[mjj29]

pran, on Jul 16 2010, 09:45 AM, said:

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]

dburn, on Jul 16 2010, 05:08 PM, said:

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:

Quote

...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:

Quote

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]

bluejak, on Jul 16 2010, 05:07 PM, said:

pran, on Jul 16 2010, 03:45 PM, said:

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]

Bbradley62, on Jul 16 2010, 01:48 PM, said:

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]

Bbradley62, on Jul 16 2010, 07:48 PM, said:

...  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]

dburn, on Jul 16 2010, 11:08 AM, said:

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]

mjj29, on Jul 16 2010, 08:05 PM, said:

Bbradley62, on Jul 16 2010, 01:48 PM, said:

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]

Quote

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]

pran, on Jul 16 2010, 04:06 PM, said:

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)

[mrdct]

Prior to the introduction of bridgemates, at all of the major national teams events in Australia the swiss qualifying phase was run such that the top two teams played at table 1 (of which there was a red table 1 and an blue table 1), the next two at table 2, etc. The tables were arranged in clusters of 6 tables such that each cluster of 6 would have 3 matches all sharing the same set of boards. This worked reasonably well, although in events with shorter matches there tended to be a lot of caddy calls.

When bridgemates were introduced, the organisers reverted to the "each team has its own table" method as this seemed to work a lot better with the scoring units (exectly why I'm not sure).

[pran]

mjj29, on Jul 16 2010, 11:41 PM, said:

pran, on Jul 16 2010, 04:06 PM, said:

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)

At the upcoming Norwegian Bridge Festival we shall expect the order of 90 teams to the mixed teams Swiss event (Last year we had 86 teams).

They all sit (together with several other simultaneous events) in a single huge arena built to the Winter Olympic games in 1994, see http://bridgefestiva...ict/hh_inne.jpg

For the teams events a barrier separates the two "rooms", and each "match" has its own set of boards, exchanging boards via the "barrier".

[mjj29]

pran, on Jul 17 2010, 01:42 AM, said:

They all sit (together with several other simultaneous events) in a single huge arena built to the Winter Olympic games in 1994, see http://bridgefestiva...ict/hh_inne.jpg

For the teams events a barrier separates the two "rooms", and each "match" has its own set of boards, exchanging boards via the "barrier".

Isn't it too distruptive having everone moving around to swap boards? Does the barrier have table numbers marked on to ensure you get the right boards?

[gordontd]

mrdct, on Jul 17 2010, 12:33 AM, said:

Prior to the introduction of bridgemates, at all of the major national teams events in Australia the swiss qualifying phase was run such that the top two teams played at table 1 (of which there was a red table 1 and an blue table 1), the next two at table 2, etc. The tables were arranged in clusters of 6 tables such that each cluster of 6 would have 3 matches all sharing the same set of boards. This worked reasonably well, although in events with shorter matches there tended to be a lot of caddy calls.

When bridgemates were introduced, the organisers reverted to the "each team has its own table" method as this seemed to work a lot better with the scoring units (exectly why I'm not sure).

This is known over here as "Australian Swiss", and is gaining popularity. The advantages include every team being able to have one stationary pair, and only half the room moves each match. The disadvantage is that sometimes you play a team who are uncomfortably close to you, and one team needs to move tables for the match.

It's also no longer possible to tell how well a team is doing by where they are sitting - I'll leave you to decide whether that's a bad thing or not!

[dburn]

Oof Arted, on Jul 16 2010, 02:32 PM, said:

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

Oh, sticking a number 17 onto a board originally numbered 8 because the vulnerability is the same but the dealer is not rates only about a 1.3 on the logarithmic scale of incompetence where the England football team scores 8.4 and the organisers of the Open at St Andrews 10.

But in general, VPs should not be added to the economy just because people don't know what they're doing. It is unfair (potentially disastrously so) for one match to have 22 or more VPs at stake while all the other matches have 20.

[StevenG]

gordontd, on Jul 17 2010, 09:09 AM, said:

This is known over here as "Australian Swiss", and is gaining popularity. The advantages include every team being able to have one stationary pair, and only half the room moves each match. The disadvantage is that sometimes you play a team who are uncomfortably close to you, and one team needs to move tables for the match.

It's also no longer possible to tell how well a team is doing by where they are sitting - I'll leave you to decide whether that's a bad thing or not!

I really dislike the Australian system, just because you can't tell how well a team is doing by where it's sitting. I feel as though I am playing in a vacuum; previously, moving up as you did well, or down as you did poorly, provided some sort of emotional response.

Doubtless the majority of posters here play in teams that expect to do well, and are relieved that their occasional less successful days are now obscured. As someone who plays in weaker teams, it was always a boost when we achieved a table number in single digits, even though we would inevitably plummet later. Sometimes that was, for me, the only highlight of the event. Alas, no more!

[PeterAlan]

It seems to me that there's another moral here as well: if you get a board on your table that's had its label altered in this sort of way, then check it out with the director before playing it.

Here, 12 players (3 tables) seemed to have played the board with nary a question.

PeterAlan

[Vampyr]

mjj29, on Jul 16 2010, 08:05 PM, said:

Bbradley62, on Jul 16 2010, 01:48 PM, said:

  You're playing a Swiss team event with pre-arranged hands, presumably to make VPs "more fair" across the field? 

The hands are pre-duplicated so that everyone can look at hand records and post-mortem the hands together.

I think that the fairness issue Bill suggests is more important than the fact that duplicated boards makes possible the production of hand records. It is pretty clear to me that a victory-pointed team game with hands dealt at the table is not a contest of duplicate bridge.

[Bbradley62]

Both advantages of pre-dealt hands are valid. Wasn't trying to prioritize one over the other, just mentioned the one that I thought of first...

[bluejak]

PeterAlan, on Jul 17 2010, 02:35 PM, said:

It seems to me that there's another moral here as well: if you get a board on your table that's had its label altered in this sort of way, then check it out with the director before playing it.

Here, 12 players (3 tables) seemed to have played the board with nary a question.

That's right, let's blame the victims, why not?

Are you seriously suggesting that you check every board you play to make sure that that the label on it is not a label on top of a label, and you would notice such a label?

If you did happen to notice a board had been altered in some way, are you seriously suggesting you always check with the TD rather than just following what it says on a printed label?