[swanway]

English Bridge Union

Recently at our club we were playing a Howell movement. At one table the pairs sat in the wrong direction. After they had played the board they realised their mistake and they then sat in the correct direction for the remaining boards. How do we score the first board? We use Scorebridge to score the session. We have mixed opinions as to how the board is scored and these are recorded below.

1. Change the numbers round on the computer program and score normally. Give both pairs a warning.

2. Change the numbers round on the computer program and score normally. Give both pairs a procedural penalty.

3. The club rules that in future the board is cancelled and both pairs get an Average minus.


I would favour the first ruling. Not sure that no 3 is legal or not.

[jnichols]

I would favor the first option as well.

Warn the pairs in question at the time, and remind all the players occasionally when starting a Howell that they should be carefull.

If a pair has a habit of getting this wrong.and warnings don't seem to help then maybe a PP, but this just isn't that serious a crime.

[aguahombre]

They know they screwed up. You know the easy fix of toggling the pair numbers for N/S and E/W.

It is the club; no need to get active with additional penalties or to negate the result.

[mgoetze]

swanway, on 2012-April-30, 09:55, said:

Not sure that no 3 is legal or not.

I'm quite sure it isn't.

[barmar]

I took the ACBL Tournament Assistant exam a few weeks ago (still haven't gotten the results back, but I'd be very surprised if I didn't ace it). One of the questions on the test was about this situation. I was very surprised that the Laws don't seem to address it at all, and I couldn't find it specifically mentioned on any ACBL regulation pages, either. I answered from experience; ACBLScore has functions in its Edit Movement screen for swapping directions for a single board or round, just to handle this type of situation.

[gordontd]

swanway, on 2012-April-30, 09:55, said:

English Bridge Union

Recently at our club we were playing a Howell movement. At one table the pairs sat in the wrong direction. After they had played the board they realised their mistake and they then sat in the correct direction for the remaining boards. How do we score the first board? We use Scorebridge to score the session. We have mixed opinions as to how the board is scored and these are recorded below.

1. Change the numbers round on the computer program and score normally. Give both pairs a warning.

2. Change the numbers round on the computer program and score normally. Give both pairs a procedural penalty.

3. The club rules that in future the board is cancelled and both pairs get an Average minus.


I would favour the first ruling. Not sure that no 3 is legal or not.

I would favour the first sentence of the first ruling. Unless it's a two-winner movement, or it is suspected that they've done it deliberately, I don't understand why anyone needs to get worked up about it.

I don't think ruling 3 is legal. Artificial scores are for when a result can't be obtained on a board, which is clearly not the case here.

[blackshoe]

Ruling 3 is not legal. PPs are for when people do something really bad, or make a habit of repeating the same error over and over. I don't think giving a warning is "getting worked up" about anything, so I'd go with ruling 1.

[mycroft]

This is frequent with so-called "three-quarter Howells" (i.e. incomplete movements), and in particular, with the 6-table, 9x3-round movement (although I have seen it with the 5-table 8x3 and 4-table 6x4 as well - I just don't do 24-board movements very often). One pair is the high pair, stationary N-S at table whatever; one or more pairs are "semi-stationary"; stay at the same table, but swap between N-S and E-W at somewhat arbitrary times. Those are the pairs that I always warn to check every round, and those are the pairs that get it wrong (and I've been "one of those pairs getting it wrong" at least once!)

I give them a little bit of an embarrassment warning ("I did tell you to check, right?") and I'd probably have an issue if they did it again (but that never happens). One board is better than the whole round, for balance purposes, but I bet none of the players even know what you mean by "balance issues". I would make sure that mobile players who *frequently* make this mistake somehow don't manage to get one of those spots in future, of course.

As most people are saying, 5 (3, sir!) 3 is right out.

[barmar]

In our club, if someone messes up like this, the TD just announces to the room "Please, remember to check the guide cards for arrow switches".

[jnichols]

barmar, on 2012-May-01, 10:05, said:

In our club, if someone messes up like this, the TD just announces to the room "Please, remember to check the guide cards for arrow switches".

Yhat's the "warning" I would use