[dcrc2]

It's early on in a Howell movement and a table manages to take the wrong set of boards off the relay. They get as far as the opening lead being faced before anyone realises.

Now this sort of thing happens relatively often and it's a pain for the scorer but fairly routine: they play the board out and get a score for the board. The two pairs who were scheduled to play this board against them each get Ave+. Perhaps the players at this table will be penalised.

But tonight maybe it's different because this board hasn't been played yet by anyone, and the set of boards that this table was supposed to play hasn't been played yet either. So there are other possibilities:
- You could reshuffle this board and restart the round with the correct boards.
- You could swap the number on this board with one in the set that they were supposed to play (or, if you prefer to look at it a different way, change the movement so that this board becomes part of a different set).

In a practical sense either of these options seems better as it means we don't end up with two (or more) artificial scores. But is either of them legal? Or advisable?

[blackshoe]

Changing the movement doesn't seem very practical to me. It could be done, but it would be a bit of a pain.

Reshuffling this board sounds like a good solution, and I suppose some directors would do so. But suppose the boards were pre-dealt. Now you have a board that doesn't match the hand records. That's going to cause some agita.

This irregularity is well handled by the existing laws. The director is constrained to follow the laws and regulations in force. I suppose the club could include a provision in the CoC for re-dealing a board in this situation, but absent that, I think the director has to rule as you suggested in your second paragraph. and NS, because this problem causes score adjustments at not one but two other tables, and because North is responsible for the movement of the boards and for ensuring that he has the right ones, should get a PP.

[chrism]

Resequencing would be my preferred solution. There is a slight danger, especially if the players are using pre-printed table mats to guide the movement, of the wrong boards being played in a later round, so if I chose to change the movement I would also print out guide cards for all pairs confirming the movement with the adjusted sequence of boards. Of course, there is a chance that the correct board set includes a board with the same dealer and vulnerability as the one begun in error; in that case I would be strongly tempted to swap the deck in play into that board and use the original scheduled sequence.

[helene_t]

If one of the boards they were meant to play had the same dealer and vul I would maybe swap them, otherwise reshuffle. But it would be best if there was a clear rule because if one of the pairs was heading for a good score and the td then decides to reshuffle they may be unhappy unless the td can say he was bound by the regulations to reshuffle.

[mycroft]

When I have had that situation occur, I resequenced. In ACBLScore it's surprisingly easy (and unsurprisingly unintuitive); in other scoring systems maybe not so much. I would not do that were I a playing director, as not only should you mention it - which nobody will hear, and those that do will misunderstand - you will want to follow both this set and the bounced set around the room to ensure that people reading the guide cards/table mats, or the people who can actually work out the movement, don't "autocorrect" the correction.

[Siegmund]

If the board had never been played before, I would always let the result stand and resequence.

If the board has been played before, one possibility is 'it's a pain for the scorer but fairly routine: they play the board out and get a score for the board. The two pairs who were scheduled to play this board against them each get Ave+. Perhaps the players at this table will be penalised."
If this happens early enough in the game it is very often possible to let the two damaged parties play the board against one another, and not award any A+s at all. This was easy scoring by hand, but it a real pain to type into ACBLscore.

At my club, it generally happened at Table 2 in Round 2 of a 4-table Howell. That table plays boards 13-16 in the first round, and is supposed to play 17-20 in the second round. But players would look at the table card, and read the wrong column: in a 21-board game that table plays 10-12 the first round and 13-15 the second round. So people would arrive for the second round, see board 13 at the table, and start playing.

The no-A+-and-no-late-play fix for that works like this:

Round 1: 8v1 1-4, 3v6 13-16, 2v7 21-24, 4v5 25-28 (all correct)
Round 2: 8v2 5-8, 4v7 13-16, 3v1 25-28, 5v6 1-4 (error occurs and isn't noticed: 17-20 haven't been played yet.)
Round 3: 8v3 9-12, 5v1 21-24, 4v2 1-4, 6v7 5-8
Round 4: 8v4 13-16 is scheduled, so the problem is discovered: pairs 5 and 8 are going to have trouble when they come to boards 13-16. But instead....
Round 4: 8v4 17-20, 6v2 25-28, 5v3 5-8, 7v1 9-12
Round 5: 8v5 13-16, 7v3 1-4, 6v4 9-12, 1v2 13-16 (relay required -- and pair 5 plays the 'wrong' boards against pair 8)
Round 6: 8v6 21-14, 1v4 5-8, 7v5 17-20, 2v3 17-20 (relay required; 7v5 were scheduled to play 13-16, but we found out in R4 this wasn't going to work)
Round 7: 8v7 25-28, 2v5 9-12, 1v6 17-20, 3v4 21-24.

This one problem happened often enough that I was tempted to store it in my movements database as a special movement. The same general type of solution is usually possible if the 2nd time a board is played it is by the wrong pair. In a 5-table game you sometimes but not always can survive an accident the 3rd time a board is played.

Of course that's because I learned to direct scoring by hand, so when the computer arrived, I wanted to keep using the solution I had been using. I was startled to find that at many other clubs, people routinely gave a whole roomful of A+s -- 4 each to #5 and #8 above -- and A-s -- 4 each to #4 and #7 for missing boards 17-20.

[toucanish]

dcrc2, on 2015-August-25, 14:06, said:

It's early on in a Howell movement and a table manages to take the wrong set of boards off the relay. They get as far as the opening lead being faced before anyone realises.

If there is more than one set of relay boards then there is very likely to be a board in the set they were supposed to play with the same vulnerability. If you aren't playing predealt hands, just put the cards they're playing into that board. Dealer doesn't matter, just rotate as necessary and do what you'd have done if they had played the board in the wrong orientation.

If you're unlucky and there isn't a board with the right vulnerability, well, the players have just invented a new movement. Again. At least this time you know before you start scoring, and there's no need to spend half an hour in the kitchen desperately trying to work out who can still play which board against whom at what table.

[blackshoe]

toucanish, on 2015-September-06, 13:52, said:

If there is more than one set of relay boards then there is very likely to be a board in the set they were supposed to play with the same vulnerability. If you aren't playing predealt hands, just put the cards they're playing into that board. Dealer doesn't matter, just rotate as necessary and do what you'd have done if they had played the board in the wrong orientation.

If you're unlucky and there isn't a board with the right vulnerability, well, the players have just invented a new movement. Again. At least this time you know before you start scoring, and there's no need to spend half an hour in the kitchen desperately trying to work out who can still play which board against whom at what table.

I would not be moving cards around between boards unless I was certain that neither of the boards involved had already been played.