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Blue Book as amended in 2017

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  • @Martin said:
    wasn't 2C announced as strong forcing, strong game force etc...? etc?

    Only if it was natural (i.e. if it specifically showed clubs).

  • Martin: "wasn't 2C announced as strong forcing, strong game force etc...? etc?"

    Only if it is natural, showing clubs and no other suit.

  • that's interesting, everyone at the clubs I play at have been doing this wrong for a long time then.

    I played at a congress recently and this was being announced by people then too! :)

    Every day is a school day

    I do think that it would be better to announce though, myself. At least at club lvel

  • @Martin said:
    wasn't 2C announced as strong forcing, strong game force etc...? etc?

    No - it is alerted and, if asked, a full description as per law 20 is given. It is only announce if it pertains SOLELY to the club suit.

    (Lucas is alerted as it guarantees two suits. If it only guaranteed one (e.g. a weak 2) it would be announced).

  • Yes people still routinely get announcing and alerting wrong, especially opening 2C.

    Alan

  • edited May 2018

    To summarise

    • If a 2-level suit call guarantees ONLY the denomination mentioned then it is announced via the 'weak/inermediate/ strong forcing/ not forcing'.
    • if a 2-level suit call does not Guarantee the denomination mentioned or includes another, or more than one, denominations then it is alerted.
    • A 'natural' * 2NT is announced by the point range - there is no need to say 'could include a singleon'
    • 2NT showing other denomination(s) are alerted.

    '* (b) A bid of no trumps which shows a preparedness to play in no trumps, and which conveys no unusual information about suit holdings; it must not be forcing unless a forcing auction has already been created. Note that ostensibly natural no trump bids are permitted to allow a shortage by agreement

    (There are distributional constraints for opening 1NT as 'natural' at level 4. These do not apply to 2NT - for instance you can open a 5-5-2-1 hand with 2NT, but not 1NT)

  • So, how does one get around the not knowing what 2C *alerted means as defender?
    With a 13 count and 6 spades seems reasonable to overcall, if this is a generic, 8 winning trick benji type open, but may not be sensible against a 23+ type hand or worse, a reverse benji game force open.

    You can ask, what does that mean, but then what constraints does that put on partner should you subsequently pass or bid? or if you were thinking about bidding 3C overcall but on finding it is a 'proper' strong bid you pass? then partner leads a club - Director!

    I have certainly not experienced any issues when I have inadvertently announced incorrectly, or where others at my table have announced the various 2 level calls (multi 2D, Strong for 2C [and lots of variations on this description] and 2D game force for benji). So, I am not sure why this is not announced, but alerted?

    On a similar note, I understand that there is no need to announce/alert a 1 club/diamond bid when playing 5 card majors and better minors. However, this again only works when convention cards are utilised, in clubs where this is not the norm it can cause issues. When I play this with an occasional player on a social session, I will tell the good players (who understand the implications) at the start that we are playing 5-card majors/better minor - but with less experienced players I will say nothing but will alert the bids (on the basis that it has an unexpected meaning).

    I really do think that there should be 2 levels of rules:

    Clubs/socials with no convention cards the norm (perhaps alert anything that is not Acol?)
    Clubs and congresses where competition is more serious and cards are expected or required

  • Martin, one of the issues with announcing, rather than alerting, your conventional bids is that you are giving information to partner as to how you understand the bid. This is unauthorised information.

  • @Martin said:
    wasn't 2C announced as strong forcing, strong game force etc...? etc?

    No, only natural strong bids have ever been announced, not artificial ones.

  • @Martin said:
    Can 2C not be a weak 2 in clubs, if one so desires and announces as such?

    Yes, but not weak in clubs or strong in another suit.

  • "Strong, non forcing", "strong, forcing" only ever applied to natural, 2-level openings (what were once recognised as "Acol twos").

  • You don't - you have the right to ask for an explanation of all calls and the law is clear (Law 20F) that UI may result (Law 16) and if you ask about a single call then law 16B1 (extraneous information from partner) is specifically quoted.

    You may take solace from the fact that the partner of the person who bid 2C has no more information from the call itself than you will have if you ask (at least that is the position under the law), and of course the partner can make inferences from his own hand, just as you can.

    The safest way is to either ask all the time or ask randomly so that partner can't tell you may be interested in competing depending on the possible meaning(s) of the call - but very few people do that.

    The constraints on partner are those whenever he has UI - if he has a choice of actions he must not select one demonstrably suggested by the UI if there is a logical alternative.

    The idea of announcements is that a simple statement should convey accurately the meaning of the call. Think of the actual words used in an announcement: 12-14, strong, weak, intermediate, Stayman. If you play a Multi 2D and partner says "Multi", then that does not adequately describe the meaning of the bid since the Multi is played in many different formats - and inexperienced players may never have come accross it in the first place (in America only advanced players are allowed to use the Multi because of its complexity. The multi was for many years the only complex conventional call allowed by the EBU, purely because of Grandfathe rights - it is popular and was created many years ago (by T Reese I think). The average American bridge player does not come against it, basically because IMHO the ACBL are protecting the social bridge players, which make up the majority of their membership)

    Lesson/ rant over.

    How the meanings of bids are described is initially up to the Regulating Authority (Law 40A1)

    (b) Each partnership has a duty to make its partnership understandings available to its
    opponents. The Regulating Authority specifies the manner in which this is done. and Law 40B2a

    (iii) may prescribe alerting procedures and/or other methods of disclosure of a partnership’s methods

    The EBU has delegated to clubs, as tournament organisers, as to HOW bids are alerted/ announced - Law 80B2

    (e) to establish the conditions for bidding and play in accordance with these laws, together with any special conditions (as, for example, play with screens – provisions for rectification of actions not transmitted across the screen may be varied).

    and the white book (0.3)

    0.3 Other Tournament Organisers
    For events not sponsored by the EBU, the L&EC recommend that the Tournament Organiser adopt these regulations; but the Tournament Organiser may make its own regulations if they so desire.

    The EBU have their own requirements for the majority of the events that they run as TOs - Level 2 and Level 4, but there is therefore nothing to stop a club deciding that the Multi 2D be announced, since it is not against the laws of duplicate bridge, or indeed running events with different levels of alerting/ allowed conventions. . In fact there was an article in the EBU magazine in the 'Director Please' series about players attending a club with different rules on alerting.

  • It seems to me then, that there is the 'Law' and there is common law, when it comes to alerts and announcing.

    It may be something for us to discuss at our AGM which is due soon... do we want to have our own standards for alerts? For me, it makes sense (and is easier for our older members and for the less experienced, to remember) to have:

    All 2 level opens - announce the general meaning (weak, strong, strongish, Multi etc) with expectations that further descriptions be available when asked.
    All 1 levels opens that have conventional meanings - announce the general meaning (1C - could be 3 cards with no 5 card major, or Precision club with 16+ points) with expectations that further descriptions be available when asked.
    All transfers (including transfers to minors) - announce

    All conventional bids (except for transfers) other than opening bids, alert.

    There should also be a super alert (lol) where the opposition really should ask for the meaning. For example, with 1 partner we play a jump shift to a higher ranking suit as weak and a jump shift to a lower ranking suit as crazy weak (for example, 1D - 2H = 6-9 points and 6+ card suit, including an Ogust continuation. However, 1H - 3D = 0-5 points and a 6+ card suit.

    This is really a very unexpected meaning, and we alert this (obviously), but I am not sure that an alert is a strong enough warning to opposition that they really should ask?

  • Having local alerting/announcing regulations can cause problems for players who play at other clubs or at other events, but that does not make it a bad idea.
    :
    But you only talk about bids: you would need to say something about doubles.

  • edited May 2018

    everyone seems to double in the same way - doubles of suits are for take out, doubles of conventional bids show that suit...

    It only seems to be an issue with announcing and alerting over the 2C / 2D bids from what I have experienced thus far though

    [edit - good point though]

  • That is the default meanings for not having to alert - as is a penalty double of a NT call. The only thing to watch out for is if people double a 1NT response as a takeout of the original suit bid. (Some lead directing doubles over 3NT have to be alerted as well but, from the picture painted of your club, I don't think anyone would play them.)

  • @Martin said:
    everyone seems to double in the same way - doubles of suits are for take out, doubles of conventional bids show that suit...

    Martin doesn't play in North Devon where, for a lot of folk, it is absolutely normal and expected that you double someone's bid because you have that suit.

  • No. Mitch is right. Two-level bids that are not natural have been alerted both before and since announcements were introduced for natural two-level bids.

    It's odd the number of times I've seen the L&EC criticised for changing things that they have not in fact changed. ;)

  • @Martin said:
    wasn't 2C announced as strong forcing, strong game force etc...? etc?

    So in practice the only 2C bids that are announceable are the Precision style intermediate openings played by a small number of people and the weak twos played by anyone playing EHAA and one other well-known pair that I can think of. At least I have never come across anyone playing 2C as strong but natural.

  • @Abbeybear said:

    @Martin said:
    wasn't 2C announced as strong forcing, strong game force etc...? etc?

    So in practice the only 2C bids that are announceable are the Precision style intermediate openings played by a small number of people and the weak twos played by anyone playing EHAA and one other well-known pair that I can think of. At least I have never come across anyone playing 2C as strong but natural.

    There used to be a pair at the YC who did: they played 1NT as strong and forcing, with all two-bids strong, natural and forcing.

  • edited May 2018

    @gordonrainsford said:

    @Martin said:
    Can 2C not be a weak 2 in clubs, if one so desires and announces as such?

    Yes, but not weak in clubs or strong in another suit.

    I think that you can (at level 4) open 2C as "weak in clubs or strong in another suit", as long as strong means strong (16+ or 5 controls).
    What you cannot do is play it as "weak in clubs or 8 playing tricks in another suit", if that 8 playing tricks might not satisfy the "strong" criteria.

  • Yep - any option showing a strong hand is allowed

    In fact the club suit need only be 4 cards to qualify under 7C1b(i)

    But if the other suits might not be strong then you are playing 7C1b(i) AND 7C1b(iv) - which is not allowed (you could of course play it as "weak in diamonds" or 8 playing tricks in another suit that is not clubs or a strong hand with clubs - providing you make clear that the HCP for the middle option may not meet 'strong' criteria).

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