[bduddy]

Originally Posted by EricH

HQ was the one who issued the invitation to CMP, well after the event. The replay was the problem call there.

Referees make that sort of call all the time. For whatever reason, a match is scored incorrectly. Usually, the score is quietly corrected later; only rarely is there any announcement. For this particular call, that was not an option. All the time through, they had the option to adjust the score. That was all it would have taken to correct the situation. However, the head ref called for a replay, which I will admit he did have grounds for (human error being one of the items a replay can be called on), but was probably not the best decision. I know that everybody watching via webcast and on CD was wondering what was going on, why is there a replay, why don't they just adjust the scores--and the real kicker was that some of the robots were already in their crates when the replay was called for!

The reason I'm calling that up as a close case was that there, even though the basis for the mistake was different, it was a VERY similar mistake, the type that changes a winner. In that case, however, the announcement of the error (and the handling of the results) were handled in such a way that maximum confusion resulted. In the case at hand, there was minimum confusion, though there was much disappointment.

I understand what you're saying, but I think SVR 2008 was different in one key respect: the originally-losing alliance was acting based on incorrect information based on earlier referee decisions. At that point, I think simply declaring them the losers based on the correct interpretation of the rules would be less than fair. Of course, declaring the replay was also less than fair. Obviously the fair solution would have been for none of the incorrect calls to have been made in the first place, but at that point that was not an option. I believe that telling the red alliance they lost, after they won by what the referees had previously told them the rules were, would not have been a better solution.