December 2019 - 32

Ruling the Game
rulings@acbl.org
MODERATOR: MATT SMITH
NATIONAL TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR

Q

This summer, I played in
a unit championship game
where two boards (4 and 5)
were reversed and, as a result, our
scores were adversely affected.
The director used two sets of
boards for the game. In the first set
(the boards my partner and I used),
Board 4 and Board 5 were switched
relative to the second set. As an
aside, both of these deals featured
simple bidding that was likely replicated at many tables. Board 4 was
a simple transfer from 1NT by West
to 2♠ and passed, while Board 5 was
1NT, passed out.
The director applied the fouled
board process, and instead of an
average score we got a zero on Board
4, and a better, but still poor, matchpoint award on Board 5. Had we
received average scores for these
switched boards, we would have
been the winner East-West.

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32 Bridge Bulletin December 2019

I felt that this was incorrect
because half of the field played
the correct boards and the other
half played the incorrect ones. So I
requested that the director award
average scores or "no plays" or just
delete the scores for the two boards.
He refused to do so.
What's the right way to handle
this? I felt that the fouled board process was like comparing apples and
oranges because all of the pairs did
not play the same hands.

A

Thanks for your question.
The problem you describe is
becoming more common as
clubs and tournaments increasingly
use dealing machines and movements
that require more than one set of
boards.
Law 87A defines a board as fouled
when the director determines that a
card (or more than one) was displaced
in the board, or if he determines that
the dealer or vulnerability differed
between copies of the same board, and
the contestants who should have had
a score comparison did not play the
board in identical form for such reason.
This is clearly what happened in the
case you described with the interchange of the cards for Boards 4 and
5. Bear in mind that it's not only the
change of cards, but also the change
in dealer and vulnerability for each
hand: On Board 4, West is dealer with
both sides vulnerable, while on Board
5, North is dealer with North-South
vulnerable.
You may be correct stating these factors did not affect the auction or play,

but as a matter of law, those two boards
are fouled. When that happens, Law
87B requires that the director divide
the scores (based on who played which
version of the board) into groups and
score each group separately as provided by ACBL regulations.
ACBLScore separates the boards
into groups, matchpoints each group
separately, then factors the scores
so the fouled board(s) have the same
matchpoint value across the two
groups. (The director uses the "FOUL"
command in ACBLScore to achieve
this.) Assigning a "no play" or an average result is not permitted.
The fouled board procedure is
designed to make sure the final result
is an apples-to-apples comparison.
Whatever score you received is based
on how you scored against the other
pairs playing the identical boards
(including dealer and vulnerability).
From the information provided,
the director followed the Laws and
regulations correctly.
◾

Correction

The Ruling the Game column in
November (pg. 36) correctly stated that
there is no Alert required following any
2♦ response to a strong, artificial, forcing
2♣ opening. The subsequent explanation
should have said that by Alerting 2♦,
the 2♣ opener could give responder
Unauthorized Information. (Instead, it
suggested that it was the 2♦ responder
who was Alerting 2♦, which is, of course,
incorrect.) Thanks to our readers for
clearing this up.
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December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2019
