Picking up a boule too soon

Sometimes a player picks up a boule too soon. It happens all the time. Given the frequency with which it happens, it’s amazing how much confusion there is about how to deal with it.

If a boule is picked up too soon, what should we do?

This question never comes up if the original location of the boule was marked. If the boule’s position was marked, we simply put the boule back and carry on with the game. But what should we do if a boule’s original location was NOT marked and it is picked up too soon?

There are two different kinds of situation, which are covered by different rules.

• CASE A — A boule is picked up before all boules have been thrown.
   
• CASE B — A boule is picked up after all boules have been thrown, but before completion of the agreement of points.

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CASE A is covered by Article 21—

If a stationary boule is displaced by the wind or slope of the ground, it is put back in its place. The same applies to any boule accidentally displaced by a player….

A boule that is picked up by a player is considered to have been accidentally moved by the player. The corrective action specified in Article 21 is to put the boule back in its original place.

Article 21 doesn’t say anything about the boule’s original place being marked. Apparently the intent of the rule is that the players should agree among themselves as to the approximate original location of the boule, and then put it back there.[1] If there is any question about where that original place is, then we should probably apply the Advantage Rule, and allow the offended party (the team whose boule was moved) to reposition the moved boule.

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CASE B is covered by Article 26—

At the end of a mène, any boule picked up before the agreement of points is dead.

The corrective action specified in Article 26 is to declare the picked-up boule to be dead.

This corrective action is appropriate if the boule was picked up by the team to which it belongs. But it is clearly be unreasonable if it permits a player on one team to kill an opposing team’s boule simply by picking it up. That leaves us with a difficult question.

If, during the agreement of points, a member of one team picks up a boule belonging to the opposing team, what do we do?

If the picked-up boule could never have contributed to the score of the mene, then of course we don’t worry about it.

But if it might have contributed to the score, then the most reasonable thing is to apply the Advantage Rule and have the offended party (the team whose boule was picked up) reposition the boule in its original location. Then measurement and the agreement of points can carry on as before.

It is possible, of course, that the offended team will deliberately position the boule in a location that is different from, and more advantageous than, its true original location. That would be a violation of sportsmanship, certainly. But the offending team (the team that prematurely picked up their opponent’s boule) has no right to protest. It is the price that they must pay for their carelessness.

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[1]
Note that the wording of Article 21 is almost identical to the wording of Article 11. Article 21 applies to boules, while Article 11 applies to the jack. Article 11 contains the clause “provided the position had been marked”, which Article 21 does not.

Article 11 contains three sentences that talk only about the jack. Then there is a fourth sentence with a rule for the umpires— “No claim can be accepted [by an umpire] regarding boules or jack whose position has not been marked.” A similar remark directed at umpires appears in Article 21. This mixing-in of rules for the umpires with rules for the players occurs in several places in the FIPJP rules, and is one of the most serious defects of the rules. It makes reliable interpretation of the FIPJP rules impossible. (See our post What’s wrong with the FIPJP rules.)

The opinion in this post follows the 2011 ruling by Jean-Claude Dubois, president of the French National Umpires Committee, on a related question— what to do when the circle is picked up too soon. It also follows our general principles for applying the rules.It is impossible, however, to know how a particular umpire in a particular game will rule.

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This article was originally posted in April 2015, but almost completely re-written in October 2015. I have not deleted the comments on the original version, which may still be of value. But some of them may refer to text that does not appear in the current version of the post.

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Dealing with a pushed jack, and other questions about challenging the jack

[Updated: 2023-12-19]
This post was originally written in 2015. In 2020, Article 6 of the FIPJP rules was modified to include the stipulation that "The players must mark the position of the jack initially and after each time it is moved." This means that in the future the Pushed Jack Question will rarely, if ever, arise in umpired competitions. It may still, of course, occur in casual games.

The Pushed Jack Question is one of the perennial questions about the rules of petanque— players never stop asking it. The question is actually two questions.

Team A throws out the jack and the first boule.
The first boule hits and moves (“pushes”) the jack.
Can team B challenge the jack?
If the jack is challenged, how do the teams determine the validity of the jack?
 

The answers to these two questions are—

1. YES, Team B can challenge the jack.
2. The validity of the jack is determined by measuring the distance between the circle and the jack’s current (“pushed”) location. If the jack is between 6 and 10 meters from the circle, it is valid.

NOTE THAT

• This is different from a case in which the jack was thrown, its location was marked, and then it was pushed by the first boule. In such a case the teams measure to the marked location. Some umpires say that the proper procedure is to place (another) jack in the marked location, and then measure to that jack, but that seems a bit pedantic.
   
• When players ask the Pushed Jack Question they are usually concerned about the jack’s distance from the circle. But the Pushed Jack Question can also be raised when there are concerns about the jack’s distance from a dead-ball line or a pointing obstacle. Note that, regardless of why the question was raised, the procedure for answering it is the same.

This answer to the Pushed Jack Question has been the FIPJP’s official, but unwritten, position since 1996, when the FIPJP Technical Committee discussed it during a meeting at the World Championships in Germany.^[1]  It is the answer French umpires have given for years, and it is the answer given in the FPUSA Official Rules Interpretations for Umpires (2015).

One reason that players continue to ask the question is that for many years international umpire Mike Pegg maintained (on his “Ask the Umpire” Facebook group) that a pushed jack could not be challenged. His position was that the requirements for a valid throw of the jack apply to a THROWN jack, not a MOVED jack. Since the jack’s original position (before it was moved) was not marked, there is no way to prove that its original position was not valid. Team B therefore has no grounds on which to base a challenge.

This changed in May 2016 when FIPJP president Claude Azema sent a directive to FIPJP umpires, making the official FIPJP position clear and explicit. YES, Team B may challenge the jack, in which case the validity of the jack is determined by measuring the distance between the circle and the jack’s current location. However, it was not until March 2017, in response to a question on “Ask the Umpire”, that Mike reported that he had reversed his position because of Azema’s directive. Mike now agrees with the FIPJP’s (still unwritten) official position.^[2]

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In 2023, a question came up on Petanque Q&A — Team A throws the jack close to the terrain’s sideline, and without marking the jack immediately points its first boule, which pushes the jack across the terrain’s boundary line. What should be done?

Claude Azema’s note to FIPJP umpires said, basically, that if the first boule moves the jack, and the jack was not marked, the validity of the jack is determined by its current (“pushed”) location. So in this situation, an umpire will give Team A a warning (yellow card) for failing to mark the jack. Then since the current location of the jack is outside of the home terrain, the umpire will rule that the thrown jack was not valid. Team B therefore will place the jack, and the game will continue.

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Other questions about challenging the jack

To “challenge the jack” is to request that the game be paused so that it can be verified that all of the requirements for a valid jack (which are specified in Article 7) are being met. Article 8 describes the the Challenge Rule— the procedures for challenging the jack. Here is a simplified restatement of the rule.

After the jack has been thrown, either team may challenge the validity of the jack at any time until it (the team) has thrown its first boule. After a team has thrown its first boule, it no longer has the right to challenge the jack. Neither team may challenge the jack after the jack has been measured and shown to be valid. A team that manually places the jack may not challenge it.

Some players like to throw the jack and the first boule so quickly that the opposing team has no time to raise a challenge. The Challenge Rule allows the opposing team to challenge the jack even after the first boule has been thrown.

There are a number of questions that come up about the Challenge Rule.

Q1: Can team B challenge the jack after verbally accepting it?
Team A throws the jack. The player says “Hmmm. What do you think? Too long?” The captain of Team B says “Looks good to me.” Team A points the first boule. It is very good. Team B begins to think that the jack may be long after all. Can team B still challenge the jack?

Answer: YES, team B still has the right to challenge the jack. The FIPJP rules do not recognize any way to verbally accept the jack, so (according to the FIPJP rules) when the captain of team B says “It looks good to me,” he is merely expressing his personal opinion; he is not waiving his team’s right to challenge the jack.

To verbally accept the jack and then challenge it strikes some players as gamesmanship or even poor sportsmanship. That might be true in friendly play, but it is not illegal— no FIPJP rule is being broken. If an opposing team does it to you, don’t let it distract you. It’s all part of the game. Stay calm and carry on.

Q2: Can team A challenge the jack AFTER throwing the first boule?
Team A throws the jack. Team A then points the first boule. Team A then begins to have doubts — perhaps the jack was thrown too long. Can team A challenge the jack?

Answer: NO. After a team has thrown its first boule, it no longer has the right to challenge the jack. Team A has thrown its first boule. Its window of opportunity for challenging the jack has closed.

Q3: Can team B challenge a jack that is pushed beyond 10 meters by the first boule, if the jack’s original position was measured?
Team A throws the jack. They measure the distance. It is 9.95m— valid. Team A then points the first boule. The boule hits the jack and pushes it. Now the jack is clearly more than 10 meters from the circle. Can team B challenge the jack?

Answer: NO. Neither team may challenge the jack after the jack has been measured and shown to be valid. Players sometimes cite a mythical rule that “the second team has a right to play to a jack between 6 and 10 meters”, and argue that the jack is invalid because it is now more than 10 meters from the circle. But in actuality there is no such rule. In this situation, the jack has been measured and shown to be valid. It therefore cannot be challenged.

Q4: Can team B challenge a jack that is pushed beyond 10 meters by the first boule, if the jack’s original position was marked?
Team A throws the jack and marks it. Team A then points the first boule. The boule hits the jack and pushes it. Can Team B challenge the jack?

Answer: YES. Team B can challenge the jack. The thrown jack’s validity can be determined by measuring the distance from the circle to the marked position.

Q5: “The players must mark the position of the jack initially and after each time it is moved.” Which team is responsible for doing the marking?

Answer: The team that throws or places the jack is responsible for marking its location at the beginning of the mene. Thereafter, if a team throws a boule that directly or indirectly moves the jack, that team is responsible for marking the jack’s new location. A team may not play against a jack whose location is not marked, so if the jack is moved by the wind, the team that plays the next boule is responsible for insuring that the jack’s new location has been marked before they play their next boule.

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Tips for avoiding problems with challenging the jack

When your team throws the jack, play in a courteous manner. After throwing the jack, pause. Ask the other team if it looks OK to them, and wait for their answer. This gives the other team a chance to challenge the jack if they want to.

Some teams are in the habit of verbally accepting the jack, and then later challenging it. If you’re playing such a team, accept the fact that what they are doing is perfectly legal. If you let yourself become upset over the opposing team’s “poor sportsmanship”, you shoot yourself in the foot as far as “the mental game” is concerned. So be mellow; keep calm and carry on.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] This was reported by Mike Pegg himself in a 1999 post on petanque.org. Unfortunately, the original petanque.org website is now gone.

[2] For Mike’s old position, see THIS and THIS.
For Mike’s revised position as of March 2017, see THIS.
Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to obtain a copy of Azema’s 2016 directive, so the FIPJP’s official position is still undocumented. Fortunately, Mike has left us a direct quotation from the directive in a comment on that post on “Ask the Umpire”.

to quote Mr Azema:

– If the jack had not been marked the umpire MUST measure the distance between the edge of the circle (inside if it’s a materialized circle!) AND THE BEGINNING OF THE JACK WHERE IT IS AT THIS MOMENT.

– If the jack was marked, it is replaced to its original position and the umpire proceed at the measure in the same conditions.

Note that in the second case we measure to the edge of a jack placed on the mark, not to the mark. This will give us a measurement that is 15mm (half the diameter of the jack) shorter than if we had measured to the mark.

Note that Azema is obviously assuming that we mark the jack’s current location before removing it to make the measurement. Similarly, he’s assuming that if the jack is deemed valid we replace it on that mark before continuing the game.

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Something is hiding the jack. Is the jack dead?

[updated 2021-08-20]
This, or some variant of it, is one of the frequently-asked questions about the rules of petanque.

A leaf is hiding the jack. Should we pick up the leaf, or declare the jack dead?

The reason that players ask this question is that Article 9 and Article 12 of the FIPJP rules contradict each other.

• Article 9 says that “when, still on the authorised terrain, the displaced jack is not visible from the circle” it is dead. So if a boule hits the jack and knocks it behind a tree on the terrain, you declare the jack dead.
   
• Article 12 says — “If, during a mene, the jack is unexpectedly hidden by a leaf of a tree or a piece of paper, these objects are removed.” So if the wind blows a leaf in front of the jack, the jack— despite the fact that it is not visible from the circle— is not dead. You remove the leaf and continue the game.

So… A leaf is hiding the jack. Should we pick up the leaf, or declare the jack dead?

One of the basic principles of petanque is that the situation on the ground can (legally) be changed only by a thrown boule, or by the effects of a thrown boule. If the situation on the ground is changed by anything else, then the change isn’t legal and should be undone. You can see this principle stated pretty explicitly in Article 12. Reversing the order of the three sentences in Article 12 (and numbering them as I’ve done here) helps to make the basic idea clear.

(1) If the jack is moved by a boule played in this game, it is valid.

(2) If the jack comes to be moved by the wind or the slope of the terrain, for example or by an umpire, a player or spectator accidentally treading on it, a boule or a jack coming from another game, an animal or any other mobile object, it is returned to its original position, provided this was marked.

(3) If, during an end, a leaf or a piece of paper unexpectedly masks the jack these objects are removed.

Note the parallelism of the second and third sentences. If the jack is illegally moved, it is put back. If something other than the jack is illegally moved, it is removed.

The same principle is stated again in Article 22, which covers boules rather than the jack. (Again, I’ve reversed and numbered the sentences).

(1) If a boule is moved by a boule played in the same game, it remains in its new position.

(2) If a stationary boule is moved by the wind or slope of the ground, for example, it is put back in its place, provided it has been marked. The same applies to any boule accidentally displaced by a player, an umpire, a spectator, an animal or any moving object.

In both articles, note the reference to “an animal”. If a “troublemaker” walks through your game and disturbs things on the ground, you should put everything back where it was, if you can.

This means that if the jack is hidden by a leaf, you need to know how the jack came to be hidden in order to decide how to handle the situation. If the wind blew a leaf in front of the jack, you remove the leaf. If a legally-thrown boule knocked the jack behind a leaf, the jack is dead.

Note that the important difference in these two cases is not in the thing (jack or leaf) that was moved. It is in the cause of the change— the “actor”, as it were. A thrown boule is a legal actor in a game of petanque; the wind is not. This is why Article 12 covers cases in which the jack is “unexpectedly” hidden. Unexpected events are unexpected precisely because they are illegal, caused by some actor from outside the game.

Some problems with interpreting Article 12

Article 12 says– If, during a mene, the jack is unexpectedly hidden by a leaf of a tree or a piece of paper, these objects are removed. This has led some players to argue that Article 12 is about only leaves and pieces of paper, and that it is not applicable if something else (a plastic bag, for example) blows onto the terrain and hides the jack. But of course that’s silly. Article 12 is clearly meant to apply to a whole class of things; it uses leaves and pieces of paper only as illustrative examples.

The wording of Article 12 has even confused French umpires; some have been known to argue that since Article 12 refers to “a leaf”, if only ONE leaf blows onto the terrain and hides the jack, the leaf should be removed, but if TWO leaves are involved the leaves cannot be picked up and the jack is dead. Possibly they were confused by a graphic in the French Umpire’s Handbook— the FFPJP Code d’Arbitrage. Note however that the caption makes it clear that the picture on the right is meant to illustrate a case in which a jack was hit into a pile of leaves, not a situation in which two leaves were blown in front of the jack.

Remove the leaf: the jack is good	Dead jack
If, during a mene, the jack is unexpectedly hidden by a leaf of a tree or a piece of paper, remove the object. If the jack is knocked into a pile of leaves and is no longer visible, it is dead.

Because Article 12 is worded the way it is, players have questions about things other than leaves and pieces of paper.

1. A thrown boule hits the ground in front of the jack and pushes up a small pile of dirt. Now the jack is buried, completely covered in dirt. ► Is the jack dead? Or should the pushed-up dirt be removed?
    
2. A thrown boule hits a large stone on the terrain. The stone pops up, flips through the air, and lands in front of the jack, hiding it. ► Is the jack dead, or should the stone be removed?
    
3. A pointed boule rolls across the terrain and encounters a leaf. The boule continues to roll, pushing the leaf ahead of it as it goes. When the boule finally comes to a stop, the leaf is sitting in front of the jack, hiding it. ► Is the jack dead, or should the leaf be removed?

When these questions were discussed on the “Ask the umpire” Facebook group, the consensus was that in all of these cases, the jack is hidden and therefore, as per Article 9, the jack is dead… even though Article 9 is about a displaced jack, and in none of these cases is the jack displaced. What these cases have in common is that the cause of the change was a boule legally thrown in the game. That is why, in each of these cases, the change to the situation on the terrain was legal and the jack is hidden and dead.

Note that in the second case the stone was moved legally, by a boule thrown in the game. If a boule from another game had come onto the terrain and done the same thing, the flipped stone should be removed because it wasn’t moved by a boule thrown in the game.

The Bottom Line, aka The Executive Summary
The situation on the ground can (legally) be changed only by a thrown boule, or by the effects of a thrown boule.
If the situation on the ground is changed by anything else, then the change isn’t legal and (if possible) should be undone.

NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION OF ARTICLE 12
Article 12 says that if the jack is inopinément hidden by a leaf or piece of paper, the leaf or piece of paper should be removed. The French adverb inopinément means “unexpectedly” although, depending on the context, it can be translated as “suddenly”. When something happens inopinément, in English we might say that it happened “out of the blue”— suddenly and unexpectedly. The English version of the FIPJP rules mistranslates inopinément as “accidentally”. Here, I translate it as “unexpectedly”.

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