[Chris3875]

It has been a practice at our club that when the card is to be led from dummy, some dummies will put their hand on the table to indicate "play is from this side". Someone has recently pointed out that this is not "preventing an irregularity by declarer" but more a case of "directing play". I should say that the hand is not indicating any particular card to play. I thought it was a bit of a storm in a tea cup but have been wrong before.

[aguahombre]

And on an earlier thread we couldn't all agree on this point. I advocated that there should be a catalyst/indicator/some move by Declarer to suggest he might play from the wrong hand before Dummy could act to prevent the irregularity.

Others felt that even going so far as to tell Declarer each time where he was is o.k. If it is preventing an irregularity, I would like it to be a violation of ZT or something else. But, that's just me.

Edit: How about...in addition to maybe preventing an irregularity, it is also informing Declarer that he won the trick? Works for me

This post has been edited by aguahombre: 2013-December-07, 16:19

[pran]

Law 43A1{c} said:

Dummy must not participate in the play, nor may he communicate anything about the play to declarer.

The described activities by Dummy are clearly "communicating something" to declaarer, for instance that "play is from this side".

Dummy may not "try to prevent Declarer from committing an irregularity" unless apparently such irregularity is about to happen (i.e. the irregularity is in progress).