[gordontd]

 barmar, on 2018-September-11, 08:48, said:

45C3 addresses declarer touching a card in dummy for purposes other than playing it.

Indeed it does, but my post didn't!

[pescetom]

 blackshoe, on 2018-September-10, 21:26, said:

Don't know, don't care. Dura lex, sed lex.

Fair enough in itself. But laws should be hard when the lawmakers have thought things through and intend it.

 gordontd, on 2018-September-11, 00:17, said:

It encourages people to play cards in order, clockwise, which is one of the most basic requirements of the game. Failure to do this may well upset or confuse opponents, so it shouldn't be encouraged.

Yes I agree with this, and I'm not even a great fan of the principle that one should not pay for irregularities which do not damage equity, come to that. But calling a play from the dummy when it is your turn to play after RHO has lead is clearly a mistake and cannot damage the opponents in terms of actual play. I still find it gratuitously severe that you are forced to play the named card after LHO has played to your lead, where of course it is now likely to cost a trick. By comparison, if you make the analogous (but perhaps less innocent) mistake of calling a play from the dummy when it is your turn to lead from hand, you are not (I think) forced to play the named card after LHO has played to your lead.

[gordontd]

 pescetom, on 2018-September-12, 07:46, said:

Fair enough in itself. But laws should be hard when the lawmakers have thought things through and intend it.



Yes I agree with this, and I'm not even a great fan of the principle that one should not pay for irregularities which do not damage equity, come to that. But calling a play from the dummy when it is your turn to play after RHO has lead is clearly a mistake and cannot damage the opponents in terms of actual play. I still find it gratuitously severe that you are forced to play the named card after LHO has played to your lead, where of course it is now likely to cost a trick. By comparison, if you make the analogous (but perhaps less innocent) mistake of calling a play from the dummy when it is your turn to lead from hand, you are not (I think) forced to play the named card after LHO has played to your lead.

If you call for a card from dummy when you are on lead, the opponents have the option to accept it. Only if they decline that are you able to play a different card from dummy.

[barmar]

It does seem like this particular law serves little purpose, as long as the opponents are allowed to change their plays with no UI from their own plays when you retract your dummy play out of turn.

But the law is the law. Unless it's fixed, it seems like we're supposed to follow it.

[pescetom]

 gordontd, on 2018-September-12, 08:28, said:

If you call for a card from dummy when you are on lead, the opponents have the option to accept it. Only if they decline that are you able to play a different card from dummy.

Yes, but here the opponents are unlikely to gain by accepting the call I wanted to make, whereas they would be likely to gain if I was gratuitously forced to play that same card after playing first from my own hand.

In any case, I think you get my point. It's a very minor problem compared to others that we have, agreed.