by Ton Kooijman, Chairman of the WBF Laws Committee
After play the cards should be shuffled before putting them back into the board. This is to avoid transmitting unauthorized information about the order in which the cards were played.
The laws now explicitly allow any player to try to prevent a player from committing an infraction or irregularity. But once the irregularity has occurred (during the play period) the dummy has no right to draw attention to it.
Law 12: Redress for damage
An infraction may create damage for the non-offending side. Redress is given only for damage caus- ed by that infraction, not for damage as a result of a subsequent serious error. This includes wild or gambling actions, and, for example, the loss of an extra trick as rectification after a revoke. The TD splits the damage caused by the infraction (consequent damage) from the subsequent damage and compensates the consequent damage.
A) Teams; NS vulnerable
NS (team A) play in 5♥ doubled after a competitive auction, where the opponents (team B) bid to 4♠ (NS having bid 4♥) after a significant break in tempo. They make 9 tricks. The TD decides that bidding 4♠ was not allowed and that 5♥ was a gambling, not normal action. He further decides that the play in 4♠ (undoubled) would have resulted in 8 tricks and the play in 4♥ in 9 tricks. The result at the other table is 3♠ -1 for EW.
B) The facts are comparable except that 4♠ would have been made (result at the other table is 3♠+1). Then the calculation becomes:
An artificial adjusted score on a board in a pairs event should be awarded only if a pair at the start of a session was scheduled to play that board, but for some reason could not obtain a normal result. A bye in a session should not result in an average-plus score; the pairs concerned play one or more boards less. Our advice is to restrict by regulation the number of boards on which an average plus score is given, for example, to two boards in a session. If there are more boards without a result obtained by normal play those boards are not scored.
In teams, if a contestant receives a score on a board based on more than one of the possible results, the result on the board in IMPs is the weighted average of the outcome in IMPs of the results involved.