The Director arrives at the table to be greeted by: “He played a card and then went to change it!”. “No I didn’t, I thought of playing a card and decided on a different one.”
What are the rules (Laws) that apply to played cards?
A Bridge Board
The lowly bridge board, the tray that holds 52 cards as four separate bridge hands — would it ever be hard to play duplicate bridge without it. It is central to our game, but so often we fail to follow the rules about using it and how the cards are to be controlled.
Some of those rules are so ingrained that we follow them by habit, but others we sometimes seem blissfully unaware of.
You’re in Your Hand…
If I had to guess the most common infraction in bridge (and guess because I don’t keep statistics), I would say it is declarer leading from the wrong hand. He leads from Dummy when he won the last trick in his hand or the other way around.
Now I’m rarely called to the table when this occurs (the other night was an exception as I gave this chat before the game!). However, it is an infraction.
Bidding Boxes — A Source of UI
UI, “Unauthorized Information”, is the bane of the ethical bridge player’s life. He or she tries hard to play by the rules, but gets hurt because some players don’t. We can, perhaps, forgive some of those players as being “ignorant of The Laws“, but it is not really a very good excuse. If you are going to play a game, especially seriously, then you should learn the rules of the game.
That, as I’ve said, is what inspired this series of blog posts and my 5-minute “chats” before the start of games I run.
Regulations and Alerts
Laws Versus Regulations
Bridge organizations, including the World Bridge Federation, the ACBL and the Canadian Bridge Federation, establish various regulations. There is one important thing about these regulations (and the “Conditions of Contest” for a tournament) and it is stated explicitly in The Laws: They cannot conflict with The Law.