[Cyberyeti]

Was playing a tournament yesterday and the following happened:

10 tables, 38 or 40 boards in play, 1-32 red boards, 1-6 or 8 yellow boards as 33-38/40, multiple relay tables.

Early in the event, with no directorial announcement as to how the board numbering worked and while the movement had been described, people were not entirely sure where to place the boards, a table finds no boards where they should be, they go and get boards 5 and 6 and play them, when they enter the results into the bridgemate, it becomes apparent on the second board (the first was a plausible result) they've just made 4♠ the opposite way to the rest of the room, they call the director and find out they've just played 37/38 not 5/6.

So:

the pairs at the table can't play 37/38 when they meet them again later, their opps are entitled to 60% or session score if better ?
do the results stand for 37/38 that they played against the wrong pair or if not what artificial score do you give them ?
what results do the pairs at the table get for boards 5/6 that they didn't play ?

[pran]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-March-02, 05:09, said:

Was playing a tournament yesterday and the following happened:

10 tables, 38 or 40 boards in play, 1-32 red boards, 1-6 or 8 yellow boards as 33-38/40, multiple relay tables.

Early in the event, with no directorial announcement as to how the board numbering worked and while the movement had been described, people were not entirely sure where to place the boards, a table finds no boards where they should be, they go and get boards 5 and 6 and play them, when they enter the results into the bridgemate, it becomes apparent on the second board (the first was a plausible result) they've just made 4♠ the opposite way to the rest of the room, they call the director and find out they've just played 37/38 not 5/6.

So:

the pairs at the table can't play 37/38 when they meet them again later, their opps are entitled to 60% or session score if better ?
do the results stand for 37/38 that they played against the wrong pair or if not what artificial score do you give them ?
what results do the pairs at the table get for boards 5/6 that they didn't play ?

Well, apparently the tournament organizeres have failed to properly inform the contestants on essential properties of the event, resuting in the described mess.

All your questions are answered in Law 15 and I suggest you look that Law up.

Briefly:
1: The results obtained on boards 37/38 played incorrectly stands as if the play of these boards had been correctl.
2: The pairs that played boards 37/38 instead of boards 5/6 may be requested to play boards 5/6 later, and should be if time permits.
3: Any pair that is deprieved the possibility of a normal play and result on a board or boards because of this mess shall receive an average plus (i.e.60%) score on the affected board(s).

[Cyberyeti]

pran, on 2015-March-02, 05:35, said:

Well, apparently the tournament organizeres have failed to properly inform the contestants on essential properties of the event, resuting in the described mess.

All your questions are answered in Law 15 and I suggest you look that Law up.

Briefly:
1: The results obtained on boards 37/38 played incorrectly stands as if the play of these boards had been correctl.
2: The pairs that played boards 37/38 instead of boards 5/6 may be requested to play boards 5/6 later, and should be if time permits.
3: Any pair that is deprieved the possibility of a normal play and result on a board or boards because of this mess shall receive an average plus (i.e.60%) score on the affected board(s).

I was the innocent party who couldn't play one of the boards (against a very weak pair, it could easily have cost us qualifying for the next stage of the event) not the director, we were pretty sure about the 60% for us on those boards.

I was also pretty sure the result of the incorrectly played boards stood.

Requesting the (correct) boards were replayed later could have a serious effect on the integrity of the competition, one pair was much better than the other, and scored 90% on the two "wrong" boards, so if they get to play a very weak pair twice and miss a strong pair they have a huge advantage.

I think it was ruled that the two pairs were not entirely blameless so they were given 50/50 which they were happy with on their two unplayed boards.

[helene_t]

I am not sure about the 60%. Even if the TD could have been more helpful, it is still north's responsibility to verify that the boards are the ones the bridgemate says they should be playing.

[Cyberyeti]

helene_t, on 2015-March-02, 05:58, said:

I am not sure about the 60%. Even if the TD could have been more helpful, it is still north's responsibility to verify that the boards are the ones the bridgemate says they should be playing.

This is why they were awarded 50%, I had the same problem at the same time and worked out what was going on, getting the right boards, one of the players at the table was an experienced director who I think should also have got it right, but giving them full blame (they played boards with the right numbers on) would also be unjust.

Our 60% was obvious, we couldn't play the boards because our opps had played it before.

[pran]

helene_t, on 2015-March-02, 05:58, said:

I am not sure about the 60%. Even if the TD could have been more helpful, it is still north's responsibility to verify that the boards are the ones the bridgemate says they should be playing.

How should they verify that they should play the red boards marked 5 and 6, not the yellow boards marked 5 and 6?

(Were they aware at that time that there were two sets of boards both numbered 5 and 6?)

I see no reason to blame the pairs playing 37/38 instead of 5/6 as the situation has been described to us.

[pran]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-March-02, 06:02, said:

This is why they were awarded 50%, I had the same problem at the same time and worked out what was going on, getting the right boards, one of the players at the table was an experienced director who I think should also have got it right, but giving them full blame (they played boards with the right numbers on) would also be unjust.

Our 60% was obvious, we couldn't play the boards because our opps had played it before.

Do you always expect experienced players to double check that the boards they are given (or find where expected) to play really are the correct boards also when the boards have the correct numbers?

Who is to blame if the boards they have been given of found where expected turns out to belong to an incorrect set?

[pran]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-March-02, 05:57, said:

[...]
Requesting the (correct) boards were replayed later could have a serious effect on the integrity of the competition, one pair was much better than the other, and scored 90% on the two "wrong" boards, so if they get to play a very weak pair twice and miss a strong pair they have a huge advantage.

This is not a valid reason to disregard:

Law 15A2 said:

The Director may require both pairs to play the correct board against one another later.

[Cyberyeti]

pran, on 2015-March-02, 06:27, said:

Do you always expect experienced players to double check that the boards they are given (or find where expected) to play really are the correct boards also when the boards have the correct numbers?

Who is to blame if the boards they have been given of found where expected turns out to belong to an incorrect set?

This was the point, he didn't find the boards where expected.

Quote

a table finds no boards where they should be, they go and get boards 5 and 6 and play them

- from the OP

also

Quote

The Director may require both pairs to play the correct board against one another later.

May not must, is there any guidance on under what circumstances they should ? I would expect fairness to the rest of the room to be a reasonable reason not to.

[blackshoe]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-March-02, 07:32, said:

I would expect fairness to the rest of the room to be a reasonable reason not to.

Neither "the field" nor "protection of the field" are legal concepts in bridge. IOW the law ignores them completely. I would suggest then that whether the TD should exercise the option to require a scheduled board to be played later should be solely a matter of available time to do so. Note that while players may put the kibosh on a late play ("I don't want to stay", "I have an appointment", "I gotta reprimer the jeep") they don't have a legal right to do so. Technically, then, if a pair does refuse a later play, the pairs involved should be awarded an artificial adjusted score, with the pair(s) that refused to play the board getting average minus. Might happen at a tournament. Chances of it happening at a club game are slim, and none, and slim's left town.

[Cyberyeti]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-02, 08:43, said:

Neither "the field" nor "protection of the field" are legal concepts in bridge. IOW the law ignores them completely. I would suggest then that whether the TD should exercise the option to require a scheduled board to be played later should be solely a matter of available time to do so. Note that while players may put the kibosh on a late play ("I don't want to stay", "I have an appointment", "I gotta reprimer the jeep") they don't have a legal right to do so. Technically, then, if a pair does refuse a later play, the pairs involved should be awarded an artificial adjusted score, with the pair(s) that refused to play the board getting average minus. Might happen at a tournament. Chances of it happening at a club game are slim, and none, and slim's left town.

Actually lack of time does happen quite frequently over here. Often clubs don't have their own premises and sometimes they have to be out of the hall by 10 minutes after they finish. This was a county event and the boards could have been played during the half time break.

[blackshoe]

I do not suggest that lack of time doesn't happen often, only that it is the only valid reason I can think of for not requiring the board to be played at some time, usually at the end of the session. If it could have been played during the half-time break, that's even more reason to require the play. And before someone brings up "I gotta catch the last train" as an excuse, I'm sure a club TD (and maybe, even probably, a Tournament TD) in the UK would accept that as a valid reason not to require the play of the board, though there's no legal basis for it (save the TD's broad powers in Law 81).

[pran]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-March-02, 07:32, said:

This was the point, he didn't find the boards where expected.

I understand it then that he eventually did find boards numbered 5 and 6 apparently to be played, and as he found only the one set he had no reason to suspect that these were not the correct boards?

[aguahombre]

The title of this thread comes from Laurel and Hardy. So, it seems, did the organization and logistics of this event.

[Cyberyeti]

pran, on 2015-March-02, 10:16, said:

I understand it then that he eventually did find boards numbered 5 and 6 apparently to be played, and as he found only the one set he had no reason to suspect that these were not the correct boards?

He took the first 5 and 6 he found, having 99% certainly played boards of the other colour already. It's one of those things, if he thought about it at the time, it would be obvious (we all know the county's boards come in 32s, and only one copy of each board existed), but it's the sort of thing you sometimes don't think about.

[axman]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-March-02, 05:09, said:

Was playing a tournament yesterday and the following happened:

10 tables, 38 or 40 boards in play, 1-32 red boards, 1-6 or 8 yellow boards as 33-38/40, multiple relay tables.

Early in the event, with no directorial announcement as to how the board numbering worked and while the movement had been described, people were not entirely sure where to place the boards, a table finds no boards where they should be, they go and get boards 5 and 6 and play them, when they enter the results into the bridgemate, it becomes apparent on the second board (the first was a plausible result) they've just made 4♠ the opposite way to the rest of the room, they call the director and find out they've just played 37/38 not 5/6.

So:

the pairs at the table can't play 37/38 when they meet them again later, their opps are entitled to 60% or session score if better ?
do the results stand for 37/38 that they played against the wrong pair or if not what artificial score do you give them ?
what results do the pairs at the table get for boards 5/6 that they didn't play ?

LAW 2 - ....The same sequence is repeated for Boards 17-32 and for each subsequent group of 16 boards.
No board that fails to conform to these conditions should be used. If such board is used, however, the conditions marked on it apply for that session.


The proper way to use bd 5 as bd 37 etc... is to remark the board as 37. I suggest using masking tape and magic marker.

[RMB1]

axman, on 2015-March-02, 11:22, said:

The proper way to use bd 5 as bd 37 etc... is to remark the board as 37. I suggest using masking tape and magic marker.

I have found that
"these are boards 33 to 40, please add 32 to the number on the board before entering the board in the bridgemate"
works.

[Cyberyeti]

RMB1, on 2015-March-02, 11:30, said:

I have found that
"these are boards 33 to 40, please add 32 to the number on the board before entering the board in the bridgemate"
works.

Exactly, this is what should have happened, BOTH sets of boards are permanently marked as 1 and 33, 2 and 34 etc

[ArtK78]

This situation does not happen very often, but it does happen occasionally.

Many years ago, I played in a two-session BAM at a sectional. The afternoon session, with 41 teams in play, was played as a single section. There were 82 unique boards in play! They were all properly marked - all boards numbered 33 and above were boards 1-32, but the board numbers were changed through the use of paper and tape.

This was in the days preceding computer scoring. You should have seen the recap sheet!

My team got a section top with a score of 22 out of 28, if I remember correctly. I still do remember one board of that session. My partner lost his mind on one hand and got us to 6♣ after I had opened 3♣. We were off a cashing side suit ace and the trump suit was:

A

QJTxxxx

As the ♣K was singleton, we scored up +1370. But it wasn't necessary! Even down 1 would have won the board, as our teammates managed to go +110.