BBO Discussion Forums: Conflicting infractions - BBO Discussion Forums

Suppose West opens 1NT (not alerted) and North employs his favorite artificial defence against strong NT. Lately NS got themselves entangled in an UI situation (or any other infraction) and EW summoned TD after the end of the deal. TD's inquiries confirm infraction, which clearly leads to the score being adjusted in favor of EW, but it accidently comes up that EW actually play weak NT (may be West held 15 PC, so nobody noticed anything strange before), which have to be alerted in this jurisdiction. NS play natural overcalls over weak NT so in the case of correct alert bidding would not have even slightest resemblance to the actual one.

The main question: who is offending and who is non-offending side now and how to adjust? I did't manage to find any guidance in the Law without assistance.
Also:
Should North protect himself by asking questions before bidding? What if any NT range have to be announced instead of alerting according to local regulations but wasn't - does it makes any difference?

There is no guidance in the law on how to deal with multiple infractions.

Failure to alert is MI (Law 21B1{a}. Where MI has occurred, and it is too late (same law) for anyone on the NOS to change his call, the TD is permitted to adjust the score (Law 21B3). If, as you say, the second infraction might never have happened because the auction would have been completely different then equity for both sides as of the adjudication of the first offense will not have been disturbed by the second offense, so no rectification needs to be made for that offense. IOW, adjust for the MI and leave it at that.

Should North protect himself? There's no need for that. An announcement, if that's what the regulation requires, would make no difference. Failure to announce, like failure to alert, is MI.

While the Law is basically poor on multiple infractions, the Law is there, so you follow it as far as possible. When adjusting you allow redress for damage caused by MI but also disallow any call based on UI. Yes, it can be very messy.

blackshoe, on 2012-January-15, 09:53, said:

Is failure to announce MI? It seems more like "lack of I".

In the EBU NT ranges are announced, and it really has sorted out the problems in this area. In the rare cases responder is in another world and doesn't announce, it is very common to ask. I am not sure, but I believe that a consequence of the regulation is that when one does ask, she is normally not considered to have transmitted UI.

In the OP case, asking would be ludicrous -- should North protect himself by asking the meaning of every unalerted bid?

Anyway I would go along with blackshoe's approach.

Vampyr, on 2012-January-15, 18:42, said:

I hope it doesn't, since I always ask if they do not announce, and similarly in the ACBL.

gombo121, on 2012-January-15, 03:35, said:

blackshoe, on 2012-January-15, 09:53, said:

I agree with Ed's basic reasoning. If the TD adjusts for the second infraction, then the effect of his adjustment becomes irrelevant once he also adjusts for the first infraction. Therefore, for East/West the TD should assign a score (or weighted scores, if appropriate) based on the normal consequence of their infraction, i.e. what would/might have happened if 1NT had been alerted.

However, when assigning a score for North/South, the TD also needs to consider Law 12C1b:

Quote

As far as the first infraction is concerned, North/South is the non-offending side. The failure by North and/or South to comply with the UI laws is a wild action and is subsequent to the (first) infraction. Thus North/South should be denied redress to the extent that any of their illegal calls has disimproved their partnership's expected score, considering the effect of each illegal call separately.

The TD should also consider procedural penalties for North/South.

Vampyr, on 2012-January-19, 06:06, said:

Since you mention it, most of the posts to this topic belong in other threads. Perhaps one of the moderators could set up a new thread about announcements in response to 1NT and move most of the replies there.

It's a shame because the original poster has raised an interesting issue.

Thread drift happens. In most cases, it's not worth worrying about, and we don't want to get into a mode where there is an expectation that we will "correct" such drift. So as a general rule, we won't split threads just because they drift a bit. In this case, however, Jeffrey has a point, so I'm splitting the thread. Don't expect that to become the norm, though. The new thread is here.