[blml] Split score

[Adam Beneschan]

Laszlo Hegedus wrote:
 
> Hi, suppose after a long auction East-West reach 4S. During the bidding 
> there was an agreed MI: East misinformed North about one of his 
> partner's bid. The MI drives North to sacrifice 5H which is doubled and 
> goes down 2, the 4S would have been down 2 as well. With correct 
> information North would surely pass instead of sacrifice (and the 4S-2 
> is the very likely result). If you are the TD, you see North's hand and 
> decides if the sacrifice is reasonable or clearly bad bridge with the 
> received information.
> 
> #1 If the sacrifice is reasonable. You adjust  4S-2.

Yes.
 
> #2 If the sacrifice seems really bad with the MI as well, then result 
> 5H*-2 stands and give a procedural penalty to the OS.

In your part of the world, I believe this only applies if you can
judge the 5H bid to be "wild, irrational, or gambling"; in that case,
you can rule that the 5H bid was not caused by the misinformation and
thus no adjustment is necessary.  In the ACBL, the standard is a bit
looser---the bid just has to be egregiously bad to break the causative
link. 

As for a procedural penalty: I don't think this should be automatic.
Sometimes just a warning is more appropriate.  

 
> #3 If the sacrifice is reasonable, but for example during the play the 
> declarer goes down once more then he should have, you adjust a split score.

I think this is wrong.  If the contract should have been at 4S, but
the opponents bid 5H because of the misinformation, then you adjust to
what the result would have been at 4S.  You don't consider what
actually happened at 5H---unless, of course, they made 5H, and then
you let the NO's keep their good score.  But even if they go down more
than they should have, it doesn't matter.  If the irregularity (the
MI) had not occurred, the contract would have been 4S, and the result
of 4S is what the NO's are entitled to, according to the Laws.

This may not be a universal opinion.  There's been debate on this
subject on BLML in the past, and I think I used to be of the opinion
that the NO's should suffer *some* punishment in their score for
playing 5H really badly.  But I've changed my mind.

                                -- adam