[bluejak]

We [N/S] bid and make 4♥ in a Swiss Teams. This is excellent because [a] it is cold off, and [b] the opponents are cold for 4♠, and [c] we gained 12 imps. It is merely icing on the cake that E/W are a top Welsh pair.

So we win the match 20-0 and are pretty darn pleased!

Then the bad news.

The board was mis-marked. We played it with North as dealer, at the other table [where team mates made 3♠ +2] they played it with West the dealer. It is a fact that it is easier to miss the spade game with North the dealer.

Who is at fault? The organiser, I suppose: this mis-marked board was played at our table and two others out of 35 to 40 tables.

How do you rule?

[pran]

bluejak, on Jul 15 2010, 04:19 PM, said:

We [N/S] bid and make 4♥ in a Swiss Teams.  This is excellent because [a] it is cold off, and [b] the opponents are cold for 4♠, and [c] we gained 12 imps.  It is merely icing on the cake that E/W are a top Welsh pair.

So we win the match 20-0 and are pretty darn pleased!     

Then   the bad news.

The board was mis-marked.  We played it with North as dealer, at the other table [where team mates made 3♠ +2] they played it with West the dealer.  It is a fact that it is easier to miss the spade game with North the dealer.

Who is at fault?  The organiser, I suppose: this mis-marked board was played at our table and two others out of 35 to 40 tables.

How do you rule?

Is there any problem here?
The three tables where the mismarked board was played score in a group separate from the rest of the field. For the two or three matches where the two tables in the match played different boards this means that the result on the board is void and replaced by an artificial adjusted score A+ to each team. Law 87.

[RMB1]

pran, on Jul 15 2010, 04:28 PM, said:

The three tables where the mismarked board was played score in a group separate from the rest of the field. For the two or three matches where the two tables in the match played different boards this means that the result on the board is void and replaced by an artificial adjusted score A+ to each team. Law 87.

Can you apply Law 86D in this situation? Do you? Should you?

[pran]

RMB1, on Jul 15 2010, 05:36 PM, said:

pran, on Jul 15 2010, 04:28 PM, said:

The three tables where the mismarked board was played score in a group separate from the rest of the field. For the two or three matches where the two tables in the match played different boards this means that the result on the board is void and replaced by an artificial adjusted score A+ to each team. Law 87.

Can you apply Law 86D in this situation? Do you? Should you?

Definitely not for a final score less than A+ for either side. I would not dream of applying Law 86D when neither side is at fault.

The two tables in the match have played "different" boards and there is no way you can compare them. (Law 87A is very clear that even a difference as apparently insignificant as the ♣2 and ♣3 having exchanged places is sufficient for Law 87 to apply. The Director is not permitted to "judge" in such situations.)

The fact that Team A in one room obtained a very favourable result and Team B did not in the other room is in itself no valid reason to assume that Team B would not have obtained the same (or possibly even a more) favourable result had they played the same board.

[blackshoe]

Law 2 said:

No board that fails to conform to these conditions should be used. If such a board is used, however, the conditions marked on it apply for that session.

Apparently the incorrect marking was that North was dealer when (by the board number, I suppose) it "should" have been West. The table where it was played with North as dealer acted correctly. The table where it was played with West as dealer violated Law 2. How did this violation come about? Were both teams (at the second table) partly at fault? Was only one team at fault? Shouldn't the team who acted correctly at the first table retain their good result?

[jdonn]

blackshoe, on Jul 15 2010, 04:21 PM, said:

Shouldn't the team who acted correctly at the first table retain their good result?

Sorry for not knowing the law, but wouldn't it be most fair to give both teams Avg + (assuming neither is at fault) but if a team got a result that is better than that let them keep it? So in this case bluejak would win 12 on the board, his opponents would win 3 (that's avg + in a swiss right?) and they would both achieve seperate VP totals that may not add to 20, for example bluejak wins 20-0 and his opponents lose 18-2, or whatever.

[pran]

blackshoe, on Jul 15 2010, 10:21 PM, said:

Law 2 said:

No board that fails to conform to these conditions should be used. If such a board is used, however, the conditions marked on it apply for that session.

Apparently the incorrect marking was that North was dealer when (by the board number, I suppose) it "should" have been West. The table where it was played with North as dealer acted correctly. The table where it was played with West as dealer violated Law 2. How did this violation come about? Were both teams (at the second table) partly at fault? Was only one team at fault? Shouldn't the team who acted correctly at the first table retain their good result?

No player is required by law to know the correct marking for a board (no more than they are required to know the correct score for all possible results). It is true that Law 2 has been violated here, but not by the players - by the arranging organisation.

So all players have acted correctly, they have simply not played the same board!

[pran]

jdonn, on Jul 15 2010, 10:29 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Jul 15 2010, 04:21 PM, said:

Shouldn't the team who acted correctly at the first table retain their good result?

Sorry for not knowing the law, but wouldn't it be most fair to give both teams Avg + (assuming neither is at fault) but if a team got a result that is better than that let them keep it? So in this case bluejak would win 12 on the board, his opponents would win 3 (that's avg + in a swiss right?) and they would both achieve seperate VP totals that may not add to 20, for example bluejak wins 20-0 and his opponents lose 18-2, or whatever.

The problem with this is that you cannot determine an IMP result on a board unless there is a score on that same board from both rooms. What is a good result in one match can very well turn out to be a poor result in another. (I am fully aware of IMP-across-the-field and Butler scoring, but those have little to do with scoring for teams of four.)

In the very first Norwegian championship final that I directed (in 1984) we had the curious situation that all four matches ended with a push (0 IMP) on one particular board, but the results on that board differed many hundred points between the four matches!

Teams have come from one room with a "telephone number" on a board only to discover that their teammates lost with an even greater "telephone number" in the other room.

[dburn]

jdonn, on Jul 15 2010, 04:29 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Jul 15 2010, 04:21 PM, said:

Shouldn't the team who acted correctly at the first table retain their good result?

Sorry for not knowing the law, but wouldn't it be most fair to give both teams Avg + (assuming neither is at fault) but if a team got a result that is better than that let them keep it? So in this case bluejak would win 12 on the board, his opponents would win 3 (that's avg + in a swiss right?) and they would both achieve seperate VP totals that may not add to 20, for example bluejak wins 20-0 and his opponents lose 18-2, or whatever.

Well, Law 87 says

Law 87 said:

FOULED BOARD
A. Definition
A board is considered to be "fouled" if the Director [...] determines that the dealer or vulnerability differed between copies of the same board, and the contestants who should have had a score comparison did not play the board in identical form for such reason.

B. Scoring
In scoring a fouled board the Director determines as closely as possible which scores were obtained on the board in its correct form and which in the changed form(s). He divides the scores on that basis into groups and rates each group separately as provided in the regulations for the tournament. (In the absence of a relevant regulation the Director selects and announces his method.)

But here is a match between two teams, one of whom played the board with North as dealer and one with West as dealer. With respect to that match, then, no division into groups will avail - the question is whether the Director may award an adjusted score on the board, or whether the board should simply be considered not to have been played in the match.

If the Director considers it appropriate to award an adjusted score, he may then proceed in accordance with Law 86D:

Law 86D said:

In team play when the Director awards an adjusted score (excluding any award that ensues from application of Law 6D2), and a result has been obtained between the same contestants at another table, the Director may assign an adjusted score in IMPs or total points (and should do so when that result appears favourable to the non-offending side).

I know of no precedent that might guide the Director in the actual case. My own view is that almost no result should stand based upon play at two tables where the conditions were sufficiently different that at one table it was North's opening bid, while at the other table it was West's.

If it transpired that West had an obvious pass as dealer, and that the information from West's pass could not have influenced the result at the table where West dealt, I might make an exception and allow the result at both tables to stand. Otherwise, I would not award any kind of adjusted score; I would simply rule that the board did not count towards the result of the match.

[pran]

dburn, on Jul 15 2010, 11:36 PM, said:

jdonn, on Jul 15 2010, 04:29 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Jul 15 2010, 04:21 PM, said:

Shouldn't the team who acted correctly at the first table retain their good result?

Sorry for not knowing the law, but wouldn't it be most fair to give both teams Avg + (assuming neither is at fault) but if a team got a result that is better than that let them keep it? So in this case bluejak would win 12 on the board, his opponents would win 3 (that's avg + in a swiss right?) and they would both achieve seperate VP totals that may not add to 20, for example bluejak wins 20-0 and his opponents lose 18-2, or whatever.

Well, Law 87 says

Law 87 said:

FOULED BOARD
A. Definition
A board is considered to be "fouled" if the Director [...] determines that the dealer or vulnerability differed between copies of the same board, and the contestants who should have had a score comparison did not play the board in identical form for such reason.

B. Scoring
In scoring a fouled board the Director determines as closely as possible which scores were obtained on the board in its correct form and which in the changed form(s). He divides the scores on that basis into groups and rates each group separately as provided in the regulations for the tournament. (In the absence of a relevant regulation the Director selects and announces his method.)

But here is a match between two teams, one of whom played the board with North as dealer and one with West as dealer. With respect to that match, then, no division into groups will avail - the question is whether the Director may award an adjusted score on the board, or whether the board should simply be considered not to have been played in the match.

If the Director considers it appropriate to award an adjusted score, he may then proceed in accordance with Law 86D:

Law 86D said:

In team play when the Director awards an adjusted score (excluding any award that ensues from application of Law 6D2), and a result has been obtained between the same contestants at another table, the Director may assign an adjusted score in IMPs or total points (and should do so when that result appears favourable to the non-offending side).

I know of no precedent that might guide the Director in the actual case. My own view is that almost no result should stand based upon play at two tables where the conditions were sufficiently different that at one table it was North's opening bid, while at the other table it was West's.

If it transpired that West had an obvious pass as dealer, and that the information from West's pass could not have influenced the result at the table where West dealt, I might make an exception and allow the result at both tables to stand. Otherwise, I would not award any kind of adjusted score; I would simply rule that the board did not count towards the result of the match.

The Director is not at liberty even to judge that West had an obvious pass so the difference did not matter, the contestants who should have had a score comparison did not play the board in identical form , period.

[bluejak]

There is no suggestion in Law 86D of comparing the two scores.

pran, on Jul 15 2010, 09:31 PM, said:

I would not dream of applying Law 86D when neither side is at fault.

Why not? Law 86D does not say you should not, does it?

[campboy]

Law 86D would appear to apply whenever there is a non-offending side; of course, if both sides are non-offending then the scores will not balance but that would be the case even if we were to stick with ave+/ave+.

The issue here, though, seems to be that the unusually good score was obtained at bluejak's table, ie when playing the incorrect version of the board. Should we, for the purposes of this law, consider that only the table which has played the original version of the board has obtained a result?

[dburn]

pran, on Jul 15 2010, 05:43 PM, said:

The Director is not at liberty even to judge that West had an obvious pass so the difference did not matter, the contestants who should have had a score comparison did not play the board in identical form , period.

Sure they didn't. But as far as I can tell, this does not mean that the Director should automatically strike out the results on the board.

The Law says merely that the board is fouled - no question about that. Yet in cases where a board is more obviously fouled than this one, adjusted scores have been awarded. For example: a pair goes for 1400 on a part-score deal and when the board arrives at the other table, one of the hands is mysteriously found to contain several boxed cards, rendering normal play impossible at that table. The EBU's White Book says:

White Book said:

If a board is cancelled when it has been played at the other table in a team game then, rather than give an artificial adjusted score, the TD can assign a score if the result at the other table was very unusual, for example if a slam made on very minimum values or missing two aces. Normally this will only be done when the non-offending side has the good score.

Of course there will be times when both sides are non-offending. Such an assigned score should still be given, though a split score is possible, since both sides will be treated as non-offending. The Law permits such an assignment when the good score is obtained by a side that are partly or completely at fault. At time of writing the method of dealing with this is unclear [see the advice in #86.3]. A TD or AC who only applies this Law to benefit a non-offending side cannot be criticised.

The reference to 86.3 is to material supplied by Ton Kooijman, and reads:

White Book said:

When, in team play, a board cannot be played at the table for whatever reason, while it has already been played at the other table, it is possible to deviate from the routine artificial adjusted score. To do this we need an unusual result on the played board. The TD works with a range of normal results on a board, which do not ask for the application of this law. Given the fact that the innocent side will receive some imps anyway (average plus), a couple of undoubled overtricks are not considered to create an unusual result.

When the innocent side received a very good score and the board is made unplayable at this table (by the other side), it is mandatory to give an assigned adjusted score with full weight to this result. Assume that the team that got a good score at one table caused the board to be cancelled at the other; if the TD gives an assigned adjusted score the weight of the good result needs to be small; 30% sounds reasonable.

If the board has to be cancelled because of a mistake at the second table, and the innocent side received a very good result at the first table, it should get full weight. If the offenders received a very good score the weight can be less (50% looks reasonable). And if no side is responsible the weight could be somewhat higher (let us say 60%).

Note: It is not clear that this necessarily follows the interpretations by the WBFLC. However the WBFLC minutes have been changed so the position is unclear.

Now, in the actual case the board was not rendered unplayable at the other table - indeed, it was played at the other table. But to my way of thinking a Director might legitimately reason thus:

the board was played in some form A at the table where North-South made four hearts;
it was played in some form B at the table where East-West made three spades;
no side at either table was responsible for the play of the board in different forms;
so the North-South pair that made four hearts should keep 6 IMPs of the 12 they gained by so doing;
but (as jdonn rightly indicates, although I do not agree with the details of his suggestion) the other side should not lose those IMPs, instead scoring the board as flat (because the board is, in effect, cancelled at that table).

That is, a Director might so reason if he concluded that the North-South result of plus 620 was in no way due to the fact that North rather than West opened the bidding at that table. From bluejak's original account I conjecture that the Director could not reasonably have reached such a conclusion, in which case the board should simply be cancelled.

The foregoing does not depend on whether the "correct" form of the board was played at bluejak's table or at the other table, since this does not matter: if a board has incorrect (per Law 2) markings as to dealer and vulnerability, it is nevertheless perfectly correct to play it according to the markings that it actually bears.

Moreover, the indications are that the WBFLC doesn't actually know what it is doing, and while that remains the case Directors can pretty much do what they like. Of course they do this anyway, but this time they have an excuse.

[bluejak]

campboy, on Jul 16 2010, 12:55 AM, said:

Law 86D would appear to apply whenever there is a non-offending side; of course, if both sides are non-offending then the scores will not balance but that would be the case even if we were to stick with ave+/ave+.

The issue here, though, seems to be that the unusually good score was obtained at bluejak's table, ie when playing the incorrect version of the board. Should we, for the purposes of this law, consider that only the table which has played the original version of the board has obtained a result?

How do you define a correct and incorrect board when two different boards are played at two tables in a teams game?

[mrdct]

The mis-marked board is a fouled board at the three tables where it was played and any result obtained using that fouled board is thrown-out and is of no relevance. Indeed, the fact that an apparently excellent result was obtained on the fouled board should not form any part of a Director's or Appeals Committee's deliberations.

As the players had scored-up before detecting the irregularity, it is not possible to insert a substitute board. Law 86C:

Quote

C. Substitute Board
The Director shall not exercise his Law 6 authority to order one board redealt when the final result of a match without that board could be known to a contestant. Instead, he awards an adjusted score.

As Law 86D appears to require that the TD award an adjusted score, so we turn our attention to Law 12B:

Quote

B. Objectives of Score Adjustment
1. The objective of score adjustment is to redress damage to a nonoffending side and to take away any advantage gained by an offending side through its infraction. Damage exists when, because of an infraction, an innocent side obtains a table result less favourable than would have been the expectation had the infraction not occurred – but see C1(b).
2. The Director may not award an adjusted score on the ground that the rectification provided in these Laws is either unduly severe or advantageous to either side.

In this case there is no offending or nonoffending side as the fouled board was solely due to the negligence of the tournament organisers, not any of the players, so we have two "nonoffending" or "innocent" sides. Have a look at Law 12C2(a)&(b):

Quote

2. (a) When owing to an irregularity no result can be obtained [and see C1(d)] the Director awards an artificial adjusted score according to responsibility for the irregularity: average minus (at most 40% of the available matchpoints in pairs) to a contestant directly at fault, average (50% in pairs) to a contestant only partly at fault, and average plus (at least 60% in pairs) to a contestant in no way at fault.
(b) When the Director awards an artificial adjusted score of average plus or minus at international match points that score is normally plus or minus 3 imps, but this may be varied as Law 86A allows.

It seems appropriate to me to give average plus (3 imps) to both sides. So in this case it seems the match result excluding the fouled board was an 8-0 win to bluejak's team, so after awarding both of the non-offenders 3 imps for the fouled board, the result will be an 11-0 win for bluejak's team and a 3-8 loss for the Welsh champions.

[campboy]

bluejak, on Jul 16 2010, 01:21 AM, said:

campboy, on Jul 16 2010, 12:55 AM, said:

Law 86D would appear to apply whenever there is a non-offending side; of course, if both sides are non-offending then the scores will not balance but that would be the case even if we were to stick with ave+/ave+.

The issue here, though, seems to be that the unusually good score was obtained at bluejak's table, ie when playing the incorrect version of the board. Should we, for the purposes of this law, consider that only the table which has played the original version of the board has obtained a result?

How do you define a correct and incorrect board when two different boards are played at two tables in a teams game?

In this case we have duplimated boards. Law 6F permits this; it says "If required by the conditions of play, one or more exact copies of each original deal may be made under the Director's instructions." So the board which is an exact copy of the original deal is correct; the one which is not is incorrect.

[blackshoe]

bluejak, on Jul 15 2010, 08:21 PM, said:

campboy, on Jul 16 2010, 12:55 AM, said:

Law 86D would appear to apply whenever there is a non-offending side; of course, if both sides are non-offending then the scores will not balance but that would be the case even if we were to stick with ave+/ave+.

The issue here, though, seems to be that the unusually good score was obtained at bluejak's table, ie when playing the incorrect version of the board. Should we, for the purposes of this law, consider that only the table which has played the original version of the board has obtained a result?

How do you define a correct and incorrect board when two different boards are played at two tables in a teams game?

Wait a minute. Was this two different boards, one marked correctly and one marked incorrectly as to dealer, or the same board with incorrect dealer markings which were ignored at one table? if it was the former, then I agree that Law 2 does not help the TD here.

There is no law that requires any player to know any law, and we still rule on the basis that "ignorance of the law is no excuse", so the fact that there is no law requiring players to know Law 2 is irrelevant.

[dburn]

I imagine that:

There were two actual boards, one played at bluejak's table and one at the other table.

The North, East, South and West hands were identical at both tables.

The markings on the board, though, were different at the two tables. We know that the dealer was different; we cannot tell whether the vulnerability was also different. From bluejak's account it is possible to conclude that North-South were not vulnerable, but impossible to deduce whether East-West were.

None of this matters in the slightest.

[mrdct]

I'd love to see the root cause analysis of how this situation arose in the first place.

Every board that I've ever seen was either pre-marked by the manufacturer or has the board number, correct vulnerability and dealer all on one sticker so it's impossible to stuff it up.

I wonder how many other sessions and events this incorrectly marked board had been used in previously without being detected.

[blackshoe]

That doesn't matter, since it's too late to do anything about it anyway.