[mattias]

Yesterday a board arrived from the other table with a face up card. The other table had a normal score on the board. What's the correct ruling and applicable laws here?

Best, Mattias

[campboy]

Laws 16C and 86. The TD will normally rule that the board is unplayable unless he thinks it is unlikely that the information will affect the result.

If he does allow play to continue he can still adjust the score if he thinks the result was affected, but he cannot then give an average (he must assign a bridge result, or a weighted score between multiple results).

If he does not allow play to continue then he gives average- to the side at fault for passing on the boxed card and average+ for their opponents. This normally means 3 IMPs, but if the result at the other table had been abnormally good for the offending side he should instead assign a score to avoid them gaining an advantage.

[pran]

mattias, on 2012-March-27, 05:14, said:

Yesterday a board arrived from the other table with a face up card. The other table had a normal score on the board. What's the correct ruling and applicable laws here?

Best, Mattias

1: If it can be ascertained which player boxed the card a PP to that player is in order.
2: The director may allow the board to be played if he judges that the boxed card does not make normal auction or play impossible, or he may assign an artificial adjusted score. (Law 16B)

I want to add that players should always handle their cards in a way to prevent possibly boxed cards from becoming exposed to other players. Law 7 implies that a player has the full responsibility for his own cards from the moment he takes them from the board until he restores them back to the board again.

[aguahombre]

mattias, on 2012-March-27, 05:14, said:

Yesterday a board arrived from the other table with a face up card. The other table had a normal score on the board. What's the correct ruling and applicable laws here?

I guess we are all assuming that this face-up card was exposed to players other than the person who held the hand where the face-up card resided. If the Card was on top when the board was passed, the moron who passed the board should be checked for an I.Q. above a vegetable.

Regardless of the ruling, players might learn from the incident to count their cards below table level and avoid such problems in the future. A card does get flipped on occasion by a careless player at the previous table, while he/she is shuffling them and returning them to the board. Even though that player is at fault for causing the problem, the next player can make it a non-issue.

[pran]

campboy, on 2012-March-27, 05:44, said:

[...]If he does not allow play to continue then he gives average- to the side at fault for passing on the boxed card and average+ for their opponents. This normally means 3 IMPs, but if the result at the other table had been abnormally good for the offending side he should instead assign a score to avoid them gaining an advantage.

Before awarding A- (or a PP) to any player the Director must ascertain that the board cannot have been handled by a "third person" after the previous player restored his cards to the board (presumably with a boxed card) and the current player took the same cards from the board.

[barmar]

aguahombre, on 2012-March-27, 08:55, said:

If the Card was on top when the board was passed, the moron who passed the board should be checked for an I.Q. above a vegetable.

I know lots of players who have a habit of facing the top card in one of the hands (or flipping the entire hand) when the board has been played at both tables -- a faced card is a common way to indicate that the board needs to be shuffled before being played in the next round. He may have simply gotten confused about whether the board had been played once or twice already: a silly mistake (maybe a "senior moment"), hardly worth insulting their intelligence over.

[aguahombre]

barmar, on 2012-March-27, 16:48, said:

I know lots of players who have a habit of facing the top card in one of the hands (or flipping the entire hand) when the board has been played at both tables -- a faced card is a common way to indicate that the board needs to be shuffled before being played in the next round. He may have simply gotten confused about whether the board had been played once or twice already: a silly mistake (maybe a "senior moment"), hardly worth insulting their intelligence over.

The person who passed the board was not passing the board to be reshuffled on my planet. We don't pass boards to be reshuffled at any form of movement I know. I hope he didn't bump into anything while bringing them to the next table, since his eyes were closed (if it was a top card that was faced.)

[barmar]

What makes you think the player that faced the card is the same one who passed the board?

[aguahombre]

barmar, on 2012-March-27, 22:52, said:

What makes you think the player that faced the card is the same one who passed the board?

What makes you think I care who faced the card? That is a separate issue from my point, and should be dealt with as deemed appropriate. My post was about the person who passed the board, and the fact that he passed it with a face-up card (if it really was on top). Then, I mentioned procedures of the player receiving the hand (if the card was not on top) which could have rendered the whole thing moot.

I even used the phrase, "regardless of the ruling....".

[barmar]

Do you routinely examine all the boards before passing them? If the board with the face-up card wasn't on top of the stack, you probably wouldn't notice the error.

[aguahombre]

barmar, on 2012-March-28, 22:44, said:

Do you routinely examine all the boards before passing them? If the board with the face-up card wasn't on top of the stack, you probably wouldn't notice the error.

Yes, I do. All boards facing same direction and lowest board on top, etc. But again, none of this has anything to do with who the TD should nail for the irregularity, or what the penalty and/or treatment of the board should be. My offering was about people using their brains to prevent such problems from being problems, when they can do so through good habits even though someone else might be at fault for the facing of a card.

I am pretty sure that checking the I.Q. of the person who didn't look at the boards he was passing is not a practical action by the T.D., nor is any other penalty directed at someone who didn't cause the problem.

[bluejak]

It is also not relevant. Level of IQ and good habits have very little connection.

[barmar]

I wasn't suggesting any action by the TD, just posters. Don't call people names.

If you get into a car accident, in the heat of the moment you might call (or think of) the perpetrator an idiot. But on reflection, you know it was just a mistake, not a reflection of their overall intelligence. Even the best of us have lapses.