[pescetom]

Simple 9 rounds x 2 boards Mitchell with a Bye in EW.
You are called eight minutes through the round to a table in a side room where NS (who have already had their sitout) finally realize they are still waiting for their opponents (named on the phone app).
Who can be seen playing at a nearby table, which should be the sitout this round (both pairs at the table had the information on their phone to avoid this).
They have already finished the first board and are busy bidding the second.
South says he already entered the score for the first board, which is impossible.
You take note of the score (good for EW) and lead and then reflect on Law 15 and what to do.
How do you proceed?

[mycroft]

For simplicity's sake, I am going to say that the boards are 13-14 at the "no longer sitout" table, and 15-16 at the "should be sitout" table. E-W should be playing 13 and 14, but have skipped a table and, having played "and scored" 15, are bidding 16.

Assuming EW have not yet played 15 and 16, Law 15B2 says they must finish both and get their score ("The director shall require"). So, there it is. N-S weren't supposed to play 15 and 16 ever - my experience is that you just throw the N-S results out. Arguably, you should give them the MPs they earn for all 18, and factor their score down to 16, but that's a *lot of* work.

Assuming you are running the full 18, there will be a point where E-W hit those boards "normally". At that point, L15B3 applies to N-S, and they get A+ for 15 and 16. In the "normal" Howell/"skipped barmar's table 15" case where L15 applies, there's an opportunity for N-S to play the boards against the E-W that got "bumped", but this time the sitout got bumped, so there's nobody to play.

The rules imply that E-W should still play 13 and 14 against the "double sitout" N-S. If they can, great, but I bet we award A+/A- and add "the Martinique $3 penalty" ("E-W, buy a round for N-S").

I don't know your scoring system, but you probably can't adjust the movement to be what happened, so there will be a lot of manual scoring and adjustments applied, as well as the four A+'s N-S.

If it turns out that E-W have already played these boards and were too clueless to notice, then it's simple - throw the results out, try to get 13 and 14 in after, same penalty :-).

As always, I am more likely to award PPs to players who screw up the movement than to anything but outright rudeness; and here, especially with "we put in the score for 15" that they absolutely couldn't (did they put it in 17, which, given your system shows the hands and scores, means you have to throw out 17 as well?) I think it's just fine to hit the "sitout" N-S, especially because, having caused the problem, they're also the only N-S who don't *get* a sitout!

[pescetom]

Thanks for the reply.

mycroft, on 2026-May-07, 09:57, said:

Assuming EW have not yet played 15 and 16, Law 15B2 says they must finish both and get their score ("The director shall require"). So, there it is.

And so far it was clear.

mycroft, on 2026-May-07, 09:57, said:

N-S weren't supposed to play 15 and 16 ever - my experience is that you just throw the N-S results out.

I did in the end, but with a burning feeling that Blackshoe and at least one WBFLC member would object... hence the post.

mycroft, on 2026-May-07, 09:57, said:

Arguably, you should give them the MPs they earn for all 18, and factor their score down to 16, but that's a *lot of* work.

If the scoring program could handle it I failed to figure out how, aiding the decision above.

mycroft, on 2026-May-07, 09:57, said:

The rules imply that E-W should still play 13 and 14 against the "double sitout" N-S. If they can, great, but I bet we award A+/A- and add "the Martinique $3 penalty" ("E-W, buy a round for N-S").

We did indeed

mycroft, on 2026-May-07, 09:57, said:

As always, I am more likely to award PPs to players who screw up the movement than to anything but outright rudeness; and here, especially with "we put in the score for 15" that they absolutely couldn't (did they put it in 17, which, given your system shows the hands and scores, means you have to throw out 17 as well?) I think it's just fine to hit the "sitout" N-S, especially because, having caused the problem, they're also the only N-S who don't *get* a sitout!

Hmm. I wasn't happy with "yes, we put the score in", but while they are the strongest pair in the tournament they are also probably the weakest with a phone; it is also a known (and reported) hazard of the app that when you are in a sitout it already allows input of boards in next round (because they chose not to have an "end of round" decision). I decided all three pairs were equally guilty of carelessness and gave them all a small penalty. I confess it never even occurred to me that the sitout pair might have just decided that playing against their friends was more fun than looking at each other, I do hope not.

[mycroft]

You'd have to do it manually. Score their 16 as normal, and hand-matchpoint the other two. Add the matchpoints, multiply by 16/18 (or 8/9 if you're a purist) and put in a "penalty" manual adjustment (plus or minus) that means they end up with the factored matchpoint total.

As I said, lots of work.

My concern with "we put the score in" was more "will you allow them to play 17 after (potentially) seeing the hands and traveller?" than "penalize them for not noticing it was the wrong board" (but there's some of that, too).

[blackshoe]

Actually, Pescetom, I agree that if they play a board they weren't scheduled to play, there's no place in the movement to put a score in for that board, so you toss the score.