All the results are in. So why aren't they final ? Well, because once they come in, we start checking!

Hopefully you, as the club organiser or scorer, have already checked that your results are there correctly, with the right pair names, the right club name and the right local result. Now it is our turn!

First things first ... we check using the software for obvious vulnerability errors - like +420 when NS are vulnerable, or +50 when EW are vulnerable. Many scores can't be checked this way, but obvious errors can be picked up. For example, a +50 could be a +100 or a +500 so we email the club and ask. If we make any changes we inform the club by email so that they can make the change locally as well and inform their players.

Then we check for certain known oddities that crop up - for instance we look for a board that has been passed out by everyone at a particular club, and check on that. We look for any scores that don't end with a zero.

Once those checks are made, we email the frequencies to our Tournament Director, Mike Amos )or, in the case of the EBU events, Jim Proctor), who has the unenviable task of going through them slowly to see what oddities he can spot. And he is very good at spotting them, believe me ! He works with the booklet of hands beside him of course, so that he can compare each frequency against the board.

Mike then emails us back with a list of scores that he wants us to check. Some will be things like a +1000 or a +1400 on a board where there are a lot of +100 or +140 scores and others will be scores that just look "out of place", perhaps a +90 where everyone else is making +460, or a game score where there are four or five tricks "off the top". And, of course, there are the really obvious ones - I remember we had a +36000 on one board last year !

We then email the club and ask them to double check against their travellers, so that we can be as sure as possible that the scores are correct. This is why we need you a) to give us a valid email address when you upload the results and b) to keep the travellers so that you can check for us.

To maintain the integrity of the scores we reserve the right to change scores that are obviously incorrect. Obviously we will try and inform the club concerned so that the players can be advised accordingly.

It helps enormously that many of you, the players, double check meticulously, because you often notice errors and let us know. We never, ever, change a score without the local Tournament Director's agreement or unless we have the actual traveller here and can check it ourselves - if a player telephones us and tells us about an incorrect score he or she will always be asked to get the Tournament Director to confirm it, ideally changing the score locally and re-uploading.

So that is why the final results take just a little longer - we could have a result within 2 days or even less if we didn't bother to check, but we feel you would prefer that we do our very best to ensure that the final result is as accurate as we can make it!

Anna