[blackshoe]

I always liked the "exchange cards at the beginning of the round" rule. When I first got back to the States, I tried to do that here. Reactions, as I recall, ranged from "no, thank you" to "get that thing out of my face!"

Pre-alerts aren't required in the EBU. Fair enough. But I don't see how you can say, Stephanie, that

Quote

If you should ask about this unalerted opening bid, the opponents are not required to tell you that certain hands are excluded from this bid

since it seems to me that

Law 40B6(a) said:

When explaining the significance of partner’s call or play in reply to an opponent’s inquiry (see Law 20), a player shall disclose all special information conveyed to him through partnership agreement or partnership experience, but he need not disclose inferences drawn from his knowledge and experience of matters generally known to bridge players.

requires that those exclusions be disclosed, since they are the result of a partnership understanding, and not general bridge knowledge.

Added: I should think that, if one has this kind of agreement in place, and is in England, one should at least try to exchange cards with the opponents at the beginning of the round.

[Vampyr]

mjj29, on Dec 11 2009, 10:16 AM, said:

Vampyr, on Dec 10 2009, 11:44 PM, said:

I find pre-alerting to be very rare, and done only out of the players' sense of fair play. At least in the EBU I don't think that failure to pre-alert unusual (and by whose definition?) methods would ever be considered to violate full disclosure.

Yes it would. The EBU's method of pre-alerting is exchanging convention cards at the start of the round, which have a section on the front for 'aspects of system opponents should note'.

I understand that. But the OP doesn't use a convention card, and another poster was suggesting that pre-alerting can and should be done even without one.

[dan_ehh]

barmar, on Dec 11 2009, 12:10 PM, said:

dan_ehh, on Dec 10 2009, 10:50 AM, said:

cardsharp said:

Forcing passes are a particular problem as they are rarely included on even the most complete convention card.

I think the biggest problem with forcing passes is that they are contrary to the basic mechanics of the game.

No more so than takeout doubles (double ostensibly means that you don't think the opponent can make the contract) or western cue bids (cue bids usually show something in the suit, but WQB often is used when you DON'T have anything useful in the suit). These things have evolved out of simple bridge logic (takeout doubles are used in situations where it's extremely unlikely that you would have a penalty double). Forcing pass is similar: if the auction has shown that your side is strong enough to bid game, and the opponents bid over it, it's almost certainly a sacrifice, so either your side has to double them or bid over them.

This is just standard bidding judgement, used by most experienced players. Unless they've reversed the meanings of pass and double in these auctions, like Meckwell (is it because they bid games so aggressively?), why would anyone bother to document this in their system notes?

This is basically correct, but there is a very big difference:
Players usually discuss details of their takeout doubles, e.g. "doubles are for takeout through 4♠s", and this is usually reflected in the system card. Same thing regarding cuebids. In my partnership we have extensive agreements about which cuebid shows what and in which situation.
Of course, this does not guarantee the prevention of accidents, but at least we are trying.

The reason they should document this in the system notes is that sometimes the situation is not absolutely clear, e.g. the the multi which was opened in the other thread, and then the slow pass makes it much clearer.

Let me give you another example:
You are red and they are white. The auction: (3♦)-p-(5♦) to you.
Many expert players play that a pass from you now is forcing, the logic being that if the opponents think they can make 5♦ they would usually try to investigate whether they can also make 6♦, so you can reasonably conclude that 5♦ is an advanced sacrifice.
If you make a slow pass, and your partner then doubles with nothing because it is forcing, would you permit this double without proof in form of a written agreement?

[jeremy69]

Quote

and another poster was suggesting that pre-alerting can and should be done even without one.

In most clubs I play in England players don't have convention cards and are not interested in seeing them either however it is now quite common even without any formal system of pre-alerting to sit down and hear your opponents say something along the lines of "Weak NT, 4cM and Weak Two's in 3 suits" Technically they should have cards but unless what they play is very unusual life goes on ok at this level without them and it is rare to get a complaint on this issue.

[bluejak]

dan_ehh, on Dec 12 2009, 11:49 AM, said:

Let me give you another example:
You are red and they are white. The auction: (3♦)-p-(5♦) to you.
Many expert players play that a pass from you now is forcing, the logic being that if the opponents think they can make 5♦ they would usually try to investigate whether they can also make 6♦, so you can reasonably conclude that 5♦ is an advanced sacrifice.
If you make a slow pass, and your partner then doubles with nothing because it is forcing, would you permit this double without proof in form of a written agreement?

Was the pass alerted: if not, why not?

But the answer as always is maybe. The trouble with these arguments about principle is that there never is a Yes or No answer. Single self-supporting statements are a weak form of evidence but they are evidence. Whether they are sufficient evidence depends on the factors that the TD takes into account.

Incidentally I do not consider a written agreement proof: just strong evidence, but as always all factors should be taken into account.

[CamHenry]

bluejak, on Dec 14 2009, 01:21 PM, said:

dan_ehh, on Dec 12 2009, 11:49 AM, said:

Let me give you another example:
You are red and they are white. The auction: (3♦)-p-(5♦) to you.
Many expert players play that a pass from you now is forcing, the logic being that if the opponents think they can make 5♦ they would usually try to investigate whether they can also make 6♦, so you can reasonably conclude that 5♦ is an advanced sacrifice.
If you make a slow pass, and your partner then doubles with nothing because it is forcing, would you permit this double without proof in form of a written agreement?

Was the pass alerted: if not, why not?

Matt and I play a rather unusual system; we are therefore both more familiar than the average club player (and many tournament players) with the intricacies of the EBU alerting rules.

In the situation here, I would not have alerted the pass as forcing, even with that agreement in place, since I did not realise it was alertable. In fact, my reading of OB 5E4 suggests that it is not alertable:

Quote

Calls above 3NT
Once the auction is above the level of 3NT, no calls are to be alerted except for:
(a)  Artificial opening bids
( Lead-directing passes
©  Doubles or redoubles that are lead-directing but ask for the lead of a suit other that the suit doubled (or redoubled)

It's a forcing, not lead-directing, pass, and is therefore non-alertable.

[mycroft]

To the OP, here's why it can be an issue (over and above showing evidence of your agreements in a misbid/misexplanation case). Please note that I am not impugning the ethics of the OP - there *are* others, though...

1) some people want to read the card rather than ask basic questions. If you do not provide a card *as required by your RA*, those people who process visual information better than verbal are at a disadvantage.

2) there are pairs whose "non-mainstream" bidding works an awful lot better if they're helped out by partner answering the opponents' questions about the auction (even if it's just a comfort factor of knowing partner's on the same page). If I can look at the card instead of asking, I can frequently get that information without unnecessarily assisting the opponents.

3) there are pairs whose verbal explanations are...minimal is a good way of putting it. They actively try to give as little information as possible to the opponents when asked. How much more can they do that if there is no system card requirement!

Take the 10 minutes to build a card, *for the benefit of the opponents*. You don't have to look at it again (well, until the agreements change in such a way as to require a card change). It's not a question of seriousness, it's a question of politeness (and adherence to Law, and evidence in case of a mixup (but of course, you don't take the game seriously, so you would just let the TD assume misexplanation and rule against you, so you don't care about the evidence issue, right?))

[jeremy69]

Quote

In the situation here, I would not have alerted the pass as forcing, even with that agreement in place, since I did not realise it was alertable. In fact, my reading of OB 5E4 suggests that it is not alertable:
It's a forcing, not lead-directing, pass, and is therefore non-alertable.

I was so looking forward to someone saying this but not as much as looking forward to the editor of the OB telling us why we are all wrong about it not being alertable.