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Announcing and alerting

With a 12-14 pt hand 4/3/3/3 shape is it required to alert or announce a 1 club opening (3 cards in suit)?

It is ibviously not a natural bid.

Comments

  • For a one level minor suit opening, 3+ is considered natural in the blue book. So there's no announcement or alert required. I suppose because it's considered standard for strong no trump systems, although most people seem to play a short club these days.

    Although it isn't an alert or announcement, it is a bit unusual (at least at club level) and I would consider it more important than usual that a pair playing it does carry a system card (even just a hastily scrawled one) and tries to mention that they're playing it at the start of a round.

  • If the bid shows 12-14 points I would expect an alert.

    Alan

  • Thank you for that. I can see that if one had a sight of cc then one would know.

    This happened in this morning's acol tourney on BBO. The player bidding 1 club had an empty cc and his p said nothing.

    It may be legal but it was certainly underhand not to say sneaky since a conventional wk NT opening would have given a correct description of the hand. On this opening and 2 spade reply followed by 3NT everything was concealed.

    Tournament TD did nothing.

    Not nice.

  • It is worth noting that on BBO one would self-alert, rather than the club standard of partner alerting

    If they are not a regular partnership then perhaps they were unclear what each person played, so they both gambled?

    I tend to put very little faith in any of the bidding, carding or play that I see on BBO :)

    Twice this morning a partner passed after I opened (no interference) with a goodish hand - 2 different people both call themselves Advanced. One had 12 points and 6 diamonds after I opened 1D! his hand was:

    S A109
    H A5
    D J108743
    C K9

    we only made 12 tricks in 1D and -7.8 IMPs

    The other had 7 points and after
    P - 1H - P - P, 2C (thank you for giving me a chance) - 3D from me, partner puts me into 3H with:

    S A753
    H 9843
    D K82
    C 53

    So we make 11 tricks in 3H for -6.3 IMPS.

  • I agree, card play especially can be very poor. But I normally play with a few, known regular partners so not that different to club play.

    I'm fond of the site as it is where I taught myself to play.

  • edited August 2018

    @Geoff103 said:
    Thank you for that. I can see that if one had a sight of cc then one would know.

    This happened in this morning's acol tourney on BBO. The player bidding 1 club had an empty cc and his p said nothing.

    It may be legal but it was certainly underhand not to say sneaky since a conventional wk NT opening would have given a correct description of the hand. On this opening and 2 spade reply followed by 3NT everything was concealed.

    Tournament TD did nothing.

    Not nice.

    If the partnership has an agreement that a 4333 hand with 3 clubs can be opened 1!c, that agreement doesn't violate any EBU rules, but it's evidence that the partnership is not playing Acol (it would open the hand either 1NT, or (if it had strength judged by the player to be out of the 1NT range) in the 4 card suit). Thus, the agreement might be illegal in something described as an "Acol tourney", depending on what the conditions of contest for the tournament were. An illegal agreement would normally give an average-minus (offenders)/average-plus (non-offenders) result, unless the offenders scored better than average-plus once the player was played out (no adjustment), or unless the players knew it was illegal, in which case there's a PP on top of the adjustment.

    If the partnership agreement is to open the hand as in Acol (and this is likely the agreement if it was undiscussed / a pickup partnership, given the context), and it was opened 1!c anyway, this is either a misbid or a deviation. Both of these are legal, so long as the partner doesn't try to field it (which would be evidence of a concealed agreement). Bear in mind that it would be legal to outright psyche a 1!c opening, and thus making it while it doesn't quite fit would be legal too.

    If the partner did try to field the bid (e.g. not raising clubs in competition when they have club length in their own hand), they'd get average-minus and their opponents average-plus (WB 1.4.4), unless they'd have scored worse without the adjustment. (There's an automatic PP for a fielded psyche but not for a fielded deviation.) However, there doesn't seem to be much of a risk of fielding on this hand unless the responder had long clubs (and possibly even then, depending on what 2!s meant; I think the "default" interpretation in Acol would be "natural, game forcing" but hardly anyone actually plays that nowadays, so variations are probably allowed even in an Acol tourney).

  • To go back to the original question. The Blue Book states

    "The following are considered ‘natural’ for the purposes of alerting and regulation of
    partnership understandings (see also 3E1):
    (a) A bid of a suit which shows that suit (4+ cards for an opening bid of 1 Heart or higher or any
    overcall, otherwise 3+ cards) and does not show any other suit..."

    So in a EBU event or at a club which has adopted the EBU rules this bid would be considered natural and have to be neither alerted nor announced.

    I am not sure what regulations the Acol club on BBO has adopted as it will have players from countries other than England but from what you say about the TD's response they may be similar.

    However it is should also be noted that the vast majority of players on BBO, including the bots would open this hand 1 Club or 1 Diamond. The same would be true of most face-to-face players in the world. They would consider that it was a 1NT bid that would require an alert or announcement. It is only a few small outposts of the bridge world such as the UK where a 1NT bid would be considered normal and then only at club level. In an EBU tournament I would expect most of my opponents to open this hand 1 Club. So on BBO if a player does not have on their profile or their convention card what range their 1NT is I would assume 15-17 but I would certainly ask.

    Incidentally Acol as originally designed would only have opened this hand 1NT when not vulnerable. Vulnerable Acol originally used a strong NT and some Acol players would have opened it 1 Club when vulnerable.

    At one club where I play where, in common with most clubs in England, almost everybody plays weak NT and 4-card majors and the club has said that the few who play strong NT and 5-card majors must tell their opponents at the start of the round.

  • Would it be not nicer if all alerting and announcement rules etc were uniform across the World ? But that would be considered to be too boring ! We in the UK often like to be different than the rest of the World !

  • And worse we like to be different in different parts of the UK. Take the English & Welsh rules on alerting doubles compared to the Scottish ones.

  • @Geoff103 said:
    Thank you for that. I can see that if one had a sight of cc then one would know.

    This happened in this morning's acol tourney on BBO. The player bidding 1 club had an empty cc and his p said nothing.

    It may be legal but it was certainly underhand not to say sneaky since a conventional wk NT opening would have given a correct description of the hand. On this opening and 2 spade reply followed by 3NT everything was concealed.

    Tournament TD did nothing.

    Not nice.

    Hi Geoff

    You defended this hand against me and my partner.

    My partner opened 1C with a 3433 13 count. We had a very complete CC registered.

    IMO partner should have self alerted 1C as it could be 2 cards but it is a moot point as he had 3 of them and 1C is a perfectly legal bid with a 3 card suit.

    If we'd been playing a 12-14 pt NT then it would have gone 1NT 2C 2H 3N. Same contract.

    If the CC wasn't visible then the problem was with BBO. It showed as being registered on each hand we played.

    Partner did mention to me later in the day that he had forgotten to self alert a 1C opening and I presume that this was the hand.

    However, even playing a weak NT it is perfectly legal to open 1C with 3 cards although it would be very unusual.

    I'm intrigued as to how you feel you were damaged.

    Your opponents had 27 points between them and no 8 card Major fit.

    You only got a poor score because my partner played it very well for 12 tricks after you led 4th highest from DKxxx.

    Every NS in the tournament should have been in 3NT.

    In fact all but 2 of them WERE in 3NT played by N but none of the others made 12 tricks.

    It is also worth pointing that after partner opened 1C and I bid 1S I alerted the 1S bid as "at least four Spades doesn't deny 6 of a minor". Don't you think that this is relevant information? Which should raise your expectations of this Club bid being possibly short?

    Regards

    Adam

  • Hi Adam

    Whilst I don't have any problem with your bids, the failure of your partner to alert is not made better by the fact that your partner just so happened to have a 3 card suit, as the alerts should be based on agreements and not what one happens to have.

    Damage is difficult to quantify, more likely to be a problem if they failed to lead and cash club tricks (though I suppose if the apparent safe lead was a club, he might changed their mind based on leading into an apparent club suit. Perhaps they then decided to under lead the KD as a 4th highest lead instead and thus was damaged that way?).

    Difficult to tell without knowing the actual hands involved and the lead styles involved.

    If nothing else, it illustrates the danger of 4th highest leads :)

  • @Martin said:
    Hi Adam

    Whilst I don't have any problem with your bids, the failure of your partner to alert is not made better by the fact that your partner just so happened to have a 3 card suit, as the alerts should be based on agreements and not what one happens to have.

    Damage is difficult to quantify, more likely to be a problem if they failed to lead and cash club tricks (though I suppose if the apparent safe lead was a club, he might changed their mind based on leading into an apparent club suit. Perhaps they then decided to under lead the KD as a 4th highest lead instead and thus was damaged that way?).

    Difficult to tell without knowing the actual hands involved and the lead styles involved.

    If nothing else, it illustrates the danger of 4th highest leads :)

    All agreed.

    Partner should certainly have self alerted on BBO.

    In face to face bridge I would have announced "could be two" as required by the Blue Book.

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