7NTxx-13
Sadly one of the BBO subs for a session this evening decided to bid 7NT, redouble and claim down 13 before leaving the event. This is obviously terrible bridge etiquette and behaviour and the player involved was not an EBU member. Unsurprisingly the opponents scored 100% for the board, but is this a justified result? As far as I can tell, there is no adjustment if this sort of incident occurs, despite the fact that this affects the integrity of the event. Here it affected the awarding of masterpoints, but in a larger event this could be used as a "strategy" where a weaker team from the same club gives 100% to their opponents so that their fellow clubmates win the event. This is of course only hypothetical but I can't see any regulation that prohibits this (the clause on betting is as close as I've found, though I may well have missed something!).
On a related note, it's not uncommon to see players make extremely serious errors (not quite of this sort) when they are annoyed with their partner so presumably scoring 0% is sufficient penalty for the incident. I would be interested though to hear if anyone thinks a further penalty is applicable in this very specific case.
Comments
Further to the above, it doesn't look a further penalty is due as a Best Behaviour at Bridge penalty is only a warning for a first offence (in general). Equally the result was obtained legitimately so 0/100 appears to be valid, only repetitive anomalous results would (again in general) be considered for adjustment; Similarly, the pair is considered to have played all 24 boards as per the Sky-Blue Book (despite the sub player being replaced after board 12 by a robot) so there is no reason to cancel the result.
That was my reasoning anyway for retaining the results as scored.
If it was an EBU member then I think the action should be recorded and sent in since it is a clear breach of the EBU bye-laws being a breach of the EBU Disciplinary rules: an 'offence' includes: -
"(iv)
any unfair or dishonest play;
(v)
any other act that the Disciplinary Committee or Appeals Committee considers to be misconduct which may include any conduct or behaviour, whether at or away from the bridge table, which falls below the accepted standards required of Player Members and other persons to whom these Disciplinary Rules apply; or
It probably doesn't make much difference but the defenders may not accept the concession of a trick their opponents could not lose, so it's quite likely that the score should be adjusted to some lesser number.
Since the player was a substitute, I would ban them from future games.
Thank you both (and yes, I suspect they have to make at least a couple of tricks but even one off is a 0% here). They are not an EBU member so I will ban them from future games as suggested but I don't think a results adjustment is required if I understand correctly.
I like 12A 1 though I think Gordon doesn't particularly like using it (partly because it can seem totally arbitrary)
LAW 12 - DIRECTOR’S DISCRETIONARY POWERS
A. Power to Award an Adjusted Score
1. The Director may award an adjusted score in favour of a non-offending contestant when he judges that these Laws do not prescribe a rectification for the particular type of violation committed.
Yes 12A 1 is good as a cover all case (although I suppose here the argument would be to adjust against the non-offending side, say a 0/Av+ type score). Ultimately partnerships do get cross from time to time and do abnormal things that benefit the opponents so 0/100 is "right", it was just this particular instance where 7NTxx-13 is the BBO equivalent of throwing the cards on the table and storming off (the two situations have different connotations for the law I believe since in the latter case, there is no legitimate result to compare against so Av+ would be given).
A bizarre but thankfully very rare situation!
In hindsight, it was an error to use this substitute. We may want to rule director's error and no result possible.
It certainly suggests that BBO need a database of subs that shouldn't be used. But I'm not sure director error is the way to bracket it since the substitute is considered to be in good standing with the EBU and BBO (at least at the time that the sub was selected). It could also suggest that boards 1 to 11, on which perfectly normal bridge results were obtained, should be cancelled, which doesn't seem to be a desirable outcome.
I remember a time at a face-to-face club where one player gave up after seeing dummy and complaining about their partner's bidding. They claimed 0 of the remaining tricks (we gave him 1 for the ace of trumps...) and we scored 100% for the board. We would have scored 80% if the board had been played out. It's not too dissimilar an incident but we would expect the full 100% as the defence, or as a bare minimum 80% because the board was finished legitimately. Making an "extremely serious error" of this sort wouldn't be considered for rectification so it potentially opens up an unwanted area of confusion... Suffice to say this player, unlike the sub yesterday, returned at the start of the next round having calmed down and apologised.
If the TD had been called regarding the incident (most likely by the partner of the sub player), then the sub could have been withdrawn, the bid undone (possibly) and a robot introduced at that stage. As it was, I only became aware because of the sub's withdrawal after the claim.
Did the substitute start the event at Board 1 or was there another player who couldn't continue and was replaced by this human substitute who then got replaced by a robot. Please excuse my curiosity.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Yes the sub started at the beginning of board 1 with another random sub to fill the sitout. The 7NT player withdrew after board 12 and I replaced them with a robot. The other sub volunteered to continue playing with the robot and finished =4th/22.
It's certainly an interesting one (and again I've certainly never seen a sub player, especially one who has invested 12 boards, to make such a bid in this type of BBO session before so hopefully it will never happen again). The laws are always clear that a non-offending side should never be disadvantaged by a director ruling compared to the initial table result (double shots etc. aside), and similarly the disciplinary procedures apply only for post-event actions such as a ban from all future events.
While it wouldn't affect the results of this particular session, it might be worth adding a clause (worded very carefully) that permits such results to be considered for an exceptional adjustment that results in an equitable outcome and maintains the integrity of the event, even if the non-offending side is damaged to no worse than 60% for the board. It would rely on director discretion and would come up very rarely but avoids having to try and class it as something it wasn't (as Robin suggests, a director error ruling would reach what feels like a "better" result but the incident can't really be classed as such... though Law 82C says both sides should be treated as non-offending in such a situation so 0/100 would remain the result).
In any case, I've banned the sub from any games I direct, but it might be worth having a database where TDs can submit names, hand records and table histories for review. It's one of those things that would be useful to have but may not be worth the time for the very occasional situations where it would come in useful.
On a separate note, having an EBU directory of pairs that are prepared to be on standby for a given morning/afternoon/evening might be more effective as playing against other EBU members is generally more enjoyable and avoids TDs worrying about BBO subs. Obviously sub pairs play for free though so you would have to ensure that people only put their names forward if their primary club is not holding an event during that time slot (or something similar).
This sort of thing is why I only use robot subs and not human ones for for virtual club.
I'm with Martin.. it's one of the key reasons I use Robot Subs
Peter Bushby Suffolk