The annual updates to the Blue Book and White Book have been made by the Laws & Ethics Committee. The finalised versions can now be viewed and downloaded.
- Blue Book (changes are shown in orange text)
- White Book (sections which have changed from 2017 are shown with a mark in the left margin)
There are no significant changes to Blue Book regulations this year, although the wording has been simplified or clarified in several places (including the notes on ‘strong’ openings). The wording on alerting and announcing has been expanded, emphasizing the overarching requirement to disclose methods fully. Otherwise, the only actual changes to existing regulations are to modify the definition of ‘natural’ for an opening bid, response or overcall and update Level 5 in line with recent changes to the WBF systems policy
The majority of the changes to the White Book are concerned with penalties: being clearer on what penalties are to be applied, rather than introducing new offences. There are changes to appeals processes, including the composition of appeals committees. The section on ‘Hesitation Blackwood’ has been extended to cover more situations where the hesitation acts as an illegal ‘wake up call’.
The content of these books applies to all events held on or after 1st August 2019.
July 30, 2019