[shubi]

Claiming is fun. Its bringing out extra quality of players, the whole table gets in the action, when claim gets rejected and the newre players keep rejecting 9 of 11 call.
Here is one of calls, 2 oppos must be good players says World Class. 5 card to go, declearer in dummy I am seating on top of dummy i have 2 suit control, declearer thinking for over 2 min, i guess he is thinking which card to through me in? But my partner after waiting 2 plus min just conceded all 5 tricks. round over soon thx guys, see you again, bye.
Claiming may save time but there are some ACBL rule must be followed,
if somebody claims with out line of play , player canot take in finase unless finanse is marked, players canot run or play trump unless it is needed for transport.
just for fun.

[mhais]

its always good to play the hand till last card to avoid forced error.

[the hog]

Jlall, on Jul 15 2007, 12:00 PM, said:

mhais, on Jul 14 2007, 11:48 PM, said:

its always good to play the hand till last card to avoid forced error.

This is not true either. If you know you can claim you should. It is not only rude and against the laws to purposely slow down the game.

Agree with Justin 100%.

[jillybean]

Jlall, on Jul 14 2007, 09:59 PM, said:

Quote

if somebody claims with out line of play , player canot take in finase unless finanse is marked, players canot run or play trump unless it is needed for transport.

Very common misconception but simply not true. BTW I think people who try to litigate over claims ruin the game and I think very very lowly of them no matter how good they are at bridge (and find it more sad when they are actually good players).

Doesn’t law 70E prohibit declarer from taking finesse?

wbf said:

70E. Unstated Line of Play (Finesse or Drop)
The Director shall not accept from claimer any unstated line of play the
success of which depends upon finding one opponent rather than the
other with a particular card, unless an opponent failed to follow to the
suit of that card before the claim was made, or would subsequently fail
to follow to that suit on any normal22 line of play; or unless failure to
adopt this line of play would be irrational.

As for the trump play, declarer can play trump unless:
70C2. Was Probably Unaware of Trump
70C3. Could Lose a Trick to the Trump - a trick could be lost to that trump by any normal play.

Sounds like a large grey area dependant on the TD's perception.

[shubi]

Here is one real claim gone sour. my first day in BBO, I have 3h and a diamond spades were trump at 9th trick i claimed all mine AND WILL ruff diamond, rho called director and told him i said ruff diamond. any way i had to ruff diamond at directors direction got stuck in dummy and lost 3 tricks in my hand. it was long time ago, i remember my pd and rho and forgot the director name. all i can tell when tourment is going on director is GOD.

[blackshoe]

Jlall, on Jul 15 2007, 02:02 AM, said:

If I claimed on a finesse after say LHO opened 1N and RHO was marked with 0 points and i had say all the tricks except for xxx opp AQJ in a suit without saying something it is pretty obvious how I think I have all the tricks. It would be irrational for me to not finesse. Perhaps you include this in marked but literally marked means someone has already shown out. I am quite confident no competent TD would rule against me because I did not follow the formality of saying "I will finesse."

But yeah, I was talking about the whole "you cannot draw trumps when you claim and dont say anything" thing. That is silly.

If I was in 7S with all the tricks except for AKQxxx opp xxx in trumps and I pulled one round, all followed, and I claimed no TD would make me lose a trump trick. Anything but pulling trumps is irrational, it's obviously not a case of me miscounting trumps since I went to the trouble to pull one round to check if they're 4-0.

If you ever watch a top level match you will be surprised by the claims. They often involve facing your cards for maybe .1 seconds and throwing them in since everyone knows what you have anyways. Sometimes something will be required like ruffing out a suit or something, but usually nothing will be said. Almost no top level players will try to litigate a trick out of this, though they might ask for clarification of your line for whatever reason. Good players will appreciate this claiming because it saves time for what the game is about, playing bridge. I hate when people live in fear of someone litigating a trick out of them if they do not claim perfectly, and sometimes it even drives people to never claim (which I also hate).

There is the spirit of the laws and the written laws. Thankfully in the case of claiming TDs will usually go with the spirit of the law.

(Sorry for the rant this is a big pet peeve of mine.)

And mine.

Couple of comments:

Minor nit: once a player has claimed, he can't do anything except repeat for the TD his line of play statment (if he made one) and answer the TD's questions. So saying "he can't finesse" or "he can't draw trump" is mis-stating the situation, at best. Sorry, but such inaccuracies about the laws are a pet peeve of mine.

The footnote to Law 70 says "For the purposes of Laws 69, 70, and 71, `normal' includes play that would be careless or inferior for the class of player involved, but not irrational." IOW, the TD has to judge whether a play is "normal" on the basis of the class of player. In Justin's examples, the TD should certainly rule that it would be irrational for Justin not to take the winning line. If Mrs. Guggenheim is claiming, it might be a different story.

Heh. I once had a much better player than I was at the time ask me, after I'd claimed at trick twelve, why I hadn't claimed at trick nine. I said "because I didn't see it until trick twelve".

[blackshoe]

shubi, on Jul 15 2007, 03:06 AM, said:

Here is one real claim gone sour. my first day in BBO, I have 3h and a diamond spades were trump at 9th trick i claimed all mine AND WILL ruff diamond, rho called director and told  him i said ruff diamond. any way i had to ruff diamond at directors direction got stuck in dummy and lost 3 tricks in my hand. it was long time ago, i remember my pd and rho and forgot the director name. all i can tell when tourment is going on director is GOD.

Without knowing all the circumstances, it is impossible to tell if the TD ruled correctly, although I would guess that he probably did.

All this shows is that when you claim, you must (a) have a clear idea how you would play out the hand if you didn't claim and ( clearly state that line of play. If you do both those things, you will rarely, if ever, get an adverse ruling. When playing against experts, other experts claim, as Justin said, without stating a line, because they are confident that the opponents know what is going on, and are not going to attempt to gain through nit-picky litigation. I would suggest that the rest of us leave that to the experts, and clearly state our intended line of play with every claim. This does not slow down the game, even though it may feel like it, because when opponents can see what's going to happen, they acquiesce in the claim*. Next hand!



*I have had one player, in the last ten years, ask me to "play it out" after a claim because, she said, she "couldn't see" how the play would go, with both my hand and dummy's on the table. I haven't claimed against her since.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

claiming is good, it speeds up the game.
It even prevents declarer to do something stupid.

If one claims, one should have a look at the opponents,
dont make a claim, if the stated line is over the head of
your oppoenents.
Please dont claim on a squeeze, not even necessary an
esoteric, if you play against me .-).

With kind regards
Marlowe

[shubi]

Claim never became a problem unless one of the oppos calls diractor. then again
If the oppos or deaclerer not satisfied both side can submit grivence appeal board
I am sure BBO has all the step by step procedure to resolve the problems.

[Fluffy]

I don't waste my time playing acbl tourneys, I also never waste dummy's time playing a board when its over.

At MBC I won't waste anyone's time, even when I can make overtricks.

[awm]

I think there is a process as players get more and more experienced where the claims get shorter and shorter and less and less detailed.

To some degree this is fine, but I've seen top flight players:

(1) Claim at trick five without showing the defense their hand, then get upset when (as a defender) I asked to see declarer's hand.

(2) Claim with two tricks to go, with a defender on lead and holding the last trump (a spade) and a good diamond. Simple enough right? But the opponents lead a heart, and the claim was made by placing the good diamond (only) face up on the table and stating "I have the rest" I didn't call the director about this one, but it seems an utterly ridiculous way for a world class player to claim.

I should also mention that one of the better local players (certainly not world class though, and now perhaps a bit senile) frequently makes these sorts of "flash the hand and put the cards away" claims when he does not have the number of tricks he claimed.

[jillybean]

Jlall, on Jul 15 2007, 12:02 AM, said:

If you ever watch a top level match you will be surprised by the claims. They often involve facing your cards for maybe .1 seconds and throwing them in since everyone knows what you have anyways. Sometimes something will be required like ruffing out a suit or something, but usually nothing will be said. Almost no top level players will try to litigate a trick out of this, though they might ask for clarification of your line for whatever reason. Good players will appreciate this claiming because it saves time for what the game is about, playing bridge. I hate when people live in fear of someone litigating a trick out of them if they do not claim perfectly, and sometimes it even drives people to never claim (which I also hate).

There is the spirit of the laws and the written laws. Thankfully in the case of claiming TDs will usually go with the spirit of the law.

(Sorry for the rant this is a big pet peeve of mine.)

I think obviously, there is a huge difference between playing against Justin and playing in a regular BBO ‘expert’ tournament.

Playing at WC level, team games I expect claims will be valid and your opps will quickly see the line of play. Seeing the hand is a skill that not all players possess. In comparison, playing in a BBO tournament I think it is reasonable to expect either a line to be stated or the finesse etc taken before a claim is made. Making an early claim is problematic, usually unnecessary in a clocked tournament and I think the TD has no choice but to rule against you for any unstated/untested line of play.

[blackshoe]

jillybean2, on Jul 16 2007, 11:37 AM, said:

I think the TD has no choice but to rule against you for any unstated/untested line of play.

That is not what the law says.

[pclayton]

I believe a lot of claim rules are based on what happens in practice - with the rules in mind of course.

If a world class player didnt draw my last trump, and started playing on a side suit, and claimed when the side suit broke, I would not hesitate to call the director if he merely tabled his cards.

[jillybean]

blackshoe, on Jul 16 2007, 09:34 PM, said:

jillybean2, on Jul 16 2007, 11:37 AM, said:

I think the TD has no choice but to rule against you for any unstated/untested line of play.

That is not what the law says.

wbf70E said:

E. Unstated Line of Play (Finesse or Drop)
The Director shall not accept from claimer any unstated line of play the
success of which depends upon finding one opponent rather than the
other with a particular card, unless an opponent failed to follow to the
suit of that card before the claim was made, or would subsequently fail
to follow to that suit on any normal line of play; or unless failure to
adopt this line of play would be irrational.

[blackshoe]

Yes, Jilly, of course. I was refering to the "unlesses".