Seen and heard recently at a local game. A declarer just finished the 9th trick and said, “I’m not going to claim, but I will show you my hand.”
Apparently, he heard that officially claiming means he loses some rights. That’s true, he is required to give a line of play, and if there are any disputes to the claim, play has already ended (the table would need to call the director to resolve). The declarer has seen and made enough bad claims that his habit is to show his hand and hope the defenders concede without asking for a line of play.
Claiming Without Showing
Amazingly I’ve seen the opposite. A declarer claims by taking the rest of his face down cards, mixing it with the tricks already played, and putting it back into the board! The opponents of course raise objections, and he said “the dummy is obviously good”. I wonder how many times this claim has gone awry – problems with a blocked suit or transportation problems, for example.
Claiming by Defender
I’ve been guilty of this one myself. As a defender, you assume you know all the relevant remaining cards, so to speed things up, you claim for the declarer! I can remember two different professional players doing this to me, and in each case they were gifting me a trick (in one case partner spoke up, the other I only saw it looking at hand records later).
Concede Then TakeBack
Another pro once played through 10 tricks and conceded the last two. We agreed and showed our cards. Then he stopped us and said, “Wait!” Looks like your Ace and King clash, and you are forced to lead back into my winner.” We accepted that, being nice people in a friendly club game. I’m curious what the official ruling is when declarer concedes, then sees defenders cards and realizes there is a way to make an extra trick
Conditional Claim
There is nothing wrong with this one, except it removes room for bad defense. The most common being an early claim conceding a few tricks, but also asking if a side suit breaks or a finesse is on. Apparently in Fast Pairs, which is not my cup of tea, people will make insanely complex claims – “if the squeeze is on and the repeated finesse works, I get two more tricks.”
Any Other Bad Claim Stories?
Claiming generally saves time and moves the pace of the game along – but we probably all have some claiming horror stories. I’d be curious to hear some.