[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2025-December-17, 03:20, said:

AFAIK, PP ‘s are rarely given to anyone in ACBL, regardless of experience

I assigned 3 PPs in the 6 table 22 board national simultaneous tournament yesterday. Slightly more than average, but they were all well deserved.

[blackshoe]

I have long been a vocal advocate of giving PPs where the law violated is a "shall do" or "must do" (or their negations) law. In "should do" cases, a PP would be rare -- but rare does not mean "non-existent".

I agree with Jilly about the culture within the ACBL regarding PPs. Don't care. Yes, educate first. But if you never give a PP you create a toothless legal system. Players will eventually just ignore you when you tell them they could get a PP "next time".

[barmar]

jillybean, on 2025-December-17, 03:20, said:

AFAIK, PP ‘s are rarely given to anyone in ACBL, regardless of experience

I got one in SF in a national event (Nail LM Pairs). After the opponents had left the table, my partner thought we might have conceded an extra trick in the last board of the round, so we pulled cards out of one of the pockets to see declarer's full hand. But we inadvertently took them from one of the boards for the new round, not the old round, so I saw some of an opponent's cards for the next round.

The director solve the problem of seeing an opponent's cards by having us rotate that board in the next round. But we got a PP for violating the Law against taking cards from a board without an opponent or TD present.

And declarer's claim was indeed valid.

[jillybean]

barmar, on 2025-December-17, 11:25, said:

I got one in SF in a national event (Nail LM Pairs). After the opponents had left the table, my partner thought we might have conceded an extra trick in the last board of the round, so we pulled cards out of one of the pockets to see declarer's full hand. But we inadvertently took them from one of the boards for the new round, not the old round, so I saw some of an opponent's cards for the next round.

The director solve the problem of seeing an opponent's cards by having us rotate that board in the next round. But we got a PP for violating the Law against taking cards from a board without an opponent or TD present.

And declarer's claim was indeed valid.

Good!

[jillybean]

pescetom, on 2025-December-17, 10:30, said:

I assigned 3 PPs in the 6 table 22 board national simultaneous tournament yesterday. Slightly more than average, but they were all well deserved.

That would be phenomenal here. What were they issued for?
Did the players leave the game, never to come back?

[jillybean]

blackshoe, on 2025-December-17, 10:54, said:

I have long been a vocal advocate of giving PPs where the law violated is a "shall do" or "must do" (or their negations) law. In "should do" cases, a PP would be rare -- but rare does not mean "non-existent".

I agree with Jilly about the culture within the ACBL regarding PPs. Don't care. Yes, educate first. But if you never give a PP you create a toothless legal system. Players will eventually just ignore you when you tell them they could get a PP "next time".

“Turn your phone off”

[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2025-December-18, 00:13, said:

That would be phenomenal here. What were they issued for?
Did the players leave the game, never to come back?

One was for repeated slow play, one for L16 and one (to both sides) for a fouled board.
To give an example of where I draw the line, I did not penalize the table that played a wrong board (but I did not let them play the second correct board either, which they resent more than a penalty IME).
The only player who complained was EW on the fouled board, he felt that NS were responsible for orientation.
But then he grumbles about any intervention, he even threatened to organise a petition to remove me when I penalised him for arriving late.
They will all be back

[jillybean]

You run the game as how I imagine it should be run.
Seriously, if we dropped ACBL players into your game you would spend the entire session
issuing penalties.

Can I clarify, the fouled board was a board played with the board in the wrong orientation, fully rotated?That is not considered a fouled board here and just scored as normal. Boards where players have removed Cards after the play and returned to wrong slots are considered fouled but never receive a PP in a club game. I have not learned how to apply a penalty, it’s just not done.

[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2025-December-18, 06:08, said:

Can I clarify, the fouled board was a board played with the board in the wrong orientation, fully rotated?That is not considered a fouled board here and just scored as normal. Boards where players have removed Cards after the play and returned to wrong slots are considered fouled but never receive a PP in a club game. I have not learned how to apply a penalty, it’s just not done.

Their sin was that they rotated the board before before returning cards to slots, hence it arrived fouled at the next table, which only discovered the problem after play. It's an automatic penalty (for each side whose cards are not correctly located) under our regulations.

Some people have tried to give me guidance that one should not issue penalties at club level, and that may be common policy if the scoring program is anything to go by (a bug preventing cancellation of a penalty has never been fixed). But my experience in sport (and life) is that most people are happy to follow rules so long as they are consistently enforced.

[mycroft]

Why? Why, why, why?

I mean, Law 7A is there for a reason - okay, the recent change to it for a disappointing reason, but still. Even the 2007 version made it clear that the board had to be pointed the right way throughout play.

BECAUSE when you take it off the table, turn it sideways so you can see dummy, or any of the other maladaptions people tell me they "never get wrong", this happens. Not every time, no - just often enough to ruin some people's day.

And given the number of people on each side of the "switch the hand around when you make me declarer, so I know which hand is 'visible'" vs "leave the hands the way they were in the auction, so I don't confuse 'who bid spades'" debate, how can "turn the board 90 degrees, nobody will ever misread the vulnerability during the auction" not be automatic?

And yes, I have the classic story (in the archives, many times, I'm sure) of "we were in 4♦ making 5. Our partners were in 5♦ making 6. We're sure something is wrong, but we can't figure out what." Guess what I saw when I went into the room an hour later to deliver a different ruling...

And yes, this is why you're more likely to get a PP from me for screwing up the game than for anything but the most blatant and obviously purposeful violation of UI/MI/revoke/... or even behaviour to the director. Because you've affected *someone else's game*, not just the ones the Laws protect from your action.

[jillybean]

I think the most common cause is a board being passed in the wrong orientation, often sandwiched between boards in the correct orientation and the players just not checking (guilty)
But then there are the players who don't return their cards to the board immediately after the hand has been completed, touch dummys cards and take cards out of everyones slots between rounds.

[barmar]

mycroft, on 2025-December-18, 10:02, said:

Why? Why, why, why?

I mean, Law 7A is there for a reason - okay, the recent change to it for a disappointing reason, but still. Even the 2007 version made it clear that the board had to be pointed the right way throughout play.

Accidents sometimes happen -- I've seen boards slip around the table while players are taking the cards out or putting them back.

This is not like my incident, where we deliberately did something I knew was sketchy, and it led to an even more severe problem.

At the sectional this weekend, we played a wrong board one round, and I blame the confusing layout of the section. There were 15 tables, with 1-7 in one row, 8-14 in the next row, and table 15 by itself. When we finished at 14 we didn't realize that the next table was off to the side, we just went to the beginning of the other row. The problem wasn't noticed until we were well into that board and the players who had just played at 15 tried to come to our table.

BTW, whenever I'm NS at a table whose successor may be hard to find, I make a habit of telling the departing pair where to go.

[blackshoe]

I know quite a few people I'd like to tell where to go.

[pescetom]

barmar, on 2025-December-18, 13:42, said:

Accidents sometimes happen -- I've seen boards slip around the table while players are taking the cards out or putting them back.

This is not like my incident, where we deliberately did something I knew was sketchy, and it led to an even more severe problem.

At the sectional this weekend, we played a wrong board one round, and I blame the confusing layout of the section. There were 15 tables, with 1-7 in one row, 8-14 in the next row, and table 15 by itself. When we finished at 14 we didn't realize that the next table was off to the side, we just went to the beginning of the other row. The problem wasn't noticed until we were well into that board and the players who had just played at 15 tried to come to our table.

BTW, whenever I'm NS at a table whose successor may be hard to find, I make a habit of telling the departing pair where to go.

Our players have no excuse for getting movements wrong, they have their full movement visible on phone: round, table, position, boards, opponents.

They also have the hand diagram to bitch about after play. Despite that, most fouled boards occur because the diehards will insist on pulling out hands from the finished board (without even seeking consent of opponents) instead of looking at their phone. The second most frequent cause is people moving the board to the side of the (small) table during play and changing orientation to have more space for the dummy or their coffee or whatever.

[mycroft]

pescetom, on 2025-December-18, 16:39, said:

The second most frequent cause is people moving the board to the side of the (small) table during play and changing orientation to have more space for the dummy or their coffee or whatever.

Hence my comment about Law 7A. I would warn them (once). After that, 100% PP if the board is ever fouled. Or if there was ever a discussion about the score on the board and "I would never have taken the 'sacrifice' if I saw I was vulnerable".

Put it in the corner of the table? Fine. Not legal, but if there's a player with bad sight, or sun on the table, or whatever else, you do what allows bridge to be played. But it *must stay* on the table, *in the correct orientation*.

[mycroft]

barmar, on 2025-December-18, 13:42, said:

At the sectional this weekend, we played a wrong board one round, and I blame the confusing layout of the section. There were 15 tables, with 1-7 in one row, 8-14 in the next row, and table 15 by itself. When we finished at 14 we didn't realize that the next table was off to the side, we just went to the beginning of the other row. The problem wasn't noticed until we were well into that board and the players who had just played at 15 tried to come to our table.

BTW, whenever I'm NS at a table whose successor may be hard to find, I make a habit of telling the departing pair where to go.

Argh, I will *always* talk to both N-S at the "confusing tables" - at 14 "you must tell the opponents to go -> there, not to 1" and at 1 "you must check the pairs every round, make sure they played 15". I also tell the room at the first change "there are 15 tables in K" (not that anybody is listening), and if it's confusing, "make sure you play 15 after 14 before going to 1".

And these things always happen - because N-S at 14 *don't listen* and *don't care* what happens to E-W after they're done with them. I even go over after the first attempts to get it wrong, and remind them "you are required to tell E-W to go to 15 every round, or they will get confused". They don't. And neither do pair 1, until they have to deal with the inevitable Law 15 ruling.

You do (without being prompted). Thank you.

My favourite of these is the four rows of 7, with table 1 in the same row table in each section. Inevitably, someone tries to go from B7 to A8 (and the pair number matches, so N-S frequently doesn't see an issue if they don't check the names).

[pescetom]

I would print a quick "EW next table is 15, over there behind the flowers" in the largest font wordpad offers and leave that on the table.

I have a file ready to print with the full instructions to EW for a sitout table where NS are Bye, if necessary. Otherwise boards will go missing or they will sit there and talk instead of heading to the bar.

[Coelacanth]

barmar, on 2025-December-18, 13:42, said:

At the sectional this weekend, we played a wrong board one round, and I blame the confusing layout of the section. There were 15 tables, with 1-7 in one row, 8-14 in the next row, and table 15 by itself. When we finished at 14 we didn't realize that the next table was off to the side, we just went to the beginning of the other row. The problem wasn't noticed until we were well into that board and the players who had just played at 15 tried to come to our table.

In San Francisco, on Day 1 of the Blue Ribbon Pairs every section but one was 13 tables; the odd section was a 15-table Web. Despite repeated announcements that this was a 15-table section, we had a pair move from table 13 to table 1. THey played the first board of the round before this was discovered.

This happened in Round 9.

In this movement Table 1 and Table 14 play the same boards every round, so this EW pair played the correct boards at the wrong table. During round 9 we add additional time to the clock, so we had enough time for them to play the second board at the correct table as well as allowing the pair who should have played the first board at table 1 to play it at table 14. Problem solved.

[barmar]

I felt really bad at the time, since I'm very fastidious about this stuff. I usually pay close attention to announcements, I always listen for the number of tables in each section. I knew it was a web movement and I should be on the lookout for weirdness. But still it got past me this time.

As they say, "Stuff happens" (that's the polite form). Try as we might, we're all human.

[pescetom]

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