[shevek]

This happens a lot and has doubtless been discussed.
Playing with bringemates or equivalent, a table is due to play boards 13 & 14. Sleepily, South places 14 on the table and away they go, scoring it up as 13, perhaps seeing their percentage and other scores (we allow that in OZ, won't change that wish)). Then somebody twigs.

So director gets them to enter that score on the correct board 14 and they usually get told that they can't legally play board 13.
What do people in other jurisdictions? This is Australia.
Normal enough is to award NS 40%. Cases can be made for EW to get 40/50/60. Can the director rule that the info gleaned is inconsequential? Is just seeing the percentage feedback enough to kill the board? If NS have seen feedback but EW haven't, can EW agree to play & score Bd 13 anyway?

[pran]

shevek, on 2014-August-31, 07:40, said:

This happens a lot and has doubtless been discussed.
Playing with bringemates or equivalent, a table is due to play boards 13 & 14. Sleepily, South places 14 on the table and away they go, scoring it up as 13, perhaps seeing their percentage and other scores (we allow that in OZ, won't change that wish)). Then somebody twigs.

So director gets them to enter that score on the correct board 14 and they usually get told that they can't legally play board 13.
What do people in other jurisdictions? This is Australia.
Normal enough is to award NS 40%. Cases can be made for EW to get 40/50/60. Can the director rule that the info gleaned is inconsequential? Is just seeing the percentage feedback enough to kill the board? If NS have seen feedback but EW haven't, can EW agree to play & score Bd 13 anyway?

I can only answer for myself and the tournaments where I have anything to say:

We never allow on the Bridgemate any display that gives any indication on how a result just registered compares to other results on the same board. The reason is that no contestant should during a round be given any information on how well he is doing so far. Such information may influence his strategy for the remaining boards in that round.

In my opinion board 13 can no longer be played at the table involved just for the reason that the players at that table have had the opportunity to see an average of the field results so far on that board.

As the policy of the organizers apparently is to allow such mishaps the scores awarded on board 13 should be Ave+/Ave+; it is not the responsibilities of the contestants when simple registration errors like that reveals too much information to them.

[weejonnie]

This comes under law 16.C (Ai and UI). The director has various options

a) adjust players position at the table
b) order the board redealt if the competition allows it
c) allow completion of the board ready to award an adjusted score if UI could have affected the result
d) award an artificial adjusted score.

The exact percentage allocation is interesting - but if NS are awarded 40% (for a contestant directly at fault), it would seem very difficult to award 40% also (for the same reason) to EW.

So the director can't rule the info gleaned is inconsequential but he CAN allow play of the board to continue. However it is going to be very difficult because of the UI. (And why would EW want to play anyway if they are guaranteed 60% or more for the board when their equity is only 50%?)

(A few weeks ago at a game played in two rooms, the boards coming from one room to another were put on the wrong table and at the same time the correct set of boards were placed on another table. The 'director' awarded the NS pairs who played the wrong boards 4 (count them) average -minus scores for the 4 boards that they couldn't play.)

[gordontd]

In the EBU we have the regulation that if a board is made unplayable by them putting the result against the wrong board (which is usually but not invariably the case), both sides get A-. It's the responsibility of NS to enter the scores correctly and of EW to check that's been done.

[gordontd]

pran, on 2014-August-31, 08:28, said:

We never allow on the Bridgemate any display that gives any indication on how a result just registered compares to other results on the same board. The reason is that no contestant should during a round be given any information on how well he is doing so far. Such information may influence his strategy for the remaining boards in that round.

It might. So might paying attention and assessing for himself how well he has done. Or looking at a traveller in the days before electronic scoring. I can't see why it's a bad thing. Maybe cricket scores shouldn't be displayed to the players?

[pran]

pran, on 2014-August-31, 08:28, said:

We never allow on the Bridgemate any display that gives any indication on how a result just registered compares to other results on the same board. The reason is that no contestant should during a round be given any information on how well he is doing so far. Such information may influence his strategy for the remaining boards in that round.

gordontd, on 2014-August-31, 09:25, said:

It might. So might paying attention and assessing for himself how well he has done. Or looking at a traveller in the days before electronic scoring. I can't see why it's a bad thing. Maybe cricket scores shouldn't be displayed to the players?

Seeing how well you have done was an (IMHO) undesirable side-effect when using travellers.

Maybe every player in a competition for teams should have continuous access to the information on how many IMPs their team is ahead or behind the other team in their current match?????
Maybe you can see why that is a bad thing?

[EricK]

pran, on 2014-August-31, 10:21, said:

Seeing how well you have done was an (IMHO) undesirable side-effect when using travellers.

Maybe every player in a competition for teams should have continuous access to the information on how many IMPs their team is ahead or behind the other team in their current match?????
Maybe you can see why that is a bad thing?

Why do you think it is a bad thing? The only "benefit" of keeping the running score hidden, as far as I can see, is that it rewards the people who are better at estimating how well they are doing. But I am not sure why this is a skill we should be testing for.

[barmar]

pran, on 2014-August-31, 10:21, said:

Maybe every player in a competition for teams should have continuous access to the information on how many IMPs their team is ahead or behind the other team in their current match?????
Maybe you can see why that is a bad thing?

You mean like in Barometer games?

As long as everyone has equal access, it's fair to everyone.

[pran]

pran, on 2014-August-31, 10:21, said:

Maybe every player in a competition for teams should have continuous access to the information on how many IMPs their team is ahead or behind the other team in their current match?????
Maybe you can see why that is a bad thing?

barmar, on 2014-September-01, 00:30, said:

You mean like in Barometer games?

As long as everyone has equal access, it's fair to everyone.

In properly organized barometer nobody knows anything about how they scored on any board in a round until the round is completed.

And as everybody play the same boards in the same round this means that everybody learn (simultaneously) all about the boards they just played as soon as play of those boards (i.e. the round) has been completed at all tables.

And yes, that is fair, very favourable and very popular.

[shevek]

pran, on 2014-August-31, 10:21, said:

Seeing how well you have done was an (IMHO) undesirable side-effect when using travellers.

Maybe every player in a competition for teams should have continuous access to the information on how many IMPs their team is ahead or behind the other team in their current match?????
Maybe you can see why that is a bad thing?

I've played BBO matches where the current score is known to everyone. Can make it more interesting. 10 imps down, do you play anti-percentage in the routine game on the last board?

Stating the obvious, most games - golf, football - are like that, meaning real time scores. Even the sequential ones, like slalom, where you know the time you have to beat. Helps to be last through the starting gate. Bridge is unusual in this regard, though technology is changing that.

[helene_t]

I prefer not to know what happened at the other tables. Seeing those scores is distracting. And makes the annoying post-mortems even worse.

You may consider setting the bridgemates up such that they don't suggest the board number but the operator has to enter it manually. In particular, when you have a movement with shared boards so that some tables have to play the boards in an alternative order, it is very wrong if the bridgemates by default make you enter the boards in ascending order.

[pran]

shevek, on 2014-September-01, 03:12, said:

I've played BBO matches where the current score is known to everyone. Can make it more interesting. 10 imps down, do you play anti-percentage in the routine game on the last board?

Stating the obvious, most games - golf, football - are like that, meaning real time scores. Even the sequential ones, like slalom, where you know the time you have to beat. Helps to be last through the starting gate. Bridge is unusual in this regard, though technology is changing that.

Bridge is different from other sports in that different contestants do not progress through the game at the same speed. Therefore they will not have the same information made available to them except at end of rounds in barometer and at end of sessions in Mitchell and Howell.

To my knowledge nobody thinks it would be fair if late players knew the results on a board from all the other tables at the time they were about to start on that board?

I have never heard anybody dispute the rule that team pairs must not have any communication involving their team-mates during rounds. (See also Law 86C.)

[ehhh]

This is paramount to prematurely opening a traveller
so the consequences are technically the same.
This more often than not results in A- for N/S and A+ for E/W
as E/W seldom get to view it before the irregularity is pointed out.

However, in a club game directors are often more lenient.
Getting a result is better for the field than an adjusted score
so giving the pairs the opportunity to play out the board is more desirable
with the conditions that if either pair feels the auction or the play
was uncomfortable for them then the board would be adjusted.

With bridge mates, unlike travellers, both parties usually get to see the results.
Thus both pair are equally responsible for the irregularity
and the adjustment would be A- for both pairs.
This often acts as a good control to achieving a fair result.

[Vampyr]

helene_t, on 2014-September-01, 04:11, said:

You may consider setting the bridgemates up such that they don't suggest the board number but the operator has to enter it manually.

I have not seen the Bridgemates suggesting boards for a long time. In my experience, what tends to happen is that the played board has already been passed and the new board is on the table, and the Bridgemate operator enters the number of the new board.

Or in a shorter round with no board-passing, when the played board has already been placed underneath the played board(s).

So suggesting the board numbers might in fact prevent accidents as long as people sharing boards are careful.

[pran]

helene_t, on 2014-September-01, 04:11, said:

I prefer not to know what happened at the other tables. Seeing those scores is distracting. And makes the annoying post-mortems even worse.

You may consider setting the bridgemates up such that they don't suggest the board number but the operator has to enter it manually. In particular, when you have a movement with shared boards so that some tables have to play the boards in an alternative order, it is very wrong if the bridgemates by default make you enter the boards in ascending order.

Vampyr, on 2014-September-01, 09:12, said:

I have not seen the Bridgemates suggesting boards for a long time. In my experience, what tends to happen is that the played board has already been passed and the new board is on the table, and the Bridgemate operator enters the number of the new board.

Or in a shorter round with no board-passing, when the played board has already been placed underneath the played board(s).

So suggesting the board numbers might in fact prevent accidents as long as people sharing boards are careful.

I may be wrong, but my experience is that you cannot set Bridgemate to suggest a board number, but you can set it to alert you if you enter a board number out of order and request your confirmation before you continue.

[helene_t]

We have it suggest a board number which people always accept blindly. That's the problem

[RMB1]

pran, on 2014-September-01, 09:44, said:

I may be wrong, but my experience is that you cannot set Bridgemate to suggest a board number, but you can set it to alert you if you enter a board number out of order and request your confirmation before you continue.

There are different options:
- board order verification (as above)
- automatic board numbering (referred to by others)
- automatic board numbering + manual entry of first board

We use the last one for Swiss events where boards circulate and it can be used when boards are shared between a pair of tables.

[blackshoe]

helene_t, on 2014-September-01, 09:50, said:

We have it suggest a board number which people always accept blindly. That's the problem

I find that people look at what the bridgemate (bridgepad in my case) is telling them about as often as, before bridgemates, they looked at the pickup slip before signing it - i.e., almost never.

[mycroft]

In answer to the question, if you're giving N/S an A- for not having looked to see if they were playing the board they were entering on the bridgemates, then you should be giving E/W A- for not having looked to see if they were playing the board they were entering.

If you are giving N/S A- for not checking that the boards are in order and playing them in order, then maybe E/W get A=, if you rule that N/S are "primarily responsible for the boards". But I see no reason to - after an A- or two, they'll check. They probably put the score in for board 13 on their personal records, and are going to gripe about it at the end, too, until they figure it out</ha ha only serious>.

[barmar]

I think you could argue for either A-/A= or A-/A-. NS should always get A- since they're primarily responsible for the boards. But EW can also check easily, so either you decide that they really should notice and give them A- as well, or could have noticed but it's not so bad if they don't, and give them A=. But they're not so innocent that I'd give them A+.