BOARD-A-MATCH TEAMS
GENERAL CONDITIONS OF CONTEST

APPROVED 11/99

These Conditions of Contest may not be changed at any level of play during the course of this event.

Lack of knowledge does not constitute cause for exemption.

These conditions apply to all board-a-match (BAM) team events. At the North American Bridge Championships, there may be additional specific conditions for certain events. In such cases the specific conditions will supersede the general ones. These conditions must be posted. Sponsoring organizations may amend these conditions for specific events but such amendments must appear in all printed tournament schedules. Furthermore they must be posted prior to the start of event.

Sponsoring organizations may, with ACBL approval only, amend these conditions for a specific event.

The final decision on any item in these conditions shall be made by the Director in Charge. Furthermore, any issue not specifically covered will be resolved by the Director in Charge.

ENTRY AND PARTICIPATION

1. Each team may consist of four, five or six players. Entry may be restricted by gender (all men, all women or in the case of mixed teams no more than three people may be of one gender). In events which have a masterpoint restriction the team's entry will be based on the player with the highest masterpoint holding. However, Life Master events require that all team members be ACBL Life Masters or its equivalent.
   
2. Each player must play at least fifty percent of the boards, played by the team to be eligible for either session or overall masterpoint awards. Other than to cover an emergency, changes in a team's lineup may not be made once play has begun.
   
3. An ineligible player is disqualified. The ineligible player's team will be disqualified unless the Director-in-Charge determines that teammates were unknowledgeable about the deficiency of the disqualified member. Any team reduced to fewer than three original members due to disqualification of ineligible players is disqualified.
   
   When a player(s) and team is disqualified after the correction period for the event has ended because the deficiency was discovered then, the disqualified team's position remains vacant. In ongoing events, teams move up one position as appropriate.

PLAY

1. Sponsoring organizations must announce in advance the type of event scheduled. Options include open, Life Master, events restricted by either an upper or lower masterpoint limitation, flighted, stratified or strati-flighted. In addition each event may be segregated by requiring both pairs to each be men, women or that they be mixed (i.e. one man and one woman).
   
   In flighted events groups are segregated by masterpoint totals (i.e. A is Open, B is restricted to players with less than 1000 MP's and C for players with less than 300 MP's).
   
   In stratified events the three groups play together but are ranked both collectively and separately (i.e. a C player can win points by ranking in A, B or C).
   
   In strati-flighted events at least one group is segregated and another stratified (i.e. A is Open, B is stratified with the top group 300 - 1000 and the second group 0 - 300).
   
   
2. Events may be run from one to six sessions and may have cuts in the size of the field after specified sessions. Consolation events may be run concurrently with the final session(s) at the discretion of the Sponsoring Organization.
   
   
3. Any player(s) that withdraws from a team may not participate in any concurrent championship event (two or more sessions) while the team is still competing in the BAM event.
   
   They and players sitting out a session may play in a concurrent single session event. However if the event is a Continuous Pairs that session will not count toward overall placings in that event for either member of the partnership. In addition the pair will not be eligible for to win gold points for section tops at Regionals or NABC's
   
   
4. A partnership is responsible for knowing when their methods apply in probable (to be expected) auctions. A pair may be entitled to redress if their opponents did not originally have a clear understanding of when and how to use a convention that was employed.

CONVENTIONS

The ACBL General Convention Chart will govern bidding and playing methods unless the Sponsoring Organization has announced in writing to the contrary.

SEEDING

Every effort should be made to seed all sections of the field. In general, each team should play against the same strength field each session. (Note: This is usually accomplished by making random adjustments in the starting position of one of the seeded fields each session.) While the Sponsoring Organization may provide assistance the final decision in all matters relating to seeding the event will rest with the Director-in-Charge.

QUALIFYING EVENTS AND CONSOLATIONS

1. Events of two or more sessions may be run as some number of qualifying sessions and some number of final sessions. Consolation events may be scheduled for non-qualifiers at the discretion of the Sponsoring Organization. Conditions regarding the number of teams to be qualified should be announced as early as possible during the qualifying session(s).
   
   
2. In order for a partnership to qualify for the finals at least four eligible team members must be present. If not, an alternate qualifier will be selected. From among available teams the one with the highest score in the qualifying session(s) will be selected.
   
   
3. A carryover will be calculated based on scores in the qualifying session(s). The scores of the teams qualifying to the finals will be reduced by using the percentage of teams qualified over teams entered. The maximum carryover cannot exceed seven boards. For six session events with two cuts, the maximum spread for the middle two rounds will be only four boards.
   
   
4. The following tie breaking criteria will be used in order until the tie is broken:
   

   a. Convert all fractions of boards to one (i.e. boards not lost)

   b. If all teams involved played each other the result of all boards played among them.

   c. Total points of all boards played in common.

   d. Total points of all boards played.

TARDINESS & SUBSTITUTIONS

1. Substitutes are subject to the discretion of the Director in Charge or his designee and may not appreciably strengthen the team. A substitute is not allowed if a fifth or sixth member of the team is present.
   
   
2. A qualified team which fails to seat all team members of the partnership ten minutes after the announced starting time of a finals will be replaced by the highest available alternate qualifier.

CORRECTION AND APPEAL PERIODS

1. The score correction period for player errors expires at the completion of play of the session following the one in which the error occurred.
   
   
2. For director errors the correction period expires twenty four hours after the completion of the event or thirty minutes after completion of the last event of the tournament, whichever is earlier.
   
   
3. For qualifying events the score correction period for both player and director errors expires one hour before the announced starting time of the first final session.
   
   
4. The appeal period of or for a Director's ruling expires one half hour after the completion of a session or the starting time of the next session whichever is earlier.