mrdct

Are pre-alerts required in the EBU? If so, I'd be looking at awarding an adjusted score here as if this method had been pre-alerted East would not have bid 5♣ and this would've been played in 4♥ which I guess will make given that trumnps are 2-2 and you can set-up a couple of clubs. In Australia you would be required to pre-alert the switching of 4♣ and 4M after a double of 1M. The ABF Alerting Regulations even go so far to say "Pay particular attention to unusual self-alerting calls" which in Australia includes all doubles, redoubles, bids of opps' suits and bids above 3NT. A good example is Rubens Advances where an unalerted cue of the opps' suit might be mistakenly assumed to be a cue raise in the absence of the pre-alert.

The lack of a super-accept over 2♥ could be viewed as the overcaller already catering for partner not remembering that they were playing <T-word> and that may give him some licence to legally read the situation after the 3♥ bid, but as the OP confirmed that 3♥ was out of tempo this looks like a pretty clear UI case and an adjustment would be in order for which we will need to see the full hand.

Screens don't need to be expensive. If you make them yourself you'll get change out of $50. This is the latest one I've made out of polypropylene fluteboard for a set of 10 that the ABF are going to keep in Canberra for the quarter-finals onwards of the National Open Teams.

How would that work in a practical sense for ACBL games played on BBO in a self-alerting environment?

This is quite a difficult one as I quite agree with West's reasoning that the ♥A is the stand-out lead on this hand absent the UI, however, there is UI from East's query of the 4♥ bid which does make the ♥A lead more attractive from other logical alternatives which would at the very least be in West's contemplations so I don't think we have much choice but to adjust this to 4♠=. The manner in which East went about his enquiries could be of some relevance and the TD should investigate that angle too. East could possibly protect himself by asking about 4♥ in a more nonchalant manner or maybe a casual glance at the North-South convention card followed by "oh sorry, is it my turn to bid?". If North-South have an inadequately completed convention card that might give East something of a lifeline too.

Assuming this question relates to a self-alerting environment of ACBL games played on BBO, under the BBO Rules (found via 'help' in the web client) all one-level openings in precision are absolutely 100% totally alertable as the prevailing guideline is "If you have any doubt as to whether one of your bids should be alerted or not, it is appropriate to alert". The fact that you have queried the alertability of this 3+ precision 1♦ opening establishes the existence of doubt and it should therefore be alerted. In face-to-face bridge the approach would be slightly different as if you have pre-alerted your system and it's reasonable to assume that your opponents are competent enough to understadn that 1♦ is limited, you could get away with not alerting but I would still recommend alerting to protect yourself.

This thread has forced an amendment to my signature and I now vow to never utter the "T" word again!

That Flint Convention example is just further evidence that there are people in the UK that use the terms "bid" and "transfer" interchangeably. To any reasonable person, the description in Reece & Dormer would surely be less ambiguous if it read "Over the forced rebid of 3♥, responder will transfer to bid 3♠...". In terms of how 3♦, 3♥ and 3♠ ought to be described if asked, I would suggest proper disclosure would be: 3♦: "that's a puppet to 3♥ requiring me to bid 3♥ which he's either going to pass or transfer to bid his suit which will be non-forcing". 3♥: "he's required to bid that". 3♠: "he's showing a weak hand with spades". If someone used the term "transfer to" rather than "bid" in the description of 3♦, I don't think it would be at all unreasonable to assume 3♠ did not show spades and was in fact showing a different suit (probably clubs) but if I was given such an explanation I'd be asking for some clarificaiton of what 3♠ shows if and when it's bid. There is quite a lengthly description of the Flint convention at bridgeguys which makes no use of the word "transfer" other than saying that the introduction of transfer bids has decreased the popularity of the Flint convention.

I'm pretty sure that this is a peculiarity limited to the UK where in some circles it is evident that "bid" and "transfer" mean the same thing which is perhaps a function of other non-bridge usages of the word "transfer" such as an example given up-thread of transfering to the bus to London which wouldn't be common usage of that term in my part of the world. I'm fairly confident that I would never come across a person at the bridge table in Australia who wouldn't understand "that asks me to transfer to my major", but I will be on the lookout for any obviously inexperienced opponents and will be extra careful to make sure they understand what I'm saying.

[hv=d=w&v=0&b=8&a=1n2h(Hearts%20and%20a%20minor)p2n(%21)p3cppp]133|100[/hv] So in this auction are there people in the UK who would describe 2NT as "that asks me to transfer to my minor"?

What this illustrates is a tendancy from experts to take a few things for granted when giving explanations such as what the term "transfer" means. Not that I would ever claim to be an expert, but I guess I can be little bit guilty of that myself. Whilst I do try to gauge the skill level of my opponents and dumb-down my explanations accordingly, there is a risk of coming across as a condescending tool if you do things like explain to your opponents what a pre-empt or transfer is. Having said that, in my regular partnerships we play transfers in a lot of situations but rarely use the word "transfer" to describe transfers which can be made on four-card suits and simply say, "that shows 4+ bananas" as I have been in the situation where an opponent claimed damage due to playing me to hold five-cards in my transfered suit as he'd never seen anyone transfer with a four-card suit before. When this thread started, I honestly couldn't think of an alternative explanation for 4♣ that would be more clear than that which was given, but it is now evident that amongst lower-skill players in the UK, "transfer" does not have the same meaning as set out in the Orange Book, so it does seem that some extra care is warranted in that part of the world.

It might have been a good idea to conduct your survey using the actual explanation given in the OP of "asks me to transfer to the major I've got" rather than "asking me to transfer into my major". If anyone is going to misinterpret what is meant by "transfer" in these explantions, I think the latter is probably a little bit more likley to be misinterpreted as the construction looks more like opener is expected to do the definitive action. I agree that what mrdct and bluejak think "transfer" means matters little which is why we turn to the EBU defintion of what "transfer" means for guidance. "Bid your major" means just that, "transfer to your major" means something entirely different. It's also interesting to note that the Orange Book overtly cautions people that use of the term "puppet" could be open to misinterpretation so advises that puppets be explained in more detail, but makes no such warning in relation to the term "transfer" no doubt as it is unforseable that anyone would not understand what a transfer is.

Evidently you have transfer/puppet confusion also. A puppet requires partner to make a specific bid (usually the next suit up) irrespective of what he has in his hand; whereas a transfer shows length in a specific suit (usually the next one up). This 4♣ is neither a transfer nor a puppet; it is a conventional bid asking that partner reveal which major he holds by transfering to it. You seem to think that "asks me to transfer to my major" means the same thing as "asks me to bid my major". Whilst I fully agree that it is the duty of person giving an explanation to make sure that his explanation has been understood, the vernacular of bridge includes a number of terms for which it is reasonable to expect that your opponents will understand the universally accepted meaning. For example, "pre-emptive", "stopper", "control", "points", "shortage", "majors", "minors", and (dare I say) "transfer". Some of these terms, e.g. "transfer", are also explicitly defined in laws and regulations. If I come across an opponent who may not know what "pre-emptive" means, am I meant to protect myself and make sure that he understands what I meant by the term "pre-emptive"? If I'm playing against a pair straight out of the beginners' class, yes I will say something like "he has 6 or 7, perhaps even 8, bananas and less than X points" but I wouldn't dream of doing so against a pair playing in a representative even if some of the representatives are from relatively minor regions. I still can't see how anyone but the most inexperienced player could have been mislead by the explanation of 4♣ in the OP, but evidently east-west here did misinterpret it so the only conclusion I could reach is that east-west are complete noobs.

I would interpret that as the 1NT opener will now bid 2♦ with 4♥, 2♥ with 4♠ and 2♠ onwards with other hands. I'd also like to play against this pair for money! Exactly how anyone could confuse the concepts of "transfer to" and "bid" is beyond me.

In the EBU a "transfer" is defined as "an artificial bid, showing length in a specific suit (often the next suit up) and usually expecting partner to bid that suit". I like that definition better than yours. As a general principle, if the prevailing alerting regulations explicitly define a commonly used term it is entirely acceptable to use that term and presume that the opponents will interpret its meaning as per the definition in the regulations. It would only be if my opponents were very inexperienced that I would spell-out what the concept of a transfer is. The 4♣ bid in this case was clearly described as a bid requiring the 2♦ opener to transfer to his suit and I can't for the life of me understand how it could have been misinterpreted by any player familiar with the concept of a transfer. I play this convention myself and in the fairly rare circumstance that it comes up, I describe 4♣ as "that tells me to transfer to my major". I don't think my explanation is any better or worse than what was in the OP. If the opponents sought more clarity, I would say something like "he believes the hand should be played in four of my major with him declaring". It would be completely incorrect to describe 4♦ as a transfer as by EBU definition a transfer must show length in a specified suit which 4♦ does not. The 4♦ response should be described as "that tells me to bid my major".

Not all bids show or ask anything and in this case the explanation of "asks me to transfer to the major I've got" is completely unambiguous and for EW to misinterpret is just shows poor English comprehension on their part. Moreover, I don't think 4♣ promises or suggests support for both majors at all - the only thing it shows is a desire to play the hand which could have more to do with South's perception of his card play abilities than what he actually holds in his hand.

Well there you have it, Australia has more restrictive regulations for the use of transfer responses than the EBU!

Some examples of NBOs other than the ACBL and EBU that have more restrictive system regulations than Australia would be a good start as I'm not aware of any. If you are interested in preparing something more quantitative I guess you could come up with the list of a few treatments which are prohibited in the ACBL and/or EBU and then have a look at the prevailing system regulations in NBOs with, say, >10,000 members of which I believe there are 13 and see which NBOs allow those things in low-level (club duplicates), mid-level (multi-session tournaments/congresses) and high-level (national champioinships) competition. It's a little bit difficult obviously as not all NBO's regulate systems for events other than national events, but it ought to be possible to get a feel for which bridge jurisdictions have more system freedom. The point I am challenging is the assertion that Australia has the most lax system regulations in the world as I've not seen evidence other than anecdotal comments in forums. In a 200km radius of where I live on the NSW/VIC border, I'm not allowed to play transfer responses to 1♣ in about a quarter of the congresses I like to play in, although my local senior citizens centre is OK with any system (including transfers) provided everything is pre-alerted properly and there are no HUM (yellow) fetures or brown sticker conventions.

Your comment was "Australia is the country which allows the most". Putting the ACBL and EBU to one side, Australia's system regulations are not significantly different to any other NBO's that I'm aware of, but I would be pleased if you could provide some examples if you think that isn't the case. Contrary to the popular belief that club players all over Australia are having to deal with forcing pass and moscito everytime they turn up at a club duplicate, the use of yellow systems is quite heavily restricted to a handful of national events and late stages of a few major state events and it's not uncommon for individual clubs and convenors of minor events (we call them congresses) to impose rules such as "no transfer openings", "no twerb", etc. Australia certainly has a lot of advocates for system freedom who no doubt make their views well heard in the various forums, but that doesn't mean the ABF has an "anything goes" approach to system regulation.

Question for the world: In what jurisdictions and/or sub-levels within those jurisdictions would this 3♦ overcall against 1NT be illegal? I thought in most place you were fairly free to have any defence you want against a 1NT opening.

That is indeed the case in Australia, so if the club in question wanted to put in place tighter system restrictions they are free to do so. The more common approach is that most clubs simply adopt the ABF System Regulations which have pretty much the same system classification regime as the WBF and disallow yellow (HUM) systems and in some cases BS conventions, and require adequate disclosure both at the pre-alert stage and during the auction and play. I don't think this particular convention would satisfy the definition of a BS convention under ABF or WBF rules, so the only way a club that didn't want these sorts of methods in play would be to ban them on a convention-by-convention basis which would be quite cumbersome. Do you have any data to back up that comment? Australia's system regulations pretty much mirror the WBF regulations and it's only really the system regulations in a couple of NBOs that I ever see criticised by my countrymen. I fully agree with that. The best way to regulate unusual conventions is to come down hard on people who don't disclose their methods properly. As an aside, I played in this event with my 14 year-old daughter at the local senior citizens club and our auction went 1NT(me):6NT(her) and she was very proud as it was the first time she had bid a slam! Believe it not, 6NT+1 was actual worth 52.3% on the board!

Similar to the ACBL, in Australia whilst you don't alert above 3NT (unless it's a conventional opening at the 4-level or higher) at the end of the auction you are required to give delayed alerts of any "self-alerting" bids that arose in the auction if you become the declaring side. In practice that rarely happens because unless you are playing against a complete idiot, the guy on lead will always ask for an explanation of the auction before his opening lead. Kind of for that reason, I prefer the EBU approach of not having to make delayed alerts. Assuming this is in the ACBL, I will caution East-West about the correct procedure for delayed alerts but South's actions here are so beyond SEWoG I'm going to let the table result stand. If there was a disparity in experience level (in this case we are told they are all "advanced") I might be inclined to give North-South some relief, but bad luck Charlie on this one. It would be a dangerous precedent to adjust on board like this as it would basically be giving a defender a free hit to make a lead on the assumption that all of the non-alertable (a.k.a. self alerting) bids were natural, even where it's quite obviously some were artificial, and then call the cops when that doesn't work to get off to a different lead.

Q1: All you can do it ask a few probing question in an attempt to establish on the balance of probabilities what the actual agreement (if any) was, then determine if there has been a misexplanation and, if so, work-out whether or not the NOS has been damaged and also consider to what extent that damage may have been self-inflicted. The benefit of doubt generally goes to the NOS, so the players trying to argue that they did in fact have an agreement to play Drury after intervention will need to cound pretty convincing. You might consider asking questions like, "has this come up before?", "did you previously play it as natural?", "when did you change?", etc. Q2: Your ruling on the first hand looks OK, but I can't really comment on the second had without seeing the hand record.

That pratice should be strongly discouraged as it's clearly in breach of Law 7B2 "Each player counts his cards face down to be sure he has exactly thirteen; after that, and before making a call, he must inspect the faces of his cards".

You assumed wrong - the indicator does come up at every trick including a "ding" noise which can be disabled in sound settings. It is "acceptable" mandatory to self-alert on-line and behind screens.