[Aberlour10]

Short question >>>>>> Are there ACBL restrictions concerning strength and distribution of the weak 2H and 2S openings ?

[hrothgar]

Sometimes

The topic appears to be well documented in the relevant convention charts

[johnu]

Short answer >>> Yes

[Vampyr]

I don’t think that other countries have limits on what is actually “allowed”, but disclosure is an issue everywhere. Is your agreement 5-9 HCP, but you frequently open with 4? If your agreement 3rd in at favourable is approximately 3-11, must you disclose that or is it “just bridge”?

[pran]

 Vampyr, on 2019-September-21, 01:30, said:

I don’t think that other countries have limits on what is actually “allowed”, but disclosure is an issue everywhere. Is your agreement 5-9 HCP, but you frequently open with 4? If your agreement 3rd in at favourable is approximately 3-11, must you disclose that or is it “just bridge”?

In Norway all opening bids (except 1♥ and 1♠) below 2NT must be "announced" (i.e. explained) by opener's partner

[blackshoe]

 pran, on 2019-September-21, 05:33, said:

In Norway all opening bids (except 1♥ and 1♠) below 2NT must be "announced" (i.e. explained) by opener's partner

A full explanation, or a brief announcement? Or something in between?

[pescetom]

 pran, on 2019-September-21, 05:33, said:

In Norway all opening bids (except 1♥ and 1♠) below 2NT must be "announced" (i.e. explained) by opener's partner

In Italy, almost all. For some silly reason 1♥/1♠ promising 5+ cards is an exception and must not be announced (I hope to get this fixed at the end of the year). Plus of course the more unusual artificial openings still need to be alerted (although strong club openings and even Multicolor can be announced, if they meet certain standards).

Weak two openings have no lower limit that I am aware of, but are subject to alert unless they have a "normal" range of HCP which would be interpreted as 6(5)-10 and "normal" length which would be interpreted as 6-card.

[pran]

 pran, on 2019-September-21, 05:33, said:

In Norway all opening bids (except 1♥ and 1♠) below 2NT must be "announced" (i.e. explained) by opener's partner

 blackshoe, on 2019-September-21, 05:47, said:

A full explanation, or a brief announcement? Or something in between?

We call it "announcement" and it shall give the same (complete) explanation as in response to a question about the bid (only that opponents shall not need to ask about these opening bids).

[blackshoe]

Interesting. Why the exception for 1♥ and 1♠?

[pran]

 blackshoe, on 2019-September-21, 15:13, said:

Interesting. Why the exception for 1♥ and 1♠?

Because our alert regulation still applies in the extremely uncommon case of a one opening bid in a major denomination showing anything else than a normal opening strength with at least 4 cards in the named suit and including no special side information.

[pescetom]

 blackshoe, on 2019-September-21, 15:13, said:

Interesting. Why the exception for 1♥ and 1♠?

In our case, because 5+ cards in suit is considered the normal meaning - you have to announce the older (and truly natural) 4+ cards meaning. This arbitrary exception is illogical (all other 1 or 2 level natural openings are announced) and harmful, as it causes resentment among those still playing 4 card majors and an embarrassing pause to discover if opponent intends to announce or not. Quite a few just announce 5 cards anyway and I am in no hurry to correct them.

More in general, our first year of announcements has reinforced my conviction that if a certain meaning of a bid is to be announced then all other meanings of same bid should be announced or alerted.

[barmar]

Getting back to the question asked.

The Basic Convention Chart allows a weak 2 bid that shows at least 5 cards in the suit and at least 4 HCP, with a range of at most 7 HCP.

The Basic+ chart requires 5 cards, at least 3 HCP, and a range of at most 8 HCP.

The Open and Open+ charts don't appear to have any restrictions on weak 2 bids.

The requirements apply to your agreements. You're allowed to deviate, but not often enough that you'll form an implicit agreement.

[Vampyr]

 pescetom, on 2019-September-22, 01:52, said:

In our case, because 5+ cards in suit is considered the normal meaning - you have to announce the older (and truly natural) 4+ cards meaning. This arbitrary exception is illogical (all other 1 or 2 level natural openings are announced) and harmful, as it causes resentment among those still playing 4 card majors and an embarrassing pause to discover if opponent intends to announce or not. Quite a few just announce 5 cards anyway and I am in no hurry to correct them.

More in general, our first year of announcements has reinforced my conviction that if a certain meaning of a bid is to be announced then all other meanings of same bid should be announced or alerted.

No, there should be at most one non-alertable meaning of a call. All bids except have announceable/alertable meanings (even 1M openers could be transfers or canapé). So you would be alerting everything, causing alerts to become meaningless. Or you could announce everything, which leads into murky UI waters.

But there are some categories of bids... in the EBU all bids between 1NT and 2NT are announced or alerted. This is sensible.

[mycroft]

 barmar, on 2019-September-22, 22:11, said:

Getting back to the question asked.

The Open and Open+ charts don't appear to have any restrictions on weak 2 bids.

11 Open, 13 on Open+ charts, Disallowed:

Quote

A non-Forcing 2-level opening bid in first or second seat that has a Range of greater than 9 HCP and could show less than Average Strength.

0-8 is allowed (which would have made our silly Mid-Chart system valid, except for the Multi (well, and the 2♠ "strong preempt in a minor" that we got with the Multi)). Time to dig out some Kontrast (it's shocking that "go back to 3 weak 2s" is all we need to make it run. There are a few "you only play this to confuse us 'real bridge players' " in Flight A that could use a trip to "no, *this* is what we play when we want to confuse you. We play our normal system(s) because they're fun and we do well with them."

[pescetom]

 Vampyr, on 2019-September-23, 08:24, said:

No, there should be at most one non-alertable meaning of a call.

I agree with this opinion, except perhaps for doubles. It is not in contradiction with the opinion I expressed that calls should not have a meaning that is neither announceable nor alertable when an announcement is possible for the same call.

 Vampyr, on 2019-September-23, 08:24, said:

All bids except have announceable/alertable meanings (even 1M openers could be transfers or canapé). So you would be alerting everything, causing alerts to become meaningless. Or you could announce everything, which leads into murky UI waters.

I am not suggesting alerting everything. I suggest you are unneccesarily equating announceable to alertable. Announcements often replace alerts, but they can also be applied to calls that are not ordinarily alerted. And having a year of experience where almost every opening and response is announced, I can assure you it has not lead to murky UI waters so far.

 Vampyr, on 2019-September-23, 08:24, said:

But there are some categories of bids... in the EBU all bids between 1NT and 2NT are announced or alerted. This is sensible.

Exactly. In FIGB all 1 and 2 level opening bids (with the mysterious exception of 1M 5+) are announced or alerted, and this is sensible too. It is useful for example to give the number of cards promised by a natural suit opening or the points range of an NT opening or to warn opponents about unexpected natural calls such as a natural response to 1NT or a natural strong 2 opening. It is also useful to announce calls that are "normal" but theoretically alertable, such as a weak jump response or a forcing 1NT response.

[blackshoe]

Any method can be called "sensible" if that word means "what people are used to".

[Vampyr]

 pescetom, on 2019-September-23, 10:04, said:

I agree with this opinion, except perhaps for doubles. It is not in contradiction with the opinion I expressed that calls should not have a meaning that is neither announceable nor alertable when an announcement is possible for the same call.

I would say especially doubles.

Quote

I am not suggesting alerting everything. I suggest you are unneccesarily equating announceable to alertable. Announcements often replace alerts, but they can also be applied to calls that are not ordinarily alerted. And having a year of experience where almost every opening and response is announced, I can assure you it has not lead to murky UI waters so far.

The past tense and past participle of “lead” is “led”. It seems to me that the alerts and announcements are way overused. Clearly excessive UI is transmitted, even if it hasn’t been in your personal esperience.

Quote

Exactly. In FIGB all 1 and 2 level opening bids (with the mysterious exception of 1M 5+) are announced or alerted, and this is sensible too. It is useful for example to give the number of cards promised by a natural suit opening or the points range of an NT opening or to warn opponents about unexpected natural calls such as a natural response to 1NT or a natural strong 2 opening. It is also useful to announce calls that are "normal" but theoretically alertable, such as a weak jump response or a forcing 1NT response.

When 4-card majors are announced or alerted someone has clearly been over-zealous in writing the regulations. Especially since this is one of the things you tell the opponents when you meet them at the table.

[pescetom]

 Vampyr, on 2019-September-24, 06:25, said:

I would say especially doubles.

I think that is worthy of discussion, but I'm already guilty of hijacking this thread, so I'll start a specific one some time.

 Vampyr, on 2019-September-24, 06:25, said:

Clearly excessive UI is transmitted, even if it hasn’t been in your personal esperience.

If you mean that it is UI for a player to be reminded of his agreements by partner, then this is of course inherent in announcements, but somewhat academic. Otherwise, our announcements are precise and terse and allow no variations or additions. There are of course in the real world occasional variations or omissions, but never yet did I suspect that they were intentional or had any meaning. Certainly the potential to transmit UI via variations in tempo or wording is inherent, but then if people want to cheat they will find a way in any case, with or without announcements.

 Vampyr, on 2019-September-24, 06:25, said:

The past tense and past participle of “lead” is “led”.

You are of course right. And "esperience" is spelt with an x.