Tales from the North Devon Congress #1
Swiss pairs - first board in a round.
North is dealer, East, seeing a pass in front of North opens 1D.
North is surprised because the Pass card was left out by the previous players at the table.
Law 21A (No rectification or redress is due to a player who acts on the basis of his own misunderstanding) seems a bit harsh.
How do we deal with it?
Comments
This is a curious one. It doesn't seem to me to be entirely their misunderstanding, there's a pass card where it shouldn't be
One might consider applying L21B1a.
I think that depends on whether "opponent" is defined as "table opponent" or "opponent in the competition". Unfortunately, the definitions in the introduction seem to imply that it's the former, which would mean that L21B1a wouldn't apply.
Perhaps the best way to deal with this is to use Law 12? An irregularity has occurred, and neither side is an offending side. As such, Law 12A1 empowers the Director to adjust the score and Law 12C1b states what the correct adjustment is.
Well now, it seems to me that you could interpret it such that in failing to clear away the pass card before the auction, the table opponent has failed in their responsibilities. I think there's at least some joint responsibility. It's a bit of a stretch but not without logic.
That was my meaning. I remember asking Max Bavin many years ago whether it was too much of a stretch to consider things like this to be misinformation, and he thought it was reasonable so that's good enough for me!