Players in wrong orientation
At a recent regular club event where I was TD, part way through the evening the players at one table realised (half way through the 4-board round) that they were sitting in the wrong orientation! So, NS were sitting EW and vice-versa. I couldn't quickly see how to deal with this from the law book and the players concerned all suggested that we marked those two boards as "not played". As it was their suggestion and they were all comfortable with it, I amended both boards to not played, giving an average to both pairs. The players reverted to their correct positions for the remainder of the round.
I did say, however, I would find out how this should be dealt with "properly" should it arise again.
I'm pretty sure it's North's responsibility to check the players and boards are correct. Having said that, both pairs should have known which way they would be facing from the table card and the instruction from the Bridgemate at the end of the preceding round.
What happened was effectively the same as the boards being in the wrong orientation.
Should I attempt to do something with the actual results obtained? Or should I award some sort of average, maybe average/- at least for the side who sat N/S?
I'd be very grateful for some guidance, and with references if possible.
Thanks in advance
Chris
Comments
If this happened in a teams-of-four match you would be correct to award averages (try to avoid referring to this as "not played" as that can mean something else, and could start a new argument). You cannot compare the teams' scores on the board where both members of the same team played as NS.
If this was a pairs tournament it should be possible to keep the scores on the boards as played. You should tell the players to finish any boards they have started in the wrong orientation, make a note of the board numbers so played and the pair numbers of the players, then when play has finished and all the scores are in swap the pair numbers for those boards in the scoring programme. (There is usually a short-cut for applying an irregular arrow-switch - an indication of how commonly the situation arises - or you can manually delete and re-enter the pair numbers.)
If it was a Howell movement where most of the pairs spend some of their time playing NS and some playing EW, or a switched Mitchell to produce a one-winner movement, it will have a minor (probably detrimental) effect on the balance of the movement, but not enough to have any significant effect on the results, so you can post the results as if nothing had happened.
Even if it's a two-winner Mitchell movement where pairs play either NS or EW throughout having two boards played in one round with the pairs compared to the wrong set of opponents is not going to have more than a small effect on the overall scores. It's really no worse than bringing in a substitute pair for a round if someone's called away for an urgent phone call, or had to leave early.
You could fine the players for failing to follow correct procedure, but a warning to be more careful in future would be enough unless they made a habit of this. I would not hold North responsible for the error - I would expect both pairs to spot it, unless perhaps EW were beginners and North had placed the boards incorrectly.
Addendum: I've just read what the White Book has to say on the matter (8.87.1) and that suggests that the scores cannot be kept in a two-winner pairs movement, so perhaps I'm wrong about that.
"If a board is not arrow-switched when it should be, or is when it should not be, or if a player
accidentally pulls out the cards from the wrong slot so that the board cannot be played in
‘correct’ orientation, then the board should be played in the ‘incorrect’ orientation, as long as
the scoring can accommodate the result. However, the type of contest may make this
impossible: for instance, teams of four or two-winner pairs."
When I wrote the bit about 2-winner movement in White Book it was as an example of when retaining the result would/might be impossible. If the organiser wants the event to be a pure 2-winner event then they can refuse to retain the result of arrow-switched boards, but if the organiser want to retain results if at all possible (and the scorer can cope) then they can accept the results.
But this is surely a diversion, if it was a 2-winner movement, NS would not be moving and the boards would always go on the table in the same orientation, so it is unlikely that the players or boards would be wrong.
Thanks both of you. It was a single winner pairs session using a 3/4 Howell movement. So, it seems we can make the adjustment you described after the event.
Much appreciated.
Chris