  Schierenberg et al. [Phys. Rev. E 85, 061130 (2012)] recently applied the
Wigner surmise, i.e., substitution of \infty \times \infty matrices by their 2
\times 2 counterparts for the computation of level spacing distributions, to
random matrix ensembles in transition between two universality classes. I
examine the accuracy and the range of validity of the surmise for the crossover
between the Gaussian orthogonal and unitary ensembles by contrasting them with
the large-N results that I evaluated using the Nystrom-type method for the
Fredholm determinant. The surmised expression at the best-fitting parameter
provides a good approximation for 0 \lesssim s \lesssim 2, i.e., the validity
range of the original surmise.
