team member disqualified,

[SoTired]

NCAA: when an ineligible player is found. Forfeit all victories and further punishment may be meted out if found that school knowingly used player.

 

ACBL rules are simple: If you have ever represented your country, you must automatically be at the highest or unlimited category. Everyone knows this.

[Stephen Tu]

The CoC didn't make him ineligible solely for being a former international player AFAIK. It was his point total that made him ineligible; after adding in the previously acquired foreign points that he was supposed to, that put him over the limit. Don Krauss is still technically eligible for 0-5K since he presumably doesn't have points acquired in another country.

 

The international player *was* disqualified, I don't think there's a grey area there. I think the main problem here was the enforcement of the foreign masterpoint rule isn't very strict/consistent and he was allowed to play under ACBL only points for years, and was quite likely unaware that this was improper. I have no idea who noticed, complained, and set this issue in motion.

 

The rest of team however was not disqualified, I was just wondering how others thought about this.

[SoTired]

Let me think: Kobe Bryant puts on a dress, joins a women's semi-pro BB league, and wins a championship with the ladies. The team receives trophies. Then Kobe's secret gets out. They quietly take away Kobe's trophy, but let his teammates keep theirs along with the championship. Later, the women on the championship team sign lucrative contracts with some WNBA teams ignorant of the Kobe Bryant thing, but impressed by the semi-pro championship.

 

How's that?

 

Or more realistically: An Olympic relay team wins the Gold. Later, one of the relay team members tests positive for steroids. The IOC forces that member to return the gold medal, but allows the rest of the team to keep theirs.

[brianshark]

Or how about a bobsleigh team that won a race but a routine inspection of the sled at the finish line revealed there were weights hidden in the nose giving it a significant advantage over the other teams, though the crew genuinely didn't know it was there. Do we still give them the gold because they didn't know?

 

We may not ban them for 4 years if they were genuinely oblivious but we sure as hell ain't giving them the gold.

 

This is not even a tough decision. If one member on your team is invalid, then your team is invalid. Because that's how the concept of validity works in a team composed of several people / items of equipment, each with validity requirements.

 

Failure to disqualify the entire team is nothing less than stupid.

[3for3]

The CoC didn't make him ineligible solely for being a former international player AFAIK.  It was his point total that made him ineligible; after adding in the previously acquired foreign points that he was supposed to, that put him over the limit.  Don Krauss is still technically eligible for 0-5K since he presumably doesn't have points acquired in another country.

 

c.

In flighted events at any level, foreign players who have represented their country in International competition shall be permitted to play only in Flight A. They may however apply for relief for cause from this requir

 

 

Automatically ineligible, per ACBL General CoC.

 

Danny

[Stephen Tu]

As was pointed out earlier in the thread, 0-5000 is considered Flight A.

[3for3]

As was pointed out earlier in the thread, 0-5000 is considered Flight A.

Reread my citing. It says "only in flight a"

 

Does that mean they can play 0-5000 because that is flight A, and not the open event?

 

Of course not.

 

What it means is they can only play unlimited events.

 

Is there a place where 0-5000 is considered Flight A in the CoC?

[TimG]

As was pointed out earlier in the thread, 0-5000 is considered Flight A.

Reread my citing. It says "only in flight a"

 

Does that mean they can play 0-5000 because that is flight A, and not the open event?

 

Of course not.

 

What it means is they can only play unlimited events.

 

Is there a place where 0-5000 is considered Flight A in the CoC?

Perhaps the regulation was written before the advent of "Flight A" and "Open" events as in the GNT and 0-5000 Spingold. Probably before rampant bracketing.

 

Although it would seem reasonable to expect that the original intent was for internationals to play only in the top flight of an event, that is certainly not ACBL practice. The last time there was an NABC in Boston, Garozzo played in a bracketed KO event and was not in the top bracket. Now, you might imagine that a member of the Polish national team in the early 70s might have slipped through the cracks, perhaps the directors in the event simply didn't recognize his name, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that they didn't recognize Garozzo.

[Stephen Tu]

Does that mean they can play 0-5000 because that is flight A, and not the open event?

 

Of course not.

The open event is also considered "flight A" (flight A with no upper masterpoint restriction instead of flight A WITH an upper masterpoint restriction) so of course they can play, as can any other ACBL member. That open event happens to be not stratified so it doesn't matter, but in an "open stratified event", which they could still play in, they'd play as "flight A" and only be eligible for A awards.

 

They are only excluded from NLM/flight C & flight B events like the 0-1500/2000 GNT/mini-Spingold/NAP/mini-BRP/mini-LMP.

 

What it means is they can only play unlimited events.

That's not what the regulation actually says. It says "flight A", not "only Flight A with no masterpoint limit", or "always highest event available". Perhaps you would like to amend it to read that way, and perhaps that's how it should be, but that's not the reason the guy was disqualified. It was because of previously undisclosed foreign points.

[jonottawa]

Although it would seem reasonable to expect that the original intent was for internationals to play only in the top flight of an event, that is certainly not ACBL practice. The last time there was an NABC in Boston, Garozzo played in a bracketed KO event and was not in the top bracket. Now, you might imagine that a member of the Polish national team in the early 70s might have slipped through the cracks, perhaps the directors in the event simply didn't recognize his name, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that they didn't recognize Garozzo.

I don't see what a bracketed KO has to do with anything since these are seeded based on an amalgamation of masterpoints unlike other events where the highest member of the pair/team's experience/points is the determining factor. I'm sure you could find even more extreme examples by looking at Gatlinburg where you need obscene amounts of masterpoints to get into the top bracket.

[TimG]

I seem to recall a recent story of four foreign players entering a bracketed KO. When the director asked them how many masterpoints, they professed not to know, but offered that they had recently won the Vanderbilt. The director assigned the team 100,000 points.

 

I know it is not the same as a flighted event where one player alone can automatically put a team (or pair) into the top flight, but it is not so dissimilar so as not to be relevant.

[TimG]

This topic was recently opened in rgb, today there was an interesting response, a portion of which I quote here:

 

"I know for a fact that Lucas asked the ACBL for "seeding" points and was told "NO". So

he basically shrugged his shoulders and began with zero. Usually, because of good teammates, he has been in bracket 1. In the last couple of years, due to being hired by Joyce Hampton, he has often played in bracket 2 in regional events. Lucas did EXACTLY what he ethically was required or expected to do. The ACBL screwed up by first not awarding seeding points, then later deciding he was ineligible to take credit in is mini-spingold win."

 

Tim

[Stephen Tu]

I think finally after much discussion among ACBL BoD/Pres they decided the ACBL had screwed up way too much in the past in terms of vaguely written CoC and inconsistent enforcement of the foreign MP rules that they decided to reverse the disqualification & restore the original result, and try to fix the rules in the future. Which is reasonable IMO.