This hand arose in the final round of the swiss qualifying in Australia's premier open teams event.
Both teams, at the time running 14th (EW) and 16th (NS) out of 162 team and about 10 VPs off the pace, were mathematical to make the knockout stage (top eight) with a big win.
North, East and South are all under-21, but with plenty of international representative experience. The three youth players have all played with and against one another regularly over a number of years and were well familiar with their respective styles. East has a reputation for wild preempts when non-vul, but not ridiculous when vul. West was me, a fairly experienced player with the capacity to do some good stuff but also burdened by an unacceptably high error rate.
A ruling was sought by East-West suggesting that the reopening double by North was informed by South's break in tempo with pass being a logical alternative, in which case the result would most likley be 2♠E-2 for NS +200.
The ruling TD, after consulting with his fellow directors but not with any players, concluded that pass was not a logical alternative for North and allowed the table result to stand. The closed room result was 3♣XN= for NS +670 so the table result translated to 10 imps for the "offending side", whereas the ruling sought by the "non-offending side" would've resulted in 10 imps for the other team - so up to 20 imps and about 4 VPs at stake.
After conducting their own poll of several youth and open representative players, none of whom reopened with the North cards, and getting the go ahead from an appeals advisor that an appeal would have significant merit, east-west appealled.
Following the regulations for appeals in Australia, the ruling TD outlined the basis of his ruling, east-west put forward the view that pass was a logical alternative backed-up by evidence of the poll they conducted, and North rationalised her reopening double on the basis that she has seen the quality of East's preempts before and felt there was a good chance of collecting a large penalty in a match they need to win by a big margin. The appeals committee quized North and South quite extensively about their respective actions, but asked no questions about West's 3♣ bid and gave no indication that they might consider a SEWoG ruling. The players and the ruling TD were dismissed and the appeals committee retired to consider their ruling.
Eventually, the appeals committee ruled that pass was a logical alternative for North and adjusted the score for the "offending side" to 2SE-2 for NS +200 and a loss of 10 imps (an adjustment of 20 imps from the table result). For the "non-offending side" the appeals committee determined that West's 3♣ bid was a serious error (unrelated to the infraction) or a wild or gambling action and applied Law 12C1(b) concluding that 15 imps of the 20 imps lost at the table through running from 2♠X were self-inflicted and adjusted the non-offending side's score by 5 imps only.
West felt somewhat aggrieved by the ruling as there was no suggestion either by the ruling TD or during the appeal committee's hearing that 3♣ might have been treated as a SEWoG and if that matter had been raised during the hearing West would've had the opportunity to present rebuttal evidence; including a very similar hand from a little over a year ago where in an identical auction East passed a rescue redouble and went for -2200. West freely admits that 3♣ was a poor bid but maintains that it wasn't a bid made without some thought and consideration of the state of the match, state of the event, partnership preempting style and a risk of a rescue redouble being passed.
Some unresolved questions in West's mind:
1. What constitutes a "serious error"?
2. What does "unrelated to the infraction" mean?
3. If an appeals committee is going to consider a SEWoG ruling, should they be obliged to quiz the non-offending player who made the potential SEWoG as to his or her rationalisation of the action as a matter of natural justice?