[jules101]

South is declarer.

Trick 5

East leads a low C, declarer plays the Jack, West plays the ten, and a low club is played from dummy (North).

Declarer's Jack has won the trick, but both defenders, and declarer all turn over their cards and arrange these as if EW (defenders) have won the trick.

Dummy realises this is incorrect, and leaves her card face up, but doesn't speak immediately.


West (who played the ten under declarer's Jack) now leads KC to the start of trick 6.

Dummy's card from trick 5 is, however, still face up.


Law 65 (Arrangement of Tricks) gives dummy the right "draw attention" to a card being pointed in the wrong direction, but this right expires when a lead is made to a subsequent trick.



Questions:

• When does trick 5 end, and when does trick 6 start?
  
  
• So which trick are we on?
  
  
• May dummy now speak at this point, or has she "lost her right to speak"?
  
  
• Is KC now a major penalty card, or may West return this to his hand?

[blackshoe]

The laws don't say when a trick ends, only that after all four players play to the trick, each player turns his card face down. BTW, when the laws say a player "does" something, that establishes correct procedure, without suggesting that a violation be penalized. If the law says a player "may do" something, failure to do it is not wrong — but that doesn't apply here. A trick starts when a card is led to it, so we're in trick 6, whether or not trick 5 is "finished".

Since the irregularity (lead out of turn) has already occurred, dummy cannot say anything about it until play ends, at which time it won't help, since if declarer played a card after the ♣K, he is deemed to have accepted the irregular lead. If declarer doesn't accept the LOOT, then the TD should be called, and whether the ♣K is a penalty card is up to him. I would say it depends on who called attention to the irregular lead. If it was dummy, we have a problem, although the director is still required to deal with the LOOT (Law 81C3 requires the TD to "rectify an error or irregularity of which he becomes aware in any manner with the correction period specified by Law 79C"). I would think handle it as a LOOT, and perhaps issue a PP to the declaring side ("may not", as in "dummy may not call attention to an irregularity" [Law 43A1{b}] is a pretty strong injunction). It may depend on how quickly things happened.

Proper procedure, and best practice, would have been for dummy to say, as soon as somebody put his card the wrong way, "declarer's trick".

[barmar]

But how can you tell whether the ♣K is a lead to trick 6, or a 5th card played to trick 5?

I think the OP's thinking is that since dummy hasn't turned his card face down, we can consider it a 5th card to trick 5 and he's still within his rights to point out that the cards are facing the wrong way.

45E says that the TD may "deem that it was led", but doesn't suggest the basis for this decision. I guess it's simple, though: he just asks West what trick he thought he was playing to.

[blackshoe]

Yep. The only difference if it turns out to be a fifth card to trick five (which would be rare, it seems to me) is that declarer has no option to accept the play.