Skipped

[jillybean]

(NZ Bridge)

 

What happens to the scoring if a board is skipped for 1 pair during a MP game?

 

Thanks!

[axman]

(NZ Bridge)

 

What happens to the scoring if a board is skipped for 1 pair during a MP game?

 

Thanks!

It depends. If due to a phantom pair the board is factored.

[mycroft]

Why was it skipped? Did the pair just think they'd played all three boards in the round and go out for coffee? Were they insufferably slow (again)? Were they 5 minutes late on the last round and are now 6 minutes late, so they don't get to the board? Did they do the "East flipped the boards and pulled their cards, and then North flipped the board and pulled their cards" thing? Did the bridge club get robbed at gunpoint and everybody decided not to play the last round? Was it one of the 'I've set up a 28 board movement, but if it doesn't go as fast as I expect, I'll pull the last two boards of the last round'? ones?

 

But after we know the answer to that, you check regulations. But remember 12C2a (and further sections of 12C2 in cases where they apply).

 

Of course, the most common reason to skip playing a board is the one axman pointed out. And his answer is correct (the board was never scheduled to be played by this pair).

[pescetom]

It might also depend on the number of boards already skipped for this pair, some regulations have a maximum number/percentage of 60%, or whatever.

[jillybean]

Nothing exciting going on here. So a board skipped for 1 pair, unplayed, phantom, is factored. What does this mean?

 

Now we have a board skipped at a table where the Director had neither the time or perhaps the knowledge to make a ruling.

The players were instructed to "skip" the board. The score appears as adjusted 0 0. What's going on here?

 

Obviously there should have been a ruling and an artificial adjusted score assigned but I am trying to understand what effect it has on the scoring?

[axman]

 

 

Now we have a board skipped at a table where the Director had neither the time or perhaps the knowledge to make a ruling.

The players were instructed to "skip" the board. The score appears as adjusted 0 0. What's going on here?

 

Obviously there should have been a ruling and an artificial adjusted score assigned but I am trying to understand what effect it has on the scoring?

 

But this is two pairs skipping the board?

[jillybean]

Yes.

 

I'd like to understand #1 what happens to the scoring if a board is skipped for 1 pair (phantom)

#2 if a board is skipped for both pairs, does it have the same effect?

[axman]

Nothing exciting going on here. So a board skipped for 1 pair, unplayed, phantom, is factored. What does this mean?

 

 

When a board does not have the same number of comparisons it is normalized by factoring so that each board carries the an equivalent weight. The accepted correct procedure is to factor up by the ratio of the largest number of comparisons in the board set to the actual number of comparisons. Notably the ACBL club TD exam (I believe John Wignall would be familiar with NZ views) has two aspiration killing questions. The Factor exercise is/?was? one of them.

[jillybean]

When a board does not have the same number of comparisons it is normalized by factoring so that each board carries the an equivalent weight. The accepted correct procedure is to factor up by the ratio of the largest number of comparisons in the board set to the actual number of comparisons. Notably the ACBL club TD exam (I believe John Wignall would be familiar with NZ views) has two aspiration killing questions. The Factor exercise is/?was? one of them.

Does this happen automatically with the scoring program? I don't see Directors counting on their fingers or plugging away on a calculator,

[axman]

Yes.

 

I'd like to understand #1 what happens to the scoring if a board is skipped for 1 pair (phantom)

#2 if a board is skipped for both pairs, does it have the same effect?

1. when only one pair is scheduled to be at a table (sit out) the board is not scheduled to be compared (no result generated) that round. Factoring is needed.

 

2. Generally, a scheduled comparison that is fouled (like when players are so slow that the board isn't started or show up late) is remedied by an adjusted score. As fouled comparisons are disruptive/deprive the field of actual comparisons it is proper to devise an appropriate PP to the perpetrator(s). There being a difference between results and the absence of results- as one would expect there are different effects.

 

 

Notably, when an artificial score is created it is because of a fouled comparison where part of the remedy is called fouled board scoring (this shows up when a top is less than a top and a bottom is more than a zero). Most scoring programs use the neuberg formula for fouled board scoring.

Edited January 30, 2023 by axman

[jillybean]

What does factored mean, what effect does it have on the score?

[mycroft]

1. Back in the hand-score days, we had a "fouled board" procedure, where we matchpointed the traveller to the actual plays top, then added half a matchpoint to each score for each "no compare", whether it was a phantom, or an A+/A-, or even a fouled board (where there were - hopefully only [*] - two distinct comparison sets that had to each get their "half-matchpoints" from the other set.)

 

Now we use the Neuberg Formula which is slightly more complicated than directors counting on their fingers can handle[**], but is much saner (your +2300 isn't a 10.5/11 just because there was a no play; now it's more like 10.93/11. There's still a chance that the "no play" would have done the same stupid brilliant thing you did to get 2300.

 

2. Also with phantoms (and other odd movements), of course it's not only the boards that get played a different number of times, but the players play a different number of boards. Or there is a situation where in a two-session event, the morning is a 13x2 for 26 boards, and the afternoon is a 9x3 for 27. Everyone should score on the same "number" of boards in a session, and (at least in the ACBL), each session should be weighted equally. So we factor your score to the "theoretical maximum" - your 120 on 24 boards is converted to 135 on 27 to compare against the other pair's 130 on the 27 boards they played because they got no sitout. And the 26 board results will be "upfactored" by 27/26 before being added to the afternoon session's results. This is equivalent to "convert to percentages and compare that", except for odd rules like how (In the ACBL at least, you always factor *up*, never *down*, and a *matchpoint difference* of 0.01 is considered significant, no matter what the percentage difference is).

 

Yes, the scoring systems handle all of this automagically (with occasional "there's an issue here. Do you want me to do <solution>?" prompts.) If they're anything like ACBLScor, the computer doing the calculations is mindless. Telling the computer what to do is "magic", unless you've done it before.

 

[*]I've had a three-way foul twice (once was my fault, trying to fix a boarding error too fast and causing yet another problem. Can't remember the other one. In 20 years, that's not that bad).

[**] But not much. (score * real top) - (difference)/(actual top). I remembered it being more complicated.

[axman]

 

 

[*]I've had a three-way foul twice (once was my fault, trying to fix a boarding error too fast and causing yet another problem. Can't remember the other one. In 20 years, that's not that bad).

 

Some guys have all the fun.

 

My only fun was calling the skip in 3 sections after 9 (plus 6 minutes) instead after 9. What's 54 tables of happy bridge players anyway.

[jillybean]

Mycroft, am I understanding correctly, skipped boards are given an "average" score based on the average percentage score of the boards we have actually played for that session?

[mycroft]

Again, depends on why they were skipped.

 

If they are not supposed to be played, they do not affect your session percentage.

If they are supposed to be played, but not for some reason, you're in Law 12 territory and you will get a percentage score that (almost certainly) will affect your session percentage.

 

You're not being clear on why "skipped", and seem to want a simple answer. It's complicated. I realize you probably don't want to be clear because you want us to cover all the options, but then you don't get simple - there are a lot of options :-).

 

[*] Yes, I'm ignoring the ACBL practise of "Not played"ing boards that probably shouldn't be scored as "not played". That discussion has been done to death. Everyone knows my opinion, and everyone knows how likely my opinion is going to be followed in games that I don't run myself.

[jillybean]

I'm not being clear on why they were skipped because the reason doesn't matter, the board was handled incorrectly and rather than assigning an adjusted score, the players were told the board would be skipped. For my understanding I would like to know what happens to the scoring when this done.

 

I will post the actual hands later but I don't want to completely derail the discussion with that yet.

[blackshoe]

I don't see how you can say the reason a board was skipped doesn't matter, in the face of several people already telling you that it does matter.

 

Ask your director how he scored the board. Ask him what the legal basis is for that score.

[jillybean]

That's not what I meant. I understand that it is far from correct procedure to skip a board that is in play for 2 pairs.

 

I'd like to understand what happens to the scoring when this does occur? Is the scoring treated the same as a board which is skipped in a pair/phantom situation?

 

I'll dig up the hand and post that too :)

[jillybean]

[hv=pc=n&s=sq82hdkt962caq764&n=sa543ht943d43ck98&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=pp2n]266|200[/hv]

 

West asks what is 2nt?

North replies strong 20-22

South says no it's not, we play 5-5 minors

 

West calls the Director (situation explained etc) and is told that the board will be skipped.

What happens to the score on this board if it is "skipped" rather than being adjusted ?

 

 

(82C seems a little ironic here)

[sfi]

Adjusted scores generally fall under Law 12. It seems like the director went down the path of 12C2a:

2. (a) When owing to an irregularity no result can be obtained [see also 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.

If the director ruled that no result can be obtained, it should be average minus to N-S and average plus to E-W. It doesn't look like the laws justify simply skipping the board in the situation you describe.

 

I don't think the director is right about applying 12C2a though - the auction can simply continue with UI for North and South. The director needs to look at what whether either person used the UI and consider adjustments after the hand.

[jillybean]

Adjusted scores generally fall under Law 12. It seems like the director went down the path of 12C2a:If the director ruled that no result can be obtained, it should be average minus to N-S and average plus to E-W. It doesn't look like the laws justify simply skipping the board in the situation you describe.I don't think the director is right about applying 12C2a though - the auction can simply continue with UI for North and South. The director needs to look at what whether either person used the UI and consider adjustments after the hand.

 

Yes, and this is why I didn't post the hand - can someone PLEASE answer my question?

[sfi]

Yes, and this is why I didn't post the hand - can someone PLEASE answer my question?

The answer to your question depends very much on why the board was skipped. And I did answer for something akin to this situation - average plus/average minus.

 

The problem is that the director clearly made up a ruling, so they are already going to be doing something a bit random.

 

If you're looking for how to calculate a pair not playing a hand due to external circumstances (sitouts, emergencies, fouled boards, etc.), then mycroft covered it in post 12. This won't impact the score for the pair that didn't play the board, but will affect the score for the pairs that did.

[jillybean]

The answer to your question depends very much on why the board was skipped. And I did answer for something akin to this situation - average plus/average minus.

 

The problem is that the director clearly made up a ruling, so they are already going to be doing something a bit random.

 

If you're looking for how to calculate a pair not playing a hand due to external circumstances (sitouts, emergencies, fouled boards, etc.), then mycroft covered it in post 12. This won't impact the score for the pair that didn't play the board, but will affect the score for the pairs that did.

 

Yes, the Director made up a ruling, the board was skipped and I asked for clarification

Mycroft, am I understanding correctly, skipped boards are given an "average" score based on the average percentage score of the boards we have actually played for that session?

 

The question seems impossible to answer, I will assume "average"

[axman]

[hv=pc=n&s=sq82hdkt962caq764&n=sa543ht943d43ck98&d=n&v=n&b=5&a=pp2n]266|200[/hv]

 

West asks what is 2nt?

North replies strong 20-22

South says no it's not, we play 5-5 minors

 

West calls the Director (situation explained etc) and is told that the board will be skipped.

What happens to the score on this board if it is "skipped" rather than being adjusted ?

 

 

(82C seems a little ironic here)

 

When the director fouls a comparison via his incompetence he owes everybody $40. And, everybody owes me $80 :)

 

some advice. Read the CC at the beginning of the round.

[mycroft]

In this case, you have to ask the Director what she did. Just "skipping" a board scheduled to be played without a legal reason isn't legal, as you probably know - so what "skipping" means in this case doesn't have a legal meaning, so we can't tell you what "skipped board" should score.

 

My first guess would be that she considered this too complicated to fix, and hoped it would go away by treating it as "not played". In which case, she'd set the scoring program the same way she "not played"s a late play, and go from there. Your score will be factored by N+1/N to balance. I may be biased by ACBLScor here; see previous answers about "NPing late plays".

 

My second guess (which has the benefit of being legal, if lazy) is that she ruled that the information was such that the board could not be played, and assigned an adjusted score. I would hope that score was Average plus to E-W (not at fault) and Average minus to N-S (at fault); that is 60% or session score (whichever is higher) for E-W, and 40% (or session score if lower, but most scoring systems don't know to do that, and nobody really cares) to N-S. Law 12C2a.

 

But all it is is a guess. The director did what she did, and only she knows what she did. Ask her.

 

As discussed however, there is a better solution with UI and LAs and all the rest. p-p-2NT-p; 3C (Stayman)-AP seems normal. If that didn't happen at the table, the Director gets to do the use-of-UI song and dance, likely leading to some negative score. The downside of this is (as discussed before) in general[*] it takes a long time (which playing directors don't have), it requires peers to query (which she may not have until *they've* played the board, and they'll be biased from having seen it); depending on the timing, it might cause the board to be unplayable at her table (and causing another "skip" - I rule A+/A on those as I don't consider myself totally at fault for doing my job) - and frankly, it's beyond the competence of many club directors, and A+/A- would end up being fairer than whatever result they assign.

 

[*] This one's pretty straightforward. I don't see any LA to Stayman with 4-4 majors and a 7 count, and when partner states their choice of minor, South has nothing more to think about. I first wrote as if N was flipped - 3244 with the A and K. Then 3NT from North seems obvious, and what South is allowed to do from there depends very strongly on what their opening 2NT range is. That one could get very complicated.