Alcatraz coup

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This article concerns contract bridge and uses terminology associated with the game. See Contract bridge glossary for an explanation of unfamiliar words or phrases.

The Alcatraz coup is named after the U.S. Federal penitentiary once located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. It is not a true coup in the sense of a particularly skillful or spectacular play of the cards; rather, to use the term "coup" of this illegal maneuver is to facetiously equate it to an actual masterstroke. If performed intentionally, it is considered an unethical attempt to locate a particular card held by the defenders.

The "coup" is executed by a deliberate revoke by the declarer, after which a defender exposes the key card whose location is sought. The declarer then corrects the revoke (which is allowed if done soon enough) and the defender may change his card as well; however, now the location of the key card is known and it can be finessed.

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[edit] Example

Consider this layout of the club suit:

♣AJ10
 
♣K8


South wants three tricks from clubs but the opponents have been successful in concealing the location of the ♣Q. South calls for the ♣J from dummy, and East follows suit with the ♣3. South now perpetrates the Alcatraz Coup by discarding from a different suit, thus committing a revoke[1]. Then:

  • If West follows suit with a small card, South corrects his revoke by replacing his discard with the ♣8. Having scored the ♣J, South now cashes the ♣K and later the ♣A.
  • If West plays the ♣Q on dummy's ♣J, South corrects his revoke by replacing his discard with the ♣K. West can now take back his ♣Q, of course, but with the position exposed South confidently finesses West for the ♣Q.

[edit] History of the term

Presumably, the idea behind the name is that any bridge player attempting the "coup" should be locked up in a maximum security facility. According to a 1961 article by Albert Morehead:[2]

The classic hand for the Alcatraz Coup, which was not then so called, was the following one adduced in 1947 by Oswald Jacoby of Dallas, who was trying to persuade the laws committees to change the revoke law...

Thus, the name originates some time between 1947 and 1961. In a 1973 article in the The Bridge World, Kit Woolsey[3], describes a fictitious visit by a bridge expert to a bridge tournament at Alcatraz, where he was subject to various tricks by the inmates by means of "gaming the system." Apparently, the coup's name inspired Woolsey to write the article.

[edit] Legal implications

According to Morehead's article, "The laws committees have considered the Alcatraz Coup too unusual a case to be dealt with specifically, but it is no less typical of rare irregularities that committees must consider when a new code of laws is being prepared."[2] Subsequently, the Laws were amended in 1975[verification needed] to provide a remedy for the use of the Coup.

The most relevant is Law 16C2[4], which defines information gained from either side's legal withdrawal of a card as unauthorized for the offending side. (Note: although the revoking side may correct its revoke, a revoke has nevertheless occurred and therefore there is an "offending side.") It also states that "A player of the offending side may not choose from among logical alternative actions one that could demonstrably have been suggested over another by the unauthorized information." In other words, even if the coup is executed inadvertently, the declarer may not take advantage of knowing the position of the queen; if he does so, the tournament director may adjust the result accordingly.

Also, a deliberate infraction of the Laws is normally viewed as a serious violation of the Proprieties; that exposes deliberate attempters of the Coup to further sanctions.

[edit] References

  1. ^ According to the Law 63, the revoke can be corrected without penalty if the correction is made before the next trick.
  2. ^ a b Albert H. Morehead, The New York Times, June 25 1961
  3. ^ Kit Woolsey, "The Alcatraz Coup", The Bridge World, vol. 44 No. 4, January 1973.
  4. ^ Laws of Duplicate Contract bridge, Law 16C2

[edit] See also

[edit] External links