[blackshoe]

Of course.

[pescetom]

blackshoe, on 2019-September-14, 15:34, said:

The spade two is higher ranking than the heart three because spades rank higher than hearts. That is, in fact, what Law 1A says.

It is unfortunate that Law 1A uses 'rank' to order both the suits (whose order is relevant only during the auction) and the denominations (which are relevant only during play).
Nevertheless, it seems logical that setting the auction aside, rank should be related to the denomination alone, as seems implicit in Law 46 which designates a card by suit and rank.
So I would consider the heart three (not to mention the jack) as higher ranking than the spade two here unless someone can give me a good reason otherwise.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2019-September-14, 15:34, said:

The spade two is higher ranking than the heart three because spades rank higher than hearts. That is, in fact, what Law 1A says.

So the ♠2 is higher than the ♥A? Interesting.

[blackshoe]

I suppose the purpose of the ranking is relevant. In playing to a trick, only 26 cards matter, the thirteen cards in the suit lead, and the thirteen cards in the trump suit, if any. The ranking of the rest of the cards in the deck is irrelevant.

[pescetom]

blackshoe, on 2019-September-15, 22:19, said:

I suppose the purpose of the ranking is relevant. In playing to a trick, only 26 cards matter, the thirteen cards in the suit lead, and the thirteen cards in the trump suit, if any. The ranking of the rest of the cards in the deck is irrelevant.

And the 'rank' (in Law 1A terms) of the suit played and the trump suit if any is irrelevant too. The effective ranking of the suits is trumps (if any) then suit played then any other suit.

[barmar]

I'll wager that whoever chose to use the phrase "highest ranking" in 67B2a simply didn't think of this corner case. You have to have a defective trick where cards from different suits were played, not notice it until after both sides have played to the next trick, and not be able to determine which of the cards was actually faced -- how often does that happen?

BTW, does anyone have a link to old versions of the Laws? I wanted to see how far back this does, but my 1997 copy is on bridgeguys.com, which they failed to renew last month.