[doofik]

Hello :-))

Tonight I played a tournament and at the very first table, the SAYC announcement was made and the following occurred:

2♥ - 4♣ - 4♦ - 5♣ - 5♥ - 6♥

We did not interfere and I got interested at the 5♣ bid and clicked on the 4♣ expecting not sure what. The answer was that's Gerber. Now I clicked 2♥ and the answer was "1 king". I asked in private and was told that it's "weak". After we moved to the next round, I asked the director to take a look at this and the director kept telling me that in his movie, the declaring players alerted. I have to admit, this is not the first time I've run across this answer.

I know I have the option not to play in this director's tournament, however, I can't be the only one who is amazed at the response that "nothing wrong occurred, everything was alerted". I am frustrated (the only time I reach out to the forum).

Is there a way to program alerts where directors can tell the difference between an inquiry and an honest alert?

Best regards,
doof

[barmar]

When he answered "1 king" I suspect he thought you'd clicked on 5♥, not 2♥.

[mycroft]

and while I don't know the answer for sure, I think it's "no". Once text is attached to a bid, it's Alerted - at least that's my experience (I have a habit of self-explaining instead of self-alerting and waiting; some of my odd calls are *odd*).

[TimG]

mycroft, on Feb 22 2010, 11:51 AM, said:

(I have a habit of self-explaining instead of self-alerting and waiting; some of my odd calls are *odd*).

You can alert and explain at the same time.

[barmar]

If you fill in the explanation box before submitting the bid, you don't have to click on the alert button, it's done automatically. I strongly recommend this practice, I wish the alert button would just go away (except for Vugraph operators).

[mycroft]

yes, sorry to confuse - I explain in the Alert description section, and BBO Alerts for me.

Barmar has exactly my point - since I self-explain immediately (except in strong club asking bid sequences, where I self-alert and explain immediately on the bid going out), I tend not to hit the Alert button.

On topic, however, it would be useful to TDs to be able to differentiate between an Alerted call (whether an explanation was given/asked for or not) and a call that was unalerted, but queried and explained.