[mycroft]

The player who was asked about, or the player who asked for the monitor, was penalized twice?

[gordontd]

bluejak, on 2011-July-12, 07:48, said:

The last time anyone asked for a time monitor in the Schapiro Spring Foursomes:

• The TDs were accused of bias, being unfair to particular players, and generally everything people could think of in print for many many months afterwards
  
• A complete group of players refused to speak to the player who asked for a monitor for years [literally] afterwards
  
• Most of the rest of the players playing thought it was hilarious

The player concerned was penalised twice for slow player in that stanza which was just enough to eliminate his team from the event.

I'm sure I was asked to be a time monitor this year, possibly more than once.

[bluejak]

mycroft, on 2011-July-12, 11:57, said:

The player who was asked about, or the player who asked for the monitor, was penalized twice?

The player who was asked about. Why would anyone penalise someone for asking for a time monitor?

[WellSpyder]

I'm not altogether surprised at Bluejak's story of people not talking to each other for years. I recall asking for a time monitor in the Tollemache (England's main inter-county event) a few years ago after we started a round with two very slow boards. The TD came and watched a number of boards which went at a sensible speed, and then left a few boards before the end of the round since we had caught up with the general speed of play. At that point one of the opponents started berating me for calling for a time monitor and saying she took a very dim view of it, blah, blah, blah - so I called the TD back to remind her of the Better Behaviour at Bridge code! I thought the TD did a very professional job of calming the situation down, particularly by stressing that he had not interpreted the request for a monitor as any suggestion that one side or the other was responsible for the delay, but it did leave me thinking that it would be a step forward if people could try to treat a request for a monitor as no more incendiary than any other request for a TD or ruling. (Yes, I know there are lots of clubs where a call to the TD could also result in people taking great offence, but not generally the people who play in the Tollemache.)

[blackshoe]

While I agree with dburn regarding whether "bridge is a timed event", I find it interesting that the conditions of contest for some major ACBL events (Spingold and Vanderbilt, for example) contain this:

Quote

All late finish reports will be presented to the Board of Directors. Chronic appearances on slow lists or wanton disregard of the fact that bridge is a timed event may result in disciplinary penalties.

The emphasis is mine. The problem here is that the 500 pound canary may be wrong, but who's going to tell him so?