The director is not there to play their hand for them!
Where there has been (for example) misinformation, I have always assumed it is the NOS's responsibility to identify what the damage was (i.e. how they would have got a better score with the correct information), and for the director to agree or otherwise.
As the post title says, the director is not there to play their hand for them!
Am I right (in principle) on this, and what leeway is there to assist inexperienced players?
I know we would go through the auction and play after the MI and say "what would you have done", but it isn't always that easy and inexperienced players may be disadvantaged.
Comments
The damage may be that the offending side can work out something better and you will need to know of their system to assess that.
I wouldn't expect NOS to be able to predict.
Alan
Here's a bidding sequence from Friday's duplicate (pairs). E/W Vul. Dealer South.
N E S W
2D 2S 3C P
3S P 4D 4S
X End
The result was 4 down doubled for 1100 to N/S and a complete top.
All was well until South said to partner was your 2D inverted? Yes that's the system we play replied North - it shows at least 4 Diamonds and a good raise to at least either 3NT or 4D with any shape outside . We've been damaged exclaimed East. West said he wouldn't have bid 4S if he'd known North had a strong hand. The director was called but no decision was made since there were not enough pairs of a sufficient standard to make a ruling.
North said he didn't think he had bid in any untoward way since as far as he was concerned he had to pretend that the alert had happened. Partner's 3C bid was suggesting 3NT or 5D. He therefore bid 3S as a forward going move. If West had not bid 4S, North said he intended to bid probably 5 or possibly 6 Diamonds (both making according to the hand-outs) .
No other N/S had bid game.
A few questions spring to mind.
Happy Christmas. Alan.
Do you have a hand diagram Alan?
I'd want to check that N/S's agreement actually was inverted minors are still on after interference.
WB 8.12.5.1 tells us to consider 'would Non-offenders have got it right with the correct info, not should they have got it right anyway'. So I would not think too much about whether West should have bid 4S given the clues from the auction that N/S were strong.
I'd find out whether East would have overcalled 1S if 2D had been alerted/explained as strong. If not E/W would definitely not have got to 4S and have been damaged.
As to what you adjust to... you'd have to work out how the auction would have gone had South alerted/explained 2D and that is difficult without hand records. One factor is whether South failed to alert because they misunderstood North's bid. If so whilst E/W's bidding can assume the correct meaning, South's bidding cannot until it becomes obvious by subsequent bids.
Peter Bushby Suffolk
I'd also like to know what South's 3C bid was, supposedly opposite a 2D weak and limited hand. Obviously, there's nothing much to be said without hand records but either South has a strong hand or he knew that 2D was stronger than a 6-9 competing bid and there was a failure to alert.
I reference to AlanB's comment that no other NS pair bid game, this isn't necessarily relevant since their systems and auction could have been different.
I've tried copying the hands across but failed. Here' the website where it's been posted. It's board 3 and we were Pair 8. On advice the director has since scored it as 5D by South just making. At the time no other pair had bid game. Our inverted minor raises remain on whatever is called or bid at the one level.
https://www.bridgewebs.com/cgi-bin/bwom/bw.cgi?pid=display_rank&event=20191220_1&club=coulsdoncardfellowship
Not sure why the contract was adjudicated as 5 diamonds. Some of the time, I would have thought the contract would have ended at 4 diamonds since South seems to have signed off. Oh well - need more info re bidding methods but since sympathetic weighting should be in favour of the NOS, if there is any doubt then a weighted score should have been made.