There's some interesting discussion on social media today about what is considered a "broken game state", and when the penalty of Game Loss should be invoked. Imagine these at a Tier 2 Regionals event.
1. The primary situation was a player accidentally played Colress as their second supporter for the turn, and placed their hand on top of their deck. Then the mistake was caught. The player thought he had 4-5 cards in his hand, and the opponent agreed, it could have been 4 or 5 cards. How would you handle it?
It can be a challenge and take a little extra time, but the best way I've found to address "how many cards should I have" questions are to calculate based on a recent, known state. Early in the game, this might be the 7 original cards drawn (-1 active pokemon, +1 card for turn, -1 energy, etc.) it might also be an N, Shauna, Bianca, Colress, Bicycle or similar draw card. It isn't always possible, but if players have been attending to their game (and not spending their opponent's turn watching the games next to them
) then you can often find agreement about number of cards.
In this situation as well, if there were too many recent plays to accurately calculate hand-size (and masters do play lots of cards, quickly) you could also ask the player who put their hand on the deck what the cards were that he remembered. If a check of the top 4-5 cards (by the judge) revealed that the cards he could remember were number 3, 4 and 5 - I would be inclined to allow a hand size of 5 to be retrieved.
Either way, the player has earned a penalty for playing a second supporter. If this was assessed as a Game-Play Major, the starting penalty for a Tier 2 event is Prize Loss.
2. While under Item lock, player accidentally plays Computer Search, searching for an card and putting into hand, shuffling deck.
This situation is very different than above. The player has essentially searched and suffled his deck without the use of a (valid) card effect. These are both clearly Game-Play Severe errors and the starting penalty for any event is a Game Loss.
3. Accidentally drawing an extra card and having it get mixed into the hand.
Drawing an extra card is a Game-Play Minor error, with minor penalties depending on Tier - the fix is what gets to be more challenging. One card has to be replaced on the top of the deck to be drawn next - since it was drawn in error. I would begin by removing any "known" cards from the players hand. (If they played a Korrina, Professor's Letter, Dowsing Machine or other card that reveals cards that go into the hand - but only since the last hand-shuffle was played.) Then I would hold the players remaining hand facing me, mix up the cards myself and instruct the player to indicate one card to remove from their hand. That card would be revealed and placed back on top of the deck.