Ruling — Bridge

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Bridgebg-2181-en-1e

1. The Director assigns an initial position to each contestant (individual, pair or team) at the start of a session [1]. 2. Tables are numbered in a sequence established by the Director [1]. 3. The Director designates one direction as North; other compass directions assume the normal relationship to North [1]. 4. Each pack is thoroughly shuffled before play starts [2]. 5. There is a cut if either opponent requests it [2]. 6. Cards are dealt face down, one card at a time, into four hands of thirteen cards each [2]. 7. No two adjacent cards from the deck shall be dealt into the same hand [2]. 8. The recommended procedure is that the cards be dealt in rotation, clockwise [2]. 9. Each hand is placed face down in one of the four pockets of the board [2]. 10. When a board is to be played, it is placed in the center of the table where it shall remain, correctly oriented, until play is completed [3]. 11. Each player takes a hand from the pocket corresponding to his compass position [3]. 12. Each player counts his cards face down to ensure he has exactly thirteen; after that, and before making a call, he must inspect the faces of his cards [3].

[1] RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook · p.32 · LAW 2 THE DUPLICATE BOARDS · LAW 3 ARRANGEMENT OF TABLES · LAW 4 PARTNERSHIPS · A. Initial Position

[2] RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook · p.33 · B. Change of Direction or Table · A. The Shuffle · B. The Deal · C. Representation of Both Pairs · D. New Shuffle and Redeal

[3] RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook · p.35 · A. Placement of Board · B. Removal of Cards from Board · C. Returning Cards to Board · D. Responsibility for Procedures

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 478 ms · ask 9019 ms · total 9517 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 9517 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 35, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "When a board is to be played it is placed in the center of the table where it shall remain, correctly oriented, until play is completed. Each player takes a hand from the pocket corresponding to his compass position. Each player counts his cards face down to be sure he has exactly thirteen; after th", "headingPath": "A. Placement of Board · B. Removal of Cards from Board · C. Returning Cards to Board · D. Responsibility for Procedures", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 32, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "The same sequence is repeated for Boards 17-32 and for each subsequent group of 16 boards. No board that fails to conform to these conditions should be used. If such board is used, however, the conditions marked on it apply for that session. Four players play at each table, and tables are numbered i", "headingPath": "LAW 2 THE DUPLICATE BOARDS · LAW 3 ARRANGEMENT OF TABLES · LAW 4 PARTNERSHIPS · A. Initial Position", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 33, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Players change their initial compass direction or proceed to another table in accordance with the Director's instructions. The Director is responsible for clear announcement of instructions; each player is responsible for moving when and as directed and for occupying the correct seat after each chan", "headingPath": "B. Change of Direction or Table · A. The Shuffle · B. The Deal · C. Representation of Both Pairs · D. New Shuffle and Redeal", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 48, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The Director shall assign an adjusted score (see Law 12C1) if he considers that a violation of C2 has damaged the non-offending side. When a player accidentally receives extraneous information about a board he is playing or has yet to play, as by looking at the wrong hand; by overhearing calls, resu", "headingPath": "B. Extraneous Information from Partner · D. Extraneous Information from Other Sources", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 36, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "The Director instructs the players as to the proper movement of boards and progression of contestants. Unless the Director instructs otherwise, the North player at each table is responsible for moving the boards just completed at his table to the proper table for the following round. In general, a r", "headingPath": "A. Movement of Boards and Players · B. End of Round · C. End of Last Round and End of Session · A. Drawing Attention to an Irregularity", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 43, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "If the Director judges that the deal can be corrected and played, then the deal may be so played with no change of call. At the end of play the Director may award an adjusted score. Otherwise when a call has been made with an incorrect number of cards, the Director shall award an adjusted score [see", "headingPath": "B. Discovered during the Auction or Play · C. Surplus Card · D. Play Completed · A. Hand Found Deficient before Play Commences", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 53, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "on the instruction of the Director , replies should be given by the partner of the player who made the call in question. The partner of a player who asks a question may not ask a supplementary question until his turn to call or play. Law 16 may apply and the Regulating Authority may establish regula", "headingPath": "F. Explanation of Calls", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 42, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "scores, equally against both members of the offending side even though only one of them may be responsible for the irregularity. But the Director shall not award a procedural penalty against the offender's partner if of the opinion that he is in no way to blame. When the Director awards non-balancin", "headingPath": "C. Awarding an Adjusted Score · A. No Call Made · B. Discovered during the Auction or Play", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 32, "quote": null, "headingPath": "LAW 2 THE DUPLICATE BOARDS · LAW 3 ARRANGEMENT OF TABLES · LAW 4 PARTNERSHIPS · A. Initial Position", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 33, "quote": null, "headingPath": "B. Change of Direction or Table · A. The Shuffle · B. The Deal · C. Representation of Both Pairs · D. New Shuffle and Redeal", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}, {"page": 35, "quote": null, "headingPath": "A. Placement of Board · B. Removal of Cards from Board · C. Returning Cards to Board · D. Responsibility for Procedures", "sharpsignalDocId": 170}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 170 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 170 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 3, 2026 12:18

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	A. Placement of Board · B. Removal of Cards from Board · C. Returning Cards to Board · D. Responsibility for Procedures	p.35	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	LAW 2 THE DUPLICATE BOARDS · LAW 3 ARRANGEMENT OF TABLES · LAW 4 PARTNERSHIPS · A. Initial Position	p.32	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	B. Change of Direction or Table · A. The Shuffle · B. The Deal · C. Representation of Both Pairs · D. New Shuffle and Redeal	p.33	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	B. Extraneous Information from Partner · D. Extraneous Information from Other Sources	p.48	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	A. Movement of Boards and Players · B. End of Round · C. End of Last Round and End of Session · A. Drawing Attention to an Irregularity	p.36	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	B. Discovered during the Auction or Play · C. Surplus Card · D. Play Completed · A. Hand Found Deficient before Play Commences	p.43	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	F. Explanation of Calls	p.53	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	C. Awarding an Adjusted Score · A. No Call Made · B. Discovered during the Auction or Play	p.42	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	LAW 2 THE DUPLICATE BOARDS · LAW 3 ARRANGEMENT OF TABLES · LAW 4 PARTNERSHIPS · A. Initial Position	p.32	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	B. Change of Direction or Table · A. The Shuffle · B. The Deal · C. Representation of Both Pairs · D. New Shuffle and Redeal	p.33	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Bridge — Rulebook (corpus doc 170)	A. Placement of Board · B. Removal of Cards from Board · C. Returning Cards to Board · D. Responsibility for Procedures	p.35	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 478 ms · first delta 7612 ms · total 9517 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 478 ms · ask 9019 ms · gateway work 9517 ms · total 9517 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2630
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 275
tok/sec: 147.4 tok/sec — 275 output tokens in 1.866 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 52s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 93), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.