When the suit is unspecified (or a second suit is unspecified) and the hand may not be 'strong'. (By agreement). (Level 4)
This simplifies rather a lot of the Blue Book - mainly 7C1(a) and 7C1(b)(iv)
7 C 1 General, including ’Multi’ style opening bids
These may be played as one or both of (a) and (b) below
(a) Any meaning or meanings as long as they all show a strong hand (16+ HCP, or 12+ HCP with at least 5 controls), and/or
(b) At most one from the following four options:
(i) One or more meanings which all show at least four cards in the suit opened, or
(ii) One or more meanings which all show at least five cards in the same one specified suit, or
(iii) One or more meanings which all show at least 4-4 in the same two specified suits, or
(iv) Any combination of meanings that show either or both of
1) At least five cards in a suit, specified or not, which must not be the suit opened, and/or
2) At least 5-4 in two suits, either or both of which may be specified or not, but both of which must not be the suit opened.
Note that if you have a hand that has a long first suit that is not clubs, then the fact that you also have a long club suit doesn't matter - as long as it is not part of your agreement.
e.g. You open 2C with 7-6 in the minors, partner alerts ' benji, 8 playing tricks in an unspecified suit' (which is not a legal agreement - see above). He responds 2D and you raise to 3D showing the diamond suit. If you then take out his next call into clubs showing the second suit then you have not breached 7C1.
Surely it depends on your system. Blue book: 6D1 Any opening that shows 4+ cards in the suit opened is allowed (e.g. Acol Twos, Lucas or Weak Twos, a Precision 2C opening)
Even an Acol 2C can be opened with with a long club suit.
@JeremyChild said:
I think I'm missing something here.
Surely it depends on your system. Blue book: 6D1 Any opening that shows 4+ cards in the suit opened is allowed (e.g. Acol Twos, Lucas or Weak Twos, a Precision 2C opening)
Even an Acol 2C can be opened with with a long club suit.
You are. The OP asked "When can't you open 2 !c with a long club suit".
Lucas 2 !h and 2 !s shows 5 hearts and 5 spades specifically. An Acol 2 shows 5 cards in the suit bid. Weak 2s show 6 cards in the suit named. An Acol 2 !c should always be strong. Precision 2 !c shows 6 cards in the suit named. A benji 2 !c does NOT show 5+ cards in clubs.
.... ' benji, 8 playing tricks in an unspecified suit' (which is not a legal agreement - see above).
Most players consider that the word "Benji" means that the hand will be a "strong" hand, in which case, the agreement that you have quoted is a permitted agreement. Additionally, Benji players will also include some ranges of strong balanced hands within their 2C openings.
.... ' benji, 8 playing tricks in an unspecified suit' (which is not a legal agreement - see above).
Most players consider that the word "Benji" means that the hand will be a "strong" hand, in which case, the agreement that you have quoted is a permitted agreement. Additionally, Benji players will also include some ranges of strong balanced hands within their 2C openings.
The Blue book, as I am sure you are aware, makes quite clear that if a 'benji' hand may not be 'strong' by definition then the limitation has to be disclosed. And that is the problem. If someone hears "8 playing tricks in an unspecified suit or 22-23 balanced" then they are going to be under the impression that the hand is strong offensively and defensively. Playing Benji I say "8 playing tricks in an unspecified suit. The hand may not be strong unless the suit is clubs. or 22-23 balanced."
If you have an agremeent to open
S 6
H KQT
D 65
C AKQT987
With a Benji 2C then that is an illegal agreement.
But if your agreement is that you would open 2C on
S -
H 54
D AKJT98
C KQJT9
because it has 8 playing tricks with Diamonds as trumps then the fact you also have a good club suit is irrelevant, as the agreement did not specify that the suit was required.
I never make the mistake of trying understand an explanation by name. If someone says Benji or Michael's or Lebensohl or UNT or Tchaikovsky as an explanation of an alert, I always ask: What does that mean? "Benji" covers a multitude of sins ;)
@16248 said:
I never make the mistake of trying understand an explanation by name. If someone says Benji or Michael's or Lebensohl or UNT or Tchaikovsky as an explanation of an alert, I always ask: What does that mean? "Benji" covers a multitude of sins ;)
I agree. You should be advised what the bid means, not its name (or what it requires partner to do). In the wonderful ACBL you don't generally alert cue bids: so you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as 'Spades and a minor. Unfortunately you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as "Both minors" either.
@16248 said:
I never make the mistake of trying understand an explanation by name. If someone says Benji or Michael's or Lebensohl or UNT or Tchaikovsky as an explanation of an alert, I always ask: What does that mean? "Benji" covers a multitude of sins ;)
Good practice, of course, but lots and lots of players do answer by the name of the convention, and lots and lots of opponents assume they know what is meant and don't ask further. A plague on both their houses, as the man said.
I guess they continue to do it because quite a lot of the time the assumptions made by both sides are close enough that nobody feels bitten in the bum.
And I am sure I have read a post in one of these threads where a player says in answer to a question about an alerted 2 !c bid: "it shows a strong but not GF hand with an unspecified long suit or a balanced hand of X-Y points" (or whatever it might be), and his opponent retorts "why don't you just say "Benji" for ****'s sake?". I guess you can't win 'em all.
@16248 said:
I never make the mistake of trying understand an explanation by name. If someone says Benji or Michael's or Lebensohl or UNT or Tchaikovsky as an explanation of an alert, I always ask: What does that mean? "Benji" covers a multitude of sins ;)
I agree. You should be advised what the bid means, not its name (or what it requires partner to do). In the wonderful ACBL you don't generally alert cue bids: so you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as 'Spades and a minor. Unfortunately you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as "Both minors" either.
I quite like the concept of self-alerting. The 2 !h bid is obviously worth asking about.
@16248 said:
I never make the mistake of trying understand an explanation by name. If someone says Benji or Michael's or Lebensohl or UNT or Tchaikovsky as an explanation of an alert, I always ask: What does that mean? "Benji" covers a multitude of sins ;)
I agree. You should be advised what the bid means, not its name (or what it requires partner to do). In the wonderful ACBL you don't generally alert cue bids: so you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as 'Spades and a minor. Unfortunately you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as "Both minors" either.
I quite like the concept of self-alerting. The 2 !h bid is obviously worth asking about.
Obviously - but when you ask and for 10 times you are told (spades and a minor) you start to assume that everyone plays it. That can happen at the highest level. And of course you have no recourse if you act on your own misunderstanding.
But when the oppo are playing Gheswhich you will be told which minor they hold along with their spades, and a significant proportion of the time you will be told wrong.
Because the hand isn't strong according to the EBU (16+ or 12+ and 5 controls). In the Blue Book an agreement to open this hand with 2C promising an unspecified suit is not allowed. You could open it "2C - 8 playing tricks in clubs" and you can open it 2C (benji) as long as you do not have an agreement to open it 2C. If you or your partner do this often then the TD should rule it as an implicit agreement and use of an illegal convention - awarding AV+, AV- unless the table result is better for the NOS.
@16248 said:
I never make the mistake of trying understand an explanation by name. If someone says Benji or Michael's or Lebensohl or UNT or Tchaikovsky as an explanation of an alert, I always ask: What does that mean? "Benji" covers a multitude of sins ;)
I agree. You should be advised what the bid means, not its name (or what it requires partner to do). In the wonderful ACBL you don't generally alert cue bids: so you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as 'Spades and a minor. Unfortunately you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as "Both minors" either.
I quite like the concept of self-alerting. The 2 !h bid is obviously worth asking about.
Obviously - but when you ask and for 10 times you are told (spades and a minor) you start to assume that everyone plays it. That can happen at the highest level. And of course you have no recourse if you act on your own misunderstanding.
An alert or a bid that is clearly self-alerting come to the same thing. Either you ask or you don't. Jumping to the conclusion that it means the same tonight as it did yesterday isn't going to carry much weight with the TD if you didn't care to enquire.
@16248 said:
I never make the mistake of trying understand an explanation by name. If someone says Benji or Michael's or Lebensohl or UNT or Tchaikovsky as an explanation of an alert, I always ask: What does that mean? "Benji" covers a multitude of sins ;)
I agree. You should be advised what the bid means, not its name (or what it requires partner to do). In the wonderful ACBL you don't generally alert cue bids: so you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as 'Spades and a minor. Unfortunately you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as "Both minors" either.
I quite like the concept of self-alerting. The 2 !h bid is obviously worth asking about.
Obviously - but when you ask and for 10 times you are told (spades and a minor) you start to assume that everyone plays it. That can happen at the highest level. And of course you have no recourse if you act on your own misunderstanding.
An alert or a bid that is clearly self-alerting come to the same thing. Either you ask or you don't. Jumping to the conclusion that it means the same tonight as it did yesterday isn't going to carry much weight with the TD if you didn't care to enquire.
I must admit I don't like the concept of 'self alerting': it is pushing the boundaries of the definition of an alert in the lawbook.
Alert : A notification, whose form may be specified by the Regulating Authority, to the effect that opponents may be in need of an explanation.
@Martin said:
What if you have an agreement to NOT open
S 6
H KQT
D 65
C AKQT987
with a benji 2C, but open it as 2C nontheless?
as this is not an agreement, but a deviation/mini-psych, what now?
I would be very surprised were this to happen. I would expect if called to a table where a player opened 2C Benji with this hand, that when I ask the player why they opened 2C, they would say something like "What's wrong with it? It's a perfectly normal 2C opener" indicating that they would easily open 2C with that hand every time they were to hold it, and thus giving me serious evidence of a non-permitted agreement.
I wait for the day that someone says that they obviously wouldn't normally open 2C with that hand but they felt like doing so to put off the opposition even though they knew that partner would expect a better hand.
You may guess from what I wrote earlier that when I'm playing Benji, I would not want to open 2C because the hand isn't nearly good enough! B)
@weejonnie said:
I must admit I don't like the concept of 'self alerting': it is pushing the boundaries of the definition of an alert in the lawbook.
In terms of having a regulation that says that something is "self-alerting", I entirely agree. But there are situations where experienced players will tend to ask if they want to know rather than relying on the lack of an alert, as they are strictly entitled to, either because the lack of an alert seems surprising or because it is a situation where it is common knowledge that the correct alerting treatment is often misunderstood (some doubles, for example).
Some years ago the L&EC considered a suggestion that was slightly different from the ACBL "cue-bids are self-alerting" rule (using "cue-bid" in the sense of a bid of a suit shown by the opponents, as distinct from "control bid", a distinction which I believe the ACBL adopts). This was that a cue bid which was artificial should not be alerted (because that was generally the expected meaning), but one that by agreement was natural notwithstanding that the opponents had shown the suit, should be alerted (because, in most cases, this would be unexpected). This seemed a straight simplicity v appropriateness decision. It was a sensible idea in that it would have meant that unexpected meanings got alerted and normal ones didn't, but it would have meant an exception to the normal rule that artificial meanings are alerted, and exceptions make for less simplicity. Simplicity won (I can't remember whether it was close).
I think that works perfectly well. If an opponent bids a suit shown by your side, and there is no alert, you will probably ask if you have any interest in knowing what it shows. 90% of the time it will probably just be a lazy lack of alert by your opponent and you will get the answer "sorry, I thought it was obvious that it wouldn't be natural; it shows X...", but sometimes there will be an agreement that it is natural.
I had an auction the other day, 1 !c to my right, pass from me, 1 !d to my left, pass from partner and 1NT to my right. White vs red, I decided to come in with 2 !d and partner neglected to alert.
LHO initially paused, waiting for partner to alert, and then asked what the bid showed. After an explanation that it probably showed short diamonds and was asking her to bid, there was some chiding that she hadn't alerted the 2 !d and then we got back to bidding.
If they hadn't asked and we were to declare the contract then, before the opening lead, I would have pointed out that "obviously" partner should have alerted the 2 !d bid.
I fully agree, weejonnie, that the bid should be alerted but, as a director, I'd have little sympathy for a pair that didn't ask and wanted redress.
Back to the 2 !c discussion. A few weeks ago, partner opened 2C (our strongest bid, a hand of power and quality etc) with nothing but KQJ10 to nine clubs, a total of six points.
After an auction of 2C-2D-3C-4NT-6C, I knew that something was awry and left him in 6C, which made on a misdefence. I was not best pleased with partner who defensively said that he'd psyched. I suggested to the opponents that they report the psych but couldn't think of any other redress for them, since it's no longer illegal to psych an opening 2C bid. They could make five of either major and I simply felt that we'd cheated them, although we might have ended up in a 6C sacrifice.
@Tag said:
Back to the 2 !c discussion. A few weeks ago, partner opened 2C (our strongest bid, a hand of power and quality etc) with nothing but KQJ10 to nine clubs, a total of six points.
After an auction of 2C-2D-3C-4NT-6C, I knew that something was awry and left him in 6C, which made on a misdefence. I was not best pleased with partner who defensively said that he'd psyched. I suggested to the opponents that they report the psych but couldn't think of any other redress for them, since it's no longer illegal to psych an opening 2C bid. They could make five of either major and I simply felt that we'd cheated them, although we might have ended up in a 6C sacrifice.
I assume that you didn't have a systemic meaning for 6C - some players would use it to show a working void. If so this would be judged, I think, a 'red' psych and there would be an automatic adjustment 60%-15%. if we want to discuss 'fielding' then I think we should start another thread, however. If it wasn't judged to be a 'red' psych then there is nothing your opponents can do.
The EBU had to revoke the ruling you couldn't psych your strongest bid since someone argued that with a hand such as:
AKQJ
AKQ
AKQ
AKQ
They would open 7NT - thus showing a stronger hand than a 2C opener.
The EBU had to revoke the ruling you couldn't psych your strongest bid
I don't think that's what the regulation said. White Book 1.4.1 suggests that regulation was "... not psyche a game-forcing or near game-forcing artificial opening bid".
The regulation was removed because such "psyches" were usually an attempt to bid in a way that partner understood and were better handled as understandings. The original regulation was probably a knee-jerk reaction to one particular incident - never a good basis for regulation.
@Tag said:
Back to the 2 !c discussion. A few weeks ago, partner opened 2C (our strongest bid, a hand of power and quality etc) with nothing but KQJ10 to nine clubs, a total of six points.
After an auction of 2C-2D-3C-4NT-6C, I knew that something was awry and left him in 6C, which made on a misdefence. I was not best pleased with partner who defensively said that he'd psyched. I suggested to the opponents that they report the psych but couldn't think of any other redress for them, since it's no longer illegal to psych an opening 2C bid. They could make five of either major and I simply felt that we'd cheated them, although we might have ended up in a 6C sacrifice.
I assume that you didn't have a systemic meaning for 6C - some players would use it to show a working void. If so this would be judged, I think, a 'red' psych and there would be an automatic adjustment 60%-15%. if we want to discuss 'fielding' then I think we should start another thread, however. If it wasn't judged to be a 'red' psych then there is nothing your opponents can do.
The EBU had to revoke the ruling you couldn't psych your strongest bid since someone argued that with a hand such as:
AKQJ
AKQ
AKQ
AKQ
They would open 7NT - thus showing a stronger hand than a 2C opener.
Interesting observation. As it is, we don't play 6C as part of the system, although with some partners it would show a void and an odd number of keycards. I was considering 7C or even 7NT when I remembered that I don't play that with this partner.
As such, I simply knew that something was wrong, so passed. It never crossed my mind that I might be fielding a psych at that point and it wasn't until the cards started to come out that I saw what the situation actually was.
The original regulation was probably a knee-jerk reaction to one particular incident - never a good basis for regulation.
The original regulation came in a couple or so years after I had written around the mid 1980s to the L&EC observing that I had encountered a high frequency of psyches of 2C (Basic or Benji Acol) openings with weak hands with long diamonds that then passed the 2D relay. Whether this was taken into account later when the regulation came in, I have no idea.
Nowadays many players play a Multi 2C opening that shows either a strong hand or a weak 2 in diamonds, and that's fine because everyone knows it's a Multi.
@Tag said:
Back to the 2 !c discussion. A few weeks ago, partner opened 2C (our strongest bid, a hand of power and quality etc) with nothing but KQJ10 to nine clubs, a total of six points.
After an auction of 2C-2D-3C-4NT-6C, I knew that something was awry and left him in 6C, which made on a misdefence. I was not best pleased with partner who defensively said that he'd psyched. I suggested to the opponents that they report the psych but couldn't think of any other redress for them, since it's no longer illegal to psych an opening 2C bid. They could make five of either major and I simply felt that we'd cheated them, although we might have ended up in a 6C sacrifice.
I assume that you didn't have a systemic meaning for 6C - some players would use it to show a working void. If so this would be judged, I think, a 'red' psych and there would be an automatic adjustment 60%-15%. if we want to discuss 'fielding' then I think we should start another thread, however. If it wasn't judged to be a 'red' psych then there is nothing your opponents can do.
The EBU had to revoke the ruling you couldn't psych your strongest bid since someone argued that with a hand such as:
AKQJ
AKQ
AKQ
AKQ
They would open 7NT - thus showing a stronger hand than a 2C opener.
Interesting observation. As it is, we don't play 6C as part of the system, although with some partners it would show a void and an odd number of keycards. I was considering 7C or even 7NT when I remembered that I don't play that with this partner.
As such, I simply knew that something was wrong, so passed. It never crossed my mind that I might be fielding a psych at that point and it wasn't until the cards started to come out that I saw what the situation actually was.
I am sure you weren't - however the EBU are very particular about fielding psyches. WB 1.4.2.1.
"As the judgement by the TD will be objective, some players may be understandably upset that their actions are ruled to be fielding. If a player psyches and their partner takes action that appears to allow for it then the TD will treat it as fielding."
The original regulation was probably a knee-jerk reaction to one particular incident - never a good basis for regulation.
The original regulation came in a couple or so years after I had written around the mid 1980s to the L&EC observing that I had encountered a high frequency of psyches of 2C (Basic or Benji Acol) openings with weak hands with long diamonds that then passed the 2D relay. Whether this was taken into account later when the regulation came in, I have no idea.
Nowadays many players play a Multi 2C opening that shows either a strong hand or a weak 2 in diamonds, and that's fine because everyone knows it's a Multi.
Thanks for the info. Obviously if 2!D is a forced response (which it often is) then presumably it would now come under a psychic control - since partner must be aware that the 2 !c caller had previously passed a 2 !d response.
Comments
When the suit is unspecified (or a second suit is unspecified) and the hand may not be 'strong'. (By agreement). (Level 4)
This simplifies rather a lot of the Blue Book - mainly 7C1(a) and 7C1(b)(iv)
7 C 1 General, including ’Multi’ style opening bids
These may be played as one or both of (a) and (b) below
(a) Any meaning or meanings as long as they all show a strong hand (16+ HCP, or 12+ HCP with at least 5 controls), and/or
(b) At most one from the following four options:
(i) One or more meanings which all show at least four cards in the suit opened, or
(ii) One or more meanings which all show at least five cards in the same one specified suit, or
(iii) One or more meanings which all show at least 4-4 in the same two specified suits, or
(iv) Any combination of meanings that show either or both of
1) At least five cards in a suit, specified or not, which must not be the suit opened, and/or
2) At least 5-4 in two suits, either or both of which may be specified or not, but both of which must not be the suit opened.
Note that if you have a hand that has a long first suit that is not clubs, then the fact that you also have a long club suit doesn't matter - as long as it is not part of your agreement.
e.g. You open 2C with 7-6 in the minors, partner alerts ' benji, 8 playing tricks in an unspecified suit' (which is not a legal agreement - see above). He responds 2D and you raise to 3D showing the diamond suit. If you then take out his next call into clubs showing the second suit then you have not breached 7C1.
I think I'm missing something here.
Surely it depends on your system. Blue book: 6D1 Any opening that shows 4+ cards in the suit opened is allowed (e.g. Acol Twos, Lucas or Weak Twos, a Precision 2C opening)
Even an Acol 2C can be opened with with a long club suit.
You are. The OP asked "When can't you open 2 !c with a long club suit".
Lucas 2 !h and 2 !s shows 5 hearts and 5 spades specifically. An Acol 2 shows 5 cards in the suit bid. Weak 2s show 6 cards in the suit named. An Acol 2 !c should always be strong. Precision 2 !c shows 6 cards in the suit named. A benji 2 !c does NOT show 5+ cards in clubs.
Most players consider that the word "Benji" means that the hand will be a "strong" hand, in which case, the agreement that you have quoted is a permitted agreement. Additionally, Benji players will also include some ranges of strong balanced hands within their 2C openings.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
The Blue book, as I am sure you are aware, makes quite clear that if a 'benji' hand may not be 'strong' by definition then the limitation has to be disclosed. And that is the problem. If someone hears "8 playing tricks in an unspecified suit or 22-23 balanced" then they are going to be under the impression that the hand is strong offensively and defensively. Playing Benji I say "8 playing tricks in an unspecified suit. The hand may not be strong unless the suit is clubs. or 22-23 balanced."
If you have an agremeent to open
S 6
H KQT
D 65
C AKQT987
With a Benji 2C then that is an illegal agreement.
But if your agreement is that you would open 2C on
S -
H 54
D AKJT98
C KQJT9
because it has 8 playing tricks with Diamonds as trumps then the fact you also have a good club suit is irrelevant, as the agreement did not specify that the suit was required.
I never make the mistake of trying understand an explanation by name. If someone says Benji or Michael's or Lebensohl or UNT or Tchaikovsky as an explanation of an alert, I always ask: What does that mean? "Benji" covers a multitude of sins ;)
Alan
I agree. You should be advised what the bid means, not its name (or what it requires partner to do). In the wonderful ACBL you don't generally alert cue bids: so you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as 'Spades and a minor. Unfortunately you don't alert 1 !h - 2 !h as "Both minors" either.
Good practice, of course, but lots and lots of players do answer by the name of the convention, and lots and lots of opponents assume they know what is meant and don't ask further. A plague on both their houses, as the man said.
I guess they continue to do it because quite a lot of the time the assumptions made by both sides are close enough that nobody feels bitten in the bum.
And I am sure I have read a post in one of these threads where a player says in answer to a question about an alerted 2 !c bid: "it shows a strong but not GF hand with an unspecified long suit or a balanced hand of X-Y points" (or whatever it might be), and his opponent retorts "why don't you just say "Benji" for ****'s sake?". I guess you can't win 'em all.
I quite like the concept of self-alerting. The 2 !h bid is obviously worth asking about.
Playing Benji I say "We are playing Benji so partner has a strong hand with 8 playing tricks, or a balanced 22-23 or stronger".
My point is that it is unhelpful to suggest that Benji itself is a non-permitted agreement.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
Obviously - but when you ask and for 10 times you are told (spades and a minor) you start to assume that everyone plays it. That can happen at the highest level. And of course you have no recourse if you act on your own misunderstanding.
But when the oppo are playing Gheswhich you will be told which minor they hold along with their spades, and a significant proportion of the time you will be told wrong.
What if you have an agreement to NOT open
S 6
H KQT
D 65
C AKQT987
with a benji 2C, but open it as 2C nontheless?
as this is not an agreement, but a deviation/mini-psych, what now?
That looks like eight playing tricks to me, why would you not open a Benji 2C?
Because the hand isn't strong according to the EBU (16+ or 12+ and 5 controls). In the Blue Book an agreement to open this hand with 2C promising an unspecified suit is not allowed. You could open it "2C - 8 playing tricks in clubs" and you can open it 2C (benji) as long as you do not have an agreement to open it 2C. If you or your partner do this often then the TD should rule it as an implicit agreement and use of an illegal convention - awarding AV+, AV- unless the table result is better for the NOS.
An alert or a bid that is clearly self-alerting come to the same thing. Either you ask or you don't. Jumping to the conclusion that it means the same tonight as it did yesterday isn't going to carry much weight with the TD if you didn't care to enquire.
I must admit I don't like the concept of 'self alerting': it is pushing the boundaries of the definition of an alert in the lawbook.
Alert : A notification, whose form may be specified by the Regulating Authority, to the effect that opponents may be in need of an explanation.
I would be very surprised were this to happen. I would expect if called to a table where a player opened 2C Benji with this hand, that when I ask the player why they opened 2C, they would say something like "What's wrong with it? It's a perfectly normal 2C opener" indicating that they would easily open 2C with that hand every time they were to hold it, and thus giving me serious evidence of a non-permitted agreement.
I wait for the day that someone says that they obviously wouldn't normally open 2C with that hand but they felt like doing so to put off the opposition even though they knew that partner would expect a better hand.
You may guess from what I wrote earlier that when I'm playing Benji, I would not want to open 2C because the hand isn't nearly good enough! B)
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
True - Maybe their parter will say "Well I would never open that with 2C" - but I am not holding my breath.
In terms of having a regulation that says that something is "self-alerting", I entirely agree. But there are situations where experienced players will tend to ask if they want to know rather than relying on the lack of an alert, as they are strictly entitled to, either because the lack of an alert seems surprising or because it is a situation where it is common knowledge that the correct alerting treatment is often misunderstood (some doubles, for example).
Some years ago the L&EC considered a suggestion that was slightly different from the ACBL "cue-bids are self-alerting" rule (using "cue-bid" in the sense of a bid of a suit shown by the opponents, as distinct from "control bid", a distinction which I believe the ACBL adopts). This was that a cue bid which was artificial should not be alerted (because that was generally the expected meaning), but one that by agreement was natural notwithstanding that the opponents had shown the suit, should be alerted (because, in most cases, this would be unexpected). This seemed a straight simplicity v appropriateness decision. It was a sensible idea in that it would have meant that unexpected meanings got alerted and normal ones didn't, but it would have meant an exception to the normal rule that artificial meanings are alerted, and exceptions make for less simplicity. Simplicity won (I can't remember whether it was close).
I think that works perfectly well. If an opponent bids a suit shown by your side, and there is no alert, you will probably ask if you have any interest in knowing what it shows. 90% of the time it will probably just be a lazy lack of alert by your opponent and you will get the answer "sorry, I thought it was obvious that it wouldn't be natural; it shows X...", but sometimes there will be an agreement that it is natural.
I had an auction the other day, 1 !c to my right, pass from me, 1 !d to my left, pass from partner and 1NT to my right. White vs red, I decided to come in with 2 !d and partner neglected to alert.
LHO initially paused, waiting for partner to alert, and then asked what the bid showed. After an explanation that it probably showed short diamonds and was asking her to bid, there was some chiding that she hadn't alerted the 2 !d and then we got back to bidding.
If they hadn't asked and we were to declare the contract then, before the opening lead, I would have pointed out that "obviously" partner should have alerted the 2 !d bid.
I fully agree, weejonnie, that the bid should be alerted but, as a director, I'd have little sympathy for a pair that didn't ask and wanted redress.
Back to the 2 !c discussion. A few weeks ago, partner opened 2C (our strongest bid, a hand of power and quality etc) with nothing but KQJ10 to nine clubs, a total of six points.
After an auction of 2C-2D-3C-4NT-6C, I knew that something was awry and left him in 6C, which made on a misdefence. I was not best pleased with partner who defensively said that he'd psyched. I suggested to the opponents that they report the psych but couldn't think of any other redress for them, since it's no longer illegal to psych an opening 2C bid. They could make five of either major and I simply felt that we'd cheated them, although we might have ended up in a 6C sacrifice.
I assume that you didn't have a systemic meaning for 6C - some players would use it to show a working void. If so this would be judged, I think, a 'red' psych and there would be an automatic adjustment 60%-15%. if we want to discuss 'fielding' then I think we should start another thread, however. If it wasn't judged to be a 'red' psych then there is nothing your opponents can do.
The EBU had to revoke the ruling you couldn't psych your strongest bid since someone argued that with a hand such as:
AKQJ
AKQ
AKQ
AKQ
They would open 7NT - thus showing a stronger hand than a 2C opener.
I don't think that's what the regulation said. White Book 1.4.1 suggests that regulation was "... not psyche a game-forcing or near game-forcing artificial opening bid".
The regulation was removed because such "psyches" were usually an attempt to bid in a way that partner understood and were better handled as understandings. The original regulation was probably a knee-jerk reaction to one particular incident - never a good basis for regulation.
Interesting observation. As it is, we don't play 6C as part of the system, although with some partners it would show a void and an odd number of keycards. I was considering 7C or even 7NT when I remembered that I don't play that with this partner.
As such, I simply knew that something was wrong, so passed. It never crossed my mind that I might be fielding a psych at that point and it wasn't until the cards started to come out that I saw what the situation actually was.
The original regulation came in a couple or so years after I had written around the mid 1980s to the L&EC observing that I had encountered a high frequency of psyches of 2C (Basic or Benji Acol) openings with weak hands with long diamonds that then passed the 2D relay. Whether this was taken into account later when the regulation came in, I have no idea.
Nowadays many players play a Multi 2C opening that shows either a strong hand or a weak 2 in diamonds, and that's fine because everyone knows it's a Multi.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
I am sure you weren't - however the EBU are very particular about fielding psyches. WB 1.4.2.1.
"As the judgement by the TD will be objective, some players may be understandably upset that their actions are ruled to be fielding. If a player psyches and their partner takes action that appears to allow for it then the TD will treat it as fielding."
Thanks for the info. Obviously if 2!D is a forced response (which it often is) then presumably it would now come under a psychic control - since partner must be aware that the 2 !c caller had previously passed a 2 !d response.