[dickiegera]

In a local club game we were playing a Howell.
Bridgemates were not in use due to computer problems

Round 2 we [pr#1 E/W] played the wrong 4 BD [13-16] against pr #3 Should have played [17-20]
Round 3 we were to play BD 13-16 against pr #6 [again we were E/W] ended up not playing pr #6

Due to computer problems we were using pick up slips to score the bds

We were given AV for BDs 17-20 [not played] as was pr # 3
We were given AV- for bds 13-16 and pr#6 were given AV+ These were the bds we should have played against pr # 5



Is this correct. We ended up the only ones punished.


Thank you

[sfi]

I am assuming Pair 3 did not play 13-16 in round 1. If they did, then none of this applies.

• The scores for boards you played in round 2 should stand for both pairs (Law 15B).
  
• Pair 6 (and whoever Pair 3 should have played boards 13-16 against) should get AV+ for boards 13-16 (Law 12C2).
  
• Since both pairs were directly at fault for playing the incorrect boards (Law 7D), both you and Pair 3 should get AV- for boards 17-20 (Law 12C2).

The worst punishment is the half hour sitout you get in round 3.

[blackshoe]

I would ask the director to explain his ruling. It appears that he decided that your pair and pair 3 were each partly at fault for the problem in round 2. You should have kept the table score for boards 13-16, since you played them (although not against the opponents you were scheduled to play them against). Avg+ for pair 6 for boards 13-16 is correct, since they were deprived of the opportunity to play those boards through no fault of their own.

I don't agree with sfi's reference to law 7D, since it appears that neither pair remained at table 2 throughout the session.

Were Howell table cards used? That is, was there a card on the table (or an alternative listing) that showed which boards were scheduled to be played at that table in each round? Was there a regulation in force or a director instruction to the effect that both pairs coming to a table with no stationary pair are responsible for checking this listing?

Time permitting, the director might have give your pair and pair 3 the opportunity for a late play of boards 17-20.

Not sure what pair 5 has to do with this. I'd guess that was a typo for 6.

[dickiegera]

Howell table cards were in use and the director said several times for ALL to check that correction BDS and direction were in place

Thank you

[sfi]

blackshoe, on 2023-October-07, 00:17, said:

I don't agree with sfi's reference to law 7D, since it appears that neither pair remained at table 2 throughout the session.

The way I read this suggests that since neither pair was stationary, both pairs are equally responsible for ensuring the correct boards are being played. Given that the director said multiple times to check the information on the table card, you could also apply Law 90B.8 and give a procedural penalty. But that's separate from determining what score to give on the boards in question.

[axman]

sfi, on 2023-October-07, 19:06, said:

The way I read this suggests that since neither pair was stationary, both pairs are equally responsible for ensuring the correct boards are being played. Given that the director said multiple times to check the information on the table card, you could also apply Law 90B.8 and give a procedural penalty. But that's separate from determining what score to give on the boards in question.

I don't read 7D that way. There is no causation from when neither pair is stationary- as it only speaks to when it is so for one pair. Don't have time to verify but my recollection as to a previous time when there was no stationary pair nor temporary stationary pair, the 'responsibility' rested with N.

[pescetom]

axman, on 2023-October-08, 05:45, said:

I don't read 7D that way. There is no causation from when neither pair is stationary- as it only speaks to when it is so for one pair. Don't have time to verify but my recollection as to a previous time when there was no stationary pair nor temporary stationary pair, the 'responsibility' rested with N.

As commented on the Marrakech thread, this could and should be fixed in Law 7: "the stationary pair; or if both or neither are stationary then NS, unless the RA says differently".

[sfi]

axman, on 2023-October-08, 05:45, said:

I don't read 7D that way. There is no causation from when neither pair is stationary- as it only speaks to when it is so for one pair. Don't have time to verify but my recollection as to a previous time when there was no stationary pair nor temporary stationary pair, the 'responsibility' rested with N.

I believe the only law which gives North similar responsibility is 8A.2 (interestingly, this law is the last time 'North' is mentioned at all):

Quote

Unless the Director instructs otherwise, the North player at each table is responsible for moving the boards just completed at his table to the proper table for the following round.

[blackshoe]

In this case there were clear instructions from the TD that both pairs were responsible for the correct placement of the correct boards. So I agree with the ruling that both pairs were partly at fault that they did not play boards 17-20 when scheduled, and the artificial adjusted score of Average on those boards for pairs 2 and 3.

I also agree that law 7 does not address situations where there is no pair sitting at a table throughout the session. So it's up to the TD to deal with it -- Law 81B1.

[mycroft]

Law 15B applies, as sfi states.

Provided your round 2 opponents didn't play those boards round 1 (which would be surprising, but if it was a turnaround table, and don't keep score, they might not have noticed), the scores should stand for both. And they might have - ACBLscor/BWS/live4clubs don't handle this well.

for ACBLscor, you have to "S"pecial score all of these, which the club may not know how to do.
Also, if the other pair would have been E-W when they were supposed to play the hands, that requires putting in an artificial score, and at the end, manually matchpointing their results and ADJ'ing in a score differential.
Or (much easier without bridgemates, actually) the director could have EDMOV'ed the actual movement in, and scored it properly. It would have screamed blue murder if they tried, of course, but it would have let them eventually do it.

You are 100% entitled to a penalty for this (as is the other pair), and 10% of a board for each board played sounds about right. It matches nicely with the 4 A+ we have to give the pairs you (and they) were supposed to play 13-16 against. In fact, in tournaments when this happens (and usually it is caught after one board, so we can), we try very hard to get the two pairs who won't get to play the board to play it (in a break, after the session, ...) against each other.

I know you weren't using bridgemates, but BWS doesn't play well with changing the movement during the game. So it is likely that the solution would be to enter A+/A- for all the boards and hand-fix it in ACBLscor after the game. Live4clubs takes its information about contracts and opening leads from BWS...so it might look like what was stated, but the score is right.

Or not.

[mycroft]

Other issues:

I have learned as a Howell director that people just don't like moving boards. In a Mitchell at least, you can lean on them to actually do it, because they're still sitting there - but the number of people who want me (or their opponents) to move the boards every round, or have to be reminded out of their postmortems or reveries by the next pairs, or... But in a Howell, those same pairs just get up and leave.

I try to remind them every game (except the 3, 4 table *) that "the boards go down a table, please do so when you leave" and "check your bridgemates/guide cards/table mats to ensure you have the right boards every round."

But.

I know for a fact that the boards will be everywhere but at the next table - stay on the table, on the sitout chair/assembly table **, handed to me, up at the director's stand, whatever - anyway, so I check, every round. Even if - especially if - I'm the playing director. Because whether or not it's the players fault for playing the wrong boards, it's the director's *problem*, now or later; and as discussed previously, it is a big problem.

So when this happens, I issue the penalty to the players, but I take the embarrassment penalty for myself. Privately, of course.

* The 3 table Howell is strange, and I tell people explicitly "Move for the next round - *I will move* the boards". That doesn't stop them from putting them on the director's stand or in the box anyway - but they don't move them down a table, at least. The 4 table 7-round, with the bye-stands in the movement, I tend to move the boards for as well; trying to explain to moving pairs to put the boards on the bye-stands from 2 and 3, but to 3 from 4, is beyond the intelligence of mere bridge players.
** Why, why, I just can't understand why the players - many of whom are able to "boards down 1 table" everywhere else - are so happy to see me get the boards from the assembly table, and just assume that's where they go back? It keeps happening; at least once a session, the boards at table N-1 aren't there, and I can't find them *anywhere* - except "oh, very nicely in the middle of the 3 sets of boards on the assembly table, obviously out of order, and frequently sideways on top of another set, there they are!" The last couple of times I did this, I tried the Web trick, of telling table 1 to just collect their boards, and then every few rounds replenish the stack on table N. That seems to go much better, strangely enough. I guess the lure of some boards on a table out of play is so strong, but a stack of boards at your table is obviously not where to put them back...

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2023-October-08, 12:25, said:

Other issues:

I have learned as a Howell director that people just don't like moving boards. In a Mitchell at least, you can lean on them to actually do it, because they're still sitting there - but the number of people who want me (or their opponents) to move the boards every round, or have to be reminded out of their postmortems or reveries by the next pairs, or... But in a Howell, those same pairs just get up and leave.

I try to remind them every game (except the 3, 4 table *) that "the boards go down a table, please do so when you leave" and "check your bridgemates/guide cards/table mats to ensure you have the right boards every round."

And I thought Italians were inherently anarchic

In a Mitchell they will move boards impeccably, even though it's EW that are oddly responsible for doing so. They panic a bit if the Director arrives with an insufficient number of boards and promises to bring the remainder later, but they are slowly getting used to that too.

Yes Howell is more of a problem, some pairs will just leave the boards on the (now empty) table and some (the same) will struggle to figure out where their next boards could be and why. But I don't recall it causing real problems. I was always diligent about placing guide cards and showing the imminent positions and boards on the TV screen and now the app tells them exactly where to sit in which position against whom and with which boards.

As a player I guess I am part of the problem, as I tend to be lost in thought after play. I avoid being South whenever I can and tend to let partner move the boards if that is our responsibility.

[blackshoe]

"It matches nicely with the 4 A+ we have to give the pairs you (and they) were supposed to play 13-16 against."

That is irrelevant. Procedural penalties have nothing at all to do with score adjustments.

"in a Howell, those same pairs just get up and leave."

So you remind them -- once -- that they're supposed to move the boards. And after that if they don't do it, you penalize them.

[blackshoe]

What does being South have to do with anything?

[pescetom]

blackshoe, on 2023-October-09, 01:18, said:

What does being South have to do with anything?

In Italian clubs it is considered normal that South is responsible for recording of results, although that's not exactly what the Figb regulations say. With electronic scoring it can be either of NS, same in a team tournament with paper scoring or in a pairs tournament with paper scoring and no stationary pair. In a pairs tournament with paper scoring and a stationary pair it can be either of the stationary pair (although it must be specifically North or East in an analogous individual tournament).

[blackshoe]

I see.

[barmar]

I think the reason why they don't move boards in Howells is that they're already confused enough about where to move to. They're busy checking the guide card to see where they go, and moving the boards slips their minds.

Our games are small enough that we've been playing Howells amost exclusively for years (long before the pandemic, which just made things worse), yet still about half the players don't think about moving boards. Our TD deals with this.

[pescetom]

barmar, on 2023-October-11, 13:03, said:

I think the reason why they don't move boards in Howells is that they're already confused enough about where to move to. They're busy checking the guide card to see where they go, and moving the boards slips their minds.

Our games are small enough that we've been playing Howells amost exclusively for years (long before the pandemic, which just made things worse), yet still about half the players don't think about moving boards. Our TD deals with this.

In my experience there is only a small (but unrepentant) minority that don't think about the boards. They are exactly the same ones that get indignant when they don't receive the boards, can't figure out where to look for the boards, complain when they have a sitout, complain when opponents are slow, get indignant when I point out they are slow, complain when opponents make mistakes, get indignant when opponents complain about their mistakes, etc. etc.

[mycroft]

In my world, the boards are in a SEP field to moving pairs. If it magically does become their problem (because someone points it out), the goal is to find the nearest obvious place to put boards (an assembly table is great - obviously that's where boards go when they're done).

"boards down a table unless I tell you otherwise" seems like a normal comment, and in a Mitchell, or a Web, or a bye-(no)relay, it's fine (though the lengths some able-bodied N/S players go to to not get up and carry the boards 3 feet are *spectacular* to behold), but as soon as all four players get up, it's SEP.

As is, frankly, "check the guide cards/bridgemates every round to ensure the right people and boards are there before you start playing".

[blackshoe]

SEP? What does September have to do with it?