Playing a team match on same position

[Fluffy]

When you play a team match but a table sits on the wrong position.

 

-Is it tournament´s directors fault (partially at least)

-Can the match be replayed with a different set of boards if time permits?

-With duplicated baords awarding a score against the datum or crossIMPs or something against the field makes any sense?

-Is the score for this match suposed o be 15-15 or something less as a penalty?

[Jeremy69A]

It's nearly always the player's fault for not checking although I have seen cases where the players were specifically told to sit in th wrong direction by the director. Assuming this is not the case it is normal for the match to be scored as less than 15-15 or whatever a draw is. When it happened twice in the last European championship it was thought the score would be 12-12 but there was time(just) for the matches to be replayed which is what happened.

[Mbodell]

In our local district the rule when this happens is that the match is scored 0-0. A harsh penalty that makes sure it can never benefit one of the teams (competing against a team not in the match) to sit incorrectly. When I've had it happen in a KO, we got an abbreviated match as we finished with time remaining and then played a 4 board match.

[ArtK78]

Funny story. My regular partner was playing in a Swiss Teams in Wilmington Delaware. Last match coming up. His team was standing 3rd in the field, and the top two teams were playing against each other. Since his team was 12 VPs behind both of the top teams, and at least one of the top teams had to score 10 or more VPs, there was no way his team could win the event (20 pt VP scale).

 

However, the top two teams misseated themselves so that the two pairs on one team were North-South at both tables and the two pairs on the other team were East-West at both tables. This was not discovered until the match was over, at which time the TD assigned a zero VP score to both teams. My friend's team won their match and the event.

 

By the way, Alan Truscott invented a very easy way to avoid this disaster, at least a way to notify both tables that there was a problem at the time the boards were passed from one table to the next. He had both pairs at each table put their names on cards indicating their compass directions at the table. When the boards with a card were passed to the other table, if there was a problem it could be caught halfway through the match. These cards were called "Truscott Cards," and were used for many years in the New York area. I have not seen them in use in a long time.

[RMB1]

For what its worth, the EBU approach is as follows.

 

Assuming the players are at fault, the match is scored 8-8 VP on 20VP scale. This become 13-13 VP on a 25VP scale. (The EBU regards the 25VP scale as a 20-0 scale with 5VP added. If for instance it was regarded as a 0-30 scale with a cap at 25, then perhaps the regulation would be 12-12.)

 

But the regulation has a final codicil:

in aggravated circumstances, the TD may impose a more severe penalty/more generous indemnity. One example of such a circumstance would be if a side apparently guaranteed themselves qualification by fouling the match in the last round of a Swiss – a score of 0 VPs would then be normal.

[Mbodell]

Funny story. My regular partner was playing in a Swiss Teams in Wilmington Delaware. Last match coming up. His team was standing 3rd in the field, and the top two teams were playing against each other. Since his team was 12 VPs behind both of the top teams, and at least one of the top teams had to score 10 or more VPs, there was no way his team could win the event (20 pt VP scale).

 

However, the top two teams misseated themselves so that the two pairs on one team were North-South at both tables and the two pairs on the other team were East-West at both tables. This was not discovered until the match was over, at which time the TD assigned a zero VP score to both teams. My friend's team won their match and the event.

 

By the way, Alan Truscott invented a very easy way to avoid this disaster, at least a way to notify both tables that there was a problem at the time the boards were passed from one table to the next. He had both pairs at each table put their names on cards indicating their compass directions at the table. When the boards with a card were passed to the other table, if there was a problem it could be caught halfway through the match. These cards were called "Truscott Cards," and were used for many years in the New York area. I have not seen them in use in a long time.

 

Truscott cards are still used in NABC events.

 

The only time I've seen the wrong seating for a full match in a sectional was in the first round. It was a bracketed RR and in the top bracket two of the top teams sat the same direction. It lead to a quite competitive bracket since the teams didn't even have much of a "swiss strategy" to catch up (the top bracket allowed people to opt up, including my team, so the top bracket had 11 teams for 7 matches of RR).

[Fluffy]

those cards I saw them in Euroean Junior Championships '96 and '98 but then dissapeared. '96 was my first, so perhaps were used earlier as well.

[mrdct]

At most major events each table gets it's own set of boards or the boards just get passed to a lower-numbered table and won't necessarily get played at your teammates' table, so Trustcott cards or curtain cards are pretty much redundant unless each match is sharing it's own private set of boards.

 

In this particular case, I would've thought both teams should be getting average minus on each board of the match which, depending on the length of the match, could result in a very poor result for both teams (e.g for a 16-board match it would be 4-4).

[mich-b]

When you play a team match but a table sits on the wrong position.

 

-With duplicated baords awarding a score against the datum or crossIMPs or something against the field makes any sense?

 

I think this is a very poor idea. I believe team matches should be decided absolutely ignoring the rest of the results in the field in all circumstances.

Actually , for me, this is the main reason why I prefer teams over pairs - my results depend only on my team's performance (and direct opps) rather than on some random LOLs playing in the corridor..

In General , I think the best solution if time permits , is to replay the match, while this does not mean waving the penalties to both teams, if the wrong seating was mostly their fault.

[Fluffy]

I think this is a very poor idea. I believe team matches should be decided absolutely ignoring the rest of the results in the field in all circumstances.

Actually , for me, this is the main reason why I prefer teams over pairs - my results depend only on my team's performance (and direct opps) rather than on some random LOLs playing in the corridor..

In General , I think the best solution if time permits , is to replay the match, while this does not mean waving the penalties to both teams, if the wrong seating was mostly their fault.

I think the same but, it can be more fair than 15-15 or 12-12 easilly.

 

Think for example if one team really crushed their opponents at both tables, comparing with other tables they won 60 IMPs in 10 boards, putting the match 15-15 doesn't look fair. Perhaps you could add some balancing factor like dividing the IMPs in half (or 2/3), or substracting 0.8 IMPs/board from the final result (making it likelly that it will end up 15-15). Calculating the result can be done with computers quite easilly.

[Vampyr]

For what its worth, the EBU approach is as follows.

 

Assuming the players are at fault, the match is scored 8-8 VP on 20VP scale. This become 13-13 VP on a 25VP scale. (The EBU regards the 25VP scale as a 20-0 scale with 5VP added. But the regulation has a final codicil:

 

13-13 is very generous. I am surprised that both teams are permitted to win the match.

[RMB1]

13-13 is very generous. I am surprised that both teams are permitted to win the match.

?

 

A draw is 15-15 on 25VP scale, so 13-13 is a loss for both sides.

[pran]

The Norwegian regulation for teams events prescribes a standard (penalty to a side at fault and compensation to a side not at fault) of 1 IMP for each board that cannot be played (or scored). (The 3 IMP rule of course applies in Law 86A situations.)

 

In the case of teams seated the same way at both tables (or boards played in the wrong direction at one table only) we consider both sides to be at fault.

 

So say that in a match with 32 boards over 2 rounds we have an IMP result of 20-30 together with a void round. The match result is then an IMP loss of 26 for the home team and an IMP loss of 6 for the away team, and the VP result becomes 11-14 (on the 25VP scale).

 

Similarly if this had been a single-round match with 8 boards then each team would "lose" the match with 8 IMPs for a match result of 13-13.

[Trinidad]

At most major events each table gets it's own set of boards or the boards just get passed to a lower-numbered table and won't necessarily get played at your teammates' table, so Trustcott cards or curtain cards are pretty much redundant unless each match is sharing it's own private set of boards.

 

In this particular case, I would've thought both teams should be getting average minus on each board of the match which, depending on the length of the match, could result in a very poor result for both teams (e.g for a 16-board match it would be 4-4).

In the events the Dutch Bridge League (NBB) organizes, there is a sheet at each table where you fill out the line up for the match. The sheet at the table in the open room would look like:

 

NS USA 2

             North South

Lall           O     O

Grue           O     O

Bathhurst      O     O

Zagorin        O     O

Wooldridge     O     O

Hurd           O     O

 

EW The Netherlands

              East  West

Brink          O     O

Drijver        O     O

Van Prooijen   O     O

Verhees        O     O

De Wijs        O     O

Muller         O     O

In the closed room it would be:

NS The Netherlands

             North South

Brink          O     O

Drijver        O     O

Van Prooijen   O     O

Verhees        O     O

De Wijs        O     O

Muller         O     O

 

EW USA 2

              East  West

Lall           O     O

Grue           O     O

Bathhurst      O     O

Zagorin        O     O

Wooldridge     O     O

Hurd           O     O

 

I think this works very well.

 

Rik

[ArtK78]

There was a famous story about a late-stage North American KO match (Spingold or Vanderbilt) where the teams were misseated and players from one team sat North South at both tables. The mistake was found after a segment of the match was played, and they were in the process of fixing the problem. One of the players decided to compare results with members of the other team who sat in the other direction, as if they were his teammates. As they were going through the boards, the player started berating his OPPONENTS for their poor results as his "teammates."

[Fluffy]

lol, this sounds so much as a story from my father :)

[sfi]

In his book, Hamman attributes it to Phil Feldesman, who compared with Goldman and Eisenberg in the '69 Spingold.