New Powers for TDs

by David Stevenson

Following a change in approach at World Bridge Federation level, it was decided to give Tournament Directors some powers previously only available to Appeals Committees. This involved Law 12C3, which means that when the Director assigns a score after something has gone wrong (for example after a mis-explanation has damaged opponents) rather than give the non-offenders the best score they might possibly have got (which is sometimes a very harsh ruling), he can now give a weighted score, ie a percentage of one score and a percentage of another. In England this has been permitted since August 1st .

To make it clearer, here is an example from the first match last night.

West	North	East	South
		1	1
Dbl	2	2	2
2NT	Pass	3	All Pass
Result: 3-2 by East, NS+200

Match 1 Board 6 Dealer East E/W Vul	8 7 KQJ963 Q10943
A43 J1064 854 AJ5		Q97 A852 A2 K862
	KJ10652 KQ93 107 7

Double showed hearts, and 2NT was a natural game try. Unfortunately East described it differently, and South did not realise West had a balanced hand. He felt he might have doubled if he had.

South was certainly misinformed, so how should the TD, John Probst, adjust it? He felt that a double by South was far from certain anyway (somewhere between 1 time in 4 and 1 time in 6), and eventually gave a weighted score of 3doubled - 2 one quarter of the time, 3 - 2 the rest of the time. This feels fairer than giving South nothing, or awarding him the full effects of a double that he might or might not have made. Players seem to find this type of ruling very fair.

Editor's note:

• This article first appeared in a bulletin from the EBU Summer congress at Brighton in England in 2000
• If you want to comment on this articles, why not write direct to David Stevenson?
• I shall be pleased to hear from you!

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