WHITE BOOK 2004 EBU Tournament Directors' Guide Edited by ...

White Book – November 2003 – Chapter IV
Law 10
Assessment of a penalty
10.1 Evidence of how a player has been damaged by an infraction
Usually a player will know how he or she has been damaged, will be able to tell the TD
how this was, and will not need to be prompted by partner or 'led' by the TD. However,
weaker or less experienced players may need to be carefully questioned by the TD to
establish what their actions would have been: many such players need help to
determine what their action would have been in hypothetical circumstances. Their
partner's comments will rarely be helpful, and should be strongly discouraged until the
TD has completed questioning the player.
A special case is one in which a player's description of his partner's hand fails to match
it. This is likely to lead to misinformation for the opponents and unauthorised
information for partner. Players sometimes claim damage only for one or the other, but
the TD should consider both. It is not unreasonable that a player will miss one or the
other when claiming damage.
Law 11
Forfeiture of the right to penalise
11.1 When to apply Law 11A
In general the main use of this Law is to stop players taking advantage of the Laws in
ways that are perceived as unfair. It is normal enough, for example, for a player to call
the TD for a suspected revoke only at the end of a deal, or for the possibility of an
opponent’s call or play being based on unauthorised information from his partner.
However, there are some cases where the right to penalise might be forfeited, and we
give a couple of examples:
Examples
(a) A defender exposes a card during the play. No TD is called, but the
declarer tells the defenders it is a major penalty card. Later in the play, the
partner of the player with a penalty card gets the lead, and the TD is called
to enforce lead penalties. The offending players often had no idea that they
could have worked to mitigate the penalty.
The normal ruling in this case would be to apply Law 11A and to forfeit the
right to penalise. Furthermore, the TD would designate the card as not
being a penalty card per Law 50, and it would be returned to the player’s
hand.
(b) Suppose a player makes an insufficient bid, and then corrects it himself
without the TD being called. The next player accepts this, which is not
permitted (see #27.1)
Note The next player may always accept the original insufficient bid.
Play then proceeds. If it now happens that this leads to an advantageous
position for the side which made the insufficient bid then an opponent might
call the TD to try to get back what was lost. The TD would apply Law 11A
and let the board continue.
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