[blml] Law 12 A 1.

[David Burn]

[Kojak]

It [L12A1] is pure and simply there to let the bridge world know that there
may be infractions that have not yet been thought of and taken 
care of by the rest of the laws.

[DALB]

Having earlier said that there cannot be infractions that have not yet been
thought of, I am abashed to report a case that has come to my attention from
Bridge Base Online - one of several such cases from online bridge.

With a few tricks remaining in the play of a hand, North left the table
never to return, probably due to some problem with his internet connection
or some domestic crisis. The outcome of the hand was in no doubt: East-West
were going to make eleven tricks in four spades for an average result, so
there was no question of North having left in order to avoid obtaining a
poor score. But I am informed that there are players who do leave the table
when their result is about to be unfavourable, feigning connection problems
or inventing some other reason for their departure.

The question was: what should the Director do about the result on the board?
Strictly speaking, there was no result on the board and there never will be;
play of the board was not completed. The obvious thing to do would be to
assign a score of 650 to East-West (who petitioned the Director for a score
of 680, which is why the case arose in the first place, though such a score
could not be obtained by rational play). But the Laws do not appear to
permit such a course:

C. Awarding an Adjusted Score

1. Artificial Score

When, owing to an irregularity, no result can be obtained, the Director
awards an artificial adjusted score according to responsibility for the
irregularity: average minus (at most 40% of the available matchpoints in
pairs) to a contestant directly at fault; average (50% in pairs) to a
contestant only partially at fault; average plus (at least 60% in pairs) to
a contestant in no way at fault (see Law 86 for team play or Law 88 for
pairs play). The scores awarded to the two sides need not balance.

2. Assigned Score

When the Director awards an assigned adjusted score in place of a result
actually obtained after an irregularity, the score is, for a non-offending
side, the most favourable result that was likely had the irregularity not
occurred or, for an offending side, the most unfavourable result that was at
all probable. The scores awarded to the two sides need not balance and may
be assigned either in matchpoints or by altering the total-point score prior
to matchpointing.

In this case, awarding average plus to East-West would not have caused any
problem, but if the final contract had been doubled, it might have done. My
suggestion was to use L12A1:

The Director may award an assigned adjusted score when he judges that these
Laws do not provide indemnity to the non-offending contestant for the
particular type of violation of law committed by an opponent.

since it seemed to me that the irregularity of leaving the table and not
coming back was a violation of law against which the Laws themselves do not
provide indemnity (there is no actual prescribed penalty, or rectification,
for paying insufficient attention to the game - or in this case, ceasing to
pay any attention at all to the game).

The question from the legal point of view is of course: may the Director
award an assigned adjusted score if no result can be obtained following an
irregularity? Law 12C appears to indicate that he may not, but that flies in
the face of common sense in the circumstances I have described.

David Burn
London, England