Responding to Stayman with 4-4 majors

[Vampyr]

If 2C is not promissory, the opponents are bidding ♥ first. We don't need the disclosure at this time, but will be alerted if the 2NT rebid denies 4S/2H and will be alerted bif 2S/2H shows 4 and an invite. We will also be alerted at 2NT/2S if it might or might not contain hearts.

None of these is alertable in England.

[c_corgi]

How does one do that without putting some focus on the other major? It is easy enough against people who bid 2♠ with both majors. They will explain right away. But people who don't bid 2♠ with both majors will not explain that they are denying four hearts, since to them this is obvious. You will pretty much have to ask specifically: "Does 2♠ deny four hearts?".

 

[snip]

 

To many players it is equally obvious that a 2♠ response to Stayman denies four hearts. Therefore, they will not explain this fact when asked in general.

 

You have identified the cause of the problem: people who assume their way is the only way. The solution is to persuade them against this unreasonable behaviour rather than to condone it and look for ways to work around it.

[Vampyr]

You have identified the cause of the problem: people who assume their way is the only way. The solution is to persuade them against this unreasonable behaviour rather than to condone it and look for ways to work around it.

 

Actually, no. It is not unreasonable to expect that an auction that a player has seen hundreds of times, which has always meant the same thing, suddenly means something else. For most people who rebid 2♥ with both majors, it is not, in their opinion, "their way". It is the way the convention Stayman is played.

 

And let us suppose, as some posters do, that, unlikely as it may be, most people have actually heard of the sequence in question. Without an alert, they would have to ask every time, "Does 2♥ deny 4 spades?" or "Can 2♠ include 4 hearts?" when, for most people, the answer will never be "yes" in their entire bridge-playing career. Is this, then, what you call reasonable?

[helene_t]

I can see some reasons for not alerting it:

- it would be crying wolf.

- it may wake partner up.

- we will almost certainly be declaring and opps won't need the information during the auction.

 

But I can't see any reason for not volunteering the information prior to the opening lead. What's the cost?

[c_corgi]

Actually, no. It is not unreasonable to expect that an auction that a player has seen hundreds of times, which has always meant the same thing, suddenly means something else. For most people who rebid 2♥ with both majors, it is not, in their opinion, "their way". It is the way the convention Stayman is played.

 

And let us suppose, as some posters do, that, unlikely as it may be, most people have actually heard of the sequence in question. Without an alert, they would have to ask every time, "Does 2♥ deny 4 spades?" or "Can 2♠ include 4 hearts?" when, for most people, the answer will never be "yes" in their entire bridge-playing career. Is this, then, what you call reasonable?

 

What I call reasonable is both sides trying to facilitate good disclosure: both in asking and telling. In this case, ideally the information would be volunteered at an opportune moment, but as has been pointed out upthread, this is not always practical. It is non-sensical to base an alert procedure around trying to guess what the opponents will expect. And it is not reasonable for the 2H bidders to expect others, who may have a different idea of what is standard, to work out what disclosure may be required, while at the same time absolving themselves of any reciprocal requirements because their way is "standard".

[PeterAlan]

Reviewing things, we may have been mildly at cross purposes:

 

Yes he did. Have another look at posts 4, 12 and 19.

 

As Gordon points at, David completely contradicts himself in post 12, but when Gordon asked if there was a country where most respond 2♠ with both majors and David stated, without any justification whatsoever, that England is such a country.

David clearly misunderstood that exchange, as he acknowledged in post 84. Let's not harp on about that: his central point has been that, whilst 2♥ might be the norm for what he calls "better" or more experienced players, in the generality of the EBU world people make all kinds of responses when they have both majors with all kinds of different reasons (or none) for doing so. He has said that he does so himself when playing with clients. This variety of responses is also, to some degree, what I have experienced, and I said so.

 

This is what he said in the extract from his post 40 that you quoted in post 167. You said there that that was "simply wrong", and it was that response to that extract that I was replying to in 172, and also in 174, since you gave no reason to suppose that the last paragraph of your 173 was referring to anything else. You may have intended 167 to be referring specifically to a 2♠ response with both majors, but that's not how it read to me (I took your "It is unusual ..." as meaning a departure from a 2♥ response).

 

Regarding your last point, I hadn't taken a Trappist vow of perpetual silence, but I didn't continue the thread at the time, nor when Vampyr made further challenging responses to me, and only did so when you re-opened it with what read to me as a similarly challenging reponse to David's post. It seems reasonable to come back when a poster new to the thread weighs in with as dogmatic a response as "You are simply wrong" to a position that I have backed.

 

You have identified the cause of the problem: people who assume their way is the only way.

Absolutely.

[barmar]

It is non-sensical to base an alert procedure around trying to guess what the opponents will expect.

Except that is pretty much how most alert procedures are designed. We alert to warn the opponents that they may need to ask about the auction, because it might not mean what they think.

[Trinidad]

It is non-sensical to base an alert procedure around trying to guess what the opponents will expect.

There are fundamentally two kinds of alert procedures:

1) Those that are based on guessing what the opponents will expect

"Alert if you think your opponent might not (fully) understand."

 

2) Those that are based on defining what the opponents will expect

"The following, well-defined bids are not alertable (because the opponents will expect this). All others are alertable."

 

Many RA's use a mixture of the two: "Main rule: Rule 1, specific rules: rule 2. When in doubt, use rule 1."

 

In all these cases, alert regulations are fundamentally based on what the opponents will or may expect. You may find that non-sensical. I find it sensible (which doesn't equal perfect).

 

Rik

[Vampyr]

In all these cases, alert regulations are fundamentally based on what the opponents will or may expect.

 

Indeed, this is the whole point

[bluejak]

"Not universal" hmm. I've no idea why that is relevant to my assertion that Bluejak was wrong.

 

He implied that is was normal to respond 2♠ with both majors in England. Given that I have played over quarter of a million hands and have seen it happen once, I beg to differ. Perhaps I should reread the entire thread, but since I am regretting opening it in the first place, that ain't gonna happen.

How many times have you played in my clubs?

[PeterAlan]

In all these cases, alert regulations are fundamentally based on what the opponents will or may expect.

No, they're not (at least in EBU) - they're based on the meaning of the bid itself:

 

5 B General

5 B 1 The purpose of alerting and announcing is to draw the opponents’ attention to any call by partner that may have a special meaning.

...

5 E Basic alerting rules

5 E 1 Passes and bids

Unless it is announceable (see 5 C and 5 D), a pass or bid must be alerted if

(a) it is not natural; or

(b) it is natural but has a potentially unexpected meaning.

Yes, opponents' expectations come into the picture, but this can not be wholly unqualified. For a start, one can only take into account opponents' expectations that one can reasonably anticipate (which is one of the problems in the case in point).

 

What is the meaning of the 2♠ bid in this case? It shows 4+ ♠ and says nothing else. It has no further meaning, unexpected or otherwise. The difficulty arises because you expect it to have an additional meaning, unrelated to ♠, namely that it's denying 4+ ♥, and it doesn't. I'd have more sympathy if (as the OP trailed) we were talking about the alertability of a 2♥ response that specifically denied 4+♠, since that is part of the meaning of the bid. But both run into the issue of whether the practitioners can or do anticipate such expectations by their opponents, and in the case of many of those who don't play your way, and unlike MickyB in the OP, they just don't. You may play in a world where Stayman has come to have essentially a single, modern form which colours your perceptions - others don't, whether you choose to believe it or not.

[Trinidad]

No, they're not (at least in EBU) - they're based on the meaning of the bid itself:

Which is exactly what defines what the opponents can expect (alert regulation of type 2 in my previous post).

 

Rik

[Vampyr]

How many times have you played in my clubs?

 

It seems like strange things happen in your clubs. From this and other threads I have formed the impression that bidding cards are selected more or less at random, in fact with little regard to their legality; you once indicated that L25A irregularities occurred several times an evening at your table; most people probably see one in about 100 sessions, if that much. I don't think that English norms can really be established based on what happens in your clubs.

[barmar]

I don't think that English norms can really be established based on what happens in your clubs.

On the other hand, it seems like they may provide a fruitful cast of characters for a series of bridge stories, rivaling the Menagerie and the Monks.

[PeterAlan]

I really don't understand where you're going with this, Rik.

 

The exchange started with

 

It is non-sensical to base an alert procedure around trying to guess what the opponents will expect.

barmar, you and Vampyr disagreed, you saying, as I quoted

 

... alert regulations are fundamentally based on what the opponents will or may expect.

an assertion that Vampyr explicitly endorsed. I responded

 

No, they're not (at least in EBU) - they're based on the meaning of the bid itself:

which at least should make clear that I don't accept your position, yet you're now twisting that back to the "opponents' expectation" viewpoint with

 

Which is exactly what defines what the opponents can expect (alert regulation of type 2 in my previous post).

If what you're now saying is that the opponents' expectations are limited to ("defined" by) what the bid means, then I'm prepared to agree with you, though I don't think it's helpful to insist on changing the viewpoint in this way ("What determines whether a bid is alertable?" "What the opponents expect it to mean." "What may the opponents expect it to mean?" "What it does in fact mean." When the OB goes directly from step 1 to step 4, how does it help to try to introduce steps 2 & 3?). If that's not what you're saying, then I have to say I don't understand what it can be.

 

For me, and I assume c_corgi, it's quite straightforward. There is a relatively objective test - "what does a bid mean" - which, moreover, is what is written directly into the OB regulations. It is not helpful to try instead to reinterpret this as / replace this by the much more subjective "what might the opponents expect it to mean", not least because

 

(1) the bidder can't be fully aware of the opponents' expectations are (indeed, may be oblivious to them), especially as

(2) those expectations can vary from opponent to opponent

(3) every opponent thinks (or appears from this thread to think!) that their expectations are the only possible ones, and, as a result,

(4) it's much more difficult to apply in practice.

And, to stress again

(5) that's not what it says.

 

Here we have a straightforward, natural bid of 2♠ which has the meaning "I have 4+ ♠s in my hand" and no more.

 

Your, Vampyr's and many others' 2♠ bid, by contrast, means not only "I have 4+ ♠s in my hand" but also "I do not have 4♥s in my hand", an additional and secondary meaning that is totally unrelated to the natural intrinsics of a 2♠ bid.

 

You wouldn't dream of alerting the second, yet get upset if the first is not alerted, all based on your "expectations"? I've said enough already on the sort of experience from which those expectations have been derived - it may well be deep, but it's also narrow, and it leads to this sort of absurd contrast.

 

The Stayman announcement doesn't tell you whether it's promissory or not, and without asking you therefore have no idea in the auction of how many ♠s or ♥s might be in the Stayman bidder's hand. You're OK with that. Yet you're fixated with being alerted, in the topsy-turvy way I describe above, over this particular detail of the NT bidder's hand, where the answer is available for the price of a question. Get over it!

[PeterAlan]

I don't think that English norms can really be established based on what happens in your [bluejak's] clubs.

They probably shouldn't be based on the irregularities you cite, Vampyr, but, insofar as those clubs appear to reflect more diversity of practice than seems to apply where you play, it's quite appropriate to base English norms on that.

[Trinidad]

PeterAlan, I will try to explain once more.

 

There are fundamentally two types of alert regulations.

1) "Alert a bid when it means something different from what you think your opponents will expect it to mean"

2) A detailed regulation which defines exactly which calls are alertable and which ones are not.

 

It doesn't matter why I have an expectation for the meaning of the call. With alert regulation 1 the reason will be my own bridge experience. With regulation 2 it will be what the RA defined as the non alertable meaning. In either case, if the meaning is not what I expect it to be, it should be alerted.

 

Incidentally, this thread shows exactly why alert regulations of type 2 do not work. They give a false sense of security. In principle it should be very simple. MickyB asked a question: Is this meaning for this call alertabl?. One would think that an experienced player like MickyB would be able to find the answer in the regulation, but evidently he can't. There have been 191 replies with opinions and views. I may have overlooked something, but I don't remember one single one unambiguously saying: "OB paragraph x.y.z says it is alertable. End of story." or "OB paragraph x.y.z says it is not alertable. End of story."

 

Alert regulations of type 1 handle this much better, as long as the players are made aware that they have full disclosure obligations. The answer to Micky's question is simple: "If you play against Trinidad, you alert. If you play against PeterAlan, you don't alert. If you don't know who you are playing against, you alert to err on the side of caution. You encourage the opponents to ask something that may turn out to be obvious to them. End of story."

 

Rik

[pran]

PeterAlan, I will try to explain once more.

 

There are fundamentally two types of alert regulations.

1) "Alert a bid when it means something different from what you think your opponents will expect it to mean"

2) A detailed regulation which defines exactly which calls are alertable and which ones are not.

 

It doesn't matter why I have an expectation for the meaning of the call. With alert regulation 1 the reason will be my own bridge experience. With regulation 2 it will be what the RA defined as the non alertable meaning. In either case, if the meaning is not what I expect it to be, it should be alerted.

 

Incidentally, this thread shows exactly why alert regulations of type 2 do not work. They give a false sense of security. In principle it should be very simple. MickyB asked a question: Is this meaning for this call alertabl?. One would think that an experienced player like MickyB would be able to find the answer in the regulation, but evidently he can't. There have been 191 replies with opinions and views. I may have overlooked something, but I don't remember one single one unambiguously saying: "OB paragraph x.y.z says it is alertable. End of story." or "OB paragraph x.y.z says it is not alertable. End of story."

 

Alert regulations of type 1 handle this much better, as long as the players are made aware that they have full disclosure obligations. The answer to Micky's question is simple: "If you play against Trinidad, you alert. If you play against PeterAlan, you don't alert. If you don't know who you are playing against, you alert to err on the side of caution. You encourage the opponents to ask something that may turn out to be obvious to them. End of story."

 

Rik

Type 2 is the one we have in Norway and as far as I know it works perfectly well here, probably because the regulation itself is very simple, objective and straight forward. Example: After 1NT opening bid response bids of 2♣, 2♦, 2♥ and 2♠ shall be alerted unless they show just length in the named suit, convey no information about other suit(s) and no special information like game forcing.

[barmar]

The problem is that it's difficult to have a reasonable set of alert regulations that are only of type 2. Someone would have to go through every possible bidding sequence and define which meanings are alertable and which aren't. And then the players have to remember all these details.

 

So instead we have hybrids. For some common sequences, the regulations are very specific, often of the form "meaning X is not alertable, Y is announceable, everything else is alertable". But there are also some general guidelines provided to address other sequences, of the form "highly unusual meanings are alertable."

[pran]

The problem is that it's difficult to have a reasonable set of alert regulations that are only of type 2. Someone would have to go through every possible bidding sequence and define which meanings are alertable and which aren't. And then the players have to remember all these details.

 

So instead we have hybrids. For some common sequences, the regulations are very specific, often of the form "meaning X is not alertable, Y is announceable, everything else is alertable". But there are also some general guidelines provided to address other sequences, of the form "highly unusual meanings are alertable."

There aren't many "details" in our alert regulation. We have found it unsatisfactory to base the alert rules on "uncommon/common", the criterion is now strictly "conventional/genuine".

 

Because there will still be borderline situations difficult to define we have a principle that the alert is just a wakeup to opponents that a call may contain information they are not neccessarily aware of and that they might want to ask. So a superfluous alert is itself hardly ever (to my knowledge) considered misinformation.

[helene_t]

I used to be strongly in favor of the "alert if it's artificial, don't alert if it's natural" approach. As I understand, that is the approach followed in Australia, and as Pran describes it, in Norway, too. I have never played in such an environment so I suppose I am not really qualified to have an opinion about it.

 

But I have become skeptical. Experienced players will know what opps are likely to find unexpected, so for them the "alert if it is unexpected" rule works better, I would think. For less experiences players it might be slightly easier to alert artificial bids, but they will still have problems with working out what "natural" means. Lots of players think that "natural" means "the style that I was taught". Teaching club players the meaning of the word "natural" might turn out to be about as difficult as to teach any idiosyncratic alert regulation.

 

Besides, if very unusual albeit natural treatments (such as for example NF shifts when playing Vienna) were not alertable, then you would have to ask a lot of questions just in case some of opps strong-sounding bids turned out to be weak. This would create lots of problems.

 

It is a nuisance when playing abroad, though. Who would know that WJS and NFB are alertable in EBU. Who would know that weak two openings are alertable in DBV. In such situations it would be nice to have more technocratic rules. My Dutch partner, when playing in EBU, basically alerts everyting (OK, not everything, but lots of completely obvious thing, like WJO over a Precision 1♣ opening for example) just in case it is deemed "unexpected" in EBU. It appears to be a slight nuisance some opps. But what else can he do. When a doubt, alert. No?

[aguahombre]

Who would know that WJS and NFB are alertable in EBU.

Wow. Some common ground between EBU and ACBL. However, the definition of WJS seems to vary enough that the word "weak" probably should be replaced by a range when disclosing. "Non-forcing" means what it means, so that one isn't a name issue.

[barmar]

The problem with the "alert anything that's artificial" rule is with auctions like 1NT-2♣. This rule means that you alert this whether you play it as Stayman or some other artificial meaning. Since it's almost always Stayman, opponents will never bother asking. When EBU redesigned their alert rules a few years ago, they took the reasonable approach of making Stayman announceable.

[MickyB]

On the topic of NFBs - they are indeed alertable, but I believe that opening bid-(X)-bid is not alertable whether forcing or not. Given that, IME, 95% of players here play 1S-X-2C as nat F1, I've always thought this odd.

[aguahombre]

People use Stayman and direct take-out doubles to argue that alerting artificial calls as a general policy is impractical.

 

I still hold out hope that alerting will evolve so that with those certain obvious exceptions artificial calls are alertable.

 

That still won't solve the matter of natural bids with unusual strength or which carry information about other strains; so, I hold out no hope we will ever universally agree about what is unexpected and thus alertable.

 

Right now, in the ACBL, the better pairs seem to be better at active disclosure; and those who don't understand what is unexpected are the ones we have to protect ourselves against.