, Declarer did not intend to claim and their actions did not match any of the criteria for a claim, so it seems like applying common sense would lead us to the conclusion that (s)he did not claim. On the other hand, it looks like the actions did damage the opponents. So deal with it using the damage laws, not the claim laws.

[pran]

A claim need not neccessarily specify an exact number of tricks:

With spades as trump and
x
x
xx
-

x
Kx
Ax
-

you can lead the heart towards Kx and claim with the statement:
I get four tricks if East holds the Ace (of hearts), otherwise I get only three tricks.

A perfectly valid claim.

[blackshoe]

True, but the case at hand is not of that form.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2013-March-21, 10:37, said:

True, but the case at hand is not of that form.

Quite.
My comment related to the apparent assumption that a claim is not a claim unless it names or implies a specific number of tricks.

[bluejak]

It clearly wasn't a claim. We have lots of case Law, including Edgar Kaplan playing a grand slam, to say that informational comments by declarer do not consitute claims per se.

I was going to write lots of other stuff, but realised it had been done for me.

gnasher, on 2013-March-18, 12:36, said:

I don't believe it was a claim. East didn't suggest that play be curtailed, he suggested that it be accelerated.

However, I do believe that it was an irregularity, it damaged the opponents, and East could well have known that this damage would occur. Hence I adjust the score to -4 in order to restore equity. Fining East seems completely over the top - it doesn't sound as though he had any malicious intent.

Exactly - except that I might have weighted the number of tricks. He might have defended the same way, for example!

Zelandakh, on 2013-March-19, 07:42, said:

If I tell you that it does not matter what you play, and it does actually matter, then I can certainly envisage that I might benefit from that if my opponent then does not give full thought to the situation.

Exactly.