[blml] Alerting Rules [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Gampas at aol.com]

Richard Hills is correct to state that the EBU  Laws and Ethics Committee 
decided: (after the auction 1NT - ( P ) - 2D! - (Dble)  - P! - (3D) - 3H):

"The degree of unexpectedness of the actual methods in  use in this case was 
not sufficient to require an alert."

The wording of  the rule, prior to the change in the Orange Book, was that a 
bid should be  alerted if:

c) it is natural but its meaning is affected by other  agreements which your 
opponents are unlikely to expect.

The decision of  the AC was that we would have been "unlikely to expect" that 
1NT - 3H was  pre-emptive, and therefore the actual auction, in addition to 
the auction 1NT -  3H, should be alerted. This appears correct to me.

The L & E decided,  in its wisdom, that we were "likely to expect" 1NT - 3H 
to be pre-emptive. I  think this is cloud-cuckoo-land. The clear intent of the 
phrase was (it has been  removed now) was that the methods in question would 
be normal, and the majority  choice. How else could we be likely to expect 
them? 

For example, if  someone makes a negative double and then bids a new major, 
this would be  expected to be non-forcing and there would be no infraction for 
a failure to  alert. If it is forcing, perhaps because the pair play disturbed 
responses as  non-forcing, the bid needs to be alerted. This does not even 
seem contentious;  else why have the rule at all, and why remove it because it 
produced an AC  ruling that was unpopular? 

The comparison with not alerting an opening  4H or 4S bid when a SAT bid is 
available was made by some commentators. And  someone else said "Why not alert 
1H - 1NT - 2H" and say "I am alerting because  we play sound weak twos"? I 
agree the line has to be drawn somewhere. The first  mentioned is expressly 
covered, as the Orange Book indicates that the 4H or  4S bid is not alertable. No 
problem there. In the second case, the player  considering balancing will know 
that the opener must be above the weak two range  and can establish that 
range. Obviously this should not be alerted, as the  meaning "I have six hearts, am 
not interested in game, and considered my hand  too strong for a weak two" is 
exactly what the opponents are likely to expect.  

In the Brighton case, the opponents knew that the responder could not  have a 
weak hand with hearts - the responder drew attention to that fact in the  
post mortem when the defence had slopped a trick - and that information was  
clearly relevant to the opponents at the time in a competitive auction, and  
therefore should have been indicated by an alert. Those who say "everything  should 
be alerted then because of negative inferences" are completely missing  the 
point.

Paul Lamford