[blml] Announce or alert?

[Brian]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:59:26 +0000
Guthrie <guthrie at ntlworld.com> wrote:

<...>

> 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.
> 

Like Nigel, I've played for long enough under EBU regulations to
remember when the EBU allowed you to ask opponents not to alert (then
they went through a phase of allowing it but asking you not to do so,
and finally removed the option). 

Speaking as someone who played a few rather unusual gadgets (at least
they were in those days), we were always delighted to be asked not to
alert, I agree with Nigel that the resulting misunderstandings from "no
alerts, please" showed a profit, but more often than not, it was in
*our* direction. :-) Opponents would look at our CC, read the top line
which said "Strong Club with Multis", tell us "no alerts", and chaos
would ensue if one of our unusual openers came up, especially our
artificial 1NT opener. 

AFAIR, the EBU's reason for removing the option was that asking opps
not to alert caused too many director calls, and I can certainly vouch
for that being the case!


Brian. 

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