Switched/fouled board
I had the following problem at a game yesterday.
Players at a table apparently put the board aside when playing and when they had finished they put the board back turned 90 degrees, so the cards went in North's to East, East's to South and so on. This was discovered at the next table when they scored 3NT+1 by East and the bridgemate showed 3NT = or +1 by N/S at other tables. The board was then corrected before moving to the next table so it was played incorrectly only at this one table.
As rectification I chose to treat it as an erroneous arrow switch, because in effect that is what had happened. The outcome was the same as it would have been if the cards were in the correct pockets and the board was arrow switched. So in the scoring programme I corrected it as an erroneous arrow switch.
I've heard rumblings that both pairs at the table want to be awarded A+ by treating it as a fouled board. My contention is that justice was better served by the way I corrected the score, so that a bridge result was recorded instead of an artificial adjustment. A fouled board is one which contains hands mixed up such that the players' results cannot be compared with those who have played it correctly. In this case the result was capable of being compared with others by the arrow switch correction.
I gave a pp to the offending table, but that is not the point here.
Did I do the right thing?
Comments
The board is not strictly Arrow Switched as the Dealer position has changed. The new auction could be completely different if the new dealer opens happens to open the the Auction with something other than a Pass; i.e. opens say a weak two.
Both sides should be given Ave+ as suggested by the players.
If you treat the board as arrow-switched then the dealer differs, so the board is still fouled.
The pairs that the original table took the board off the table, and returned the cards to the wrong pockets, and required an adjusted score at another table (ref. Law 90B7). I think an actual score penalty for both pairs is appropriate, even in a club.
Thank you all. I had not considered the effects of change of dealer and possible change of vulnerability, which do not happen with an arrow switch. My bad!
Hi Vlad,
Welcome to the club. I had an almost identical situation a couple of months ago, sought advice from these folk and was duly educated. Well done for following the desire for self-improvement.