[akwoo]

Nige1 - your definition of 'local standard system' is a helluva lot more advanced than mine. I mean the system one would expect without discussion at kitchen bridge.

By 'local standard system' I would mean for the US a not very well defined version of standard american, with none of the 'standard 2/1 conventions'. In England, I imagine it would be Acol, vague enough that there's no agreement as to what's opened with 4432 hands (outside 1N range).

Your definition of 'ordinary player' is also much more advanced than mine. My 'ordinary player' very rarely actually cares what your bids mean, because they aren't good enough to use this information. They won't know whether an unalerted double is takeout or penalty, so if it actually matters they'll ask anyway.

At my club (which averages 3-4 tables for a weekly game and is the only game for 30 miles around), no one plays anything other than some version of standard american or 2/1. One of these days I might finally manage to convince one of the stronger players to play Kaplan-Sheinwold (or English Acol, for that matter) with me, or maybe someone will decide to learn some strong club system and convince me to do so as well.

I've played entire sessions at sectionals or regionals without seeing anything but standard american or 2/1.

[blackshoe]

nige1, on 2014-August-21, 19:19, said:

If the ACBL player can use the local standard system (say 2/1) without any alerts, that is a feather in the ACBL cap. I have learnt from this forum that he doesn't need to alert UNT. I would be amazed and delighted, however, if he doesn't need to alert any standard treatments like Forcing-notrump, Fourth-suit-forcing, Jacoby, Bergen, Splinters, Fit-jumps, 2-way Drury, Four-suit transfers, 2-way checkback, Lebensohl, Lightner, Michaels, and so on.

Forcing-notrump: announce
Fourth-suit-forcing: alert
Jacoby: alert
Bergen: alert (including the weak double raise in uncontested auctions)
Splinters: alert
Fit-jumps: alert
2-way Drury: alert
Four-suit transfers: alert transfers to the minors, announce transfers to the majors
2-way checkback: alert
Lebensohl: alert 2NT and some follow-ons
Lightner: no alert (I think; this one is murky)
Michaels: no alert

The problem is there is no one "local standard system". In addition, the alert regulation lags current expert practice by some years. There's good reason for that, though - the LOL club players are that far "behind" in what they play. At least.

I understand how you'd like things to be Nigel, but it ain't never gonna happen.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2014-August-21, 22:49, said:

Forcing-notrump: announce
Fourth-suit-forcing: alert
Jacoby: alert
Bergen: alert (including the weak double raise in uncontested auctions)

All correct

Quote

Splinters: alert

Alert immediately on the first round, delayed alert later for later uses, because of the "no immediate alert for bids above 3NT starting with opener's rebid" rule.

Quote

Fit-jumps: alert

These aren't even that widespread, I think. I'l guess something like 40% of tournament players, less in clubs.

Quote

2-way Drury: alert
Four-suit transfers: alert transfers to the minors, announce transfers to the majors
2-way checkback: alert

All correct. Also alert 1-way Drury and New Minor Forcing, which I think are more common.

Quote

Lebensohl: alert 2NT and some follow-ons

Most players also alert when they bypass Lebensohl, because of the extra strength implications.

Quote

Lightner: no alert (I think; this one is murky)

Correct. Again because of the "above 3NT" rule.

Quote

Michaels: no alert

Right -- cue bids of the opponent's suit are generally considered self-alerting, unless the meaning is highly unusual.

[nige1]

helene_t, on 2014-August-21, 01:25, said:

Usually I don't need to know what opps bid means beyond whether it is natural or artificial. Forcing them to announce the meaning of natural calls would create enormous amounts of ui for almost no gain.

If you don't need to know, you could switch off announcements. Why does helene_t feel that announcing natural calls would generate enormous amounts of UI?

[jeffford76]

barmar, on 2014-August-22, 09:44, said:

[Don't alert Lightner]
Correct. Again because of the "above 3NT" rule.

I don't have strong feelings about whether Lightner is supposed to be alerted, but the answer isn't found in this rule. The rule is specifically to delay alerts of bids above 3NT, not calls above 3NT. Unusual doubles and passes are still alerted at the time they happen.

[blackshoe]

What Jeff said. Also, I wasn't concerned with when an alert should be made, only whether it should.

Also, there may well be, probably is, a difference between what "most players" do and what the regulation requires.

The ACBL regulation does not use the term "self-alerting".

[mycroft]

barmar, on 2014-August-21, 10:21, said:

The club I regularly play in gets 8-9 tables each week (we had a huge 11-table game this week). There's usually 1-2 pairs playing Precision (different versions), 1 playing a Polish Club, and the rest are split between SA and 2/1. This is one of the smallest games in the Boston area. The games that have 15-20 tables presumably have more diversity.

I would suggest that you have an unusually diverse demographic in Boston. I think we have a more diverse than usual demographic in Calgary, too. I remember playing sectionals in Orangeville or Tillsonburg where barring us and maybe one other, *everyone* was playing 15-17 NT, 5-card major "Eastern 2/1", with the same or very similar conventions.

nige1, on 2014-August-21, 19:19, said:

If the ACBL player can use the local standard system (say 2/1) without any alerts, that is a feather in the ACBL cap. I have learnt from this forum that he doesn't need to alert UNT. I would be amazed and delighted, however, if he doesn't need to alert any standard treatments like Forcing-notrump, Fourth-suit-forcing, Jacoby, Bergen, Splinters, Fit-jumps, 2-way Drury, Four-suit transfers, 2-way checkback, Lebensohl, Lightner, Michaels, and so on.

But this is going too far.

Not the "local standard system", but basic SA bridge, is *almost* non-Alertable. You'll have to reach back into the '70s for it (and not much farther back, because penalty doubles of overcalls below game are Alertable) but I could play, as Akwoo is mentioning, kitchen bridge almost completely without Alerts (though I'd require the Announcement of NT openings, and can I have my transfer Announcements?) All this modern stuff you're using as examples is "complicated" and not "standard".

Quote

If instead of alerting, you could simply explain partner's calls, I feel that life would be so much simpler.
Especially if your opponents could switch off your explanations whenever they felt like it.

It would be. And *so much* more abusable and abusive, on both sides of that coin. There's a reason for the two statements "the name of the convention by itself is never full disclosure" and "you may not require opponents to not Alert or Announce".

[Jeremy69A]

I don't thin anyone who is responsible for alerting/announcing regulations should worry overmuch about consistency between countries. Whilst there is still confusion about when to alert after a double the confusion Nige1 has is found amongst a number of regular decent tournament players who throw up their hands expressively and say "how am i supposed to know" followed by some thoughts about the sanity of those in the eBU who made these regulations.

Given the regs are:

1. If the opponents bid a suit naturally then double is deemed to be take out. If ANYTHING else alert
2. If the opponents bid NT naturally then double is deemed to be penalty. If ANYTHING else alert.
3. If opponents bid a suit artificially double is deemed to be the suit. If ANYTHING else alert

then I don't think this is very difficult. Of course if people decide that a sequence such as 3D (3S) x is so obviously penalty that they won't alert it it is hard to deal with although frankly unlikely to do much damage. Whilst you can say there is a bit more to the regs than what is above (above 3NT for example) the basic set is fairly simple and should not be too hard to get used to even for those who don't want to read the regulations.

[Cyberyeti]

Jeremy69A, on 2014-August-23, 02:42, said:

I don't thin anyone who is responsible for alerting/announcing regulations should worry overmuch about consistency between countries. Whilst there is still confusion about when to alert after a double the confusion Nige1 has is found amongst a number of regular decent tournament players who throw up their hands expressively and say "how am i supposed to know" followed by some thoughts about the sanity of those in the eBU who made these regulations.

Given the regs are:

1. If the opponents bid a suit naturally then double is deemed to be take out. If ANYTHING else alert
2. If the opponents bid NT naturally then double is deemed to be penalty. If ANYTHING else alert.
3. If opponents bid a suit artificially double is deemed to be the suit. If ANYTHING else alert

then I don't think this is very difficult. Of course if people decide that a sequence such as 3D (3S) x is so obviously penalty that they won't alert it it is hard to deal with although frankly unlikely to do much damage. Whilst you can say there is a bit more to the regs than what is above (above 3NT for example) the basic set is fairly simple and should not be too hard to get used to even for those who don't want to read the regulations.

I seem to remember sequences like 2♦(multi)-P-2♥(P/C)-P-P-X and 1N-X-XX(single suit)-P-2C-P-P-X cause problems where the bid is artificial, but the partner of the bidder confirms he holds the suit, I'm sure many people don't know what the rule is for this.

[aguahombre]

Jeremy69A, on 2014-August-23, 02:42, said:

1. If the opponents bid a suit naturally then double is deemed to be take out. If ANYTHING else alert

I don't believe this is an accurate generalization of current regulations. I also don't think you can lump all the cases where an opponent opens, overcalls, raises, balances, or whatever --and all the different levels these things occur --- together and make any alerting rule about a Double to cover all of them.

(edit): Augmenting this post rather than making a new one for continuity in response to Jeremy below.

The mere categorization of a double as "take-out" vs. "Anything else" is a problem in itself. I don't know if Support doubles, Snaps, negatives, etc should be lumped into "take-out" or into "something else." A lot of "something elses" are expected to normally be taken out.

[Jeremy69A]

Quote

I seem to remember sequences like 2♦(multi)-P-2♥(P/C)-P-P-X and 1N-X-XX(single suit)-P-2C-P-P-X cause problems where the bid is artificial, but the partner of the bidder confirms he holds the suit, I'm sure many people don't know what the rule is for this.

Yes. There are difficult situations but nonetheless if players remembered three rules then about 98% of all difficulty would go away. In your two example whether there was or was not an alert I would expect there to be a check before it was, say, passed out.

Quote

I don't believe this is an accurate generalization of current regulations. I also don't think you can lump all the cases where an opponent opens, overcalls, raises, balances, or whatever --and all the different levels these things occur --- together and make any alerting rule about a Double to cover all of them.

I think the rule, albeit a generalisation, does cover doubles whether the opponents bid is an opening, response, overcall, raise or balance. I can conceive there might be exceptions and above 3NT it is slightly different however as above if players alerted according to what you categorise as generalisations I believe we would all be better off

[helene_t]

I think it has been clarified a few times here that p/c bids are considered natural for this purpose. Anyway, if I were playing stuff like this I wouldn't make any assumptions regarding the meaning of opps (non)-alert. On the other hand, opps can also just follow the general advice to alert whenever in doubt.

So I don't think this is a problem. The problem I have with the EBU alert rules is that I sometimes make undiscussed doubles. Then I don't want to receive UI from partner's (non)alert.

[gnasher]

helene_t, on 2014-August-23, 09:29, said:

I think it has been clarified a few times here that p/c bids are considered natural for this purpose.

It's also stated in the regulations.

[Cyberyeti]

gnasher, on 2014-August-23, 09:43, said:

It's also stated in the regulations.

I know that, but I suspect a lot of people don't, that was the point I was making.

[blackshoe]

helene_t, on 2014-August-23, 09:29, said:

So I don't think this is a problem. The problem I have with the EBU alert rules is that I sometimes make undiscussed doubles. Then I don't want to receive UI from partner's (non)alert.

Nobody wants to receive UI from partner. Sometimes it can't be helped. In this case, when you make an undiscussed double, do you 1) expect an alert, 2) expect no alert, 3) it depends on the bidding sequence? If your partnership has a documented agreement that 1 always applies, or that 2 always applies, you should be okay. If 3 applies, then you would have to list the circumstances under which it is 1 and the circumstances under which it is 2. Most pairs don't go into so much detail, and then there might well be a UI problem. I guess you have to live with it, or refrain from making undiscussed doubles.

[nige1]

nige1, on 2014-August-21, 19:19, said:

I still can't remember which of the following doubles are alertable in the EBU
A.Transfer
(1N) _P (2♦) _X
(2♥) _X
- 1N = Weak
- 2♦ = Artificial - a variety of meanings, often with four or more ♥.
- 2♥ = Conventionally denying more than 2 ♥
- First double shows ♦.
- Second double is T/O of ♥ (it assumes that the 2♦ bidder has 5+ ♥)

B. Pass/correct
(2♦) _P (2♥) _X
- 2♦ = Multi - A variety of meanings, often a weak two in either major.
- 2♥ = Pass or correct (i.e. an artificial but passable relay enquiring about hand type).
- Double = T/O of ♥ (it assumes that opener has the weak variety with ♥)

Jeremy69A, on 2014-August-23, 02:42, said:

Given the regs are:
1. If the opponents bid a suit naturally then double is deemed to be take out. If ANYTHING else alert
2. If the opponents bid NT naturally then double is deemed to be penalty. If ANYTHING else alert.
3. If opponents bid a suit artificially double is deemed to be the suit. If ANYTHING else alert

then I don't think this is very difficult. Of course if people decide that a sequence such as 3D (3S) x is so obviously penalty that they won't alert it it is hard to deal with although frankly unlikely to do much damage. Whilst you can say there is a bit more to the regs than what is above (above 3NT for example) the basic set is fairly simple and should not be too hard to get used to even for those who don't want to read the regulations.

Which of the doubles in my examples should be alerted? Should players like me alert whenever in doubt, rather than go wrong?

[gnasher]

nige1, on 2014-August-23, 19:46, said:

Which of the doubles in my examples should be alerted?

Neither of your doubles of 2♥ is alertable. Jeremy's first rule should have been "If the opponents bid a suit naturally (including pass-or-correct actions), then double is deemed to be take out."

Quote

Should players like me alert whenever in doubt, rather than go wrong?

If you know the meaning of a call but don't know whether the meaning is alertable, it's better to alert than not. It's almost impossible for an opponent to be misled by an erroneous alert, because the alert in itself doesn't tell him anything specific about the meaning. If he asks and receives an answer, there's no misinformation; if he doesn't ask he can't have been very interested in the meaning, so is very unlikely to have been damaged.

The main problem with alerting a non-alertable call is that your partner may have taken the trouble to read the alerting rules, so he may think you're having a misunderstanding when you're not, and he may take an inferior action because he believes himself to be constrained by the UI laws.

The best thing for players like you is, of course, to read the rules. That's better than asking people on online forum to tell you what the rules are, because you may not get a correct or complete answer. You seem to have plenty of time available for criticising the EBU's alerting rules; when did you last read them?

In this case I do have some sympathy with your complaint, because the section about doubles under "Basic alerting rules" is rather cumbersomely worded, and it doesn't make it clear the status of doubles of pass-or-correct bids. For that you have to look at the examples. On the other hand, the relevant example isn't very hard to find. You just have to search for "pass-or-correct". Or you could look in the index under "Alerting, doubles".

[helene_t]

nige1, on 2014-August-22, 11:08, said:

If you don't need to know, you could switch off announcements. Why does helene_t feel that announcing natural calls would generate enormous amounts of UI?

Suppose I make a freebid at the 3-level which is obviously forcing for at least one round. Let's say I hold a decent 10 count so not quite enough to force to game. Partner announces my bid as gameforcing. Now partner rebids his suit and I have no clue if that would be forcing or not opposite a forcing-for-one-round freebid:
1♠-(2♥)-3♣-(pass)
3♠

However, since his announcement makes it less attractive to pass, I will have to pass now if that is an LA. Without the UI I might have chosen to bid on just in case partner meant his bid as forcing.

Then again, if I pass and it works out well the SB opps might be able to convince the TD that partner's announcement told me that partner was forced to bid and therefore doesn't need extra values for his 3♠ bid which makes pass suggested.

So whatever I do I am screwed. Of course it could be that the TD says that he has no clue what the announcements suggests in terms of pass vs bidding on so I can do what I want. In that case the SB will feel that whatever I do he is screwed.

And in any case we have wasted the TD's time for no good reason. Just make any natural 3♣ bid (Dutch regulations) or any forcing natural 3♣ bid (EBU) non-alertable and we wouldn't have this mess.

[nige1]

helene_t, on 2014-August-24, 06:31, said:

Suppose I make a freebid at the 3-level which is obviously forcing for at least one round. Let's say I hold a decent 10 count so not quite enough to force to game. Partner announces my bid as gameforcing. Now partner rebids his suit and I have no clue if that would be forcing or not opposite a forcing-for-one-round freebid:
1♠-(2♥)-3♣-(pass)
3♠
However, since his announcement makes it less attractive to pass, I will have to pass now if that is an LA. Without the UI I might have chosen to bid on just in case partner meant his bid as forcing. Then again, if I pass and it works out well the SB opps might be able to convince the TD that partner's announcement told me that partner was forced to bid and therefore doesn't need extra values for his 3♠ bid which makes pass suggested.
So whatever I do I am screwed. Of course it could be that the TD says that he has no clue what the announcements suggests in terms of pass vs bidding on so I can do what I want. In that case the SB will feel that whatever I do he is screwed.
And in any case we have wasted the TD's time for no good reason. Just make any natural 3♣ bid (Dutch regulations) or any forcing natural 3♣ bid (EBU) non-alertable and we wouldn't have this mess.

Such problems are more likely to occur with current alerting rules. In many jurisdictions, your partner should alert if thinks that your 3♣ bid is game-forcing, when opponents might not expect it to be. Under the proposed rules, announcements would usually be UI to you. The recommended way of "announcing" is to point to the relevant entry on your system-card. This may seem a radical change but I believe that it was Jeff Rubens who first suggested that your explanations should be UI to partner. This would also reduce the strain on the mind-reading skills of TDs.

[nige1]

gnasher, on 2014-August-24, 06:03, said:

Neither of your doubles of 2♥ is alertable. Jeremy's first rule should have been "If the opponents bid a suit naturally (including pass-or-correct actions), then double is deemed to be take out."

It's not "natural" to bid a suit of which you and partner might have fewer than 3 cards between you. This can happen over multi and non-promissory transfers.

gnasher, on 2014-August-24, 06:03, said:

If you know the meaning of a call but don't know whether the meaning is alertable, it's better to alert than not. It's almost impossible for an opponent to be misled by an erroneous alert, because the alert in itself doesn't tell him anything specific about the meaning. If he asks and receives an answer, there's no misinformation; if he doesn't ask he can't have been very interested in the meaning, so is very unlikely to have been damaged. The main problem with alerting a non-alertable call is that your partner may have taken the trouble to read the alerting rules, so he may think you're having a misunderstanding when you're not, and he may take an inferior action because he believes himself to be constrained by the UI laws.

See reply to helene_t

gnasher, on 2014-August-24, 06:03, said:

The best thing for players like you is, of course, to read the rules. That's better than asking people on online forum to tell you what the rules are, because you may not get a correct or complete answer. You seem to have plenty of time available for criticising the EBU's alerting rules; when did you last read them?

Before Brighton but I don't understand them and I'm in good company

gnasher, on 2014-August-24, 06:03, said:

In this case I do have some sympathy with your complaint, because the section about doubles under "Basic alerting rules" is rather cumbersomely worded, and it doesn't make it clear the status of doubles of pass-or-correct bids. For that you have to look at the examples. On the other hand, the relevant example isn't very hard to find. You just have to search for "pass-or-correct". Or you could look in the index under "Alerting, doubles".

To me, the regulations seem complicated, self-contradictory, and unnecessary. But Thank you, anyway.