[Helmer]

♣

---

I open 1♥ - next hand 1♠ - my partner pass

should this be alerted?

Well I guess we need to know what is in THAT pass before we can answer.

As many people play it ... here.... they do like this:
Partner you must double if youre short in ♠ or
you must double if your natural strong.

So what is the pass I asked many times, not a single honest quick answer ever.

Either strong penalty of opponents bid, or natural weak 0-5.

Enough for now - will you / or should you alert this bid?

**********************************************

Another day a player had in the same bidding sequence, and bidding
pass holding (opp's vuln):

♠ AKxxxx
♥ x
♦ AQx
♣ QJx

I was not so surprised that there was a lot of spades, because it took ages to bid pass.... hidden information....?
But I am surprised that they didn't alert.
Is it ok that I am surprised?

I think an alert should be made everytime a bid can have to options:

either a penalty pass
OR a natural pass 0 to 5

It is said that we play under the same rules as in America.

See you
Helmer

[Miron]

1x-1/2y-p (1♣-1♠-p)
A lot of players play pass as weak or penalty (it often doesn't depend how they play double). A player should know this. Therefore it should not be alerted. I'm not sure as in other countries, but in Czech we alert bids, that cannot be awaited by opponents (actually it doesn't depend if they are natural).
IMHO no alert.

[Free]

No alert necessary, it's common sense and no surprise at all if they pass their partner's double next round. It's a result of playing negative doubles, but it doesn't carry any specific information...

If you pass in 1st seat, your partner also shouldn't alert to say you don't have an opening, or a hand suitable for any of your weak preempts, or whatever systems you play.

[FrancesHinden]

Not alertable, unless it's actually _forcing_

[han]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 4 2006, 10:12 AM, said:

Not alertable, unless it's actually _forcing_

Agree.

It is absolutely standard to reopen with spade shortness and with most strong hands. Requiring that you have to reopen with a double is unadvisable and probably alertable.

[kenberg]

No, I would not expect an alert.

I suppose the logic for an alert would run as follows: Third hand may have a hand that would make a penalty double but cannot do so because the double would be negative. One could claim an alert is needed on this basis. Half a century ago, when negative doubles (then called sputnik doubles so you get an idea of how long ago this was) were first invented, such a case might have had merit. Not now.

Some sort of common sense must be brought to bear. There is an issue of different rules in different domains, and of course there is no reason American rules need to have a privileged spot (except in, say, acbl tourneys), but I would hope we could distinguish between the situations where a non-alert might actually mislead someone, and the situation where it violates a rule applicable in some arenas but not in others. Possibly there is a little vagueness around the edges. I and many, many others cope with this by alerting more often than is probably necessary. But I will not be alerting Stayman. Sue me.

As far as I can remember, I have never been chastised on BBO for a non-alert. I have twice erred by sending an explanatory message to the table when I intended it to go to the opps. I apologized and accepted any penalty. I rarely have had problems with folks not alerting artificial calls, but there have been pairs with very strange ideas about what constitutes standard bidding. I cope. I really think a proper attitude towards informing opponents of your understandings and then applying good sense takes care of just about all of this.

Ken

[awm]

Any pass that suggests defending the current contract should not be alerted. This is the normal meaning for pass.

A pass which is forcing, or which shows something other than "let's pass this out if you have nothing special" would be alertable.