[Cyberyeti]

So played a competition and won F2F.

Awarded prizes.

At the end of the event I said to the director "are the results final" he said yes, and I said that had we not won, I would have appealed a board where I had called him and reserved rights. (actually more the case that I would have asked for a ruling, playing director)

So a scoring error has come to light, which means that we have now not won, the scoring error is in time to correct, but I'm out of time to appeal. Is this right ?

[sanst]

According to Law 92B you can request a ruling within 30 minutes from the moment the final score is made available, unless the organiser has decided otherwise.
In this case I'm afraid you have to blame yourself. You should have asked for a ruling whether or not you had unofficially won. As we say in Dutch: 'When you burn your bum, you've to sit on the blisters'.
I know it's often said, but you can't reserve your rights. Once the director is called, (s)he decides what's going to happen, including postponing a decision for practical reasons, but the players can't do that.

[Cyberyeti]

sanst, on 2024-November-22, 07:24, said:

According to Law 92B you can request a ruling within 30 minutes from the moment the final score is made available, unless the organiser has decided otherwise.
In this case I'm afraid you have to blame yourself. You should have asked for a ruling whether or not you had unofficially won. As we say in Dutch: 'When you burn your bum, you've to sit on the blisters'.
I know it's often said, but you can't reserve your rights. Once the director is called, (s)he decides what's going to happen, including postponing a decision for practical reasons, but the players can't do that.

Which the people who found the scoring error didn't do either.

I confirmed the score was final before I left. I effectively asked for a ruling but said I'd waive that if it wasn't needed. It suddenly became needed.

[pescetom]

sanst, on 2024-November-22, 07:24, said:

According to Law 92B you can request a ruling within 30 minutes from the moment the final score is made available, unless the organiser has decided otherwise.
In this case I'm afraid you have to blame yourself. You should have asked for a ruling whether or not you had unofficially won. As we say in Dutch: 'When you burn your bum, you've to sit on the blisters'.

I like the saying
And of course you're right about 92B.

By one of those odd short circuits between the forum and played bridge (Kurt Vonnegut would have a name for the phenomenon), as TD I faced a somewhat similar case on Tuesday: just as I got home, a player came alive to point out a revoke by the pair that won the tournament. Fortunately I had the timestamp of the whatsapp message communicating the final score, sent 35 minutes previously. No adjustment.

sanst, on 2024-November-22, 07:24, said:

I know it's often said, but you can't reserve your rights.

It may be so in NL, but I doubt it is in UK.

16B2 said:

2. When a player considers that an opponent has made such information available and that
damage could well result he may announce, unless prohibited by the Regulating Authority
(which may require that the Director be called), that he reserves the right to summon the
Director later (the opponents should summon the Director immediately if they dispute the
fact that unauthorized information might have been conveyed).

[sanst]

 pescetom, on 2024-November-22, 09:47, said:

It may be so in NL, but I doubt it is in UK.

Law 16B2 is valid here*, too, but 'I reserve my rights' is quite often misused. I'm of the opinion that, if the words are spoken, you should call the TD immediately at the first opportunity. Waiting till the tournament is over, won't do. The reservation can only be made in a case of suspected use of UI and that is very hard to investigate when all players involved have been busy with I don't know how many more hands.

*) I'm not quite certain, but I seem to remember that there was a discussion about forbidding it.

[pescetom]

sanst, on 2024-November-22, 10:59, said:

Law 16B2 is valid here*, too, but 'I reserve my rights' is quite often misused. I'm of the opinion that, if the words are spoken, you should call the TD immediately at the first opportunity. Waiting till the tournament is over, won't do. The reservation can only be made in a case of suspected use of UI and that is very hard to investigate when all players involved have been busy with I don't know how many more hands.

*) I'm not quite certain, but I seem to remember that there was a discussion about forbidding it.

Law 16B2 is of course valid anywhere, it's the possibility it allows to not reserve rights (having to call TD immediately) that is RA dependent (as 16B2 says). FIGB allows reserving rights, although not all Italian players seem aware of that: I would only do it with A/E players (and a Director) that I trust, and even then ask "do we agree that <UI transmission> occurred?" rather than say "I reserve my rights", trusting they know what it means and have somehow conceded I am right.

I agree that waiting until the end of the tournament is not a good idea or how the Law was expected to work. This anomaly only arose here because of the other anomaly that Director was playing (I would have called him anyway, it's not my fault they preferred to pay prizes rather than a non-playing certified Director).

[mycroft]

Right, you reserved your rights, but chose not to ask for a ruling after the hand or at the end of the game. Yes, you ensured the results were final before you left, but didn't explain *why* you wanted to know. And only now that you haven't won, do you want a ruling. With your opponents not there to argue their side.

Chance of any change - near zero (effectively, I think it would have to be "TD looked at the hand and said 'unless he tells me there's no problem, there's a problem', and it's obvious to anyone.")

Now, if there had been a ruling given, and you chose to not appeal simply because it didn't matter, and now it does, that's a whole different cake. But that's not what happened. You reserved your rights to call the director if it turned out that the (potential) UI was actually used, and then chose not to exercise those rights after you knew the hand.

Now, all this is "just my opinion, man", but the longer it takes to "recognize a problem", and the harder it is to get all sides of the story (and resolve any disputes as to whether there was UI in the first place; but I assume "calling the TD and reserving rights" allowed the TD to determine to his satisfaction whether there was UI transmitted. If it was just "I reserve my rights", thus confusing both the opponents and the (non-professional) TD, that's another story (as you well know at least my opinion of), but I doubt that. Frankly, *because* the TD was called.

Remember, the full Law quote is (my emphasis throughout):

Law 16B, excerpts said:

2. When a player considers that an opponent has made such information available and that damage could well result this player may announce, unless prohibited by the Regulating Authority (which may require that the Director be called), their intention to reserve the right to summon the Director later (the opponents should summon the Director immediately if they dispute the fact that unauthorized information might have been conveyed(*)).
3. When a player has substantial reason to believe that an opponent who had a logical alternative has chosen an action suggested by such information, the Director should be summoned when play ends(**). An adjusted score shall be assigned (see Law 12C1) if, in the Director’s judgement, an infraction of law has resulted in an advantage for the offender.

(*) This is my problem with the use of the legal term - when they do call the TD after in high dudgeon, they also say *that the opponents didn't dispute the UI transmission because they didn't call the TD at the time*. When in fact the opponents, usually, didn't know WTF their obnoxious A-opponents were saying, or whyTF they'd say it then.

(**) Yes, the footnote says "it is not an infraction to call ... later." But the longer you wait, the harder it will be to bend the Director's judgement the way you would wish.