You don’t just jump in from the street and read a post like this, at least not if you want to understand what issues it deals with.

“And yet in our game third party intervention (like the Swedish NPC in the Zia case), negates any penalty.”

Huh? What case? Which Swedish NPC? Who is Zia? (ah, ok…)

I have to wonder, sometimes, who the bridge blogging writers are writing to and writing for. Links to definitions and earlier posts would be helpful. Otherwise it seems as if I’m reading some private correspondence that I wasn’t suppose to have my eyes on.

“sk the Swedes how they feel from Stockholm or the Canadians in Geneva. George Mittleman told me (and this was the case) that the Germans hiding behind the scoring error probably cost him a world championship. How would anyone feel by losing such a title under such circumstances? it is an affront to the game that such injustices should go unrecognized. Something is rotten and it isn’t in Denmark or Sweden, it is in Memphis or wherever the new ACBL home may be.”

Huh?

Dear Tenoba,

Most of the readers have followed this thread for some time. Obviously you have not and that has resulted in you missing prior discussions. Your posting screamed loud and clear to that fact.

I suggest you scroll back before making any further postings. The better informed you are; the better you are equipped to comment lucidly on the discussions.

C

When one raises the question of what should be done in determining at the death the placing of the combatants when an irregularity occurs, it is sometimes a thorny choice.

At least to me, if justice is to be served, it totally depends on:

1. The conditions of contest

2. The type of event used to determine the placing

3. Whether or not the competitors were playing any sort of a perfect movement (e.g., a round robin where every contestant played every other one) with no overlaps or other deviation

4. The specific irregularity which caused the problem and whether that irregularity caused the intended movement to become skewed

Without the above being determined, and perhaps other unknown factors becoming known, it would cause me to be in such an ambivalent state whereupon, if forced to decide, I would probably vote to not move other contestants to different positions and just do whatever we need to do to correct the irregularity.

Having tried above to set some kind of procedure, let’s now consider different forms of competition:

1. Straight tennis matches, golf match play or any head to head KO competition, if some contestant is deemed to be disqualified his or her opponent is declared the winner and the tournament continues on without effect.

2. If during round robin play, but before the later stages of the tournament some player (making it impossible for that team to carry on) or team is voted off the island, the usual system I have become accustomed to (it has happened quite often in bridge) all of the previous matches played by that team were voided and an artificial score (approximating average) given to the teams who have already played them to go along with the basic average which would then be given to teams who have not yet confronted them. The tournament then soldiers on with some teams who lost a great score being dissatisfied, but others who luckily lost a poor score feeling fortunate (the emotions involved are part of the game, but at least to me, as fair as is possible, only making my suggested punishment for the transgressing team even more harsh).

Trying now to abruptly cut to the chase. When the irregularity creates only a mild bump in the competition, it should be simply handled and the competition continues unimpeded.

However, when after the event the irregularity such as proven cheating has been found, then if it would leave the tournament with no one being sure what would have happened if that cheating team (overt cheating at bridge, discovering steroid use in a large number of sports, including cycling in bike riding as well as illegal performance enhancing drugs etc. or of course, blatant fixing of a game by either rogue referees or players), then that tournament should not declare an artificial winner and, after the culprits have been dealt with, all places should remain the same.

Reason: It would be impossible to determine what might have happened if the rogue team would not have been in the event. In a round robin format most times cheating helps, but sometimes it doesn’t and can even hurt, so how can it be determined fairly who actually would have won? The answer, at least to me, is that it cannot and only serves to remind the authorities of just how bad untoward behavior affects competition.

Which leads me to what I really want to say … how can our bridge authorities turn their back on disciplining cheaters to the extreme, not done now ostensibly to prevent lawsuits, when by doing so, we render our game unplayable by not making the punishment fit the crime. It happens in all forms of our game from overt cheating by partnerships to fixing the boards in Swiss teams, copping scores, having confederates in the field, etc.

The primary subject discusses how to conduct awards when cheating is found. I would rather talk about doing everything we can to eliminate all forms of despicable bridge behavior and enlist all of us to join in the effort.

I know. It’s really weird. But as reulgar as clockwork. Huh. We usually get this in the form of what if you were stuck on a desert island .Good thing we can show them.