This post was rendered obsolete by the FIPJP ruling on March 6, 2023, that a boule played out-of-turn is simply a mistake; it should be left in place and play should continue. I have left this post untouched, to preserve a historical record of what the debate was, before it was resolved. For more information on the FIPJP’s ruling, see THIS.
extensively revised 2022-07-13
At this point, the question is of course— What do we do now? A variety of answers have been proposed.
1. The boule was thrown “contrary to the rules”
There is no FIPJP rule that specifically covers boules thrown out-of-turn. What players and umpires usually come up with is that the boules were thrown “contrary to the rules”. They reason thus—
- Article 16 says that “it is the team that does not hold the point that plays.”
- Since Bob WAS holding the point when he played boules B2 and B3, he broke the rule in Article 16.
- Since Bob broke a rule when he played boules B2 and B3, B2 and B3 must have been “played contrary to the rules”.
- Article 24 contains a rule about what to do when a boule is played contrary to the rules. Therefore, the rule in Article 24 is what we should use.
Article 24 says that when we discover that a boule has been played contrary to the rules, we should apply an “advantage rule”.
- The offended team may choose to leave everything where it is, and carry on with the game. Or—
- The offended team may choose to declare each boule that was thrown out-of-turn to be dead, and to put every ball that was illegally moved back in its original location, if its original location was marked.
Note that the offended team— not the umpire— decides what to do with a boule thrown out-of-turn. Note also that a boule thrown out-of-turn is not automatically dead— the offended team can choose to declare it dead, but they can also choose to leave it where it is.
The bottom line for Bob is that Team A is probably going to choose the second option, and declare B2 and B3 to be dead.
The rule is straight-forward, but it can be emotionally unsatisfying, especially when several boules are involved. When Team B throws two or three boules out-of-turn, players begin to wonder— Where was Team A when Team B was throwing all of these illegal boules? Surely Team A must have realized that Team B had the point! Shouldn’t they have informed Team B? Isn’t Team A at least partly at fault, for knowing that Team B had the point, but sitting around and watching Team A throw all of these illegal boules and saying nothing?
These suspicions are almost always groundless. In cases like this, as often as not the players on Team A said nothing because they didn’t have enough time to carefully assess the situation, or they really did not realize (or were not sure about) who had the point. Still, we often have a gut-level feeling that Team A must somehow share the guilt, and it is unfair or harsh to punish Team B so severely. This has prompted proposals for other ways of dealing with multiple boules thrown out-of-turn.
2. The boule was NOT thrown “contrary to the rules”
In 2008 Petanque New Zealand (PNZ) published rules interpretations saying that a boule thrown out of turn should not be considered to have been thrown contrary to the rules. In 2012 John Degueldre, Director of Umpiring for Petanque New Zealand, followed up by issuing the following ruling.
Boules played out of turn are not considered as an infringement to the rules
[i.e. as "boules thrown contrary to the rules"]but indeed as a mistake. Players making such a mistake penalise themselves by reducing or losing the boule advantage. In conclusion, players do not incur any penalty, and boule(s) are valid and stay in place. But it is still the player or team not holding the point that must play the next boule.
The practical effect of this interpretation is that, after it is discovered that one or more boules have been thrown out-of-turn, everything is left where it is, and the game carries on.
It’s true that playing a boule out-of-turn is usually a mistake— often a newbie mistake, sometimes a result of lazy playing— and so shouldn’t be treated too harshly. But a blanket no-fault policy may be excessively tolerant. Even a mistakenly-thrown boule can have consequences. If you point a boule right in front of the jack, or right in front of a boule that I was planning to shoot, you’ve changed the situation on the ground in your favor. Saying “Oops, my mistake,” doesn’t change the fact that your boule has just created a real problem for me. My sense of fairness tells me that your throw really should be undone.
I think that PNZ came to the same conclusion. As of the 2021 version of its rules, it now interprets Article 24 in the standard FIPJP way (position #1).
3. Only the LAST boule was thrown “contrary to the rules”
The NJBB (the Dutch national petanque federation) agrees that a boule thrown out-of-turn has been thrown contrary to the rules, but its rules interpretation guidelines specify an unusual way of applying Article 24.
Every team has a duty to investigate and must ensure that a player who is about to play belongs to the team team whose turn it really is to play. … If the opposing team has had the opportunity to object and has not removed from play the boule that was thrown contrary to the rules, one may assume that they have agreed to leave the boule(s) in question. Thus, the rule does not automatically apply retroactively if the error is discovered at a later time.
The NJBB position is that when Team A didn’t object to Bob throwing B2, Team A must have implicitly (and without telling anyone) invoked Article 24’s advantage rule, and must (without telling anyone) have chosen the first option— to leave everything untouched. After it is discovered that B3 was thrown out-of-turn, then Team A may explicitly invoke Article 24’s advantage rule and choose to disqualify B3. But it can do nothing about B2 because it has already implicitly agreed not to disqualify B2.
In effect, the NJBB rule is that when it is discovered that Team B has thrown multiple boules out-of-turn, Team A can disqualify only the last one.
This is obviously an attempt to find a minimally punitive way to handle multiple boules thrown out-of-turn. And I think that it would be acceptable for the NJBB simply and arbitrarily to rule that when one team throws multiple boules out-of-turn, the other team can disqualify only the last one. (Most of the rules of most games are completely arbitrary.) But the NJBB’s feeble attempt to rationalize its ruling is absurd. Not realizing that a boule has been thrown out-of-turn is not the same thing as (a) realizing that a boule has been thrown out-of-turn, then (b) making a conscious choice to choose one, rather than the other, of the two options offered by Article 24’s advantage rule, and then (c) concealing that recognition and that decision from the opposing team.
The bottom line
The bottom line, I think, is that while the standard FIPJP position (position #1) can sometimes leave us emotionally dissatisfied, there is no other position that is compatible with the current FIPJP rules and obviously better.
The lesson for all of us is therefore—
You can’t count on the opposing team always to point out that you have, or might have gained the point. The responsibility for claiming the point is yours, and you can’t expect your opponents to do your job for you.
Before you play a boule, always make sure that you know where the point lies, and that it really is your team’s turn to play. Or be prepared to deal with the consequences.
Why boules thrown out-of-turn cause so much confusion
It is difficult to discuss boules thrown out-of-turn, because players commonly believe (incorrectly) that a boule thrown out-of-turn is automatically dead, or that an umpire will automatically rule the boule to be dead. They believe this because of the extremely confusing way that Article 24 is written. First Article 24 says “any boule thrown contrary to the rules is dead.” Then it says “Oh wait, I take it back. The boule isn’t dead; the offended team gets to apply an advantage rule.” The FIPJP should be ashamed of itself for the way that Article 24 is written.
Dealing with a forgotten boule
Players and umpires sometimes invoke the concept of a boule thrown out-of-turn when dealing with a forgotten boule. That’s a mistake. See our post on Dealing with a forgotten boule.
Extensive revision of this post
This post was extensively revised on July 13, 2022 in response to comments on the first version by Michael, Bruce Whitehill, and Niek. Michael and Bruce pointed out the difficulties in the 2012 PNZ position, and especially challenged the statement (now removed) that “A boule thrown out-of-turn hurts the team that threw it and does no harm to the opposing team.” Niek called my attention to the NJBB’s unusual interpretation of Article 24. My thanks go out to all of them for their help in making this post better.
The Rules of Petanque 
You made a wrong conclusion writing “A boule thrown out-of-turn hurts the team that threw it and does no harm to the opposing team. No harm; no foul.”.
Of course the opposing team is harmed. Suddenly their opponents have 2 points on the ground, which greatly affect the options the opposite team has to get point. Before, a shot would mean 2 points for the opposite team in that moment (with carreau), while in this situation it would only mean 1 point. It is just an example.
Practically, when there are 2 points on the ground for one team, the other team’s options is reduced to pointing, because if they shoot, anything else than carreau would mean 1 point for the team THAT MADE FOUL. The fact that the team that played boule (when it should not play) now has one boule less in hand, can not change the fact that the opposite team got into disadvantage.
Michael,
You need to think things thru more carefully. You write “Before [case 1], a shot would mean 2 points for the opposite team [Team B] in that moment, while in this situation [case 2] it would only mean 1 point.”
You ignore the fact that in case 1, although Team B has two points on the ground, it is out of boules and Team A still has one unplayed boule. With it, Team A can shoot or outpoint Team B and finish by winning the mene and scoring one point. Team A can do that because they still have the boule advantage… basically, the ability to throw the last boule in the mene. And it was this — the boule advantage — that Team B lost when they threw their last boule out-of-turn.
You need to remember the importance of having the boule advantage, and the importance of losing it. Losing it (basically, losing the ability to throw the last boule in the mene) means the difference between winning and losing the mene. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that throwing a boule out-of-turn and losing the boule advantage is like handing victory to the opponents on a plate. Clearly, that counts as helping, not harming, the opponents.
— https://petanquerules.wordpress.com/2021/12/21/the-boule-advantage/
Your team “A” clearly has the point with boule A1, and the opposing team “B” will surely want to try to shoot and remove A1. Team B still has a boule to play, but you believe that they have played all of their boules, so you throw a boule without asking Team B if they have any unplayed boules. Your boule comes to rest right in front of A1, blocking a takeout shot for your opponent. Does your boule remain in play or is it removed?
Outside of New Zealand, the boule thrown out-of-turn will be considered to have been thrown contrary to the rules, and the offended team will have the choice of choosing to leave it where it is or to declare it to be dead.
I had something similar happen to me today. The front was completely open. Mistakenly believing that it was my turn to play, I played a boule. A lucky lob landed my boule directly in front of the jack, blocking my opponent’s access to the jack. Naturally, when we discovered that my boule was thrown out-of-turn, it was removed. This was a case where the PNZ practice of just leaving everything where it is would clearly have been unfair.
I agree with PNZ that in MOST cases, boules thrown out-of-turn do little harm and can safely be left where they are. But not in ALL cases.
Dear Jules.
Thank you for your enlightening remarks about many hot issues. In the discussion about throwing boules out of turn, you acknowledge the point of view of our friends in New Zealand.
You are aware (as you mentioned it in other posts) of the existence of the so-called RPSPlus, the body of explanations by the Dutch commission for the rules. It appears that they express a different opinion.
If most international umpires rule that a boule played out of order stays on the terrain and that all boules played out of order are to be treated in the same way, then the NJBB apparently differs in its ruling. The NJBB says that In the case of multiple boules out of order, only the last one is considered dead.
I have extracted the relevant passages from notes on Article 24 and translated them into English.
_________________________________________________________
What is the rule if a player of some team plays out of turn?
Article 16 describes one of the basic principles of the game. Shortly summarised: If the first boule has been played, it’s the other team’s turn to play. The principle is that, subsequently and consistently, it’s the turn of the team that’s not lying on point to play.
What if the team that has the point plays the next boule, while its adversary still has boules to play?
If playing a boule goes against the basic principles of the game, the boule has to be regarded as played contrary to the rules. A boule that is played contrary to the rules has to be removed from the game, and if boules or the jack have been displaced, they have to be restored to their old position, provided that they had been marked.
In addition, the adversary has the possibility to apply the ‘advantage rule’. In that case, the boule becomes valid, and everything that has been displaced as a consequence of the throw keeps its new position. If both teams have boules to play, the team that prepares itself to play must know for sure that it’s their turn. Should one of the teams be in doubt, then, if necessary, a measurement should be executed.
In article 35 it is determined which penalties are applicable in the case of not complying with the rules of the game.
What has to be done if more than one boule has been thrown unjustified?
Each team has the obligation to investigate and needs to ascertain that the player that is ready to play belongs to the team whose turn it really is to play. That, however, is not absolute. If the adversary had the opportunity to object and nevertheless did not remove the boule that was thrown contrary to the rules, one may assume that they agreed with leaving behind the boule(s) concerned. Hence, the rule doesn’t apply retroactively if the error is not detected until a later time. Which should be the solution to be opted for is at the discretion of the umpire.
What if a player on purpose feigns to possess no more boules, or if he is lying on point?
A player may not throw his boule until he has convinced himself that it’s not the adversary’s turn to play (because they lie on point or because they have no more boules to play). If nevertheless, someone throws his boule, this boule is invalid and has to be removed. The responsibility of whether to play or not to play is very important here. The adversary has the sportive duty if it seems that the other party is preparing to throw an unjustified boule, to express themselves. If they (advertently or inadvertently) fail to do so, they are in violation, even if the intent rarely can be proven. If the umpire detects a pattern during a game and/or the tournament, he can act against it at his own discretion.
Hi Niek, Thanks very much for the translation! 🙂
The NJBB’s position, if I understand it correctly, is that if Team A throws multiple boules out-of-turn without Team B objecting, then Team B is presumed to have implicitly (and without telling anyone else) applied the advantage rule in Article 24 and chosen not to kill those boules. So when Team A finally throws a boule out-of-turn and Team B DOES object, Team B can choose to kill only that last boule.
I don’t know of any other national federation, or any non-Dutch umpire, who would agree with that. So YES, the NJBB’s position is indeed different from the two positions described in this post.
Note that the NJBB commentary says “if someone throws his boule [out of turn], this boule is invalid and has to be removed.” This is simply wrong. The offended team will apply the advantage rule described Article 24 and choose whether or not to declare the boule to be dead.
Hi Niek,
After re-reading the NJBB rules interpretations, I think I understand them better. So I have have revised my earlier responses to your comments.
— Jules
This post was extensively revised on July 13, 2022 in response to comments on the first version by Michael, Bruce Whitehill, and Niek.
Michael and Bruce pointed out the difficulties in the 2012 PNZ position, and especially challenged the statement (now removed) that “A boule thrown out-of-turn hurts the team that threw it and does no harm to the opposing team.” Niek called my attention to the NJBB’s unusual interpretation of Article 24. My thanks go out to all of them for their help in making this post better.