[Rain]

Hi everyone,

I have an idea about the self alerts.

Do you think it'll be a good idea to have a standardised alerting form pop up when you self alert? That way, self alerts will be more complete, and people won't easily forget to alert thoroughly.

For instance, when you respond jacoby 2nt, you click on "alert" first, and what happens is a small form pops out that has some required fields to fill in.

___ Point range

___ suit shown

___ forcing to?

___others?

Or any other alerting requirements you can think about. The experts reading this will know better than me

Then the alerted bid will look like this : 13-18/4+ !S/GF

Something like that. The alert can also be automatically "chatted" to opponents, instead of messing up the bidding board.

What do you think?

Regards,

Rain

[hrothgar]

Quote

Hi everyone,

I have an idea about the self alerts.

Do you think it'll be a good idea to have a standardised alerting form pop up when you self alert? That way, self alerts will be more complete, and people won't easily forget to alert thoroughly.

For instance, when you respond jacoby 2nt, you click on "alert" first, and what happens is a small form pops out that has some required fields to fill in.

___ Point range

___ suit shown

___ forcing to?

___others?

Or any other alerting requirements you can think about. The experts reading this will know better than me

Then the alerted bid will look like this : 13-18/4+ !S/GF

Something like that. The alert can also be automatically "chatted" to opponents, instead of messing up the bidding board.

What do you think?

Regards,

Rain

I really like this idea.

I'm not quite sure what the form should look like, however, I think that a standardized prompt is a very good idea.

Most players WANT to do the right thing with respect to alerts and the like, but are unsure what the appropriate proprieties are. A form is an excellent way to "explain" what players should be describing.

[the hog]

Ditto. I think this is a great idea. Good one Rain.

[Rado]

Hi all,

Very good proposal Rain. Will be useful to post at the rules/conditions of BBO some list of standart abreviations. I think that WBF and EBL have adopted such. For exampe:
NF= non-forcing
F1= forcing 1 round
FG= Forcing to game
SI= slam interst
TRF= transfer
SPL= Splinter
INV= invitational
INV+=invitational or better
S/O= sigh-off
T/O= take-out
OPT= optional
P/C= pass or correct
W= with
W/O=without
and so and soo

The above will be useful for short descriptions when explaining the alerts

Regards Rado

[eyhung]

I vote for KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). People aren't going to use the standardized form if it looks too complicated (see the convention card editor). In my opinion, there should be as few fields as possible. These should be similar to what you write on the pad to a screenmate in a high-level tournament. something like:

HCP __ -- __
Spade symbol __ -- __ checkbox (if you are just showing the suit)
Heart symbol __ -- __ checkbox
Diamond symbol __ -- __ checkbox
Club symbol __ -- __ checkbox
game forcing, forcing, non-forcing checkboxes
artificial / natural checkbox
(takeout / penalty) checkbox if the call is a double


That should cover most situations, anything else should be explained in words i.e. (asking for aces, inv., takeout) or with the above options. Splinter, use 0-1 for the suit you show the splinter.

One of my pet peeves is when people explain alerts with names and not meanings. I hate it when people say "capp" when they should say "single-suited hand" or "spades and a minor". Not everyone knows every convention by the same name, and not everyone remembers what every convention means. I hope that using fields for suits and points will encourage people to use meanings instead of names.

Eugene Hung

[csdenmark]

I now see some contributions coming up regarding an alert procedure. Different kind of improvements of the proposal by Rain. - Sorry I think you just forget it is a part of the information procedure of opps. The important part of that in bridge is the

convention card

The feature of convention card(cc) and alert on ZONE, I think most knows how it is working, is an example to implement - then problems are over.

It will not be right trying to re-type parts of cc in a box. Pity to see nearly all of the expert players, even the star-players, playing without a cc. They know better!

Yours Claus - csdenmark

[Rhutobello]

LOL, just a thought, maybe the expert and star players know so many systems and conv, that they let their P say what they want to play. There are no room to write all down : (hey just a thought!! )

I would love a pop up box for the alerts, even if Claus are right, because the conv card shall cover it (but maybe more offline);D

[paulg]

As has been said, those who have CCs are the same people who will fill in any aid such as a preconfigured alerting box. CCs are useful to understand the general system but rarely provide the detail that, in an ideal world, people will be happy to share.

However I don't think a preconfigured alerting box will help much either. I would prefer to see a drive to that promotes greater chat to the opponents about what sequences s an, whether they should be alerted or not.

Many of my UK friends "alert" their 4-card major openings and notrump ranges even though they will have mentioned this at the start. This is more the type of behaviour I'd like to see more of.

For established partnerships, does 1C-(P)-1H-(P)-1NT deny 4 spades? Not alertable in the US or the UK, but online you can chat this through.

I feel that disclosure, and willingness to disclose, is really the issue. Personally I'd live the alerting system alone, since if someone does alert you can always ask.

Paul

[JRG]

Personally, what I'd like to see is that when you click on ALERT in the bidding box (before selecting the level and strain), that the alert dialog box pops up and you could type in the short explanation. Then when you have made the bid, it is highlighted AND the explanation is already available.

I find it frustrating to alert a bid, then have to click on it to type in the explanation. I find that while I'm typing in the explanation, opponents (often BOTH), click on the bid. The way the software works, I have half the explanation typed in and my dialog box changes and I have to start typing all over again.

I think a simple form would be a good idea, but I'd be happy with the above.

[Rhutobello]

Quote

I find it frustrating to alert a bid, then have to click on it to type in the explanation. I find that while I'm typing in the explanation, opponents (often BOTH), click on the bid. The way the software works, I have half the explanation typed in and my dialog box changes and I have to start typing all over again.

I think a simple form would be a good idea, but I'd be happy with the above.

I did it like you said,alerted, put in the explanation before O asked. Then I was able to see it, but non of O or P, so maybe we have to wait for the O to ask :(haven't done that many alert's, so maybe I have done it wrong )

[mink]

All talk about the alert form, and for sure you can easily implement one. But the harder point is, how to display the information for the opps, so that it is linked to the bid but does not cover other valueable information.

My conclusion is, that the current way to display the explaination for bids is the best. But like John Goold said, it should be possible to type it in prior to submitting the bid.

I also like Rado's idea of having an agreed list of abbreviations which could be displayed when typing the explaination - a click on a list element adds the abbreviation into the explaining text.

If you need to give longer information you can do this by chat to both opponents, conveniently by the "<===>" button.

Karl

[csdenmark]

Sorry - looks like those contributing here are not familiar to the ZONE feature I have advocated for to be implemented. I know Fred and Uday knows, Bridgebase Corp. have programmed the ZONE.

For your information I therefore have pasted the ZONE help information regarding this topic in yellow color.

Convention Cards

What's a convention?
A convention is a set of meanings, determined before the game, that partners attach to their bids and plays so that they can communicate information about their hands to each other. Your convention must be made known to your opponents, or else it's considered cheating.

There are two ways to let your opponents know you're using a convention: describe your conventions on a convention card, or, during bidding, use the alert button to explain each nonstandard bid.

What are convention cards?
A convention card is a printed card that lists the conventions that you and your partner have agreed upon. It lets your opponents know the type of convention you're using and the special understandings your team has.

Using Convention Cards on Zone.com Bridge
Click the conv. card button on the Bridge table to bring up the convention card window. Here, you can create a new convention card by going to the menu bar and clicking File / New . Or you can open a previously saved convention card by clicking File / Open and selecting the file from the convcards folder.

The Convention Card window contains the following fields:

Names
Is where you type your name and your partner's name.

Approach
Is where you enter the convention name.

Doubles
Is where you can find doubling information, which includes trick values and penalty information.

Over opp's NT
Is what you bid over your opponent's No Trump.

No Trump openings
Is the agreement made between players when a player opens with a No Trump bid.

Competitive bidding
Is when two teams are competing for the contract.

Major openings
Is the agreement when a player opens with a Heart or Spade.

Minor openings
Is the agreement when a player opens with a Diamond or a Club.

Slam bidding
Is the convention used to try to determine the possibility of a slam.

Opening 2 bids
Is the convention agreed upon when a player opens the bid with 2 of a suit.

Defensive carding
Is the communication used between the team that's playing and defending.

Other agreements
Are any other convention agreements made by players.

Features are working in this way:

Setting your pointer to a bid, a pop-up window displays the relevant field of convention card(cc).

Making an alert-requering bid, you press the alert button and your bid turns up in brown color and opps therefore knows something to set their pointer to bid for to be informed of. If you make an alert-requering bid not explained in your cc, you have 2 options:

• You will be able to load an interpretation cc containing info for a special convention your present partnership prefer to use instead of the one(s) you have stated in your standard cc for your system
  
  
• Simply to press the bid yourself and explain the bid in the box. This information will then be displayed to opps instead of the information in cc

You see - this is how to ask your computer to do the repetitive tasks - that's what computers are created for.


Yours Claus - csdenmark

[JRG]

Your description of how "Alerts" work on the Zone sounds wonderful, but I have a couple of questions:

1) How well does it work? For example, if I bid 2diamonds "in competition", it has different meanings depending on the opening (Brozel over a 1NT opening; Modified Michaels over a 1 diamond opening; preemptive over a 1club opening; natural and about an opening bid over a major suit opening). There are other similar examples (some people play different defenses over weak and strong notrump, and in the direct seat versus in the passout position; many pairs play different defenses versus a strong 1 club opening versus a "natural" 1 club opening, and so on).

2) Assuming that the above is handled (I'm a programmer so, yes, I know it CAN be handled, but it probably is not trivial), how much effort is required in filling out the convention card so it will work? How complicated is it?

[csdenmark]

Hi John

I am a proponent of such kinds of standards which will help all and only require the job to be done once. Independently of what you are doing - everything can be done in a better way!

On Zone each field is for plain ASCII text, approx. 20 lines can be used. What you write is what to be displayed to all interested. I have no stocks in MSN,lol - but of course I will be prepared trying to clearify:

Over opp's NT
Brozel over weak
Capp over strong

Competitive bidding
natural over 1C
Modified Michaels over 1D
1D-2D(Michael: Majors)
Pass=Nothing to say
or later Penalty
DBL=Bal,invite,
No forcing pass
2H=Compare with clubs
2S=Limit raise of D
2NT=Natural
3C=Nat,GF
3D=Compete
3HS=Splinter raise D
Rebid:
4NT=Exclusion RKCB
3NT=Nat, D-fit
4C=Fit for both minor
4D/5D=Preempt
4HS=Natural
4NT=BWM

--------------------------------------------------------------
The yellow is the field in cc you put your info into. You may put the name of convention or the description of it. You see example of both above.

Downloading my files you will have a lot of cc's for you ready to use or just for test. You will find them from here: http://groups.msn.co...geFILES/cs.msnw . You will also have cc's in BBO layout.

I hope this will do - else please contact me via Messenger.

Yours Claus - csdenmark

[Cave_Draco]

Reductio ad absurdum?

When is a forcing pass, in a forcing pass system, not a forcing pass? When it is not alertable?

The BBO convention card is a reasonable attempt but how many variations should I have? No. of regular partners + 1?

I, sometimes, remember to load it but how often is it the same as my partner's? & I don't remember taking time out to study opps' CC!

Without standardising on BBO basic & BBO advanced I don't see a simple solution, ???.

Rainy's idea has merit but there are subsets of alert; for instance, taking BBO basic as a standard... if you play BBO basic but with a short Club only 1C needs to be alerted, ;D.