A clarification on self-alerting
In one of tonight's boards, EW announced their system initially as 3 weak 2s (amongst other things of course). At the start of the 2nd board, however, East announced their opening bid as strong (and they did indeed have a strong 2 open). This went all pass and East appears to have misbid and misannounced their open such that East has described their hand correctly :)
North quite rightly pointed out that they may have bid on if it had been announced correctly as weak. In this particular case, the final score would probably have been the same as East competes in diamonds anyway (the hand file is attached here for anyone who is curious though: https://tinyurl.com/yxs8eq9r) but it raises the question of whether NS should have the right to rectification in an online event when EW correctly describes their misbid hand! In face-to-face bridge, NS and West would have no idea that East's hand is in fact strong, and NS would not be entitled to rectification as West announces it as weak; Here only West is unaware that East has misbid and NS have the correct information about East's hand...
Comments
East is entitled to misbid and describe their opening bid as 'weak' even if they have a strong hand.
If East explains the bid as strong, NS are entitled to an adjustment if the agreement is that the bid is weak and they would bid over a weak bid and were damaged by not bidding. NS have been misinformed, even if there was a pre-announcement at the start of the round.
I agree, thank you Robin. In this case, I don't believe NS have been damaged (at unfavourable vulnerability, most players will not overcall 2H, especially in the knowledge that East has a strong hand; Even if they do, EW are still likely to win the auction in diamonds and make the same score). I just thought it was an interesting situation where the laws allow rectification here when East's hand is known but not when East's hand is unknown if you see what I mean!
What seems to happen in cases where we have adjusted is that say South misbids (for one of various reasons) and gives an explanation which matches their hand but not their agreement, North bids according to the agreement, and East sees an auction-with-explanations that does not make sense and East is confused and make the wrong call. Were East to see an explanation from South which makes North's bidding make sense, East would make a more successful call, even though East does not know South's actual hand.
Yes, we have ruled based on MI even when South's explanation matches their hand, but it doesn't match their agreement. It's rare, because usually when the opponents are having a mix-up (in particular, passing a forcing bid) it's not in their interests.
There was a hand (against my teammates) in the VESM where South described their own bid as "strong, forcing"; Their agreement was that it was a weak bid and North passed it; East passed the board out thinking that they'd had a misunderstanding (which they had). In spite of the fact that South had a hand that justified a strong bid, it was actually E/W's hand, and East wouldn't have passed the board out if all he had known was the partnership agreement that it was a weak bid.
The TD adjusted (what to adjust to was a different and difficult judgement but luckily it turned out not to matter)
Ah good point, that does make it a lot clearer, thank you both.