[bali 2]

Scoring: IMP

NS play Major 5th

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N opens 1H, pass, S 2H, W 2S, N4H. East hesitates and pass( agreed by EW ), S pass, W bids 4S.
N reserves his rights and doubles, 3 pass.

1) The contract is 3 down, -500, S having ruffed the third Club and having played Queen and a Heart instead of Diamonds .
TD is called at the end, etc etc...and rules 4H +2 , NS + 680.
Have the defence been "egregious" ( top level players ) or not ?

2) Supposing another defence more "irrational " and supposing TD judges that it has broken the link, what should be the scoring ?
I know that the O.S. is adjusted to 4H +2, so -680. But concerning the N.O.S., there are 2 theories :
- first theory, explained by TD Mauricio Di Sacco during a meeting between the " laws chiefs", which says that as the NOS could have obtained a better result with the infraction than without it, they keep their bad result ( +500)

- second theory, the famous "subsequent and consequent" regulation which ask TD to calculate the subsequent damage and to substract it from the adjustment, which of course ends in another result.

Please David could you give us the very good way to resolve these cases, and explain what to do according to the situation where the NOS could have got a better result and the case where it was damaged by the infraction.

Thank you very much in advance
Al. Ohana

[jeremy69]

this strikes me as a relatively simple case. THe 4s bid was, IMO, suggested by the hesitation so the director was quite right to adjust back to 4H making 6. The defence was 2nd best but it was not so poor that the director should consider taking any of the adjustment away. They did, of course, have the chance of +800 and blew it but it wasn't wild or gambling to do so.

[bluejak]

While I am sure Jeremy is right, and would give redress in full, there is also the question of how redress should be denied if the TD's judgement is that redress should not be given in full.

This is a progression over time. Originally someone came up with 'subsequent not consequent' and when it happened there was no adjustment. While this method is completely anachronistic a lot of TDs still apply it around the world. Just check the threads on rec.games.bridge where someone says "An egregious error so no redress" and applies it to both sides.

After a time it was realised that this gave an unnecessary bonus to an offending side. So then someone came up with the idea that the offending side still got adjusted against, the non-offending side kept their table score.

More recently, and primarily in Europe, the idea came of giving the offending side the full adjustment, and for th non-offending side deducting the amount caused by their "wild or gambling action" [England/Wales], "egregious error" or "failure to play bridge" [ACBL and other jurisdictions that follow ACBL advice] or "irrational, wild or gambling action" [most of the rest of the world].

However, all this has been interpretations of the Law book, which is probably why the interpretations have been somewhat different in different jurisdictions. But from 2007 this has become a matter of Law. The method of reducing redress and the standard for doing so have been standardised by Law 12B1B.

Thus now Mauricio Di Sacco's approach is no longer valid: it applied in some places until the 2007 Laws. What you call the 'famous "subsequent and consequent" regulation' is now a matter of Law and must be followed.

[RMB1]

bali 2, on Oct 17 2009, 07:15 AM, said:

2) Supposing another defence more "irrational " and supposing TD judges that it has broken the link, what should be the scoring ?

Let us suppose that the contract is always 4 down except that NS commit a serious error (e.g. a revoke) and the result is only 3 down. Let us say that result in the other room was NS +680. How do we apply law 12?

Previously we might have ruled that NS were not damaged at all: the infraction (4S) should have lead to a NS score of +800 and without the infraction they would have scored +680.

But now Law 12B1 tells us that "damage exists when, because of an infraction, an innocent side obtains a table result less favourable than would have been the expectation had the infraction not occurred". NS did score +500 and without the infraction they would have scored +680, so there is damage and we apply Law 12C1.

EW, the offending side, get the score for NS +680 (0 IMPs) under Law 12C1c (or 12C1e).

If we apply Law 12C1b literally to the non-offending side, then we have to calculate the part of the damage that was self-inflicted. The self-inflicted damage is the difference in score between NS +800 and NS +500 = IMP(800 - 680) - IMP(500-680) = 3 - (-5) = 8. So NS get the adjustment for the offending side less the self-inflicted damage = -8IMP ? Obviously not, because this is worse that their score at the table IMP(500-680) = -5IMP.

This is because all the damage was self-inflicted, as we would have said previously, there is no damage consequent to the infraction, the damage was all subsequent (caused by the revoke). The upshot is that NS keep their table score, -5IMP.

This is a general conclusion from the application of Law 12C1b. When the damage is all self-inflicted (without the serious error the non-offending side should have done better with the infraction) then the non-offending side keep their table result.

...

If the number of undertricks were different then the would be real damage and self-inflicted damage. If 4S should be -3 but a revoke lead to -2 then EW still get 0IMPs but NS lose the self-inflicted damage IMP(300-680) - IMP(500-680) = -4IMP.

Robin

[bali 2]

Thank you very much to you all. It's now more clear ; and the exemple given by MRB is very educative.
Best regards, Al. Ohana