Recently playing bid whist, my opponent played several leads. Then placed his cards on the table and claimed a boston which would have given him the game. But low and behold I still had a trump that would beat one of his trump. From years of playing cards, I believed I had the right to call out a lead from his exposed cards and take the trick if I could beat it, thus stopping the boston and forcing the game to continue. Am I right in presuming this? He could have lead one more top trump and picked me up but didn’t.
I don’t know about whist but in bridge, if you make a claim you are required to state your line of play (unless of course it doesn’t matter which order you play in). If you do not specifically state you are going to pull trump first, and an opponent has a trump, he may be entitled to win it. This would not be the case if you have identical distributions so the opponent could not trump anything. However, you are not required to to state that you are playing any particular suit, including trump, from the top down – that may be assumed in a claim.
Card game? Moved to the Game Room.
samclem GQ Moderator
I believe you are thinking of a situation where the declarer claims out of turn, perhaps while your partner is leading. In such a case you can demand that your partner lead a particular suit. In the situation you describe I believe you can forbid declarer from playing a high trump until he has all trumps left. You cannot demand that he make a ridiculous play because he did not state his line.