[Barry]

Declarer plays a small card from hand. In dummy he has AQxx in that suit. LHO hesitates and then plays low. Declarer plays the Q and RHO plays the K. LHO had no reason to hesitate. If Declarer calls the Director and complains what ruling can the Director make? Is LHO allowed to deceive an opponent in this manner considering he is allowed to open 1NT (psche) with 1 point in his hand?

[RMB1]

A player is entitled to mislead opponents only with the actual calls and plays he makes. He is not entitled not mislead opponents in the manner in which the calls or plays are made or by remarks and guestures.

[PeterE]

Of course LHO is not allowed to hesitate in order to deceive declarer.
But here, what is declarer going to do? playing small to the ace ??
In situations where declarer is playing small towards some visible honours in dummy LHO's hesitiation will normally not show missing honours, because why should he have any problem??

The difference to your last question is, that players may mislead (or deceive) the opposing side by way of calls and / or played cards, but not by the way (or the manner in which) he does call or does play a card.

[mjj29]

Barry, on Apr 2 2010, 05:32 AM, said:

Declarer plays a small card from hand.    In dummy he has AQxx in that suit.  LHO hesitates and then plays low.  Declarer plays the Q and RHO plays the K.  LHO had no reason to hesitate.  If Declarer calls the Director and complains what ruling can the Director make?    Is LHO allowed to deceive an opponent in this manner considering he is allowed to open 1NT (psche) with 1 point in his hand?

Short answer: no.

L73D2 said:

A player may not attempt to mislead an oponent ... by the haste or hesitancy of a call or play (as in hesitating before playing a singleton)

L73F said:

...if the Director determines than an innocent player has drawn a false inference from a remar, manner, tempo, or the like, of an opponent who has no demonstratable bridge reason for the action and who could have known, at the time of the action, that the action could work to his benefit, the Director shall award an ajusted score (see Law 12C).

Which the EBU at least have clarified:

EBU White Book 73.1 Hesitating with two small cards said:

Players have argued that they were wondering whether to play high-low, but Law 73D1 makes clear that this is an infraction. The player has failed to be "particularly careful in positions where variations [in tempo] may work to the benefit of their side" and to do so is not usually considered "a demonstrable bridge reason" for the purposes of Law 73F.

So, it's an infraction to do so which can lead to an adjusted score and optionally a procedural penalty. 12C instructs the Director to award an assigned adjusted score where possible (ie not an average) so here he does so, weight if appropriate and not in the ACBL.

[pwg]

Quote

73 D2. A player may not attempt to mislead an opponent by means of remark or gesture, by the haste or hesitancy of a call or play (as in hesitating before playing a singleton), the manner in which a call or play is made or by any purposeful deviation from correct procedure.
...

73F. Violation of Proprieties

When a violation of the Proprieties described in this law results in damage to an innocent opponent, if the Director determines that an innocent player has drawn a false inference from a remark, manner, tempo, or the like, of an opponent who has no demonstrable bridge reason for the action, and who could have known, at the time of the action, that the action could work to his benefit, the Director shall award an adjusted score (see Law 12C).

So, an adjusted score may be appropriate.

Quote

73E. Deception

A player may appropriately attempt to deceive an opponent through a call or play (so long as the deception is not protected by concealed partnership understanding or experience).

So the psych of 1NT is legal unless . . .

Peter.

[EricK]

I, as declarer, lead toward KJ in dummy and LHO plays small without any apparent thought. I naturally finesse the Jack and it loses, and LHO turns out to have the Ace after all. Is there any chance I could get a ruling in my favour based on his trying to deceive me with the speed of his play and nonchalant manner?

It seems to me that such behaviour by LHO is perceived as admirable by the bridge world, but the only difference that I can see between this and the situation where LHO hesitates with the Queen but not the Ace (which is essentially the sort of situaiton the OP is talking about) is that this is harder to do.

[barmar]

Players are supposed to play at a CONSISTENT pace. Both unusual speed and unusual hesitations can potentially be UI to partner and misleading to opponents. But a lack of hesitation is not the same thing as playing too fast. A good player plans ahead, so that he won't have to hesitate when declarer leads towards the KJ, and this is not considered misleading.

However, suppose a player normally plays very deliberately, but on this trick he plays noticeably faster than when he's just following suit to inconsequential tricks. That seems like it's intended to deceive, and might be cause for adjustment.

Going back to the original post, there are times when a player with Kx needs to unblock it when declarer is finessing. A more common case is when dummy contains AJTxx, so that partner's Q will win the second finesse and declarer won't be able to run the suit. So there may be something to think about. But I'm with Peter in wondering how this affected declarer's play. Surely he was always intending to finesse, regardless of what LHO did. Unless this is a case where declarer has to decide whether to cash out to make his contract or try a dangerous finesse for an overtrick.

If it were a two-way finesse for a queen, that would also be a case where the BIT could be a problem.

[axman]

Barry, on Apr 2 2010, 05:32 AM, said:

Declarer plays a small card from hand. In dummy he has AQxx in that suit. LHO hesitates and then plays low. Declarer plays the Q and RHO plays the K. LHO had no reason to hesitate. If Declarer calls the Director and complains what ruling can the Director make? Is LHO allowed to deceive an opponent in this manner considering he is allowed to open 1NT (psche) with 1 point in his hand?

A caution is important here.This situation is presented as a hypothetical where conclusions were presented as fact- as in the player had no bridge reason to pause. It is an error to believe this is generic. It should be remembered that reasoning would necessarily change when the fact of nothing to think about changes.

Determining that a bridge problem exists is different saying that no bridge problem existed. For instance, if the hands and play were provided I may, or not, conclude that the player had a legitimate reason for pause and thus not concur, or concur, with the premise presented. Consider the Abbott's defense in April's Bulletin where he chose to play a disadvantageous card from DTx

Returning to the original hypothetical, please note that an adjustment would be thus due only if directly a consequene of damage. In other words, just because the finesse loses at T3 does not necessarily mean that it won't be taken at T10. Further, it could be conceivable that losing that trick to the K may make it possible to gain tricks [over not playing the Q] in the end .