[blivet]

I have noticed that some players annouce when they are bidding according to a convention ('Stayman', 'transfer', etc). But not always. Is the bid assumed to be a natural bid when not announced, or is it the the artificial use that is assumed? This could occur (and does) when a player has described his play on a convention card or some other place where he advertises his/her use of conventions.

I'm asking this because I used to think that if your convention card indicated that you play Stayman, then you are locked into the artificial sense of bidding 2♣ after parnter opens with 1NT, and could not bid a natural 2♣ raise. But sometimes I have observed partner querying 'Stayman?' after a 2♣ raise of 1 NT, and being told either one or the other use. I've seen this variability with other conventions too (e.g., 'transfer?'). Is responder then free to explain that his/her bid is the convention or is a natural bid?

In other words, are conventional bids optional even when you have described your play as including the conventions, or are you locked into only meaning the artificial convention when you make these bids?

blivet

[Stephen Tu]

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I have noticed that some players annouce when they are bidding according to a convention ('Stayman', 'transfer', etc). But not always. Is the bid assumed to be a natural bid when not announced, or is it the the artificial use that is assumed?

In bridge you are required to disclose your methods to your opponents. So you have to "alert" any time your bid is unusual. In most cases, a bid is assumed to be natural when not announced. But a few conventions, including stayman, opening 2♣ bid showing any very strong hand, and a handful of others, are considered so ubiquitous that they are not alerted. Alert rules vary from country to country. In the U.S., under ACBL jurisdiction, stayman is not alerted (and in fact a natural 2c to play should be alerted). Other countries use other guidelines; in some all non-natural bids are alerted so stayman is alerted there.

Also note that the procedure for alerting bids is different when playing online vs. playing live face-to-face. Online, you can alert & explain to your opponents your own bids without your partner seeing the explanation, by using the alert box or using the drop-down menu on the chat box to only talk to the opps. This is important, because partner is not allowed to learn from your explanation what the bid means, it's only for the benefit of the opponents.

In face-to-face bridge, this is not possible (except in certain high-level competitions where physical screens are used to divide the table in half, and explanations are written instead of verbal), so there you explain partner's bids instead of your own, and partner is not allowed to use your explanation to discover if there have been misunderstandings.

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I'm asking this because I used to think that if your convention card indicated that you play Stayman, then you are locked into the artificial sense of bidding 2♣ after parnter opens with 1NT, and could not bid a natural 2♣ raise. But sometimes I have observed partner querying 'Stayman?' after a 2♣ raise of 1 NT, and being told either one or the other use.

BTW it's not called a "raise" if you aren't making a higher bid in the same denomination, like 1nt-2nt, 1nt-3nt. It's simply called a 2♣ "response" to 1nt. 1♣-2♣ would be a raise.

If you are playing in an official competition, you are required to agree with partner what agreements to use ahead of time, either before a session or between boards, absolutely not during a board. So they cannot ask you what 2♣ means there, and you have to assume stayman. Beginners are taught stayman practically immediately, only 1 in a million would not be. 1nt-(dbl)-2♣ is a different story, many people use natural responses after a penalty double.

Same for transfers. If you agree transfers you are locked in & partner can't be asking you what you mean.

However, on BBO main & relaxed bridge club, a lot of the play is casual, "pick-up" where people are sitting down for the first time with a new partner & trying to get a game going fairly quickly. Here the normal rules of bridge are relaxed, and as long as the opponents don't object you can work out agreements as you play the first few boards. Otherwise it would take too long to hammer out agreements with partner before a game could begin. This is what you are seeing when partners are asking. It's fine to answer here, but not in something like a BBO tournament or a live offline game.