Many of you will be familiar with the Canadian teamÕs unfortunate plight in Geneva in the semifinals of the 1990 Rosenbloom Cup.
They went to bed bitterly disappointed by their narrow loss to Germany. Arno Hobart, one of the Canadian players, awoke with a start at 4:30 the following morning with the realization that he and his partner, Marty Kirr, had mis-scored a board in the third quarter. Rohowsky had played in five clubs doubled and taken only five tricks, not the six tricks reported on the official score. The difference between 1100 and 1400 would have been enough to alter the outcome of the match.
Hobart and Kirr called their captain, Mark Stein. They rushed to the playing site. A committee was hastily convened and ruled that the original score should stand. The Canadians were devastated. Hobart and Kirr took it particularly hard, retiring their partnership soon after. This incident became something of a cause celebre in bridge circles with opinion split on what should have been done by the Canadians, by the Committee, by the WBF Executive, and by the Germans.
Fast forward to Toronto on April 1, 1995. The Universities of Toronto, York and Waterloo were locked in a tight battle to decide the team that would advance to the North American Intercollegiate Championship in Memphis. Waterloo narrowly beat York, a not unexpected result.
The next morning, Eric Sutherland, awakened to realize that a board had been mis-scored. As Arno had done five years earlier, Eric reached for his IMP scale and was horrified to see that the correct score would alter the outcome of the match. There was one crucial difference between Eric and Arno's situation, however. Eric was on the winning University of Waterloo team. As Arno had done, Eric called his partner, Jared Riley, and teammates Ben Zeidenberg and Craig Barkhouse. They unanimously supported Eric's decision to call Mike Nadler, the York University captain, and inform him of the error. Mike and his crew were on the way to Graceland. No directors, no committees, no officials. Just four young men doing what they felt was the right thing. Fast forward to the World Junior Team Championships in Bali in July, 1995.
With about seven tricks to go, Michael Shuster of USA II claimed his contract of 4S doubled, for +790 on Board 15, and his Italian opponents agreed. This result was duplicated at the other table.
At the half-time break, the American team was discussing the board. Suddenly Shuster sat up straight in his chair. "We didn't make 4S on Board 15-- We went down one." The team went over the play carefully and everyone was convinced that Shuster was right--it was a bad claim.
Shuster sought out Bob Rosen, his team captain, and explained what had happened. Every member of the team wanted the score to be corrected. Rosen found Chief Tournament Director Richard Grenside and gave him all the details. Grenside checked his watch and realized the appeal was being made within the time limit--although by less than a minute (would this error really have been allowed to stand if the appeal had been lodged a few minutes later?).
Benito Garozzo, coach of the Italian team, was present, and he was most surprised that the Americans wanted the score changed from +790 to minus 200. "You're giving us 15 IMPs,Ó he said. But Rosen and his team didn't see it this way. As far as they were concerned, they had always lost the 15 IMPs--only a scoring mistake had prevented it from already being in the records. Grenside duly made the change official. Italy ran roughshod over the Americans in the second half, winning 25 VPs to 1. They gained nothing from the score change, since without it they would have won 25-3. However, the Americans, who didn't know they were going to be blitzed when they corrected the scoring mistake, lost 2 VPs that might well have affected their qualification for the semifinals.
Later the same day: the match finished late, and originally each team was told it would be penalized half a Victory Point for slow play. However, the Italians insisted that the fault was entirely theirs, and they demanded that the full penalty be assessed against them. This decision was accepted, and Italy was declared the winner by a score of 24-1.
Later the same week: in the match between New Zealand and Australia, Ishmael Del'Monte and Ashley Bach determined after the match that their Australian opponent could not possibly have lost the two trump tricks that he had conceded in a doubled contract on any line of play. They made the score correction with the Tournament Director and that cost them 4 IMPs and a full Victory Point.
The term "active ethics" has been overworked terribly in recent years, with all too many instances of theoretically `normal actions being lauded in the bridge press. Perhaps the cases described above simply fall into that category of expected behaviour; nonetheless, they all seem to indicate that practicing sportsmanship of the highest order is properly important to our young players.
Call it youthful idealism is you will. But these young men and women were nurtured at our hearth. Why do they remember so easily that which we too often seem to forget? They have set a good example for their elders to follow. They deserve our unqualified respect and admiration.