[Stephen Tu]

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I think we are overlooking the more obvious "It's annoying and time consuming to ask about every alert, especially the 99 % the alert is not relevant to your bid."

I think you are grossly exaggerating the time consuming aspect of this. Something like 95% of my opps are playing SA or 2/1 variants and have very few alertable bids other than various jump shifts which are fairly low frequency, and bids like 1nt-2s, 2nt-3s that are very low frequency, and inverted minors. The high frequency stuff is all either announcements or non-alertable (vanilla transfers, neg doubles etc.) So my "always ask" doesn't lead to me having time trouble at all. The only time I used to get in time trouble was when I was playing with my former partner who was the slowest player on earth in play & defense, triple-checking his thought process all the time, it wasn't because of me asking about the opp's bids!

The only time I find myself asking a ton of questions about the auction is the rare times I get out to nationals and happen to run into Fantoni-Nunes, and those guys are probably used to it!

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Also, Stephen I really think you are being naive if you think that asking them about their bids is not going to help them, and if it does we can call the director. In this auction, opener might say "invitational jump shift" when it was in fact a weak jump shift, but they had a maximum weak jump shift and can say they used their judgement to upgrade, etc. They can then bid their hand like a minimum rather than a maximum in subsequent auction and get away with it "Are you calling me a liar?!" Or, they might have thought they were playing reverse bergen, and been giving a limit raise. But, oh right, with this partner it is a GF raise, and they play a special system of responses over that which they now remember! And again, they can just say they chose to GF and you have no recourse.

Here you are exaggerating both the extent and effectiveness of such cheating. Most opps are honest, there are a chunk that just don't know any better, and there are a small handful of cheats. Opener says "inv jump shift" when it was weak. He bids game or not, which makes or not. You really think someone with a real inv jump shift is ever going to bid slam over partner's game bid? The end result just doesn't really change with any appreciable frequency in these borderline cases. The times the result would actually change is when the discrepancy between the explanation and the bid is HUGE, and then the wriggles will be obvious.

OK with the LR case now they figure out not to pass their partner's 3M bid which showed extras, treat their LR hand as GF instead of respecting their partner's signoff if they are cheaters. But they aren't completely off the hook yet, partner may bid on after their 4M signoff, and go down, since they had a GF didn't they? It's not like I can ever remember an opponent taking advantage of this particular loophole anyway, 90+% are using jacoby 2nt as the GF raise, only me and my partners around here are using these GF mod-Bergen jump shifts & we aren't forgetting .

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Another problem with "always ask" is how do you prove that you always ask? What if you actually have clubs and ask what 3C is then pass, and your partner finds a nice club lead. The opponents call the director and you say...but I always ask! Good luck with that one, you are going to lose even if you are not lying (since that is what people ALWAYS say and they are pretty much always lying).

Never lost any ruling that way. Never even had a director call in this situation as far as I can recall. And I don't think I will lose if this comes up. One is allowed to ask about alertable bids, and director can confirm with my partners that I also ask with nothing in clubs, so what can the opps really complain about?

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If you are constantly asking the opps about their bids then calling the director when you think there may have been a foul, then often basically telling the opps they are lying or might be (because they will), you will not get along with many people.

Hasn't been a problem. As I said above, alerting frequency isn't high to begin with. And, most people give correct explanations most of the time. And, many opps don't end up breaking the rules by taking advantage of the UI so there is no need to get the director involved.

[peachy]

Jlall, on Aug 28 2008, 06:27 PM, said:

I think we are overlooking the more obvious "It's annoying and time consuming to ask about every alert, especially the 99 % the alert is not relevant toyour bid." People on the forums seem to not care about those things though

Also, Stephen I really think you are being naive if you think that asking them about their bids is not going to help them, and if it does we can call the director. In this auction, opener might say "invitational jump shift" when it was in fact a weak jump shift, but they had a maximum weak jump shift and can say they used their judgement to upgrade, etc. They can then bid their hand like a minimum rather than a maximum in subsequent auction and get away with it "Are you calling me a liar?!" Or, they might have thought they were playing reverse bergen, and been giving a limit raise. But, oh right, with this partner it is a GF raise, and they play a special system of responses over that which they now remember! And again, they can just say they chose to GF and you have no recourse.

Another problem with "always ask" is how do you prove that you always ask? What if you actually have clubs and ask what 3C is then pass, and your partner finds a nice club lead. The opponents call the director and you say...but I always ask! Good luck with that one, you are going to lose even if you are not lying (since that is what people ALWAYS say and they are pretty much always lying). I suppose the obvious way to overt this is to write on your card or notes "We always ask when you alert." That's great, but who is going to police you when you don't ask, or forget to ask? What if you wanted to cheat by not asking when you have clubs, you could probably easily get away with it. What if you are more likely to "forget" to ask when you have yarb (which is probably true). You are now inadvertantly giving UI.

Another problem with always ask then call the director if they've benefitted from it is again the social dynamics of the game. If you are constantly asking the opps about their bids then calling the director when you think there may have been a foul, then often basically telling the opps they are lying or might be (because they will), you will not get along with many people. Again, this may not matter to you but I think that is easier to say on the forums than in real life.

The problem with "randomly" asking is obviously that there could be patterns to your randomness, and how do you weight it vs the times you are asking for real, and if you are really going to come up with some key based on some random thing then that's a lot of work and again cannot really be policed.

I see no problem with asking only when the information is relevant and then partner not taking advantage of the UI if you end up passing. This is the most efficient method by far, creates less situations for them to have and use UI, creates less situations for director calls, etc.

There will always be people who choose to invent something to cover up, or to blatantly lie. There is not much one can do, except hope that the majority are honest people. Shenanigans like jlall described do happen but just keep the face and name in mind and one day they will be caught in their own lies. So I wouldn't worry about that too much. Let the liars simmer in their own juices and they will face justice one day. Real men [and women] tell the truth and take their lumps from forgets etc. without resorting to shady stories.

[quantumed]

I won't say most people will cheat blatantly in scenarios where they forget system and then hear partner explain their bid, but sometimes when you already "know" something it's hard to just ignore it. It's in your sub-conciousness and it affects you in a subtle way that may not appear to you at all.

Back to the original topic. So what is my parnter to do if he has equal (or similar) holdings in club and diamond? Say if club is the only lead to set the contract. In theory, 50% of the time we should get 50 and 50% we get -420. But now is he obliged to always choose a diamond instead? Because if he chooses club there will be uneasy feelings all around whether he takes the UI or not. But if he is obliged to lead diamond this does not seem fair to us. Only because opponents make a conventional call now we have to forgo our 50% chance to set the contract? That just sounds weird.

[Trinidad]

Bold statement from me:

In this particular case you MUST ask for the meaning of 3♣. (*) Not asking is an infraction.

Explanation:
The use of a Bergen raise involves the STOP procedure. The purpose of the STOP procedure is to prevent you from giving your partner UI when you have a bidding problem. The idea is that you always act as if you have a bidding problem, even if you don't. That means that you show (fake) interest in what is going on. If you want to be somewhat convincing in your faking, you need to know what the auction means. Therefore, you need to ask (or look on their CC, etc.).

If you don't ask about an alerted bid when the STOP procedure is used, you make it pretty obvious to partner that you don't care what the bid means. Therefore, not asking (or looking at the CC) conveys the same UI as an immediate pass.

As to the time it takes for the asking and answering: You were already forced to count to 10 (because of the STOP). You might as well use these 10 seconds for something useful. In practice, it takes 5 seconds to complete the following conversation:

"Alert!"
- "Yes?"
"Bergen, four card support and about seven to ten points."
- "Thank you."


(Compare this to the time it takes to finish the following:
"Alert!"
Thinking ... Can I ask now without giving UI to partner? ...May be I shouldn't. ... But I need to know to be able to bid. (8 seconds have gone by.)
- "Yes?"
"Excuse me?"
- "Well ... err... what does 3♣ mean?"
"Oh sorry, that's a Bergen raise, four card support and about seven to ten points."
- "Thank you.")

Rik

(*) My bold statement obviously depends on whether the STOP procedure is used. For the few competitions without a STOP procedure, the general idea of my statement remains the same, but I wouldn't be as absolute about it. (Let's change the word 'MUST' into 'probably should' and you'll get the idea. )

[helene_t]

Rik, what you suggest has no basis in the laws or in any local rules that I know of. As it is, opps have no obligation to ask.

If some SO wanted to avoid this kind of UI they would have made the 3♣ bid anouncable rather than alertable. If you want opps to ask after all alerts, just get rid of the alert cards and let bidder's partner explain spontaneously.

FWIW I think I ask for the clarification of less than 10% of alerted bids. Usually I know already what it means. Or I suspect that opps don't know what their agreement is so by explaining they would just help each other and confuse my partner. I consider the UI related to (failure to) asking much less of a problem than UI related to explanations. So requiring opps to ask would not only waste time but would also increase the number of (alleged) infractions.

BTW it has nothing to do with the stop rule. The stop rule applies to jump bid, but this discussion has nothing to do with the fact that 3♣ happens to be a jump bid.

[Stephen Tu]

Jlall, on Aug 28 2008, 07:55 PM, said:

I also think that the higher the level of the game you are playing in, the slower the play is. Once you get to the spingold or whatever, it is just brutally slow. There are also a lot more alerts. Can you imagine how annoying you are if the opponents are having some kind of auction with 20 alerts, maybe a relay auction or a strong club auction, and you have already passed 5 times and you are asking about EVERY bid. Do you really think this is not wasting time? It is just so much easier to wait till the auction is over and ask for an explanation of everything.

It's not really fair to compare scenarios where opps are utilizing every bid between 1c & 3nt and the auction 1s-3c which might well end there or after the next bid. If playing the Spingold, against a relay pair, I'd familiarize myself with their openings and responses at least before the match started, and as the match went on I'd have fewer and fewer stuff to ask about once it had been explained once. And if you are going to wait and ask for an explanation after the auction of every bid you haven't really saved much time, you just moved the time to the end of the auction from the middle. The explanations don't have to be long winded & time consuming. How long does it really take to say "hearts" or "3415 shape"?

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Anyways my point is not that you are in time trouble, it is that you will force yourself and your opponents to have to play faster to avoid being in time trouble.

Their own damn fault for choosing a relay system IMO. And besides even against relay pairs there don't rate to be a ton of long relay auctions anyway, they generally don't employ relays every board or break them frequently.

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Wow, I mean I just could not disagree more. I think this aspect of bridge is really underestimated and is so sickeningly prevalent in all levels of the game. I play almost every single day and I just see this ***** over and over and over again.

To clarify the bergen vs FR auction, think of it in these terms. With partner A you play reverse bergen. So 1S p 3C p 3D is just a game try. With Partner B you play 3C as your FR, 3D shows extras with shortness, and next step would ask for shortness with others showing shortness. I play both of these. So if partner game tried, and i had a minimum, I would bid 3S. But, since there was an explanation that my bid was a GF, I remember to bid 3H shortness ask, and not to bid 3S which would show short clubs and a hand too strong to splinter. Disaster averted. I will say that I believe very strongly that ALMOST EVERYONE in this situation would take advantage of it. Like seriously, 9 out of 10 people.

You play 10x more than I do, but seriously you run into this that often? For me it's like 1 in 40 even play 3c as the GFR to begin with (and the GFR comes up rarely), and of those, maybe 1 in 5 forget system, then only a fraction of those then try to take advantage of the alert system to wriggle out. (And I am your so called "1 in 10" who will hang myself if woken up by the UI, luckily I almost never forget system).

I think you are perhaps assigning too many incidents to intentional malice what easily could be explained by random stupidity. I don't see these careful extractions from misinformation that often. Mostly I see the opps just self destruct after this, or do something blatant that I can get a ruling on, because 80% just don't know they aren't supposed to do such things. Occasionally they randomly land on their feet in a situation where there really isn't any rule broken and no director to call, but I mostly see these as dumb luck and not conniving opponents. They often give the board away in the play anyway after this! Maybe you say I am blind to what my opps are doing, but I don't think so. I don't think most opps are out to cheat. Most just were never trained in their ethical obligations, and the resulting wriggle is blatantly obvious. Last time I had a ruling for this sort of thing, it was some screwed up puppet/2nt auction, they tried to maneuver back to 4nt, after I got the ruling the opps were so upset they quit the pair game at halftime, they just didn't understand why they weren't allowed to do that. Now perhaps more experienced players can better figure out certain auctions where they can squirm out & justify it, but in my experience the vast majority of the better players 1. are generally more ethical and don't do such things, 2. don't forget system as much to begin with so aren't in the position anyway. Is this just not the case with top-level pros?

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But my point is if you are going to ask every single time, you must ask in both the scenarios where they can take advantage of it and get away with it, and in the scenarios where that is unlikely. You don't get to choose.

True, we just strongly disagree on how often they can really gain advantage from it, and what % of opps intentionally are taking advantage of it knowing what they are doing is cheating.

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Seriously? This is one battle you CAN win! Just the other way. I have won this kind of ruling twice when the opps ask about a bid and then pass and their partner leads it.

I've never been called on this. Maybe it's because my partners are ethical and often find some reason to lead something else anyway, since after all I am also asking when I don't particularly want the lead. Maybe one time I remember an opp mentioned that they noticed that I micro-hitched over stayman contemplating a double, but my partner led another suit anyway.

[Trinidad]

Helene,

This particular case has everything to do with the STOP rule. The auction was 1♠-Pass-3♣. For my bold statement, I assumed the STOP rule was in place (otherwise the discussion can end here). The legal basis that you are looking for will be found in the regulations of the tournament organization, most specifically the parts that deal with the use of the STOP rule.

If you are looking for a particular law in the 2007 bridge laws: this is covered by Law 80B2e and 80B2f.

Rik

[helene_t]

Trinidad, on Aug 29 2008, 09:38 AM, said:

This particular case has everything to do with the STOP rule. The auction was 1♠-Pass-3♣. For my bold statement, I assumed the STOP rule was in place (otherwise the discussion can end here).

I don't quite understand. The stop rule says that opps must pause to prevent UI arising from the length of the pause. But here we are talking about UI arising from the (failure to) ask questions.

The stop card is intended to signal that opps will often need to pause. The alert card is the one that signals that opps will often need to ask. So if anything it is the use of the alert card that should force opps to ask questions.

Anyway, I think this idea of forcing opps to ask whenever a call is alerted (or is it just whenever a jump bid is alerted?) is absurd. There are already a lot of players who are paranoid of opps using the alert card to say "partner, beware that I interpret your call as conventional" and would rather get rid of the alert card. I am not in that camp myself but if asking questions became mandatory I would personally always ask opps not to alert anything.

I agree that it's a good idea always to ask in situations where a non-question would be suggestive. For example if everyone knows that I didn't look at their CC, and they then open 2♦, alerted, which could be either Flanery, Multi or Benjamin in the local culture.

[hrothgar]

Trinidad, on Aug 29 2008, 11:38 AM, said:

Helene,

This particular case has everything to do with the STOP rule. The auction was 1♠-Pass-3♣. For my bold statement, I assumed the STOP rule was in place (otherwise the discussion can end here). The legal basis that you are looking for will be found in the regulations of the tournament organization, most specifically the parts that deal with the use of the STOP rule.

What "Stop Rule" ?

I'm not completely sure what the current ACBL rules are regarding the use of the stop card. As I recall, the major requirement is that partnerships use Stop Cards and Skip Bid Warning in a consistent manner.

Pairs need to make sure they always Make a Skip Bid/Use the Stop Card in a given sequence or never Make a Skip Bid/Use the Stop Card, however, I don;t recall a blanket rule that pairs must use the stop card when making a skip bid.

[Trinidad]

helene_t, on Aug 29 2008, 07:36 AM, said:

Trinidad, on Aug 29 2008, 09:38 AM, said:

This particular case has everything to do with the STOP rule. The auction was 1♠-Pass-3♣. For my bold statement, I assumed the STOP rule was in place (otherwise the discussion can end here).

I don't quite understand. The stop rule says that opps must pause to prevent UI arising from the length of the pause. But here we are talking about UI arising from the (failure to) ask questions.

The stop card is intended to signal that opps will often need to pause.

The STOP card is not intended to signal that opps will often need to pause. The STOP card is intended to signal that opps will often need to think.

Everybody knows the beginners who face a STOP card, pull out a pass card and then start to count to ten (out loud). Eventhough that is a cute way to recognize beginners, it is clearly not the idea behind the STOP card. The idea is that your partner cannot tell whether you have an easy pass or a genuine bidding problem.

If you are not even the slightest bit interested in the meaning of the auction, you can count to 75 and still it is clear to partner that you had an easy pass. Therefore, when the STOP procedure is invoked, you do not just pause. You need to think (or act like you are thinking). And if you don't ask (or look on the CC) to find out what is going on, you might just as well pull the pass card and count to ten out loud.

Obviously, I made my statement black and white. There are plenty of cases where you don't need to ask (E.g. You have seen on their card that they play Texas transfers. The bidding starts 1NT-Pass-(STOP)4Ha(Alert)- or even 1NT-Pass-(STOP)4Ha (No alert). ) Feel free to replace the 'MUST ask after a STOP and alert' in my post by 'as a rule of thumb, always ask after a STOP and alert'.

But in general, one can say that 'STOP-Alert-pause for ten seconds without being aware of what the auction means-PASS' is the 'advanced beginner' equivalent of the beginner 'STOP-pull pass card, count out loud to ten, put down pass card'.

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I agree that it's a good idea always to ask in situations where a non-question would be suggestive. For example if everyone knows that I didn't look at their CC, and they then open 2♦, alerted, which could be either Flanery, Multi or Benjamin in the local culture.

I think we are in agreement. Obviously, inspecting the convention card is just fine. But the thread started with the question : "Am I allowed to ask after an alerted SKIP bid?" And the answer to that is a lot closer to "You actually MUST ask." than it is to "No, that would give partner UI."

Rik

[jdonn]

Stephen Tu, on Aug 29 2008, 03:35 AM, said:

If playing the Spingold, against a relay pair, I'd familiarize myself with their openings and responses at least before the match started, and as the match went on I'd have fewer and fewer stuff to ask about once it had been explained once.

So you don't even ask about alerted bids if you have asked about the same bid earlier in the round? What if you forget what it means? What if it means something different in a different position or vul? You know you have to always ask or your suggestion won't work.

[Stephen Tu]

Trinidad, there is a requirement to pause and appear to think after skip bids. But there is no requirement to *ask* after alerted bids. Pausing without asking is legal.

Josh, I take note of their convention card which bids change based on pos/vul, if they are playing different systems based on that, ask if necessary. I doubt many relay pairs are using different relay responses entirely based on this, their memory load is already high. I don't forget that often, I have a decent memory. And if I forget and ask again, so what?

Your statement that my suggestion breaks down if I don't always ask, instead of just always asking if I don't know already from a previous explanation and might need to know, doesn't hold logically. It is enough that I ask frequently enough without intention of bidding / without having some holding in the artificial suit that partner's odds of finding something there are not statistically significantly different from someone who never asks or who truly 100% always asks. Certainly their inference is near zero compared to someone who selectively asks!

There really can be no argument that my approach is best in terms of eliminating UI from asking or not. The arguments against my approach are what have been brought up earlier, "slows down game", which IMO is not much (except in jurisdictions that have alert systems that alert far too many common bids), and "helps opps", which IMO is near zero also but Justin disagrees strongly with this. We appear to have different assumptions and philosophies here, Justin thinks his opps are mostly cheating weasels and wants to self-police by avoiding the situation, I think my opps are mostly honest but ignorant of proprieties (thinking trying to weasel out is perfectly proper, why can't I try for a better score?), I'd rather generate the director call if necessary, after they get ruled against a few times maybe they'll actually learn the rules and follow them in the future.

[jdonn]

Stephen Tu, on Aug 29 2008, 12:20 PM, said:

Josh, I take note of their convention card which bids change based on pos/vul, if they are playing different systems based on that, ask if necessary.  I doubt many relay pairs are using different relay responses entirely based on this, their memory load is already high.  I don't forget that often, I have a decent memory.  And if I forget and ask again, so what?

Your statement that my suggestion breaks down if I don't always ask, instead of just always asking if I don't know already from a previous explanation and might need to know, doesn't hold logically.  It is enough that I ask frequently enough without intention of bidding / without having some holding in the artificial suit that partner's odds of finding something there are not statistically significantly different from someone who never asks or who truly 100% always asks.  Certainly their inference is near zero compared to someone who selectively asks!

It's not enough unless you always play against the same opponents. They don't know that you know you are always ethical, so you have to seem that way.

First hand, I open 1NT, my partner bids 2♠, alert, you ask. Your partner leads a spade. I call the director but you say you always ask, and nothing bad happens to you.
Next hand I open 1NT, my partner bids 3♣, alert, you ask. You end up on lead so nothing happens.
Next hand I open 1NT, my partner bids 2♠, alert. You remember what it meant and don't ask. Your partner does not lead a spade. I am furious as you said you always ask and from what I have seen your partner only leads it when you ask about the bid. But you explain you remembered what the bid meant. I'm suspicious but I let it slide.
Next hand I open 1NT, my partner bids 3♣, alert. You forgot what it meant you so you ask. I explain (despite being beside myself), and your partner leads a club. And what do you tell the director this time?

Next round, mini me opens 1♠ in first chair, his partner responds 2♣, alert. You ask. Your partner leads a club but etc etc no problem.
Next hand, mini me opens 1♠ in second chair, his partner responds 2♣, you don't ask since you remember what it means. Your partner doesn't lead a club, no problem.
Next hand, mini me opens 1♠ in third chair, his partner responds 2♣. You ask since it's common to play this as meaning other things in third seat. Your partner leads a club. And this time what do you tell them!

You don't see how this breaks down your system? Of course these are all unlikely types of scenarios, but then it's unlikely to matter whether you ask every time or not anyway. The point is you were explaining that as far as UI and being ethical there is nothing wrong with always asking. But if that's the case you have to ALWAYS ask, or else indeed your system breaks down.

[Lobowolf]

One possible "we always ask" construction that at least places the burden where it should be is if the "we always ask" pair pre-announces that they always ask, and then failure to ask, regardless of the circumstances, is hit with a procedural penalty.

[jdonn]

Lobowolf, on Aug 29 2008, 01:04 PM, said:

One possible "we always ask" construction that at least places the burden where it should be is if the "we always ask" pair pre-announces that they always ask, and then failure to ask, regardless of the circumstances, is hit with a procedural penalty.

Now you are opening one of these...

[ArtK78]

I am intrigued to find that some of the posters have such strong feelings on this issue.

I have been playing for 35 years, and it never occurred to me that a player would ask about the meaning of an alerted call as a lead director and not ask about an alerted call as a lead inhibitor. But I suppose it is possible.

I guess I am just naive.

[jdonn]

ArtK78, on Aug 29 2008, 01:20 PM, said:

I have been playing for 35 years, and it never occurred to me that a player would ask about the meaning of an alerted call as a lead director and not ask about an alerted call as a lead inhibitor.

Uh, wow? Don't you claim to be very experienced in the appeals process? Other than hesitations, this is surely the most common way to take advantage of UI that exists. By far.

It doesn't even have to be a ploy. 1♠ p 3♣ alert. You play double shows clubs if 3♣ is a limit raise, takeout of spades if 3♣ is single raise strength. You ask, are told it shows 6-9, and pass. Hmmm I wonder what partner knows.

[Echognome]

I remember when I played the "Expert Trick Double" suggested by Mike Lawrence, where double of a splinter bid means lead the highest (alternatively lowest) unbid suit.

Here we're not even talking about an alert. So suppose you sit down and hear the opponents bid 1♠ - 4♣. What are the implications if you ask and do not double vs not ask at all? Some people do play Swiss or something other than splinter.

[ArtK78]

Sure I am experienced. But I guess I am not devious enough to recognize this as an opportunity for a lead directing action.

Besides, Bergen 3 level bids don't come up very often. So you have to have a combination of the bid coming up and a devious opponent for this action to occur.

And this can only happen in face-to-face events. I haven't played much face-to-face bridge lately, and when I do I usually know who I am playing against. I hope that they are above this kind of behavior.

Now that I have had my UI detector recalibrated, I will pay more attention to these types of situations and see what happens.