Multiple plays out of turn - there is a law for that

A busy month but not much to report here. Having met an unfamiliar position, with colleagues giving me different advice, I was surprised and pleased to find a part of a law that I was not aware of that seemed to solve the problem.

South is declarer and the lead is in dummy, nevertheless she plays ♥K from hand. Realising her mistake she calls for ♥2 from dummy, which is played, and RHO plays ♥A — now the TD is called. I thought ♥A had accepted the ♥2 and declarer was now in the position of deciding which card to play from hand; others thought that ♥K could not be un-played [withdrawn] as there had been no explicit rejection of the lead out of turn, but were unsure of the status of ♥2.

Then I found Law 53B, a part of the laws I will happily admit I have never read before.

B. Wrong Defender Plays Card to Declarer’s Irregular Lead

If the defender at the right of the hand from which declarer’s lead out of turn was made plays to the irregular lead (but see C), the lead stands and Law 57 applies.

So if RHO had played ♥A directly after the out-of-turn ♥K, that would accpt ♥K but LHO would be subject to the restrictions of Law 57A. As it is, because ♥2 had also been played before ♥A, there are no restrictions on LHO because of Law 57C: A defender is not subject to rectification for playing before his partner if declarer has played from both hands, ...

So the ruling is a simple one: the ♥K is the lead, all the cards played stand played to the trick, and LHO plays to the trick without restiction. Probably, what one would have ruled without any of Laws 53 and 57 to hand.

Two bids out of rotation

An analogous position in the auction, is where North is the dealer, South opens out of turn and then North calls, sometimes one of the opponents now calls. We do not know how to deal with this: North's call must be treated as out of turn (otherwise North could deliberately call to try to cancel partner's call out of turn), and whichever call out of turn we try to deal with first leads to a mess. There is a recent topic on IBLF.

Meaning of likely in Law 69B2

Another interesting ruling from April was on the meaning of “likely” in Law 69B2. Some colleagues are hardly aware of the change of law here and still want to not give any more tricks to the side that withdraws acceptance, treating it as a withdrawn concession. This was another topic on IBLF.