New Alerting, Announcing and Bidding Rules

The new Blue Book and White Book are now available and come into force on 1st September. There are changes to announcements and the rules for strong bids.

Blue Book: new announcements

We are used to announcing “Hearts” or “Spades” when partner responds with a transfer to your 1NT opening bid.  Under the new announcements, you also announce “Clubs” or “Diamonds” if a 2S or 2NT response to your 1NT opening is a transfer, showing the suit. But if 2S or 2NT shows both minors, or could be either minor, then the bid is still alerted – only announce if the bid shows just one suit.

In Acol, a 1NT response shows at most 10HCP, and this is not alerted or announced; but for many pairs playing 5-card majors, 1NT can be weaker and/or stronger. If a wide-ranging 1NT response is non-forcing, you announce by saying “up to 11 HCP” or “up to a bad 12”; but if 1NT is forcing it is alerted. Similarly, in Acol, a natural two-level response is forcing but not forcing to game, and this is not alerted or announced; but in “2/1” these natural responses are game forcing and are now announced as “game forcing”.

Announcement of transfer responses has also been extended to responses to a prepared club: as over 1NT, opener names the suit shown by the transfer response. Unlike over 1NT, there is an announcement even if the suit is not necessarily a 5-card suit.

A natural strong 2NT opening bid is no longer announced.

The Announcements Summary table has more details of these changes

Blue Book: new rules on “strong” and non-strong opening bids

The definition of “strong” opening bid has been changed. For a strong 1C (or strong 1D) the requirement is now 13 or more HCP.  For other strong bids (for example, opening 2C or 2D) the requirement is 16 or more HCP, except if there are two suits with 13HCP concentrated in the two suits. The rules for non-strong bids at the two-level and three-level have also been simplified.

[You can read an article by Stephen Green (vice-chair of the Laws and Ethics committee) explaining these changes - Blue Book Opening Bids]

White Book – and retirement of Sky-Blue Book

There is also a new White Book, effective from 1st September. The Sky-Blue Book was an interim set of procedures and regulations for online bridge. With the new Blue Book and new White Book, we have taken the opportunity to put online bridge on the same footing as face-to-face bridge. The procedures and regulations from the Sky-Blue Book have been moved to the Blue Book and the White Book, and the Sky-Blue Book has been retired.

 

August 31, 2022