Cancelled board

[gordontd]

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've seen people put the stickers on the board the wrong way round, so that the wrong hands go in the slots when dealt by machine.

[campboy]

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.

If it were the latter then there would be no problem: in that case both tables would have played the same board, with one table simply having an opening call out of turn which was accepted by the next player in rotation.

[blackshoe]

Well, they sure as hell won't help the people who were in the plane!  :P

So your opinion is that Air crash investigations are a waste of time and resources?

 

Good grief!

You jump to conclusions at your own risk, Sven.

 

And in this case, you jumped to the wrong conclusion. :o

[pran]

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.

If it were the latter then there would be no problem: in that case both tables would have played the same board, with one table simply having an opening call out of turn which was accepted by the next player in rotation.

To repeat myself: In order for two boards to be the same they must have identical cards to each of the four hands, identical vulnerabilities and identical dealer.

 

Any difference in any of these properties makes the boards "different" for the application of Law 87, and the Director is not at liberty to make any judgement whether the difference is significant or can be ignored.

[pran]

Well, they sure as hell won't help the people who were in the plane!  :P

So your opinion is that Air crash investigations are a waste of time and resources?

 

Good grief!

You jump to conclusions at your own risk, Sven.

 

And in this case, you jumped to the wrong conclusion. :o

I know, but I couldn't resist the temptation - sorry

[Free]

You always read there are 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000 bridge deals, but in fact you have to multiply this by 16 (4 different dealers, 4 different vulnerabilities). Deals with a different dealer and/or vulnerability simply aren't the same.

 

This board should be canceled, VP score calculated with 1 board less.

[bluejak]

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

 

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?

No, but just consider the possibility that the different board played at one table was a completely different board, not different in just some minor detail, and that one of the pairs at that table called and played so well that the board was afterwards referred to in papers around the world and nominated for the play of the year.

 

Would you dream of applying Law 86D and award that pair (and team) a favourable adjusted score according to their extremely good result on that board?

 

Law 87 makes it absolutely clear that unless the boards are identical they are different, it doesn't matter how minute the difference is. A ♣2 can have been swapped with a ♣3, the vulnerabilities can have been different, the wrong player can have been marked as the dealer. How the board is different is immaterial, if it is not identical it is different, period.

 

So unless you would apply Law 86D in the hypothetical case above you should never apply it when there is no (relevant) comparison to make. And in events for teams of four the only relevant comparison is between the two tables in the same match.

You are trying to compare two completely different boards anyway, pran.

 

It does not matter whether it was merely a dealer position mis-marked, as here, or different in other ways. There is no point in you continually saying that two different boards cannot be scored against each other: of course they cannot, and no-one is saying that they can be,

 

But your conclusion from that that law 86D does not apply [and, I presume that it never applies so is a waste of a lot of ink] does not follow.

 

The Law gives a situation where it certainly should apply, and that includes the possibility of different boards being involved. Are you saying you would ignore the Law's wording when it happens?

 

I think you need a better argument than "I am not going to apply Law 86D because the boards were different".

[bluejak]

You always read there are 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000 bridge deals, but in fact you have to multiply this by 16 (4 different dealers, 4 different vulnerabilities).  Deals with a different dealer and/or vulnerability simply aren't the same.

 

This board should be canceled, VP score calculated with 1 board less.

Well, that is certainly not right!

 

I believe there are only two possibilities.

 

First, Ave+ to both teams, leading to a 19-3 result.

 

Second, apply Law 86D. Now, why should we not apply Law 86D?

 

It is a red herring as to whether the boards were different: of course they were. It was the organisers' fault, but who cares? Everyone makes mistakes, no-one is going to sue them. It was not the fault of any of the eight players, so do you apply Law 86D or not?

[campboy]

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.

If it were the latter then there would be no problem: in that case both tables would have played the same board, with one table simply having an opening call out of turn which was accepted by the next player in rotation.

To repeat myself: In order for two boards to be the same they must have identical cards to each of the four hands, identical vulnerabilities and identical dealer.

 

Any difference in any of these properties makes the boards "different" for the application of Law 87, and the Director is not at liberty to make any judgement whether the difference is significant or can be ignored.

That is not what I was saying. I was responding to Ed's suggestion that it might have been the exact same mismarked board played at both tables, but that at one table the players had (correctly, per law 2) followed the markings on the board whereas at the other they had not.

 

Of course, this has now been clarified as not being what actually occurred.

[shyams]

I believe there are only two possibilities.

 

First, Ave+ to both teams, leading to a 19-3 result.

 

Second, apply Law 86D.  Now, why should we not apply Law 86D?

IMHO, there is nothing to stop application of Law 86D. But wouldn't the Director be required to change the result at your table (4♥ making) to what he believes to be a fair result? Law 86D reads:

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).

Excerpts from the OP

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... (snip)... this mis-marked board was played at our table ... (snip)

1. Clearly the table result that needs adjustment is the one where your side scored 4♥ making 10 tricks. The board was mismarked. Therefore, that result cannot stand.

2. See my highlight in the Law above. In this case, there are no offending sides in the actual incident and Director may not use this clause to give your side bigger +ve score

 

What did I get wrong?

[pran]

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

 

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?

No, but just consider the possibility that the different board played at one table was a completely different board, not different in just some minor detail, and that one of the pairs at that table called and played so well that the board was afterwards referred to in papers around the world and nominated for the play of the year.

 

Would you dream of applying Law 86D and award that pair (and team) a favourable adjusted score according to their extremely good result on that board?

 

Law 87 makes it absolutely clear that unless the boards are identical they are different, it doesn't matter how minute the difference is. A ♣2 can have been swapped with a ♣3, the vulnerabilities can have been different, the wrong player can have been marked as the dealer. How the board is different is immaterial, if it is not identical it is different, period.

 

So unless you would apply Law 86D in the hypothetical case above you should never apply it when there is no (relevant) comparison to make. And in events for teams of four the only relevant comparison is between the two tables in the same match.

You are trying to compare two completely different boards anyway, pran.

 

It does not matter whether it was merely a dealer position mis-marked, as here, or different in other ways. There is no point in you continually saying that two different boards cannot be scored against each other: of course they cannot, and no-one is saying that they can be,

 

But your conclusion from that that law 86D does not apply [and, I presume that it never applies so is a waste of a lot of ink] does not follow.

 

The Law gives a situation where it certainly should apply, and that includes the possibility of different boards being involved. Are you saying you would ignore the Law's wording when it happens?

 

I think you need a better argument than "I am not going to apply Law 86D because the boards were different".

How do you evaluate what IMP score the result on the separate board shall justify in a Law 86D adjustment?

[pran]

You always read there are 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000 bridge deals, but in fact you have to multiply this by 16 (4 different dealers, 4 different vulnerabilities).  Deals with a different dealer and/or vulnerability simply aren't the same.

 

This board should be canceled, VP score calculated with 1 board less.

Well, that is certainly not right!

 

I believe there are only two possibilities.

 

First, Ave+ to both teams, leading to a 19-3 result.

 

Second, apply Law 86D. Now, why should we not apply Law 86D?

 

It is a red herring as to whether the boards were different: of course they were. It was the organisers' fault, but who cares? Everyone makes mistakes, no-one is going to sue them. It was not the fault of any of the eight players, so do you apply Law 86D or not?

OK, at least we agree that the two boards were "different" (I haven't had the impression of an unanimous agreement on this fact so far.)

 

Assume now that somehow the difference between the two boards is such that on the "different" board 7NT is cold, and indeed bid and made at that table.

 

Is it your opinion that Law 86D should apply to the side that was so lucky as to make 1520 or 2220 (depending on the vulnerability) and they be awarded an assigned adjusted score according to this result converted to IMP? (After comparison with what?)

 

One of my techers in physics once taught us a very valuable principle to be applied whenever we wanted to test if something was reasonable:

 

Vary the premises to become extreme and see if the result is still reasonable.

 

In this case I vary the score on the different board to an extreme. If Law86D should be applicable in your situation it should also be applicable in my hypthetic case. And conversely it you find it outrageous to give a law 86D adjustment based on a board result 1520 or 2220 then it is equally outrageous to apply Law 86D in your situation.

[bluejak]

I believe there are only two possibilities.

 

First, Ave+ to both teams, leading to a 19-3 result.

 

Second, apply Law 86D.  Now, why should we not apply Law 86D?

IMHO, there is nothing to stop application of Law 86D. But wouldn't the Director be required to change the result at your table (4♥ making) to what he believes to be a fair result? Law 86D reads:

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).

Excerpts from the OP

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... (snip)... this mis-marked board was played at our table ... (snip)

1. Clearly the table result that needs adjustment is the one where your side scored 4♥ making 10 tricks. The board was mismarked. Therefore, that result cannot stand.

2. See my highlight in the Law above. In this case, there are no offending sides in the actual incident and Director may not use this clause to give your side bigger +ve score

 

What did I get wrong?

You have a match between two teams. A board is played which was different board at the two tables. How do you define one board as correct and the other as incorrect? Remember that if they had both played a board mismarked similarly the result would have stood - see the last paragraph of Law 2. In effect you just have two different boards in a match.

 

I agree that the parentheses bit does not apply. But where in the law does it say that the rest of the law does not apply if the bit in parentheses does not apply? The parentheses bit is additional advice to say what should be done in a specific case. This is not that specific case. If they meant it to apply in this case only the Law would read "When the non-offending side" etc.

[bluejak]

Assume now that somehow the difference between the two boards is such that on the "different" board 7NT is cold, and indeed bid and made at that table.

 

Is it your opinion that Law 86D should apply to the side that was so lucky as to make 1520 or 2220 (depending on the vulnerability) and they be awarded an assigned adjusted score according to this result converted to IMP? (After comparison with what?)

 

One of my techers in physics once taught us a very valuable principle to be applied whenever we wanted to test if something was reasonable:

 

Vary the premises to become extreme and see if the result is still reasonable.

 

In this case I vary the score on the different board to an extreme. If Law86D should be applicable in your situation it should also be applicable in my hypthetic case. And conversely it you find it outrageous to give a law 86D adjustment based on a board result 1520 or 2220 then it is equally outrageous to apply Law 86D in your situation.

Read Law 86D and find me anything in that Law that makes it outrageous not to adjust based on a good score of 2220. It is time you read Law 12B2.

 

A agree with your premise: since there is no reason not to adjust when 2220 is involved then why should we not adjust in this case?

[dburn]

1. Clearly the table result that needs adjustment is the one where your side scored 4♥ making 10 tricks. The board was mismarked. Therefore, that result cannot stand.

 

What did I get wrong?

This: there is nothing in the Laws to the effect that the result on a mis-marked board cannot stand. Indeed, the Laws expressly say that such a result shall stand, with the players using the (incorrect) markings on the actual board to determine the score rather than what the (correct) markings should have been.

 

As to pran's waffling: as I have already remarked, it is entirely legal for a result obtained at one table to be "compared" with no result at all at the other table - that is what Law 86D is for. However, this Law is generally invoked only in cases of apparent skulduggery, to prevent players from nullifying a bad result by fouling the board and rendering it unplayable at the other table.

 

Whether or not it should apply in the circumstances of the actual case is not clear; whether or not it can apply is also (at the moment) unclear to the WBF, from which it is possible to conclude that for the moment, a Director can apply it if he chooses.

 

Awarding averge plus to both sides is, to my way of thinking, ridiculous - teams should not randomly have their scores enhanced with respect to the rest of the field just because the organisers are incompetent.

[mjj29]

Assume now that somehow the difference between the two boards is such that on the "different" board 7NT is cold, and indeed bid and made at that table.

 

Is it your opinion that Law 86D should apply to the side that was so lucky as to make 1520 or 2220 (depending on the vulnerability) and they be awarded an assigned adjusted score according to this result converted to IMP? (After comparison with what?)

 

One of my techers in physics once taught us a very valuable principle to be applied whenever we wanted to test if something was reasonable:

 

Vary the premises to become extreme and see if the result is still reasonable.

 

In this case I vary the score on the different board to an extreme. If Law86D should be applicable in your situation it should also be applicable in my hypthetic case. And conversely it you find it outrageous to give a law 86D adjustment based on a board result 1520 or 2220 then it is equally outrageous to apply Law 86D in your situation.

Suppose that 7NT is indeed cold on this supposed board, but the other way. The auction goes 2H (weak) by us, 2NT overcall by them which gets passed out. 13 tricks are claimed on the lead and we look forward to a great score because the other table will be in at least game or the small, even if they don't bid 7. Now, if the board at the other table is cancelled (and something similiar happened to my team mates last year at brighton) because as the board was thrown to their table a loud remark was made from the passing table "You're right, you can make 7 on any lead". This rightly causes the board to be unplayable.

 

In the old laws we would get +3 each way. The new laws permit the director to award us a game or small slam swing (or some combination) if he thinks it's likely that would have been reached at the other table. In similar case we got +11 and they got +3.

 

I think it would not be unreasonable for the director to give us the benefit of that board even if the reason for cancelling were that the board was incorrect at one table. Of course, the logical extreme to this is to consider what if the other board were completely different, but able to make 7H, but our team mates had a similar auction to 3H passed out, made 13. Would 86D allow us to award 15 imps to the other side, resulting in a final score of +15 / +15 for the board? I think it probably should, but if you disagree, then I don't think you can use 86D to give just one side a favourable result in the OP.

[jallerton]

As to pran's waffling: as I have already remarked, it is entirely legal for a result obtained at one table to be "compared" with no result at all at the other table - that is what Law 86D is for. However, this Law is generally invoked only in cases of apparent skulduggery, to prevent players from nullifying a bad result by fouling the board and rendering it unplayable at the other table.

I suspect that some people are reluctant to apply Law 86D because they have not got used to its existence in the Law Book. There was nothing like it in the 1997 Laws and for the previous decade(s) learned TDs were trying to persuade their less educated counterparts that they had to award average(+/- if necessary) no matter how favourable to one side or other the result at the other table had happened to be.

 

Law 86D ends:

 

...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)

 

Given the "should do so" instruction, why do you state that Law 86D is "generally invoked only in cases of apparent skulduggery"? Are you suggesting that the use of the definite article before the word "non-offending" implies that the "should do so" instruction applies only when there is only one non-offending side?

 

If so, then I agree with you when you say:

 

Whether or not it should apply in the circumstances of the actual case is not clear; whether or not it can apply is also (at the moment) unclear to the WBF, from which it is possible to conclude that for the moment, a Director can apply it if he chooses.

 

because then when there are two non-offending sides we are stuck with "the Director may assign an adjusted score" and, in the absence of any clear guidance from either the WBF or the WBU, the TD has to interpret the Law himself.

[pran]

Assume now that somehow the difference between the two boards is such that on the "different" board 7NT is cold, and indeed bid and made at that table.

 

Is it your opinion that Law 86D should apply to the side that was so lucky as to make 1520 or 2220 (depending on the vulnerability) and they be awarded an assigned adjusted score according to this result converted to IMP? (After comparison with what?)

 

One of my techers in physics once taught us a very valuable principle to be applied whenever we wanted to test if something was reasonable:

 

Vary the premises to become extreme and see if the result is still reasonable.

 

In this case I vary the score on the different board to an extreme. If Law86D should be applicable in your situation it should also be applicable in my hypthetic case. And conversely it you find it outrageous to give a law 86D adjustment based on a board result 1520 or 2220 then it is equally outrageous to apply Law 86D in your situation.

Read Law 86D and find me anything in that Law that makes it outrageous not to adjust based on a good score of 2220. It is time you read Law 12B2.

 

A agree with your premise: since there is no reason not to adjust when 2220 is involved then why should we not adjust in this case?

Do I understand you correct that if for some strange reason your companions at the other table had played an entirely different board resulting in 7NT bid and made by NS at that table you would have accepted as correct a resulting score on that board of some 17 IMPs (for 2220 - 620) to your opponents?

 

(You would of course still have been given your 3 IMPs score)

[Bbradley62]

This has nothing to do with the correct procedure for adjusting the score, but I hope this will be a quick detour... I'm intrigued by the movement/format of play. You're playing a Swiss team event with pre-arranged hands, presumably to make VPs "more fair" across the field? And you are sharing boards with two other tables, but not the table where your teammates sit? Or is there no sharing of boards, and three separate boards were incorrectly marked? What is the format/movement of the event you are playing?

[mjj29]

This has nothing to do with the correct procedure for adjusting the score, but I hope this will be a quick detour... I'm intrigued by the movement/format of play. You're playing a Swiss team event with pre-arranged hands, presumably to make VPs "more fair" across the field? And you are sharing boards with two other tables, but not the table where your teammates sit? Or is there no sharing of boards, and three separate boards were incorrectly marked? What is the format/movement of the event you are playing?

The hands are pre-duplicated so that everyone can look at hand records and post-mortem the hands together. The tables are arranged so that your team mates are half a row down from you (to avoid UI between the relevant tables), but the boards are passed down one table after playing them, repeating every 7 boards so everyone plays the same 7-board round. The board movement is for efficiency of running the tournament. This means that the same physical board is not played at the two tables in the match - which is fine unless there's a duplimate problem.

[RMB1]

...  I'm intrigued by the movement/format of play. You're playing a Swiss team event with pre-arranged hands, presumably to make VPs "more fair" across the field?  And you are sharing boards with two other tables, but not the table where your teammates sit? 

The boards rotate round the room, being passed to a (fixed) adjactent table, so each board is played at 3 or 4 tables (this was 7 board matches). There is no attempt to get the same physical boards played at the same tables in a match.

 

It is common in England/Wales to use "Australian" assignment of matches to tables, each team has a home table and plays each match at that table and the opponent's home table. So it is impossible to ensure physical boards are played at both tables in a match because there is no knowing in advance where the pairs of tables in a match are.

[Oof Arted]

Awarding averge plus to both sides is, to my way of thinking, ridiculous - teams should not randomly have their scores enhanced with respect to the rest of the field just because the organisers are incompetent.

;)

 

David surely you cannot mean how this reads you know that we use duplimated boards thus it is possible to have a board that does not corespond to all the rest of the boards bearing the same number

 

So how does that equate to 'Organisers ' being 'incompetent'

 

In the case of this 'Rogue' board some recompense is necessary for the tables/teams affected

 

 

<_<

[pran]

This has nothing to do with the correct procedure for adjusting the score, but I hope this will be a quick detour...  I'm intrigued by the movement/format of play. You're playing a Swiss team event with pre-arranged hands, presumably to make VPs "more fair" across the field?  And you are sharing boards with two other tables, but not the table where your teammates sit?  Or is there no sharing of boards, and three separate boards were incorrectly marked? What is the format/movement of the event you are playing?

The hands are pre-duplicated so that everyone can look at hand records and post-mortem the hands together. The tables are arranged so that your team mates are half a row down from you (to avoid UI between the relevant tables), but the boards are passed down one table after playing them, repeating every 7 boards so everyone plays the same 7-board round. The board movement is for efficiency of running the tournament. This means that the same physical board is not played at the two tables in the match - which is fine unless there's a duplimate problem.

I just don't understand this logic.

 

Already when I conducted my first top level event for teams of four back in the early eighties I met the established principle that all boards were shifted between the two "rooms" in the same match in order to minimize any risk of problems from fouled boards within a match.

 

And even today using preduplicated boards whre we experience a mean time between duplimated errors of more than five years (I am serious!) we still maintain the same rule of shifting the boards between the two rooms.

 

Of course this requires one copy of each board for each match (two tables) - so what? In the old days with manual preduplicating this took a little effort, but today ????

 

(Lower level events are a different matter - was this a low-level event?)

[jeremy69]

Of course this requires one copy of each board for each match (two tables)

 

In the recent European in Ostend every table had its own set of 20 boards and there was no exchange with the other table. Indeed the open room was several staircases away from the closed room.

[mjj29]

Already when I conducted my first top level event for teams of four back in the early eighties I met the established principle that all boards were shifted between the two "rooms" in the same match in order to minimize any risk of problems from fouled boards within a match.

 

And even today using preduplicated boards whre we experience a mean time between duplimated errors of more than five years (I am serious!) we still maintain the same rule of shifting the boards between the two rooms.

 

Of course this requires one copy of each board for each match (two tables) - so what? In the old days with manual preduplicating this took a little effort, but today ????

 

(Lower level events are a different matter - was this a low-level event?)

I don't know about the OP, but large congresses typically have 60-90 tables in one room - getting all the boards passed between the respective tables in a 7 board match when they are each several tables apart seems either infeasible or chaotic (for reference: brighton swiss teams from last year: Brighton 1 Brighton 2)