[Vampyr]

 aguahombre, on 2013-February-25, 20:48, said:

Don't confuse alerts with the other subject --answering questions about partership experience in areas where we have no agreement.

I am not confusing anything, and have not commented directly on the latter topic at all. The regulation that is being discussed is alerting when there is no agreement. This regulation seems to me to suggest that one must alert if there is no agreement; Andy thinks that it does not and should be changed so that it does say this. Both of us believe that if there is no alert, the opponents are entitled to assume the non-alertable meaning. This seems so obvious; I am surprised that there are people who disagree.

[aguahombre]

To me, the regulation is just fine. The only problem is people thinking any non agreement has anything to do with alerts and then twisting what is written to justify that thinking.

[Vampyr]

Here are the relevant regulations:

Quote

5 B 4 Alert or announce any of partner’s calls believed to be alertable or announceable even
if the meaning cannot be explained.

5 B 5 If there is no alert and no announcement, opponents can assume that there is no
agreement that the call falls within an alertable or announceable category.

5 B 9 General bridge inferences, like those a new partner could make when there had been
no discussion beforehand, are not alertable, but a player must alert any inferences
drawn from partnership experience or practice which have a potentially unexpected
meaning. A call with an alertable meaning arising from an implicit agreement (see
section 3 A 2) must be alerted.

5 B 10 A player who is not sure whether a call made is alertable, but who is going to act as
though it is, should alert the call, as the partnership is likely to be considered to have
an agreement, especially if the player’s partner’s actions are also consistent with that
agreement.

Perhaps a person who believes that these regulations demonstrate that a "non-agreement has anything to do with alerts" is twisting their meaning, but I don't think so. They do need to be beefed up a bit, with 5B5 and 5B10 rewritten as per Andy's suggestions.

If players cannot assume a non-alertable meaning when there is no alert, then the alerts are useless. Also, "being on the same wavelength" is closer to having an agreement than not having one. To take a simple example, suppose the auction goes 2♥(weak)-(3♦)-X. You and partner have never played before and never discussed this double. It would be very unusual where you play for this double to be anything but penalty. You must alert a penalty double of a naturally bid suit only if you have an agreement about it. Do you alert?

IMO, if you don't you are misinforming the opponents.

[Siegmund]

Latecomer to the thread, but chiming in anyway:

I am strenuously opposed to the "don't alert any doubles" idea. It leaves you feeling silly about asking 99% of the people how they play them, and leaves you without redress against the 1% who do something odd.
I dislike the ACBL approach, because even from one region to the next within the ACBL there is big variation in what is 'highly unusual and unexpected' vs. merely a minority treatment.

It's a thorny problem, but the closest thing to an answer I actually liked was (with the pre-2007 definition of convention) "alert all conventional doubles except the simple takeout double." I could have been persuaded to extend it a little further, perhaps to doubles which imply all unbid suits (making the old-fashioned negative double not alertable either) but in years past, having both negative and penalty X non-alertable was an issue for integrating beginners into the club game.

This solves most of the common issues like making most 1NT-P-2D-X=diamonds not alertable but colorful etc alertable; making Rosenkranz, Support, etc alertable. It does make a few more things alertable than you might really wish were, but I think that's better than making too few things alertable.

[aguahombre]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-25, 21:51, said:

To take a simple example, suppose the auction goes 2♥(weak)-(3♦)-X. You and partner have never played before and never discussed this double. It would be very unusual where you play for this double to be anything but penalty. You must alert a penalty double of a naturally bid suit only if you have an agreement about it. Do you alert?

IMO, if you don't you are misinforming the opponents.

This example is simple because it is defined as alertable over there; in a jurisdiction where a double that any sane person knows to be penalty still must be alerted, I would alert just to appease the Secretary Birds.

Yes, it is an agreement, just as the existence of air is agreed. EBU wants it alerted. Who would even think to discuss it in advance? Undiscussed does not mean no agreement.

You cannot give an example where I should alert, and then say "no agreement", when asked.

[blackshoe]

Stefanie suggests "If players cannot assume a non-alertable meaning when there is no alert, then the alerts are useless." I would say that the first article in that sentence needs to be replaced with "the", because if there is more than one non-alertable meaning, then the non-alerts are just as useless as the alerts. Given that, perhaps it is better to define the single non-alertable meaning of calls, and then everything else requires an alert. For example: "penalty doubles do not require an alert; all other doubles require an alert". Don't like that? How about "simple takeout doubles (define these carefully please!) do not require an alert; all other doubles require an alert". If that's too simple or results in too many alerts for your taste then perhaps you'll need to divide things up somehow, e.g., direct doubles after an opening bid*, protective doubles after an opening bid, doubles by responder after an overcall, and so on.

* as far as I'm concerned, "opening bid" here means exactly what it says. It does not mean "opening bid in a suit at the one level", which is the way many people seem to use the phrase. If you want to use it that way in a regulation, fine, but make sure the regulation makes it clear, and make sure other opening bids are covered as well.

[Trinidad]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-25, 13:57, said:

This is the sort of thing that the EBU eliminated, and it is much better this way.

It is much worse this way since you don't get it for free. It all comes at the expense of having an alert regulation that is thicker than most pairs' system book.

Other NBOs can have alert regulations that fit on half a page and that work fine.

Remember that it may be relatively easy to learn which bids in your own system require an alert. That is a one time excercise. But when it comes to the opponents' bidding this excercise needs to be repeated on every single board. If this is difficult to master, the alert regulation serves no purpose.

Rik

[gnasher]

 aguahombre, on 2013-February-25, 23:14, said:

This example is simple because it is defined as alertable over there; in a jurisdiction where a double that any sane person knows to be penalty still must be alerted, I would alert just to appease the Secretary Birds.

Yes, it is an agreement, just as the existence of air is agreed. EBU wants it alerted. Who would even think to discuss it in advance? Undiscussed does not mean no agreement.

You cannot give an example where I should alert, and then say "no agreement", when asked.

1♦ pass 1♥ 2♣
dbl

Playing with a randomly selected English tournament player, this could be intended as takeout, support or penalties. In England, if you don't alert this, the opponents will assume that it's for takeout.

[gnasher]

 Trinidad, on 2013-February-26, 06:32, said:

It is much worse this way since you don't get it for free. It all comes at the expense of having an alert regulation that is thicker than most pairs' system book.

Other NBOs can have alert regulations that fit on half a page and that work fine.

I don't think this is true. The reason that the EBU's alerting regulations are long is that they go into a lot of detail, contain plenty of examples, and address questions that other NBOs choose not to address. If I rewrote the EBU's alerting regulations, but using the same level of detail as, for example, the ACBL's, they would be less than 100 words:

You should alert only:
- Conventional calls at or below 3NT.
- Artificial opening bids.
- Lead-directing passes.
- Lead-directing doubles and redoubles that relate to a suit other than the suit doubled or redoubled.
- Other calls at or below 3NT that have a potentially unexpected meaning.
For this purpose:
- Suit-bids that promise three or more cards in the suit and say nothing about any other suit are natural.
- Takeout doubles of natural suit bids, penalty doubles of natural notrump bids, and negative doubles of direct-seat overcalls are natural. All other doubles are conventional.

Quote

Remember that it may be relatively easy to learn which bids in your own system require an alert. That is a one time excercise. But when it comes to the opponents' bidding this excercise needs to be repeated on every single board. If this is difficult to master, the alert regulation serves no purpose.

This certanly isn't true. In England, if an opponent's action is not alerted, I immediately know what the systemic meaning is (if any). That doesn't require any special expertise, because the rules about what is alertable are very simple - basically almost no more than "Alert artificial calls below 3NT".

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2013-February-26, 07:57

[bluejak]

 sfi, on 2013-February-24, 19:38, said:

In my experience, yes. It may not work in some jurisdictions, but in my experience in Australia it works quite well. Here I would say "our doubles over opening bids are artificial." At that point my partner and I can agree what a redouble should show and whether we treat the double of 1NT as penalty. That's just normal behaviour here.

And you don't have to mention all the quirks - just the ones against which the opponents might need to discuss a defence. Artificial doubles of opening bids are clearly in that category.

Sure. So I say "We play Acol with artificial twos and threes, a variable no-trump including the mini no-trump, a 1NT overcall for takeout, doubles of various openings may be artificial, ..." and we have told them nothing. We give some idea of what twos and threes we open and what artificial doubles and we have already lost a board and they will not remember it.

 paulg, on 2013-February-25, 02:43, said:

There are pre-alerts and it is normally done:

I would rate that as "sometimes" not "normally". I also note that you have coloured stickers on the SCs. When I played at Peebles there were three pairs, only three, with coloured stickers: naturally we were one of the three pairs.

It is not just a question of playing in a foreign country as suggested, it is a question of playing in a foreign country where the regulations do not work or are not followed.

The main reason it is not too bad in Scotland is not that pre-alerting works, or is done, or anything like that: it is because few people play much stuff.

[aguahombre]

 gnasher, on 2013-February-26, 07:30, said:

1♦ pass 1♥ 2♣
dbl

Playing with a randomly selected English tournament player, this could be intended as takeout, support or penalties. In England, if you don't alert this, the opponents will assume that it's for takeout.

Is that supposed to be an example of where I should alert and then explain "no agreement"?

I have an agreement about it. You gave an example of a problem someone else might have, but what an opponent will assume doesn't change whether someone has an agreement with his partner.

If I don't alert, what the EBU opponents should "assume" is what 5B5 says...that there is no AGREEMENT which falls into the alertable or announceable category.

[gnasher]

 aguahombre, on 2013-February-26, 08:00, said:

Is that supposed to be an example of where I should alert and then explain "no agreement"?

I have an agreement about it.

Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes. I was joining in this conversation (which I've edited down to the highlights):
Vampyr: The regulation that is being discussed is alerting when there is no agreement.
Aguahombre: To me, the regulation is just fine.
Vampyr: If players cannot assume a non-alertable meaning when there is no alert, then the alerts are useless.
Aguahombre: Undiscussed does not mean no agreement. You cannot give an example where I should alert, and then say "no agreement", when asked.

As I understand it, we're discussing what should happen when a partnership doesn't have an agreement, but there are multiple plausible interpretations including one that would be alertable and one that would not. If you're telling us that there are no such situations for you when playing with your regular partner, then I believe you, but I don't see why it's relevant.

Quote

You gave an example of a problem someone else might have, but what an opponent will assume doesn't change whether someone has an agreement with his partner.

But we're not discussing whether a partnership has an agreement. We're discussing what an alert (or non-alert) should mean.

At present, in the EBU, a reasonable interpretation of the rules is:
- A non alert means "Either it's not alertable, or we haven't discussed it but I'm going to bid as though it's not alertable."
- An alert means "Either it's alertable, or we haven't discussed it and I'm going to bid as though it's alertable."

Vampyr and I think the rules should instead be:
- A non alert means "I know it's not alertable."
- An alert means "Either it's alertable, or we haven't discussed it and one possible meaning is alertable."

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2013-February-26, 11:30

[Zelandakh]

Andy, I think you mean "it is alertable" on the second line of your interpretation section. And I also agree with you on what the regulation should be. Indeed I thought that was the regulation and the special case about treating it as having an alertable meaning was just highlighting a specific case of this where you will be ruled against. But if you say it is the other interpretation in practise then I believe you.

[barmar]

 Trinidad, on 2013-February-26, 06:32, said:

It is much worse this way since you don't get it for free. It all comes at the expense of having an alert regulation that is thicker than most pairs' system book.

Other NBOs can have alert regulations that fit on half a page and that work fine.

Which is better depends on what you think the goal of the alert regulation should be. If it should be easy to learn and interpret, the short "alert anything that's artificial" rule works well.

But most NBOs, and I think many players, think that the goal should be to provide useful information to the opponents. An alert should mean "there's a decent chance you don't know the meaning of the call, so you should ask." Alerting calls with common meanings dilutes the benefit of the alert system. Players will get out of the habit of asking about these alerts, and then when a pair with an actually unusual agreement alerts, the opponents won't know that they really should ask in this case.

Before they introduced announcements, ACBL tried out a system of "special alerts". The bids that are now announceable were just alerted, but if you used those bids for something else you would say "special alert". No one liked it, and that's when they came up with announcements.

[Jeremy69A]

Quote

It is much worse this way since you don't get it for free. It all comes at the expense of having an alert regulation that is thicker than most pairs' system book.

In my Orange Book(2012 edition) it is 5 pages. In the new version in August it will likely be 4. More than half a page I grant you but not as much as your exaggerated phrase would suggest.

[Vampyr]

 blackshoe, on 2013-February-25, 23:54, said:

Stefanie suggests "If players cannot assume a non-alertable meaning when there is no alert, then the alerts are useless." I would say that the first article in that sentence needs to be replaced with "the", because if there is more than one non-alertable meaning, then the non-alerts are just as useless as the alerts. Given that, perhaps it is better to define the single non-alertable meaning of calls, and then everything else requires an alert.

Yes; this is the way it is done in the EBU, and perhaps I should have said "the"; I was trying to generalise.

[Vampyr]

 aguahombre, on 2013-February-25, 23:14, said:

You cannot give an example where I should alert, and then say "no agreement", when asked.

Here's an auction I gave upthread: 1♥-(X)-XX-(2♣); X. Would you know how your pickup partner meant this double?

 aguahombre, on 2013-February-26, 08:00, said:

Is that supposed to be an example of where I should alert and then explain "no agreement"?
I have an agreement about it. You gave an example of a problem someone else might have, but what an opponent will assume doesn't change whether someone has an agreement with his partner.

If you never play with first-time or pickup partners, then OK, you probably do have an agreement. But others of us set up games with friends or random people, play with hosts, or otherwise get into partnerships where we simply have not discussed this sort of thing. Sometimes the discussion before the game runs to the length of major openings and the strength of an opening 1NT.

Quote

If I don't alert, what the EBU opponents should "assume" is what 5B5 says...that there is no AGREEMENT which falls into the alertable or announceable category.

Right; this is the problem with the regulation. It is negated a bit by 5B10, but not enough. Better would be:
possibility that it falls into the alertable or announceable category.

[gnasher]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-February-26, 09:30, said:

Andy, I think you mean "it is alertable" on the second line of your interpretation section.

Thanks, fixed it.

Quote

And I also agree with you on what the regulation should be. Indeed I thought that was the regulation and the special case about treating it as having an alertable meaning was just highlighting a specific case of this where you will be ruled against. But if you say it is the other interpretation in practise then I believe you.

No, actually I prefer your interpretation, and I intend to go on doing what I have always done, which is to alert all undiscussed bids that might be intended as alertable. I would justify it as I explained here:

http://www.bridgebas...post__p__707208

However, I'm worried by these two posts:

http://www.bridgebas...post__p__707161
http://www.bridgebas...post__p__707202

which suggest that I may be wrong.

[jallerton]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-25, 17:31, said:

You can avoid this problem by alerting in both cases, and in both cases answering "no agreement", but giving any information about other agreements or about hands that have come up earlier in the session that may be relevant and helpful.

Yes, you can avoid the problem (of tipping off information about the contents of your own hand) by alerting in both cases but then you are not following the regulation.

[Trinidad]

 gnasher, on 2013-February-26, 07:50, said:

I don't think this is true. The reason that the EBU's alerting regulations are long is that they go into a lot of detail, contain plenty of examples, and address questions that other NBOs choose not to address. If I rewrote the EBU's alerting regulations, but using the same level of detail as, for example, the ACBL's, they would be less than 100 words:

You should alert only:
- Conventional calls at or below 3NT.
- Artificial opening bids.
- Lead-directing passes.
- Lead-directing doubles and redoubles that relate to a suit other than the suit doubled or redoubled.
- Other calls at or below 3NT that have a potentially unexpected meaning.
For this purpose:
- Suit-bids that promise three or more cards in the suit and say nothing about any other suit are natural.
- Takeout doubles of natural suit bids, penalty doubles of natural notrump bids, and negative doubles of direct-seat overcalls are natural. All other doubles are conventional.

Aahhh, refreshing... A simple soul like me can understand this. Less is good. Now, why doesn't the EBU write it up like that? Then their alert regulation would be remarkably similar to most alert regulations.

The way it is, you get the impression that the authors of the regulation got paid for every letter they wrote. (I suppose they didn't get paid at all, but you get the idea.)

Rik