[McBruce]

My first decision on this hand would be to ensure that play continues and a result is recorded. "Please continue playing and I will look at the board and adjust if I feel there has been damage." Especially in a clocked tournament, that always has to be the first consideration.

However, it wouldn't take me too long to decide as others have: no adjustment. East's reasons are heavily tinged with the self-interest bug, that curious bridge-player's disease that makes it impossible for us to see logic once we sense that we might have been damaged. In fact, if we look at East's reasons in reverse order we can see how clearly he is grasping at straws...

2♠ should show at least a stopper. Maybe for you, but there is no law that tells the opponents to play your way.

West would have supported spades if 2♠ had been alerted. Perhaps, but this assumes that 2♠ requires an alert.

N/S bid incorrectly. South was too weak for 2♠. We're adjusting because the opponents bid incorrectly now? We'll need one TD for every table!

2♠ must be alerted. This is the only reason that some have found to consider an adjustment, but it is still completely wrong. Whatever alert rules you play under, an alert should only be made when there is a partnership agreement about a bid. There is no evidence that N-S had an agreement about the cue-bid other than the obvious one that it is forcing. Note that North did not assume heart support; he bid 3♦. North did not assume any kind of strength; after bidding the forced 3♦, he passed throughout. There is no evidence of an agreement here at all, at all, at all. Therefore, there is no need to alert.

The problem that a TD has to envision is that the East player is not going to be happy with the decision. That is why my method would be to explain to everyone involved that my initial decision is no adjustment, but that I will look at it later and make a final decision then, perhaps after the tournament ends--but no further arguments will be considered. Now the players will continue and you can postpone the predictable argument with East until the end, when you can handle a frank exchange of views without Director calls and other nuisances getting in the way.

[mink]

Is the 2♠ bid alertable? The problem with this bid is, that it is alertable no matter what it means. It would only be not alertable if it really showed spades, but not even a beginner would bid something like this if properly educated. This way, the alert carrys no information; if you are interested you have to ask anyway. As a matter of fact, if I sit in the West seat and see the 2♠ bid without alert, and I know that partner bid Michaels, I cannot reasonalbly expect that South just shows spades with this bid. Therefore, EW are never damaged by the failure to alert.

A good solution of this kind of "problems" would be that a bid in a suit where an opp showed at least 5 cards is only to be alerted if it is natural, and not alerted if it has any artificial meaning (but still should be explained). But of course I am not suggesting this, as it would be almost impossible to communictate such a rule to all the bridge players worldwide.

About the tourney rules concerning alerts: I would clearly not require the players to alert all artificial bids, as we can see that some artificial bids are nearly never alerted:

• various kinds of doubles
  
• stayman
  
• transfer to major
  
• blackwood or rkcb
  
• responses to the above

If you really insist that all this has to be alerted, you create a lot of cases as a lot of people do not alert this, but the others really should be used to this. Of course it would be better if there was an alert policy that is followed by everybody, and personally, I alert and explain all this except for the normal non-penalty doubles. But it is not reasonable to expect that when you state that these things are to be alerted in your tourney, that a significant number of players will change their habit not to alert.

So rather, if an opp bids 2♦ responding to 1nt and I like to double in order to show my diamonds, I shall ask the meaning of the bid first, if it was not explained.

Karl

[helene_t]

2♠ should have been alerted? Maybe, but West should know that it wasn't natural. At least he could ask.

South was too weak for 2♠? 2♠ should show at least a stopper? Never heard of. Unless the tournament had a specific defense against Michael's that everybody was supposed to play. But even then, South is allowed to misbid.

No adjustment.

[coyot]

Bruce, I think you're not right! In fact, I know you're wrong on this.

The alerting rules require alerting ALL artificial bids AND all bids that carry specific partnership agreement (explicit or implicit) or partnership experience.

But, the AND here comes in the adding sense, not in the computer-logic sense... In computer logic it should say OR...

That is, alert bit is positive if either condition is fulfilled. In self-alerting environment, when you're bidding opps suit, you HAVE to alert it if it is conventional, even though the further bidding analysis shows that partner had no idea what this bid promises or not.

My favourite example would be
1♣-x-1♠-2♠.

What would you expect this bid to mean? It obviously is a cue-bid, isn't it? No need to alert it if you don't have an agreement... BUT, in this particular situation, I have played it as natural - with several partners WITHOUT prior agreement - and they all got the message that I had good spades.

Given this possibility, and given the suit quality that is used for those 2suit overcalls these days, it might be well possible that 2♠ COULD be natural by partnership agreement, or even without it. It happened to me a quite a lot of times that opps overcalled (or showed) a suit in which I held something like AKJ9xx.

Now, would you expect a natural bid to be alerted? )) Or would you automatically assume that it was a cue-bid and as such did not require an alert? Would you claim damages later when you discovered the natural spade holding behind your partner?

[coyot]

mink, on Aug 16 2005, 02:56 AM, said:

About the tourney rules concerning alerts: I would clearly not require the players to alert all artificial bids, as we can see that some artificial bids are nearly never alerted:

• various kinds of doubles
  
• stayman
  
• transfer to major
  
• blackwood or rkcb
  
• responses to the above

If you really insist that all this has to be alerted, you create a lot of cases as a lot of people do not alert this, but the others really should be used to this. Of course it would be better if there was an alert policy that is followed by everybody, and personally, I alert and explain all this except for the normal non-penalty doubles. But it is not reasonable to expect that when you state that these things are to be alerted in your tourney, that a significant number of players will change their habit not to alert.

I think it is quite reasonable to expect people to follow rules or carry the punishment if they don't :-)

Most of the non-alerting business comes from the "I am the centre of universe" mentality. Many Polish players have never heard about any other system than WJ and their 1♣ opening seems obvious to them. Many American players have never met anyone who does NOT play transfers after their (weak) NT opening.

There are subtler differences. For example, Stayman:
- some play that it guarantees major 4card
- some play that it guarantees major 4card or 3card in both majors if weak...
- some play that is is just asking partner about majors and does not guarantee anything.

An unalerted Stayman may cause you to misdefend easily if the responder becomes declarer. Somebody bid unalerted stayman with 1-2-4-6 shape... Now, should I spend eternity investigating what does the bid really mean or should I be notified by opps that it has a non-standard meaning?
(For example, alerting rules in CZ say that Stayman does not have to be alerted when it guarantees 4card major).

As for the various other bids:
Blackwood, rkcb, responses: You should know that bids above 3NT are not alerted with the exception of conventional openings, no matter what they promise.

Transfers to major:
I will happily argue that you deserve no adjust when I bid a 2♦ stopper after 1NT opening and you miss your heart partscore . And, no matter where we play, even if the rules say that transfers are not alerted, I will be right (unless the rules explicitly say that NON-transfers have to be alerted - and I am sure that the day to alert natural bids will never come).

Various doubles:
As far as I know, all non-penalty doubles should be alerted, especially in self-alerting environment (maybe with the expection of first bid by unpassed hand).

I know that in f2f bridge, this policy has been changed and no doubles are alerted, but this has been done to prevent passing of UI (when partner alerts your penalty double or vice versa) - the alerts have not been cancelled because the officials would think the opps don't need the information.

Simply put, if we want to make this game enjoyable and fair, there must be a UNIFIED alerting policy that will be enforced as strictly as possible. Sure, in the first months a lot of people will find it annoying, having suddenly to alert things they consider natural, but in the long term, everyone will be better off. Until such a policy is accepted, there will always be ill feelings about damages and adjusts.

[hrothgar]

As always, a few comments

1. As several people have noted, there are any numbers of jurisdictions where cue bids are specifically not alertable.

2. Under the alerting standard that you have chosen, the 2♠ clearly requires an alert. Please note, I consider your alerting standards to be badly flawed. Consider the 2♠ cue bid. If this bid conforms to SAYC, the cue bid is alertable because its artificial. If this bid is used to show a natural hand, it's alertable because it doesn't conform to SAYC. Just how much information does the alert of 2♠ provide to the opponents? You'll run into the same problem on any range of hands where SAYC specifies a conventional response (transfers, Jacoby 2N, drury,...) or where there is debate regarding what is specified (1m - 2N, bypassing majors, 1m - 2m, ...)

3. Regardless of the flaws with your alert structure, it does provide a very easy out. Because every possible response to a 2♠ cue is alertable, the failure to alert can't cause damage. The non-offending side clearly should be suspicious.

4. Appropriate resolution

A. Proceedural penalty for N/S for ignoring the alerting requirements
B. No adjustment to E/W, along with a suggestion that if they are going to claim that they were damaged by the lack of an alert, they probably should also be lecturing regarding how people "ought" to use this cue bid.

[david_c]

hrothgar, on Aug 16 2005, 10:00 AM, said:

2.  Under the alerting standard that you have chosen, the 2♠ clearly requires an alert.  Please note, I consider your alerting standards to be badly flawed.  Consider the 2♠ cue bid.  If this bid conforms to SAYC, the cue bid is alertable because its artificial.  If this bid is used to show a natural hand, it's alertable because it doesn't conform to SAYC.

Richard, you've slightly misread what I wrote: it's only opening bids which would require an alert if different from SAYC. I completely agree that requiring all non-SAYC bids to be alerted would be a terrible idea.

[david_c]

mink, on Aug 16 2005, 08:56 AM, said:

About the tourney rules concerning alerts: I would clearly not require the players to alert all artificial bids, as we can see that some artificial bids are nearly never alerted:

• various kinds of doubles
  
  
• stayman
  
  
• transfer to major
  
  
• blackwood or rkcb
  
  
• responses to the above

If you really insist that all this has to be alerted, you create a lot of cases as a lot of people do not alert this, but the others really should be used to this. Of course it would be better if there was an alert policy that is followed by everybody, and personally, I alert and explain all this except for the normal non-penalty doubles. But it is not reasonable to expect that when you state that these things are to be alerted in your tourney, that a significant number of players will change their habit not to alert.

Good points - for the most part I agree completely, and I've started a new topic "simple alerting regulations" in order to address this properly. But I assure you, I don't expect that people will change their alerting habits. In fact, if they did, then "alert all artificial bids" wouldn't work so well!

[coyot]

hrothgar, on Aug 16 2005, 04:00 AM, said:

As always, a few comments

1. As several people have noted, there are any numbers of jurisdictions where cue bids are specifically not alertable.

2. Under the alerting standard that you have chosen, the 2♠ clearly requires an alert. Please note, I consider your alerting standards to be badly flawed. Consider the 2♠ cue bid. If this bid conforms to SAYC, the cue bid is alertable because its artificial. If this bid is used to show a natural hand, it's alertable because it doesn't conform to SAYC. Just how much information does the alert of 2♠ provide to the opponents? You'll run into the same problem on any range of hands where SAYC specifies a conventional response (transfers, Jacoby 2N, drury,...) or where there is debate regarding what is specified (1m - 2N, bypassing majors, 1m - 2m, ...)

3. Regardless of the flaws with your alert structure, it does provide a very easy out. Because every possible response to a 2♠ cue is alertable, the failure to alert can't cause damage. The non-offending side clearly should be suspicious.

4. Appropriate resolution

A. Proceedural penalty for N/S for ignoring the alerting requirements
B. No adjustment to E/W, along with a suggestion that if they are going to claim that they were damaged by the lack of an alert, they probably should also be lecturing regarding how people "ought" to use this cue bid.

Richard, the biggest problem here is the lack of jurisdiction!

Is "conforms to SAYC" a jurisdiction? I don't think so.

The only jurisdictions I know are WBF, EBU, EBL, ACBL etc, plus BBO.

The common sense says that, given the hierarchy, we can either play by WBF rules or by ACBL rules (since BBO is located in US) or by BBO rules. There are absolutely no grounds for using ANY OTHER jurisdiction UNLESS the tournament organizers specifically say so.

WBF approach is simple: alert anything that is not natural AND alert anything that carries extra agreement or partnership experience

ACBL approach is pretty complicated to me, they seem to prefer a lot of artifical calls unalerted, but they sometimes fail to cover the consequences. (I.e. I checked that they say that most cue-bids are not alertable, including Michaels - but they do NOT require you to alert if 1♦-2♦ shows diamonds. (That is, they do not require it explicitly in this case... and since they make explicit requirements in most other cases, I assume that the alert is not required - and I would be very puzzled if asked to alert a NATURAL call ).

BBO approach is the kindest - alert anything if you have ANY doubt opps aren't sure about the meaning .

Anyway... I don't know where in my post you found the notion that bids that do not conform to SAYC are alertable. That might be your alerting standard, which I could consider flawed. I will certainly consider flawed ANY alerting standard that requires alerts of NATURAL bids.

I don't think that every possible response to 2♠ cue is alertable - sorry, that is a total nonsense! Opener will have a ton of natural bids!

Of course, I agree that the failure to support partner's spades is caused by East's
a) speculation that since opps failed to alert cuebid, we will nail them with damage claim UNLESS we score very good on the board
lack of interest in the bidding - any reasonable player will ask even if the bid is not alerted - to determine strength of the bid and possible support it promises would be a good idea in all cases.

So I would award no adjusts and I would issue a warning for the non-alerted bid (unless it was ACBL event).

But, then, the ACBL rules are strange...
1♠-2♥-p-2♠ must be alerted if it is transfer to clubs, not alerted when it shows a heart raise... but what if it shows neither, just generic gameforce/stopper ask? The rules are leaky - and imho the leaks are caused by the fact that ACBL rules try to get rid of "useless" alerts. I admit that 2♠ bid in this case will 99.9% be unnatural, but the rules should then clearly state explicitly, which of the possible meanings is to become the new natural non-alerted...

I still think that WBF rules are the most sensible - because they are SIMPLE to understand. They only require a little education of players to explain what is implicit/explicit agreement worth explaining... and they have one big advantage - no nationality will benefit from them...

I've been playing "all-alerting" bridge for 5 years and my experience is really positive. Having opponents that routinely explain their agreements and inferences is a real pleasure. Sitting at the table with such a pair, you have the feeling that all parties are interested in having the fairest possible competition.
When you compare such an experience with a pair that tries to hide behind the rules and trick you, the difference is enormous...

[jillybean]

fwiw….
My initial reaction to this board was no damage result should stand. Then I got thinking, what if W had been a novice and S failure to alert caused confusion…E would definitely have bid 5♠ had W shown any support......
I see now that was perhaps noble thinking but not exactly bridge
– thanks for the informative posts.

[DrTodd13]

Why can't we all just agree to alert all artificial bids, no exceptions. Not alerting transfers is a big mistake. This makes people who play 1N-2M, especially over a weak NT, have to alert a natural bid. Even as it is, I think alerting everything that isn't natural is the way to go but we need to continue to pester Fred to improve the alerting system so that common alerts can be saved and maybe even do something like automatically suggesting that the bid be alerted and bringing up the most likely explanation.

[inquiry]

Not alerting bids in F2F is to keep from waking up partner.. forcign us to remember or agreements (hehehe). On computers, our partner's can't see our alert. We should be alerting almost everything (if it has a nuance to partner opponents might not realize).

For example, on my 1NT auctions.. if partner bids 2D (jacoby, I assume he alerts), if I bid 2H I alert as "denying 4 hearts".

[DrTodd13]

I think alerting 2♥ in that auction is going too far. If you extend this principle to its ultimate conclusion then every bid is alertable because it denies the ability to make any of the other bids that were available.

If you still feel strongly about it, I'd like you to suggest how you would word the defintion of a "natural bid" that I suggested in David's other thread to demand that we alert 2♥ in this sequence.

[inquiry]

We will disagree. Partner knows I have 2 or 3 hearts, never four. He will use this information on some bidding decisions. If he gets access to this info in deciding how to bid, the opponents get that information in deciding how to defend.

Their KNOWING I have only 2 or 3 hearts may make one line of defense clearer. Now this information disadvantages me of course, as they will defend better, but that is the price I pay for 2H denying four hearts. I HAVE THAT AGREEMENT, so the opponents have every right to know. Not telling them is illegal in my opinion.

[McBruce]

coyot, on Aug 16 2005, 12:12 AM, said:

Bruce, I think you're not right! In fact, I know you're wrong on this.

The alerting rules require alerting ALL artificial bids AND all bids that carry specific partnership agreement (explicit or implicit) or partnership experience.

But, the AND here comes in the adding sense, not in the computer-logic sense... In computer logic it should say OR...

That is, alert bit is positive if either condition is fulfilled. In self-alerting environment, when you're bidding opps suit, you HAVE to alert it if it is conventional, even though the further bidding analysis shows that partner had no idea what this bid promises or not.

My favourite example would be
1♣-x-1♠-2♠.

What would you expect this bid to mean? It obviously is a cue-bid, isn't it? No need to alert it if you don't have an agreement... BUT, in this particular situation, I have played it as natural - with several partners WITHOUT prior agreement - and they all got the message that I had good spades.

Given this possibility, and given the suit quality that is used for those 2suit overcalls these days, it might be well possible that 2♠ COULD be natural by partnership agreement, or even without it. It happened to me a quite a lot of times that opps overcalled (or showed) a suit in which I held something like AKJ9xx.

Now, would you expect a natural bid to be alerted? )) Or would you automatically assume that it was a cue-bid and as such did not require an alert? Would you claim damages later when you discovered the natural spade holding behind your partner?

(The consensus seems to be that we let the result stand, that East's double with such an offensive hand was a bit daft and that the only remaining argument is whether 2♠ requires an alert. Thank goodness nobody is arguing that E-W should escape their bad score because 2♠ was not alerted.)

This deal seems to me to illustrate the biggest problem with alerts: players think they have the right to assume things about opponent's hands because they did NOT alert. Alerts are not meant to be either-or. The lack of an alert, when it seems one might well be required, does not allow you to make assumptions that the hand is a specific hand that doesn't require an alert.

Playing online there is no excuse for not protecting yourself by simply asking in private for an explanation of 2♠ when in your mind it could have two meanings. West had every opportunity to do so on this hand.

Really, in an online situation there is NEVER an excuse for claiming damage from a failure to alert. It is ALWAYS possible to get the information you need from private chat without any transfer of UI, except perhaps the extra time needed. You can even ask both players and see if they both understand the bid.

(The BBO option to click on the bid and get an explanation is very much inferior from a Laws perspective. On this hand, surely East knows that 2♠ is not a natural spade bid. If East clicks to get an explanation it is like East asking for the benefit of his partner, which is illegal.)

If you believe 2♠ should be alerted only because it is not a natural bid, it follows that if South means this as a psyche (to avoid defending 4♠ in the long run) he must alert it. Is that what you want out of your alerting rules? It's not what I want.

The word 'alert' is not in the Laws. The only reference is Law 40B:

B. Concealed Partnership Understandings Prohibited

A player may not make a call or play based on a special partnership understanding unless an opposing pair may reasonably be expected to understand its meaning, or unless his side discloses the use of such call or play in accordance with the regulations of the sponsoring organization.


The first priority for alerting therefore HAS to be a partnership agreement, not whether the bid is natural/artificial. Sponsoring organizations that rule that the first priority should be natural vs artificial are out of bounds of Law 40A:

A. Right to Choose Call or Play

A player may make any call or play (including an intentionally misleading call - such as a psychic bid - or a call or play that departs from commonly accepted, or previously announced, use of a convention), without prior announcement, provided that such call or play is not based on a partnership understanding.

[DrTodd13]

They have a right to know your agreement but that is not the same as saying that you must alert it. Every bid you make is by agreement but every bid should not be alertable. If they want to know your specific agreements about a certain natural bid then they can ask you. The purpose of alerting is to tell them it has an unusual or unexpected meaning, not to divulge detailed agreements.

Let me be clear, a practice where you explained every bid that you made would be an internally consistent (explanation, not alert) system and would be in agreement with the principle of full disclosure but would be more burdensome than only alerting things that aren't natural. What I was trying to suggest to you is that your position on what is alertable does not appear to be consistent in that I can't imagine a rule that would demand I alert things like this 2♥ bid but didn't at the same time demand I alert a host of other bids just because I deny holding certain other hand characteristics. I think that any such rule you did try to write would just muddy the waters and we'd be back to the same point of arguing over what was alertable and what isn't.

[inquiry]

If you play support doubles (as a rule I do not, but will if partner wants them)... and you use the double, I assume you alert.... "support double, 3 card support", or somehting to that effect. I thus expect when you raise rather than use the support double, you are promising your partner FOUR cards, and I assume (I guess from your answer this is a false assumption) that you tell the opponents you have four card suipport.

This is full disclosure, you ahve a complete agreement with your partner, and thus, your opponents have a right to know. Now in real world (or bBO), I gues syou could ahve cc filled out with info, so "alert" is unnecessary. But BBO rules and rules of bridge seem clear.... as quoted by McBruce (40B)

B. Concealed Partnership Understandings Prohibited

A player may not make a call or play based on a special partnership understanding unless an opposing pair may reasonably be expected to understand its meaning, or unless his side discloses the use of such call or play in accordance with the regulations of the sponsoring organization.

To use direct raise to ABSOLUTELY promise four, you are obligated to disclose that, to use 1N-2D-2H to DENY four hearts, you are obligated to disclose it. Justify your ignoring of the rules (disclosure on CC is fine).... if you like, but ignore it you do if it not reasonable to expect your opponents will understanding the meaning

[DrTodd13]

40B is not as clear as you seem to think it is. If we are to assume (as we should) that every word in a regulation has a meaning and adds something to the regulation and that no word in a regulation is superfluous then we have to ask what the word "special" means in the context of "special partnership understanding." Note, it does not say simply "partnership understanding" but "special partnership understanding." To say that this statement is "clear" is incredible because surely the word "special" is vague in the extreme. Let the debate begin about what is a special partnership understanding versus a regular partnership understanding...somebody please draw the line. Basically, this is the issue we've been debating all along. Alerts are supposed to capture special agreements and not regular agreements. So, I don't see how referring to 40B is helping us at all. What would you say the corollaries to law 40B are? Can I make a bid without alerting based on a non-special partnership understanding that the opponents might not understand all the details of? Case in point, 1m-1♥-1N either denying or possibly containing 4♠. Are both 1m-1♥-1♠ and 1m-1♥-1N alertable because we know that people play it both ways and therefore someone might not understand the bid or should neither of these bids be alertable. My view is that neither of these are special understandings (instead they are a matter of style) and that neither should be alerted. If you are going to argue that both are alertable then I do think you are going down the road to defining every partnership understanding as a special partnership understanding since many pairs will play sequences differently.

I'm not ignoring any rule. I am trying to come up with a non-vague substitute for the term "special" so that we can all know what we should alert. Ben is a bright guy with lots of insight so I was hoping he'd provide us with a workable definition of special. Correct me if I'm wrong but all I've seen so far are examples and not definitions.

[david_c]

DrTodd13, on Aug 16 2005, 11:01 PM, said:

I'm not ignoring any rule.  I am trying to come up with a non-vague substitute for the term "special" so that we can all know what we should alert.  Ben is a bright guy with lots of insight so I was hoping he'd provide us with a workable definition of special.  Correct me if I'm wrong but all I've seen so far are examples and not definitions.

But of course it's completely impossible to come up with a satisfactory definition of "special". So examples are good, because they at least take care of the most commonly-occurring situations. So it's a good thing that the ACBL regs say explicitly that an unalerted 1♦:1♥,1NT may include 4 spades, and that the 2006 EBU regs say that 1NT:2♦,2♥ is alertable if it denies 4-card support.

Of course, what actually happens is that it is the job of the TD to rule on whether an understanding is special or not. This is just going to be one of the many situations where some judgement is needed in interpreting the Laws.

Another thought: Suppose you do have a "special partnership understanding", whatever that means. Then 40B says that this must be disclosed in accordance with the regulations of the SO. But might not the regulations of the SO say that it is only to be disclosed if and when the opponents ask a question?

[DrTodd13]

Examples are not good because then we define "special" by thousands and thousands of examples of what is special and what is not special. Nobody can be expected to know how to alert when it requires memorizing an encyclopedia of bids that somebody has arbitrarily decided are special or not. If you want such a system then fine but I would prefer one where there is an objective definition of special that is usable and that does not require "interpretation."

The regulation is indeed poorly written and would seem to allow a SO from saying all you have to do is to say alert after 3 passes if some bid in the auction was unusual. It defeats the purpose of the regulation but it follows the letter of it. I don't believe it says anywhere that the SO must require timely disclosure, only eventual disclosure.