[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2015-January-02, 12:58, said:

Have I ever indicated any such nonsense?

Any respectable scoring program will automatically score the boards within each group of identical boards according to Law 87B once the specific group to which each individual result belongs is marked by the Director.

And that is all the Director shall need to do. He should not be bothered by calculating each score no more than he has to calculate all scores for boards where there is no irregularity.

You seemed to be indicating it. My response was a "I can't believe you're saying what you appear to be saying" because I'm pretty sure you know better.

Quote

In scoring a fouled board, the Director determines as closely as possible which scores were obtained on the board in its correct form and which in the changed form(s). He divides the scores on that basis into groups and rates each group separately as provided in the regulations for the tournament. (In the absence of a relevant regulation the Director selects and announces his method.)

So either there is a regulation, or there isn't. If there is, and if the scoring program is provided by the Regulating Authority, then I suppose the provisions of the regulation could be built into the program. If there is no regulation, the program(mer) cannot know in advance what method the director will choose. One might argue in this case that a program-provided default is only a suggestion, and the director can do something else if he wishes, but that IMO only encourages the director to be lazy. And the same applies in the case where there is a regulation, but one of the fields has only one table in it. If the regulation specifies that the pairs at the single table shall get Average Plus, then so be it. But no reasonable regulator would say that, because it does not account for the possibility that the pair in question is in some way partly or directly at fault for the problem.

In any case, this seems more a question of the philosophy of program design than a question on the rules of bridge.

[pran]

 Vampyr, on 2015-January-02, 14:02, said:

Of course. No one has suggested otherwise.

Exactly.

And a good scoring program will handle fouled boards correctly without any TD action other than to flag the boards that must be scored in separate groups.

Whether a Group contains just one or several boards should be immaterial and ruling whether a player is more or less at fault of some irregularity is not part of this scoring.

Note the important point that ruling on fouled boards has nothing to do with awarding adjusted scores (artificial or assigned). The fact that the scoring is equivalent to AVE+/AVE+ when there is just one fouled board is an intended coincidence founded in Law 12C2a and not an exception from Law 87B!

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2015-January-02, 14:49, said:

You seemed to be indicating it. My response was a "I can't believe you're saying what you appear to be saying" because I'm pretty sure you know better.

???

 blackshoe, on 2015-January-02, 14:49, said:

So either there is a regulation, or there isn't. If there is, and if the scoring program is provided by the Regulating Authority, then I suppose the provisions of the regulation could be built into the program. If there is no regulation, the program(mer) cannot know in advance what method the director will choose. One might argue in this case that a program-provided default is only a suggestion, and the director can do something else if he wishes, but that IMO only encourages the director to be lazy. And the same applies in the case where there is a regulation, but one of the fields has only one table in it. If the regulation specifies that the pairs at the single table shall get Average Plus, then so be it. But no reasonable regulator would say that, because it does not account for the possibility that the pair in question is in some way partly or directly at fault for the problem.

In any case, this seems more a question of the philosophy of program design than a question on the rules of bridge.

A good scoring program will implement the rules of bridge in effect under the jurisdiction where it is used. In your area this means the relevant ACBL regulations. (I assume there is at least some similarity between regulations across different jurisdictions?)

From my own experience: I received my training as TD 35 years ago when everything was done by hand. At that time the rule for scoring fouled boards was simply to give each result 2 MP for each other result that was outranked within the same scoring group, 1 MP for each result that was equalled within the same group and 1 MP for each result in any other group. (You will recognize that this is exactly the same rule as used today when there is no fouled board and therefore no "other group".)

The first change to this rule in Norway was introduced pretty early in order to ensure that the top score within any single group should be at least 60%. If necessary to obtain this the required number of MP was added to each score within such a group.

With the introduction of computer-assisted scoring these rules were again changed and our current regulation specifies the scores to be set within each separate group of:
One table: 60%/60%
Two tables: 65%/55% and 55%/65%
Three tables: 70%/50% - 60%/60% - 50%/70%
Four or more tables: Scoring shall be performed with Neuberg's formula.

There is no need for our Directors to remember this rule, it is all implemented in our authorized scoring program. In fact I believe very few do remember it, I don't and had to look it up myself when writing this!


Please don't tell me that we are alone in the world with such advanced scoring tool for the Director?

[Vampyr]

 pran, on 2015-January-02, 17:24, said:

One table: 60%/60%
Two tables: 65%/55% and 55%/65%
Three tables: 70%/50% - 60%/60% - 50%/70%
Four or more tables: Scoring shall be performed with Neuberg's formula.

According to the White Book, Neuberg scoring is used when a fouled board is played by two or more tables.

[pran]

 pran, on 2015-January-02, 17:24, said:

One table: 60%/60%
Two tables: 65%/55% and 55%/65%
Three tables: 70%/50% - 60%/60% - 50%/70%
Four or more tables: Scoring shall be performed with Neuberg's formula.

 Vampyr, on 2015-January-02, 18:11, said:

According to the White Book, Neuberg scoring is used when a fouled board is played by two or more tables.

OK. Fair enough.

I think I know the reason why we have special handling for two or three tables in the group, it has to do with proper statistics in small samples.
However this is not worth discussing,you have your rules and we have ours.

The point is that the scoring program should handle situations correct without unnecessary "assistance" from the Director. And if the Director must manually change a single fouled board scoring from 50%/50% to 60%/60% that is an example of such unnecessary assistance. (And as we have seen also has led to misunderstanding on how to score fouled Boards.)

[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2015-January-03, 02:59, said:

The point is that the scoring program should handle situations correct without unnecessary "assistance" from the Director. And if the Director must manually change a single fouled board scoring from 50%/50% to 60%/60% that is an example of such unnecessary assistance. (And as we have seen also has led to misunderstanding on how to score fouled Boards.)

The same argument applies when the "default" is 60/60 and the appropriate score is something else.

[pran]

 pran, on 2015-January-03, 02:59, said:

The point is that the scoring program should handle situations correct without unnecessary "assistance" from the Director. And if the Director must manually change a single fouled board scoring from 50%/50% to 60%/60% that is an example of such unnecessary assistance. (And as we have seen also has led to misunderstanding on how to score fouled Boards.)

 blackshoe, on 2015-January-03, 13:26, said:

The same argument applies when the "default" is 60/60 and the appropriate score is something else.

I just don't understand what "normal" circumstances around a single fouled board should result in any other score than 60%/60%.

[Vampyr]

It has already been mentioned i this thread that the board could have been played by the pairs at the first table and then fouled by them. Do you read other people's posts, or do you restrict your activity to posting the same things over and over?

You never seem to remember from one day to the next that bridge things are done in an unusual way in Norway. Though it seems that perhaps you choose not to remember. It is clear that you knew perfectly well that other NBOs do not have a schedule for assigning artificial scores to multiple fouled boards, and that therefore your repetitive comments in this thread were not relevant.

[pran]

 Vampyr, on 2015-January-03, 15:34, said:

It has already been mentioned i this thread that the board could have been played by the pairs at the first table and then fouled by them. Do you read other people's posts, or do you restrict your activity to posting the same things over and over?

You never seem to remember from one day to the next that bridge things are done in an unusual way in Norway. Though it seems that perhaps you choose not to remember. It is clear that you knew perfectly well that other NBOs do not have a schedule for assigning artificial scores to multiple fouled boards, and that therefore your repetitive comments in this thread were not relevant.

So this is what you consider the most usual reason for a fouled Board at one table only?

And do you consider it correct to rule that players are at fault just because they could have been at fault?

To my knowledge the most persistent "unusual" way we are doing bridge things in Norway (as compared to the rest of the world) is that we have abandoned Mitchell movements years ago and expect events for pairs to be barometer style unless otherwise announced. (I believe you will find the same in the whole of Scandinavia.)

I do hope it is not special for Norway that we consider a player not at fault without evidence (better than a possibility) of being at fault.

[Vampyr]

 pran, on 2015-January-03, 15:46, said:

I do hope it is not special for Norway that we consider a player not at fault without evidence (better than a possibility) of being at fault.

Here the director investigates the facts.

[pran]

 Vampyr, on 2015-January-03, 16:04, said:

Here the director investigates the facts.

Who says we don't?

(But the fact that there was a fouled board doesn't itself imply that any of the players playing the fouled board was at fault.)

[Xiaolongnu]

Ok OP here and I am honestly getting a little lost. So am I to believe that whenever there is one board played the "wrong way" that board is scrapped A6060 and repaired, and with more than one board something else could be done depending on whether you trust the small value chi-squared statistics (pran knows what I am talking about, or is it the t statistics), and whether your country does, and as a last resort you might have to take the responsibility yourself.

So am I to believe that for this particular case of one board I made the correct ruling and deserve a cookie for it? (:

[Vampyr]

 Xiaolongnu, on 2015-January-05, 00:21, said:

Ok OP here and I am honestly getting a little lost. So am I to believe that whenever there is one board played the "wrong way" that board is scrapped A6060 and repaired, and with more than one board something else could be done depending on whether you trust the small value chi-squared statistics (pran knows what I am talking about, or is it the t statistics), and whether your country does, and as a last resort you might have to take the responsibility yourself.

So am I to believe that for this particular case of one board I made the correct ruling and deserve a cookie for it? (:

You mean one table.

If the board is fouled at more than one table, Law87 is reticent about how exactly to score the separate fields, but the NBO or SO probably has a regulation.

[pran]

 Xiaolongnu, on 2015-January-05, 00:21, said:

Ok OP here and I am honestly getting a little lost. So am I to believe that whenever there is one board played the "wrong way" that board is scrapped A6060 and repaired, and with more than one board something else could be done depending on whether you trust the small value chi-squared statistics (pran knows what I am talking about, or is it the t statistics), and whether your country does, and as a last resort you might have to take the responsibility yourself.

So am I to believe that for this particular case of one board I made the correct ruling and deserve a cookie for it? (:

Indeed you did!

And the single item in your OP that worried me (and which I have tried to focus on all the time) was the fact that you were (seriously and unnecessarily) misled by your scoring program.

[barmar]

 pran, on 2015-January-04, 02:56, said:

(But the fact that there was a fouled board doesn't itself imply that any of the players playing the fouled board was at fault.)

But it doesn't imply that they weren't, either.

If the program assigns any score for that table, an assumption has been made about fault. The programmer has to choose what is more "normal", and the TD will have to change the score if this doesn't fit the actual circumstances.

[pran]

 barmar, on 2015-January-06, 11:01, said:

 pran, on 2015-January-04, 02:56, said:

(But the fact that there was a fouled board doesn't itself imply that any of the players playing the fouled board was at fault.)

But it doesn't imply that they weren't, either.

What has happened to "assumed not guilty until proven guilty"?

 barmar, on 2015-January-06, 11:01, said:

If the program assigns any score for that table, an assumption has been made about fault. The programmer has to choose what is more "normal", and the TD will have to change the score if this doesn't fit the actual circumstances.

So you expect programmers to make their programs with the built-in expectation that whenever there is a possibility for a player at fault then the program has the corresponding "penalty" as default and the Director must actively cancel that "penalty"?

Let me assure you (from my experience in 35 years of directing) that whenever a fouled board is detected the cause is very seldom players taking their cards from the incorrect pockets.

The most common causes are (all of them outside the control of the affected players):
1: Duplicating errors,
2: players that have a sit-out inspecting the boards they shall not play and then fouling up the board,
3: players restoring their cards to wrong pockets (particularly when they are late)

So what about your "preferred default" of 50% / 50% to the pairs at the only table with a fouled Board?

[Vampyr]

 pran, on 2015-January-06, 16:17, said:

So what about your "preferred default" of 50% / 50% to the pairs at the only table with a fouled Board?

This is all academic, because I suspect that scoring programs used in the ACBL, as well as in the EBU, require directors to enter artificial scores. So there is no default and nobody outside of Norway has to worry about it.

[chrism]

ACBLScore implements the ACBL fouled board regulation - a group comprising a single table will be awarded A+/A+ by default, though of course that can be overridden manually if appropriate.

[blackshoe]

 chrism, on 2015-January-06, 18:53, said:

ACBLScore implements the ACBL fouled board regulation - a group comprising a single table will be awarded A+/A+ by default, though of course that can be overridden manually if appropriate.

Where is this regulation published?

[gordontd]

 pran, on 2015-January-06, 16:17, said:

What has happened to "assumed not guilty until proven guilty"?

Quote

LAW 85: RULINGS ON DISPUTED FACTS
When the Director is called upon to rule on a point of law or regulation in
which the facts are not agreed upon, he proceeds as follows:
A. Director’s Assessment
1. In determining the facts the Director shall base his view on the balance
of probabilities, which is to say in accordance with the weight of the
evidence he is able to collect.