[Iv_]

pescetom, on 2025-November-18, 09:16, said:

If you mean what I think, yes: it is visible in the hand diagram whether a call was alerted or not (an alerted call has a box with round corners around it and the explanation if supplied is displayed below).
What is not visible to players (and was not to Directors, unsure if this has been fixed) is whether the call was alerted when made, or only later (and when).

You can't see in the diagram, thank you for your reply

[barmar]

If the bid has a red border it means they clicked on the Alert button when making the bid. But that doesn't necessarily mean they typed the explanation at that time, you can add it later.

[pescetom]

barmar, on 2025-November-18, 10:35, said:

If the bid has a red border it means they clicked on the Alert button when making the bid. But that doesn't necessarily mean they typed the explanation at that time, you can add it later.

Which is arguably not a great choice of interface design, rather than obliging them to type an explanation at that time.
There is also an issue that it is not very intuitive how one does Alert the call at the time of making it, as I recall.
And of course the "Explain" yellow box battle does not help.

Be that as it may, the key issue is whether TD can verify at what point an explanation was provided: before RHO can call, after that but only following an explain request, ignoring a request but only at last minute when TD was already called, etc. etc.
When I was TD a few years ago this was a significant limitation in adjudicating controversies.

[mycroft]

I do not Alert my bids on BBO, unless it's one of those that is going to require a lot of typing. And I have some saved in my browser extension so I don't have to.

Instead, I explain them as I bid them. No "red ring", but obvious (to the player at least) that it's Alertable (or weird even if not FTF Alertable).

I've had nobody ever complain about it, or claim "failure to Alert".

I also have never had someone say there was a Late Alert or a "third try to get a reasonable explanation", either. But I'm me.

(Note, I *have had* more than one "third try" - almost always for a "natural, to play" bid. Oddly enough, partner didn't have a great fit for me, and the suit didn't break well...

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2025-November-18, 18:32, said:

I do not Alert my bids on BBO, unless it's one of those that is going to require a lot of typing. And I have some saved in my browser extension so I don't have to.

Instead, I explain them as I bid them. No "red ring", but obvious (to the player at least) that it's Alertable (or weird even if not FTF Alertable).

You mean in Private Chat to opps (or the human opp)?
That would be against the rules of some tournaments I play in, and rightly so too I think.
I can see it would work in a duplicate between friends, but even so I don't see the advantage versus using the BBO mechanism to do the same thing.
Also when I have tried this in a tournament - usually because they failed to understand the explanation supplied by robot, or because I felt it was misleading - the opp(s) usually failed to acknowledge and/or understand, maybe because they were struggling in the yellow box battle already.

I think that having a mechanism and using it contextually with the call is a great idea. Unfortunately it is not too intuitive how to do so.

[mycroft]

Of course not - in the explanation box in bidding. I just don't press the "Alert" button so they don't get a red ring.

If it's going to take more typing than this 40 wpm person can do in a couple seconds, I'll Alert and bid, and then click on the bid and put in the explanation. But even "to play 2!D or var. INV+ hands" doesn't take that long, so...

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2025-November-19, 21:04, said:

Of course not - in the explanation box in bidding. I just don't press the "Alert" button so they don't get a red ring.

If it's going to take more typing than this 40 wpm person can do in a couple seconds, I'll Alert and bid, and then click on the bid and put in the explanation. But even "to play 2!D or var. INV+ hands" doesn't take that long, so...

Thanks, but still not certain I understand.
Probably because it is too long since I played with anyone except a robot and I cannot remember the interface well, except that I had problems figuring out how to both make an alert and provide the explanation at the same time (IIRC, the alert button jumped the gun and an explanation typed was not alerted and provided).

I imagine you are saying that you first make the call and then click the call to type the explanation in the explanation box, which is what I used to do when playing with a human (partially because something wasn't intuitive in the interface as mentioned above, partly because tempo is visible in BBO). Not optimal but as you say only a question of seconds. The delayed explanations I was talking about are both much slower and also only after request by opponents.

[mycroft]

click 1
type "12-14" in explain line
click NT

1NT is bid, explanation shows up immediately, bid has grey circle around it making clear there's an explanation there.

[barmar]

The way I normally do it is I click the Alert button if the bid is alertable, I don't click it if the bid is announceable. Either way I type the explanation in the Explain field before submitting the bid. I try to keep this short so it doesn't take too long to bid, so I'll often just type the name of a convention. An opponent can always request a more complete explanation by clicking on the Explain button in the popup.

[TMorris]

I don't put the name of the convention in ever. In the UK we are encouraged not to do this. If the explanation is too long I type in something along the lines of "longer explanation to follow" and then make a private comment to both opponents explaning the bid.

[jillybean]

People often interrupt me if I start to provide an explanation of a bid rather than give the convention name.

[mycroft]

1. Interesting idea, barmar, but you do know that (explicitly, in the ACBL, since 2017) Announcements are [special form of] Alerts?

2. So, we had this auction Rsday (twice, but once when it was asked about):

---

Before the lead, asked about the auction, got the answer "game forcing raise, any minimum, okay." Other opponent asks "so not Jacoby, not singleton?" "Yes - Jacoby, no - singleton".

3. I *absolutely* wish we had available how/when the explanation came. Even for players after the hand. More than once I have reported an auction to the director, and said "you may have this information, you may have to trust me, but they asked about this bid, was told "natural, forcing"; asked again (which probably was a "click on the explain button instead of the text box"), and responded, then asked *again* a round later. Oh, and they also asked about my next unAlerted call which was *also* (and obviously) "natural and forcing"." Or my traditional "Alert three rounds of everything in a Precision auction, get to 3NT, before the opening lead, there's a question about 3♦ (only) - and magically the diamond lead is found."

Or, from the other side, ask, get "no information available". Ask *again* (as it's clearly artificial, my last memory was a clear keycard response), get "no information available". Call the director, magically 'one or four' appears...

[pescetom]

 mycroft, on 2025-November-20, 19:07, said:

click 1
type "12-14" in explain line
click NT

1NT is bid, explanation shows up immediately, bid has grey circle around it making clear there's an explanation there.

Thanks. That is why I was never able to get it right then: it is grossly unintuitive as an interface choice (if they really wanted only two clicks for a bid without alert then offer a bidding box, alert and confirm, which would also eliminate the misclick/Undo nonsense).

[pescetom]

 mycroft, on 2025-November-22, 09:59, said:

3. I *absolutely* wish we had available how/when the explanation came. Even for players after the hand. More than once I have reported an auction to the director, and said "you may have this information, you may have to trust me, but they asked about this bid, was told "natural, forcing"; asked again (which probably was a "click on the explain button instead of the text box"), and responded, then asked *again* a round later. Oh, and they also asked about my next unAlerted call which was *also* (and obviously) "natural and forcing"." Or my traditional "Alert three rounds of everything in a Precision auction, get to 3NT, before the opening lead, there's a question about 3♦ (only) - and magically the diamond lead is found."

Or, from the other side, ask, get "no information available". Ask *again* (as it's clearly artificial, my last memory was a clear keycard response), get "no information available". Call the director, magically 'one or four' appears...

Yup, those are the gripes that a competent director could deal with given timing information about alerts and explanations.
Could barmar maybe clarify the current situation or is he just a player ?

Fixing the "Explain" battle would be a great help to everyone too.

[jillybean]

pescetom, on 2025-November-22, 12:01, said:

Thanks. That is why I was never able to get it right then: it is grossly unintuitive as an interface choice (if they really wanted only two clicks for a bid without alert then offer a bidding box, alert and confirm, which would also eliminate the misclick/Undo nonsense).

I'm not sure why MC is making it so complicated. Type your alert in the box before you make the bid.

[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2025-November-22, 14:41, said:

I'm not sure why MC is making it so complicated. Type your alert in the box before you make the bid.

That's almost as unintuitive to me, even if it works (I seem to remember that in one situation the message I typed never appeared).