Unplayed Boards

For some time now, I have been knowingly and wantonly flouting the Laws of Duplicate Bridge or, at least, the EBU's interpretation thereof, at BFBC club nights. What is this terrible misdemeanour I have been committing? It is my method of scoring a board that wasn't played because the players ran out of time.

My preferred policy has always been to record it as "Not Played" because a) that's what happened and b) it neither penalises nor rewards either pair.

A "No Play" doesn't count towards the players' results at all. Mathematically it's the equivalent of giving each pair their average for the session. I reasoned that this was fair and, more importantly, does not reward or penalise anyone for failing to play the board.

The EBU approved method is to award averages. There are three options. A+ is awarded to a pair deemed not at fault, A straight A for a pair "partially" at fault (whatever that means) or whose culpability cannot be determined and A- for a pair definitely at fault. In scoring terms, a straight A always maps onto precisely 50%, irrespective of the pair's performance on other boards. A+ is either 60% or the pair's average for the competition, whichever is higher, and A- is the either 40% or the pair's average, whichever is lower. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, TDs aren't supposed to award averages that add up to more than 50% so I shouldn't, for example, routinely award an A+ and an A on the same board.

My objection to this is that even 50% rewards a below par pair, by boosting their average, and penalises an above average pair who might have been expecting to score more than 50%. It follows from this that it would be in a poor pair's interests to play slowly in the hope of securing an average, particularly when faced with good opponents, and in a good pair's interests to flout the "don't start a new board" message in order to avoid getting an average.

I'm not suggesting that anyone would consciously employ such gamesmanship at BFBC but I don't like the idea of a scoring system that facilitates it.

My impression of the EBU's philosophy is that it is geared towards the punishment of offenders by encouraging TDs to award A- scores wherever blame can be apportioned.

Note that it is not possible to award an average to one pair and a "Not Played" to the other. So far as the scoring system is concerned, a board is either played or it's not.

I have been advised that it is permitted by the EBU for an affiliated club to decide to deviate from specific rules if that is the wish of the membership. In other words we, as a club, are at liberty to say that an unplayed board may be scored as such, at the director's discretion but it should be the members' choice, not a unilateral decision by me. Hence this blog post. I would dearly love to hear your comments. Do we, as I club, want to have a local rule, which differs from the EBU standard, that allows directors to score unplayed boards as "No Plays" or should we adopt EBU standards in all things and score unplayed boards as A, A+ or A- as appropriate?

Your comments please.

Keith