[glen]

In a recent ACBL BBO speedball tourney, I had:

Scoring: IMP

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The bidding went 1♣-Pass-1♦-?

I passed. At this point opener rebid 1NT, and responder alerted (after I bid) their 1♦ bid as showing 0-5 points (turns out responder is 3-5-3-2 with 2 jacks).

I called the TD who came, but just observed, after 1NT was passed around to me. Without further instruction, I wrote to the TD that "I will now continue the best I can". The TD did not reply.

I bid 2♦, partner passed that, and I made 6. Partner had:

Scoring: IMP

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I asked for an adjustment to AVG (not AVG+), saying I could not show a decent hand since I had passed first.

TD ruled no damage, score stands.

Questions:
1) Was there damage?
2) Was it our fault we stayed in 2♦?
3) Was a request to adjust to AVG reasonable?
4) Would you have adjusted to AVG, left the score as is, or made some other adjustment

Btw the ruling had no change on any masterpoints obtained - I'm just asking to gain insight into when adjustments should and should not be made due to a failure to alert initially.

[blackshoe]

Failure to alert an alertable call is misinformation. According to Law 21B1, if your partner had not called over the 1NT bid when you called the TD, he should have allowed you to change your pass to something else if you so desired. If your partner had called, then the TD might adjust the score.

When a result has been obtained at the table, an artificial adjusted score is, generally speaking, illegal. The proper procedure would be to award an assigned adjusted score under Law 12C2.

It is not appropriate for players to suggest how the TD should rule. Present the facts. If you then disagree with his ruling, either accept it and move on, or appeal.

If you should have been given a chance to change your call, that is TD error. Now the TD must adjust "treating both sides as non-offending" - the criteria regarding to what to adjust are different for offenders and non-offenders.

I would need to know more about your methods before making a final ruling. Could your methods have got you to six? Or five, for that matter?

[glen]

blackshoe, on Dec 4 2007, 10:14 PM, said:

I would need to know more about your methods before making a final ruling. Could your methods have got you to six? Or five, for that matter?

Our methods would hopefully prevent us from getting to 6, using ace asking bids.

We would have a very good chance of getting to 3NT, if not hitting the opponents in 1NTX. For example 1♣-Pass-1♦(0-5)-Double(♦s)-1NT-Double. Now since responder passed over 1NT at the table, perhaps they might pass 1NTX.

[blackshoe]

Damage is defined as, in effect, getting a worse score than you might have got had the infraction not occurred. So to determine whether there was damage, you need to find whether the NOS might have done better than +170.

If you bid 3NT and make it, you get +600. If you double their 1NT and play there, perhaps they go down three (arbitrary, I haven't checked to see how reasonable it is) for +800. So yeah, you were damaged. Since the failure to alert prevented you from getting to those contracts, the damage was caused by the MI. BTW, IMO the answer to your "was it our fault..." question is no.

So, to answer your questions:

1) Yes.
2) No.
3) No.
4) Some other adjustment.