Announcing 5 Card Majors ?
I was asked by a Club member if 5 Card Majors should be announced before commencement of play.
My understanding was, this used to be the case over 10 years ago and I understood it was no longer a requirement. I know they announce “Maybe X” when opening 1C, but this is after the bidding has commenced.
This query refers to Playing in Clubs where often people don’t prepare a System Card, but have agreed to play 5CM.
I have been scouring the Blue Book and Laws and can’t find any reference to the requirement or otherwise. Can anyone please point me to a reference or relevant article where this is clarified.
Thank you in advance.
Comments
The fact that players do not habitually prepare a System card does not relieve them of the responsibility to do so (in EBU events) - obviously the club can set their own rules on system cards.
BB3 A 1 Pairs are required to have two fully completed system cards. Both must contain the same information. At the beginning of each round they should exchange these with the opponents’ system cards. The TD may impose a penalty if a pair does not have two properly completed system cards.
The power for the EBU to do this comes from Law 40B2(a)
(i) is empowered without restriction to allow, disallow, or allow conditionally, any
special partnership understanding.
(ii) may prescribe a System Card, with or without supplementary sheets, for the prior
listing of a partnership’s understandings, and regulate its use
(iii) may prescribe alerting procedures and/or other methods of disclosure of a
partnership’s methods.
(iv) may disallow prior agreement by a partnership to vary its understandings during the
auction or play following an irregularity committed by the opponents.
(v) may restrict the use of psychic artificial calls.
If you wish, you could use the definition of 'Alert' in the Laws
Alert: A notification, whose form may be specified by the Regulating Authority, to the effect that opponents may be in need of an explanation.
And look back in the BB
4 B Basic alerting rules
4 B 1 Passes and bids
Unless it is announceable (see 4D, 4E, 4F and 4G), a pass or bid must be alerted if it:
(a) is not natural; or
(b) is natural but has a potentially unexpected meaning.
In summary, it would be up to the club to decide whether players should annouce the length of a major suit bid. The EBU announcing rules are not Laws and the EBU do not regulate clubs. There is nothing incompatable with the laws in asking players to announce the length of 1 !h or 1 !s in the manner of the strength of 1NT.
I think it comes down to the 'full disclosure' and the requirement to exchange cards at the start of the round.
For me, not playing with cards is okay and the norm at club levels, but then the onus is on the players not playing 'standard' bridge (whatever that means for the club in question) to let the opposition know.
I will normally tell the ops that "we are playing 5 card majors, so 1H or 1S guarantees 5+ cards in that suit, plus other crazy things that we will alert. Please ask if you want to know what the bids mean". Occasionally I forget to do this at the start, normally if we are chatting and having a laugh - in these instances I will alert the 1H or 1S open and if asked tell them I forgot to let them know, 5 card majors etc.
This seems to cover the bases and the alert is covered by the, potentially unexpected meaning, for a bid.
Blue Book
4 B Basic alerting rules
4 B 1 Passes and bids
Unless it is announceable (see 4D, 4E, 4F and 4G), a pass or bid must be alerted if it:
(a) is not natural; or
(b) is natural but has a potentially unexpected meaning.
*my highlighting
(Great minds etc....)
Hi, Steve. As weejonnie says, the EBU does not regulate clubs. However, I think it is a reasonable assumption that unless your club states otherwise, it adopts EBU Regulations, though an exception in reality is that clubs don't insist on System Cards.
So unless your club has a specific Regulation that Five Card Majors should be "pre-announced" (ie you tell your opponents at the start of the round that you are playing them) or otherwise announced or alerted, and unless it is very unusual for Five Card Majors to be played at your club, then there should be absolutely no need to disclose these major openings unless asked.
Incidentally, if your club doesn't have any stated Regulations, it is worth your club thinking about the matter. My club has stated in a Conditions of Contest document that it adopts all EBU Regulations except for some variations in Correction Periods and only a mere "expectation" that regular partnerships will use System Cards.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Many thanks for all your comments. Very helpful and I’ll pass this on to the member concerned and for the club committee to consider.
Steve
I don't think that the perceived need to pre-announce 5-card majors is really about knowing how many cards opener has in the major that he opens. Surely, even in clubs where nearly everybody plays 4-card majors, the fact that some people out in the big, bad world play 5-card majors is not unheard of. And I don't think that many auctions will arise where it is imperative for the opponents to know during the auction how many cards have been promised in the major - after all, those who play 4-card majors will be dealt 5 or 6-card major suits quite frequently and will still open 1M, so the fact that they might open a 4-card major doesn't afford much of a presumption that they don't have more than four. If opponents need to know how many cards have been promised in the major on the auction as it has developed, they can ask.
The case for pre-announcing is much more convincing from the point of view of how many cards have been promised when a minor suit is opened, particularly when potentially 3-card minors are in use (so no "may be two" announcement), although remember that in a simple "five card majors, better minor" system, a minor suit opening is more likely to be 5+ cards than precisely three.
But if you are playing something that will be really unexpected in the context of where you are playing, then I agree with Martin that it is helpful to mention it at the start of the round.
As dummy goes down, it's useful to know that they are definitely not playing in a Moysian when dummy has three cards in trumps. It's one less thing for a defender to have to think about.
I also recall a hand where we had misinformation and, as we're aware, MI always comes along with UI. When dummy-to-be gave a delayed raise on three cards, I suspected use of UI. Once they mentioned that they played 5cm, I had no further issues with his bid.