[mike777]

In a knockout team event what if any penalty should there be for slow play?

Finish all bds, stop play, other?

[Vampyr]

You have the teams play for the prescribed time; any remaining unplayed boards are not played and the slow team is penalised.

[jallerton]

It would be quite wrong to "throw out any remaining boards at end of time" as that rewards slow play by the team which is winning (or whose players believe they are winning).

[Fluffy]

you can assing a penalty for the next round maybe if there is no side who is clearly guilty

[Trinidad]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-24, 03:02, said:

you can assing a penalty for the next round maybe if there is no side who is clearly guilty

I have always been in favor of that. And it is similar to assigning a time penalty in VPs (when you play a round robin): It reduces your chances of winning.

Rik

[gnasher]

For all penalties, not just slow play penalies, I think that the director should be allowed to choose a penalty that is relevant to the particular players in the particular circumstances. That might take the form of, for example:
- Loss of IMPs in the current match
- Loss of IMPs in the next match
- Loss of masterpoints
- Loss of money
- Having your car trashed by the caddies

[gnasher]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-24, 03:02, said:

you can assing a penalty for the next round maybe if there is no side who is clearly guilty

If neither side is responsible (for example, if the lateness was caused by a series of necessary director calls), nobody should be penalised. If both sides are responsible, both sides should be penalised.

If neither side accepts responsibility, the director should make an effort to find out who was responsible.

[Fluffy]

gnasher, on 2013-January-24, 04:49, said:

If neither side is responsible (for example, if the lateness was caused by a series of necessary director calls), nobody should be penalised. If both sides are responsible, both sides should be penalised.

If neither side accepts responsibility, the director should make an effort to find out who was responsible.

This has the small problem that the knocked out team might not care and the winning team will win the dicussion

[Zelandakh]

mike777, on 2013-January-24, 00:34, said:

In a knockout team event what if any penalty should there be for slow play?

One that conforms with the CoC. That probably rules out gnasher's suggested car trashing but the TD is free to choose something appropriate from the available list of penalties. As jallerton points out, not playing the remaining boards should be a no-no.

[Vampyr]

jallerton, on 2013-January-24, 02:30, said:

It would be quite wrong to "throw out any remaining boards at end of time" as that rewards slow play by the team which is winning (or whose players believe they are winning).

Maybe they won't be winning after they receive penalties. These could be appropriately high if the director deems that the slow play was deliberate. But you can't have people playing for however long it takes -- there may be another round or rounds! I do not believe that players should be able to play through these!

Or it may be inconvenient to the other team or the organisers. Suppose, at the Brighton Congress, the final of the afternoon knockout took so long that the participating teams were prevented from playing in the four-session Swiss Teams. That is not ideal. Other people might be affected as well, for instance members of the NO team might have other teammates for the weekend. Should the slow team compensate these players for their travel and accommodation? Or maybe it is the last round on a Sunday somewhere, and the venue is hired only until 6pm, and the playing room has to be broken down and the tables put onto a truck etc. Or suppose the NO team has to miss their dinner break, or their train home? That's their problem, you say? Then no one could ever attend a knockout event if they take a bus, train or tube home. Or sometimes plane. This is one important reason that there must be published finishing times and they need to be adhered to.

[gnasher]

We seem to be conflating penalty, rectification and practicality. A decision to remove boards is (or should be) independent of the decision to penalise.

If people break the rules by playing too slowly, they should be penalised for it. Any penalty should reflect the culpability of the players, the length of the overrun, and the degree of inconvenience caused to other players or to the staff.

If the outstanding boards can be played without unreasonable inconvenience, they should be played. If the nature of the event or other factors make that impractical, boards should be removed, and scored as under Law 12C2a. That is, the contestants get -3IMPs, 0 or +3IMPs, depending on whether they were at fault.

If a team gains by playing slowly, that should be rectified under Law 23. In a close match, if a team in the lead is responsible for some boards being removed, the director should be willing to award the match to the other team.

[mike777]

BTW this issue came up in both halves of the semi-finals in last year's Spingold.
Nickell vs Gordon match.

Surprisingly the players and even the Head Director seemed somewhat confused on what the CofC were here.

[Vampyr]

gnasher, on 2013-January-24, 08:20, said:

We seem to be conflating penalty, rectification and practicality.

Well, yes, but I thought that it was necessary to bring up practicality to show the people who said you shouldn't take boards away that they are wrong.

Quote

If the outstanding boards can be played without unreasonable inconvenience, they should be played.

OK, but who decides what is "unreasonable"? Obviously at some point, someone who knew what he was doing thought that the stated finishing time was reasonable. If exceptions are permitted sometimes but not always, fairness and the appearance of a level playing field will be compromised.

[gnasher]

Vampyr, on 2013-January-24, 09:10, said:

OK, but who decides what is "unreasonable"?

The Director, of course, or the Tournament Organiser via the CoC.

Quote

Obviously at some point, someone who knew what he was doing thought that the stated finishing time was reasonable.

It may well be that a small proportion of the tables finishing five minutes late causes only moderate inconvenience, whereas all the tables finishing at that time would cause significant problems. In such circumstances, we should allow them to finish, but penalise any offenders, so as to discourage everyone from finishing late.

Quote

If exceptions are permitted sometimes but not always, fairness and the appearance of a level playing field will be compromised.

If exceptions are permitted but with with the offenders receiving appropriate penalties, fairness will be maintained, and seen to be maintained.

You seem to want an all-encompassing rule, but I don't see any need for this. If the effect of letting them finish the boards is small, it would be unreasonable to take away boards. If the effect of letting them finish would be large, it would be unreasonable to allow it. Hence the procedure should vary according to the nature of the event, and we should allow the director to vary what he does according to the specific circumstances on the day.

[TimG]

Fluffy, on 2013-January-24, 03:02, said:

you can assing a penalty for the next round maybe if there is no side who is clearly guilty

Except when the slow play takes place in the final.

[ggwhiz]

Seems easy enough in most circumstances.

The at fault team loses 3 imps for each unplayed board, no one at fault means a shorter match.

A similar thing happened to me when our team in a Swiss had way too much fun at dinner and showed up very late for the 2nd session. Our opps had the choice of zero for us and the avg of their vp's in the rest or 3 imps per unplayed hand if they chose to play us which seems like the similar part.

Of course if a team thinks they are leading by a bunch, they can't tank the last few but the DiC can deal with that and I don't know any BRIDGE players that would do that on purpose.