Best foot forward

This weekend was a significant step forward: it was the first bridge event I have done without a plastic boot/cast on left foot since the Tollemache Qualifier in November 2008. Last week, I was fitted with a new pair of orthopaedic orthotic shoes and was encouraged not to wear the boot/cast. I still have many medical issues to work through but this was definitely a step in the right direction.

The blog has dried up, despite having time on my hands. I would like to post on various topics: the application of Law 86D, alerting of undiscussed doubles, red fielded misbids; and I would still like to give club TDs some practical advice on law 27. But there never seem to be the right hands to illustrate the points I want to make.

Law 86D

OK, this was a Law 86D case from this weekend.

Board 18 was (spectacularly) fouled a one table, through no players' fault, and had already been played at the other table in the match. I asked the other table if there had been an exceptional result on the board and NS said they defeated 4S that may not be bid or may be bid and made. I tooked at other results on the board and 4S was being bid and was sometimes making. So NS had got a good (if not unusual) result on the fouled board and the conditions for Law 86D were met: one of the non-offending sides had scored a favour result. (But Law 86D talks about the non-offending side, does this imply there must be only one non-offending side for an assigned adjusted score?) So I gave NS an assigned adjusted score for NS+50 score against 50% NS+50 50% NS-420 (+5IMPs); and EW an artificial adjusted score of Ave+ (+3IMPs). Is this the way the law is supposed to operate?

A WBF minute on Law 86D from 2008 was subsequently withdrawn in 2009, and there is much in the EBU White Book (and at the EBL TD Course in Sanremo). These deal with the less obvious case of giving an offending side some benefit of its favourable result on a subsequently fouled board.