[luis]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 28 2005, 06:21 PM, said:

luis, on Nov 28 2005, 10:46 AM, said:

Thanks to god I'm not an EBU player, Imagine alerting every single bid where we have no agreement to say "I don't know" when asked. Absolutely ridiculous.

If you know partner's bid is alertable, you should alert it.
If you don't know what it means, you should tell the opponents so if they ask. Why is it ridiculous to suppose it's possible for partner to make a bid about which you have no agreement, but you are certain it is alertable?

By definition where I live the only thing that is alertable is a partnership agreement. If you don't have an agreement about what 4♣ is you don't have to alert.
That is why an alert followed by "I don't know" is usually a serious infraction here, since if you don't have an agreement there is nothing to alert and if you have one you have to say what the agreement is. The only exception would be when you know there is an agreement but can't remember it then the fact that you don't remember is UI to your pd and everything continues.

Seriously alerting 4♣ here when you haven't discussed with pd is very very comic.

If they open 1NT and pd bids 4NT without agreement do you alert and say "don't know, but is probably not to play" ? Either the EBU rules are comic or the interpretation of the rules is wrong.

Luis

[luis]

whereagles, on Nov 28 2005, 06:15 PM, said:

luis, on Nov 28 2005, 03:46 PM, said:

Thanks to god I'm not an EBU player, Imagine alerting every single bid where we have no agreement to say "I don't know" when asked. Absolutely ridiculous.

Well, for your information, that is the correct procedure in most jurisdictions! Not just EBU. Your opponents have the right to know your agreements. If you have none for a particular situation, you should say just that: "no agreement".

Having no agreements on common situations like this one is not, however, free of penalty. Depending on the level of the player and level of competition you may be awarded a procedural penalty on grounds that at this level you are expected to have agreements on basic stuff.

Do you read what you just said?
"You have to alert your agrements... if you have none you have to alert no-agreement"
Under that base every single bid you make is alertable.

There is nothing to alert when you don't have an agreement.

[han]

I agree that it is nonsensical to alert the 4C bid here (there is no agreement and OBVIOUSLY the 4C bid is not natural, duh). If these are the rules, I don't like them.


But let me go back to the bridge question. I will assume that the opponents are somewhat decent (I've already heard the story from Matt and know that they were not).

I think that double is really bad. It will make it far easier for them to land in 4D. If RHO has both majors then it will be very hard to pass 4D if I haven't doubled, but if I double and LHO bids 4D, then this is clearly a desire to play there. They may not have discussed 4C, but it is likely that they both know it shows the majors. But do they both know that the other knows?

I'm torn between a direct 5C and pass, followed by a double of 4M and a pull to 5C over 4D. As I really dislike pass followed by pull here, I will bid 5C directly.

[david_c]

Yawn. I suppose there's not much point in trying to defend EBU regs here. Those of us who actually live in England already know that they work.

The silly thing, if there is one, is that any agreement about (3♣) : 4♣ is alertable unless it's natural. You could argue that this should be changed so that cue-bids were not alertable, though personally I prefer the simplicity of the current arrangement.

But what people are complaining about is the part of the regulations which says (in effect):
If you believe your partner's bid is artificial, then you should alert even if you're not sure exactly what it means.
This is not the silly part. It really isn't.

[han]

What I dislike is:

If you have no agreement whatsoever about a bid, but bridge logic dictates that the bid is artificial then it should be alerted

[Kalvan14]

I will not ask, and bid 5♣.
I would expect that RHO has a good 3-suiter (or - just possibly - 3-4-5-1).
I would not be happy to let them find their best fit at 4-level.

[luke warm]

Hannie, on Nov 28 2005, 05:15 PM, said:

What I dislike is:

If you have no agreement whatsoever about a bid, but bridge logic dictates that the bid is artificial then it should be alerted

i agree han, that doesn't make much sense to me... is bridge logic limited to the partner of the 4C bidder here?

i wouldn't ask what 4C means
i'd bid 5C over 4D
i'd double 4H

[Double !]

lol

can I bid 4 diamonds over rho's 4 club bid and watch the opps start reaching for my convention card? (Talk about UI).

DHL

[cherdano]

Hannie, on Nov 29 2005, 12:15 AM, said:

What I dislike is:

If you have no agreement whatsoever about a bid, but bridge logic dictates that the bid is artificial then it should be alerted

Whose bridge logic? I am sure many would then argue that 2♦ over 1♦ can't be natural by bridge logic.
At least it is a simple rule that can be applied easily regardless of the level of players.

Arend

[Gerben42]

I ask then bid 5♣. I double 5♦ and lead ♥A

[P_Marlowe]

1) Yes, I would even ask, if the bid is not alerted, sry, if they
bid our suit, I want to know, what's going on
2) Tough, but after the answer, I will pass to see what happens
I am not sure, we can make 5C, it depends a bid on style
in my partnership, 3C promises -3 and it is unclear if I have 5
tricks for partner
3) 5C
4) Dbl, and I will happily dbl 5D as well, because it will gurantee a
sure plus

Marlowe

[P_Marlowe]

Hannie, on Nov 28 2005, 05:15 PM, said:

What I dislike is:

If you have no agreement whatsoever about a bid, but bridge logic dictates that the bid is artificial then it should be alerted

The alert gives the you the chance to ask.
If they dont alert, and you asked, you give UI to
partner, because you should only ask, if you are
interested in bidding.

In F2F and not playing behind screens:
If the 4C bid gets not alerted, because one guy in
the partnership believes that there is no agreement
UI flows as well.

Marlowe

[whereagles]

luis, on Nov 28 2005, 07:44 PM, said:

There is nothing to alert when you don't have an agreement.

Well, we were talking about different things. Nevermind.

[FrancesHinden]

luis, on Nov 28 2005, 02:41 PM, said:

By definition where I live the only thing that is alertable is a partnership agreement.

Fine. But we don't all live in the same place.
By definition where some of us live, you alert calls that are not natural.
(The minor difficulty comes then in deciding what 'natural' means).

Yes, this leads to a few fatuous alerts.
But it also means that when partner bids the opponents' suit and you know it isn't natural but you also know you have no agreement, you must alert. Otherwise you are telling partner that you don't know what his bid means.

This is poor case to illustrate the point, because nobody plays 4C as natural whether or not they have an agreement, so the alert is pretty meaningless.

[Chamaco]

cherdano, on Nov 29 2005, 01:08 AM, said:

Hannie, on Nov 29 2005, 12:15 AM, said:

What I dislike is:

If you have no agreement whatsoever about a bid, but bridge logic dictates that the bid is artificial then it should be alerted

Whose bridge logic? I am sure many would then argue that 2♦ over 1♦ can't be natural by bridge logic.
At least it is a simple rule that can be applied easily regardless of the level of players.

Arend

Agree with Arend.

When we do know a bid is not natural (even if it's obvious), logic dictates it should be alerted even if we ignore the meaning: we need to inform opps that the bid is artificial, because there will be rare- but still possible- cases when the bid is NATURAL (even if it sounds artificial) and it will be impossible to discriminate.

If we stop alerting a cuebid of opp suit because it MUST BE ARTIFICIAL, then shall we alert it when it's natural ?
We cannot adopt the same procedure for both cases.

[Echognome]

Scoring: MP

---

This was a wild hand. You might recognize partner's hand from problem 6.

At the table, partner chose to open 3♣ and RHO bid 4♣. I asked and doubled (both which I don't think I should do) and LHO bid 4♦. RHO bid 4♥ and I doubled and that's where we played.

We misdefended and set it for 800.

[han]

Nice score Matt.

I think that asking about their agreements might have helped you. East probably thought that 4C showed the majors, and might very well have passed 4D if it wasn't for the fact that his partner didn't know what 4D showed. So I think that East was acting on UI, but it worked against him.

4D should show a strong desire to play diamonds, so east should have passed.

[luke warm]

my thinking was, don't ask and don't double and make lho bid (guess?)...

[HeartA]

nobody want to try 6♣?