[blml] Announce or alert?

[Guthrie]

[Bob Geller]
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.


[nige1]
IMO, Bob's preferred option makes the best of a bad job but one of the 
suggested rules would achieve a better outcome: the new rule that 
allowed you to *switch off* all alerts and announcements.

Recently, a UK regulation banned most alerts above 3N. Without the UI 
from alerts, misunderstandings inevitably occur. Sometimes auctions 
spiral out of control. This would probably happen more often, if 
players were penalized for the dreaded "half-alert* twitch. In the 
past, when you could  prevent opponents from alerting any bids at all, 
the resulting misunderstandings were worth a couple of tops per session.