[blml] Announce or alert?

[Robert Geller]

Eric Landau writes:
>Good players use the disclosure procedures, including asking  
>questions, in order to follow their opponents' auction and build a  
>picture of the opponents' hands based on their bidding.  They do this  
>whether or not they are considering entering the auction.  This  
>conveys no intrinsic UI despite falling to the category of   
>"'sometimes' ask".

I guess I'm not a good player.   :-)  

I (and many other "not good players") prefer
if at all possible to wait for the end of the auction (before the opening lead,
or after partner has placed the faced down lead on the table if 3rd hand)
to ask, because it seems that most of the time the answers to the questions
are helpful to the opposing pair in avoiding misunderstandings.  Of course the
opponents are using UI, but the situations are frquently borderline and directors
are frequently reluctant  to rule against relatively inexperienced pairs in less
than clearcut situations.   

Not asking till the end of the auction means you need to be reasonably familiar
with the oppts methods but a quick glance at their convention card plus 
general familiarity with the methods being used is almost always sufficient.

Because "announcements" are alerts with automatically added explanations
they can be of great benefit to the announcing side in avoiding 
misunderstandings.  In any case, the JCBL tourney regulations don't
authorize announcements.   

-Bob

-----------------------------------------------------
Robert (Bob) Geller,     Tokyo, Japan        geller at nifty.com