Self-Inflicted Damage
There was a board during tonight's session, no one vulnerable, where the auction went, from West
3H - dbl - pass - 3NT
pass* - pass - 4H - dbl - all pass
There was a lengthy hesitation before West's pass and I was called to the table after East bid 4H. I said to call me back later. After I left, South doubled and West made 4Hx. 3NT would go two off for -100 on reasonable defence. 4Hx was -590, 4H not doubled would be -420.
I didn't have the luxury of polling anyone at the club, since everyone had gone home, but I judged that pass was a logical alternative for East and gave EW an assigned score of -100 for 3NT down two.
What do I give to NS? I reasoned that the double resulted in self-inflicted damage to the tune of -170 and so gave NS a score of -170. Is this reasonable?
More info available at http://www.bridgewebs.com/cgi-bin/bwom/bw.cgi?pid=display_rank&event=20190211_2&club=olicana
The hand was board 24 between NS9 and EW19.
Comments
South had
J 4
A 2
K 6 5
J 8 7 5 4 3
In order to apply Law 12C1e as you have, you have to consider that the double by South was "an extremely serious error (unrelated to the infraction) or a gambling action". South would have a reasonable expectation of 4H going off. I don't have a problem with the double.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Thank you, Barrie. I value your opinion and I'll reconsider the situation in the morning.
It's clearly not an extremely serious error unrelated to the infraction, but it's less certain that it was not a gambling action. One might ask the player why he doubled, and an answer such as "I didn't think he should be allowed to bid 4H" might lead to the conclusion that it was gambling.
As to how to score it, tag was on the right lines except that it would have needed each of the three scores to first be converted into cross-IMPs (or match-points if that had been the scoring method) and then the IMP amount attributable to the gambling action to be subtracted from the NOS score.
I did ask South about the double before he left, since I was considering the double-shot aspect of the call - if it makes, the TD will roll it back, if it goes down, we're increasing our score. He insisted that he would always double 4H, with or without the hesitation.
Thank you, Gordon, for mentioning the aspect of conversion to the scoring type. I'd forgotten about that.
I'm inclined towards simply rolling it back to 3NT and leaving it there for 3NT-2.
I think in all these Law 12C1e cases, the standard for denying redress is high and I would be inclined to accept your player's assurance that his was not a gambling action.
Sorry brain failure here.
"As to how to score it, tag was on the right lines except that it would have needed each of the three scores to first be converted into cross-IMPs (or match-points if that had been the scoring method) and then the IMP amount attributable to the gambling action to be subtracted from the NOS score."
Does that mean that you could go in on the computer program and get the three separate scores based on the "field" scores and then change everything or am I totally off the mark? How do you show it on the computer "traveller" if you see what I mean. Sorry to be missing the point.
Another point that comes to mind is that whenever the offending side says that "I would always be bidding that on my hand" we should avoid giving any benefit. However, if someone does what could appear to be a gambling bid that fails we accept their assertion that they would "always be doing that"? If that were so, then we might hardly ever be in a position to do the sums of the three calculations. Seems to go against the principle that "two wrongs don't make a right" , or am I off beam here?
CMOT_Dibbler
I think the easiest way for pairs events would be to put the three scores into the program and take the IMPs or MPs for each in order to calculate the part of it's damage that is self inflicted.
Then put in the score that you are awarding the offending side and adjust for the NOS by the amount you have calculated.
In cases where the NOS were due a good score after the infraction and all of the damage was self-inflicted, they simply keep their table result.
No, we don't always accept the claim that the NOS "would always have done that", but since they are the NOS we are more likely to accept their claim than than of someone who seems to be using UI. We can of course make a poll to help us judge.
Thanks Gordon
Good point about the poll.
CMOT_Dibbler