[blml] Alerting Rules

[Gampas at aol.com]

>In a message dated 12/09/2007 13:48:25 GMT Standard Time,  
ehaa at starpower.net >writes:

>We must recognize that there are numerous situations in which  more  
>than one treatment of a particular call is sufficiently well  known  
>and played by a substantial percentage of  players to  be considered  
>"normal".  Indeed, in many of these situations  there may be no  
>"majority choice".  Experience has proven  repeatedly that attempting  
>to build an alert procedure around the  notion that any given call can  
>have only (or at most) one  non-alertable meaning leads to confusion  
>and chaos.
 
That is a good point, and I approve the change by the L&E to  make bids which 
contain negative inferences not alertable (other than as  specified in the 
Orange Book). There is a downside however. Under the new rules,  if the auction 
goes 1NT - (P) - 2H! - (P) - 2S - (P) - P - (Dble) - P - 2NT  (two places to 
play), this is alertable, but 3C, 3D or 3H instead of 2NT  would not be, even 
thought it denies two four-card suits. This is because its  non-forcing nature 
is not a surprise, and the extra information that we could  have made some 
other bid is now expressly excluded.
 
Paul