[blml] Multiple Teams : Fouled Board [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[richard.hills at immi.gov.au]

Steve Wright:

>Playing in a multiple teams event, North and East between
>them managed to foul a board to as to make it unplayable
>at that table.
>
>The TD ruled that board would be void for that match.

Law 6D3:

Subject to Law 22A, there must be a new shuffle and a
redeal when required by the Director for any reason
compatible with the Laws (but see Law 86C).

Law 86C:

The Director shall not exercise his Law 6 authority to
order one board redealt when the final result of a match
without that board could be known to a contestant. Instead,
he awards an adjusted score.

Richard Hills:

If the fouled board was not discovered until the teams
compared scores, then the TD's ruling of an average to
both sides (zero imps = "void") was a correct ruling, given
that both sides were offending sides.

If, however, the discovery of the fouled board was during
the match, then a better ruling would be a redeal for those
two teams involved only.

In the Aussie Summer Festival of Bridge, although the
boards are theoretically identical for all the 200-odd
tables in play, teams are clustered in groups of six, and
each theoretically identical set of boards circulate in
those six tables.  Therefore, if a board is played in a
so-called "fouled" state one table of a match, e.g. by the
North and East hands being interchanged, it is possible that
the identically North and East interchanged "fouled" board
is played at the other table of a match, thus permitting a
valid comparison of scores.

Law 87A:

"A board is considered to be 'fouled' if the Director
determines that one or more cards were misplaced in the
board, in such manner that contestants who should have had
a direct score comparison did not play the board in
identical form."

Richard Hills:

If the two teams involved ("a direct score comparison")
play the same board, it does not matter that the rest of
the field are playing the board with different North and
East cards.

Steve Wright:

>However, as it was multiple teams, he felt that there was a
>case for giving an assigned score based for the fouled
>table based on the average of the other seven tables.

Chapter 1 Definitions:

"An assigned adjusted score is awarded to one side, or to
both sides, to be the result of the deal in place of the
result actually obtained after an irregularity."

Richard Hills:

Since no result was actually obtained, an assigned score is
not legal.


Best wishes

Richard James Hills, amicus curiae
National Training Branch
02 6225 6285