[kgr]

Teams game without TD.

Closed room has played a board 4H+1. (Good play by declarer - North - to get the overtrick).

Open room plays the board after closed room.
Players pick up their card and before the bidding starts a kibitzer tells North (team B) that there is a card next to his chair.
North picks up the card, and adds the card to his hand and the bidding starts. N-S bid to 4H.
East leads and dummy comes up the table.
North notices that there are 2 ♥A's (one in dummy and one in his hand) and tells the table. North has 14 card in his hand.
1) What is the correct ruling if TD is called at this moment.
2) Because there is no TD the players decide not to play the board. The result of the match without the canceled board is 12-18 for team B.
But with 1 IMP more for team A the result would have been 13-17. Team A says that it would be very good possible (lets say this is 60% possible) that they would have kept 4H to 10 tricks and therefor with the canceled board it would have been 13-17.
(I hope you can answer these questions without the actual hand and bidding)

[campboy]

1. The ace in North's hand is removed and play continues as normal.

Law 13F said:

Any surplus card not part of the deal is removed if found. The auction and play continue unaffected. If such a card is found to have been played to a quitted trick an adjusted score may be awarded.

Also the kibitzer (who was responsible for him?) needs to be told that he shouldn't do that (law 76B5).

2. Assuming the question is "what should happen now?", they should agree on and call a suitable person to make a ruling (which, of course, is what they should have done when the problem first came to light). He might tell them they have to stick with their original attempt at a ruling. He might decide to give an adjusted score on the board, but what that would be depends on how much at fault he considers the two pairs to be. [edit: this would always be an artificial adjusted score, such as 0/-3, as no result could be obtained]

[pran]

campboy, on 2011-November-19, 18:02, said:

1. The ace in North's hand is removed and play continues as normal.

Also the kibitzer (who was responsible for him?) needs to be told that he shouldn't do that (law 76B5).

2. Assuming the question is "what should happen now?", they should agree on and call a suitable person to make a ruling (which, of course, is what they should have done when the problem first came to light). He might tell them they have to stick with their original attempt at a ruling. He might decide to give an adjusted score on the board, but what that would be depends on how much at fault he considers the two pairs to be. [edit: this would always be an artificial adjusted score, such as 0/-3, as no result could be obtained]

As the surplus card was discovered before play actually began I would have ruled that play continues with this card just removed unless it is likely that the extra AH had a significant role in reaching the 4H contract.

As they decided not to play the board an artificial score of 3 IMPS to EW should be awarded. (North was alone at fault here for adding the surplus card to his hand without verifying that he missed it!)

[kgr]

Thanks for the answers!

campboy, on 2011-November-19, 18:02, said:

1. The ace in North's hand is removed and play continues as normal.

I thought this was the law
BTW: Do you have a link to the new laws on internet?

pran, on 2011-November-19, 19:56, said:

As the surplus card was discovered before play actually began I would have ruled that play continues with this card just removed unless it is likely that the extra AH had a significant role in reaching the 4H contract.

Is that important? I would think that if this is either in the advantage or disadvantage of either pair, the card is simply removed.

campboy, on 2011-November-19, 18:02, said:

Also the kibitzer (who was responsible for him?) needs to be told that he shouldn't do that (law 76B5).

Is a Kibitzer not allowed to say this? Normally this would improve the good progress of the play?

campboy, on 2011-November-19, 18:02, said:

2. Assuming the question is "what should happen now?", they should agree on and call a suitable person to make a ruling (which, of course, is what they should have done when the problem first came to light). He might tell them they have to stick with their original attempt at a ruling. He might decide to give an adjusted score on the board, but what that would be depends on how much at fault he considers the two pairs to be. [edit: this would always be an artificial adjusted score, such as 0/-3, as no result could be obtained]

pran, on 2011-November-19, 19:56, said:

As they decided not to play the board an artificial score of 3 IMPS to EW should be awarded. (North was alone at fault here for adding the surplus card to his hand without verifying that he missed it!)

I'm a bit surprised by this penalty for NS. They agreed not to play the board and they are both at fault then? EW could have agreed not to play the board and then afterwards come back on that if they see that it is in their disadvantage. So they would always win with not playing the board, instead of following the law?

[FrancesHinden]

kgr, on 2011-November-20, 02:54, said:

Thanks for the answers!
I thought this was the law
BTW: Do you have a link to the new laws on internet?

Type "laws of duplicate bridge 2007" into google. The first four results contain 3 links to the 2007 laws (two of them go to the same place).

As someone asked to give a ruling after the match, I would say that both pairs at the table agreed to cancel the board, so that is the ruling they have made and they have to stick to it (even though it wasn't the correct ruling as others have pointed out).

English rules for events played without a TD say this explicitly:

"If a ruling of the first instance is required, the procedures outlined below should be followed:
(a) Captains agree upon an outcome.
(b) Captains contact a principal member of the EBU panel of Tournament Directors as listed in section 22.
© Captains agree upon a suitable arbiter.
(d) Captains contact any other EBU Tournament Director (as listed in the EBU diary), or a member of the panel of Referees (see 24 below), or a member of the Laws and Ethics Committee. (....)
(e) Captains submit the case in writing to the EBU as described below."

[kgr]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-November-20, 04:59, said:

Type "laws of duplicate bridge 2007" into google. The first four results contain 3 links to the 2007 laws (two of them go to the same place).

Thanks! I will use this one:
http://www.worldbrid...de/contents.asp

[axman]

pran, on 2011-November-19, 19:56, said:

As the surplus card was discovered before play actually began I would have ruled that play continues with this card just removed


unless it is likely that the extra AH had a significant role in reaching the 4H contract.

Take a good look see at L21A.

[bluejak]

Law 21A seems irrelevant to me.

Law 13F is perfectly clear: play continues unaffected.

Whether the ♥A has affected things to date is irrelevant - read Law 13F.

I do not think that a spectator drawing attention to a card on the floor has done anything wrong. He is not really drawing attention to the game itself and it seems pretty silly not to allow him to point it out. Normally he should point it out to the TD but since there is not one the players have to act as TDs - see Law 80B2A - so pointing it out to the players seems reasonable.

If playing a match privately taking a Law book along and having telephone numbers of TDs seems a good idea.