[Coelacanth]

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East declares 4♠. The play proceeds as follows:

♦9-♦A-♦8-♦4
♣Q-♣-♣4-♣K
♦3-♦2-♦K-♦5
♦Q-♦J-♥6-♦6
♥A-♥J-♥3-♥2

Feel free to comment on the auction or the play to this point. With North to lead and declarer having lost four of the first five tricks, East spreads his hand and claims down one, with no clarifying statement. South immediately objects to the claim and summons the TD. East immediately clarifies, stating that he will cross to dummy (presumably by ruffing a ♣) and play a trump towards his hand. If N shows out, he will win the King and take the marked finesse through South.

At this point the TD arrives and South acquiesces, agreeing one off. The TD is only at the table long enough to see that the players have seemingly agreed the result. As the TD leaves, North points out that if he continues a second heart, South's ♠Q will be promoted unless declarer trumps with the King and takes a first-round finesse against South's putative Queen-third.

With due consideration to Law 70E(1), do you rule one or two down?

[pran]

Coelacanth, on 2011-January-31, 09:52, said:

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East declares 4♠. The play proceeds as follows:

♦9-♦A-♦8-♦J
♣Q-♣-♣4-♣K
♦3-♦2-♦K-♦5
♦Q-♦J-♥6-♦6
♥A-♥J-♥3-♥2

Feel free to comment on the auction or the play to this point. With North to lead and declarer having lost four of the first five tricks, East spreads his hand and claims down one, with no clarifying statement. South immediately objects to the claim and summons the TD. East immediately clarifies, stating that he will cross to dummy (presumably by ruffing a ♣) and play a trump towards his hand. If N shows out, he will win the King and take the marked finesse through South.

At this point the TD arrives and South acquiesces, agreeing one off. The TD is only at the table long enough to see that the players have seemingly agreed the result. As the TD leaves, North points out that if he continues a second heart, South's ♠Q will be promoted unless declarer trumps with the King and takes a first-round finesse against South's putative Queen-third.

With due consideration to Law 70E(1), do you rule one or two down?

East presented a claim statement only after South had objected to the claim. I cannot discard the probability that this claim statement has been influenced by South's objection. Any and all information that can be inferred from this objection is unauthorized for East who then presented a line of play that apparently catered for the possibility that South held all outstanding trumps ("why would he else have objected to the claim?").

In addition North, who is on the lead, now points to the fact that a "normal" lead of another heart will almost certainly promote a trump trick for South even when considering the possible lines of play available to East according to his final claim statement. An important question here is if North also had acquiesced in the claim before presenting this lead. That question is unanswered in the OP, but there is an indication that TD left the table before all four players were happy with his ruling.

Only if North (in addition to South) had first positively acquiesced in the claim and then changed his mind shall I consider invoking Law 71{2} and rule down one. Otherwise (and normally) shall I rule down two according to Law 70E{1} on the ground that East may have presented a winning line of play based on unauthorized information from the objection to the claim from South.

(I have no comments to neither the auction nor the play of the first five tricks)

[campboy]

Despite the players agreeing the result at some point, North's later objection is in time to mean that no agreement is established (69A). I rule 2 down. I would certainly not accept declarer's claim that he would lead towards hand in order to pick up the trumps -- had North, rather than South, objected, might he not have clarified his claim with "I lead a trump towards dummy and if South shows out the finesse is marked"?

[iviehoff]

In general, a relevant question when an opponent makes an "immediate" objection is whether the claimant was impeded from making his clarificatory statement. If a player was so impeded, I would be more inclined to believe him that his clarifcatory statement after the objection was the same as the one which he would have delivered before he was interrupted.

But in the present case, I do not believe that E was interrupted, because someone who understood the situation in trumps would not have claimed.

Campboy is right.

The DJ appears to be played twice, but I assume one of them is a typo for the D4.

[Coelacanth]

iviehoff, on 2011-January-31, 11:32, said:

The DJ appears to be played twice, but I assume one of them is a typo for the D4.

You're right, the first one was the ♦4. I'll edit the OP.

[pran]

campboy, on 2011-January-31, 10:50, said:

Despite the players agreeing the result at some point, North's later objection is in time to mean that no agreement is established (69A). I rule 2 down. I would certainly not accept declarer's claim that he would lead towards hand in order to pick up the trumps -- had North, rather than South, objected, might he not have clarified his claim with "I lead a trump towards dummy and if South shows out the finesse is marked"?

You are right, I overlooked Law 69A in my hurry