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Ask the Director

Playing on after a claim
By Mike Amos

Probably you can help me to explain the following ruling:

1. Declarer claimed and showed the hand by making some statements of play.
2. Opponents refused to accept the claim.

My questions (1): 'Shall the play continue?'

Law 68D
Here the law is clear "After any claim or concession play ceases ...."

This is an absolute - there are no exceptions for claims and only if a concession is cancelled by a defender's partner immediately can play ever continue. An experienced TD will cancel any play that does follow and return to the claim situation.

Questions*(2): 'If the play continues, opponents mis-defended and let the declarer make the contract, so how? After that, the opponents wanted the contract to go one or two downs because they mis-defended the hand, so how?' Wish to hear your view or some of your directors' views.

Any play that actually takes place is voided by the director. It does not count. (Under pressure people make mistakes they would not normally have made - playing on should never happen - an experienced player should refuse)

If play continues then the sort of arguments you outline above are bound to happen - this is exactly why the law does not allow such a continuation of play - or if play has occurred says that it is void and the TD should go back to the original claim.

Law 70
Tells us what should happen - "The director adjudicates the result of the board ......"

What I do is this:

I ask the claiming player to repeat what he said as he claimed -
NB - not something new or something he said afterwards, but what he said at the moment he claimed - like "The rest are mine" or "Dummy's good" or "I can draw the last trump and run clubs giving you the queen"

Then I ask the defenders what they object to and why they think they can defeat the claim and then I make an adjudication as best I can according to the laws.

If no TD is available the players should record the position of the cards left when the claim was made, what was said and the objection and leave the claim to be resolved later

Hope this helps

*"In this case play did continue and the declarer made his contract because the defenders misdefended. Now the defenders wanted the contract to be scored as one or two down, because they disputed the original claim and had only misdefended under the pressure of the situation."