another alert question - stolen bid double

[Stephen Tu]

SIRS,what does '"Not Alertable "mean EXACTLY ? Does it leave the option of alerting open or does it mean "MUST NOT be alerted".If the option exists then I feel that , in all fairness ,both the 2NT (some play it as feature asking and some play it as OGUST and which one is practised by you ?) and 2NTx be alerted as 2NTx can have multiple meanings. Thanks.

 

So the ACBL has taken the stance that it wants to make certain conventions that are very common, almost universally used, not alertable (and non-announcements, also). And only alert usages that are "highly unusual or unexpected", meanings or strength ranges of bids. Their idea is to avoid situations where these super-common conventions are alerted all the damn time, and people stop asking about them because they expect the same answer (which they would get 99.x% of the time), then get surprised when out of the blue the opponents use some weird *other* convention "well, we alerted, but you never asked ...". At one time (~90s) they tried to do this with the "special alert" concept, but this has been replaced with the announcement procedure (for major suit transfers over natural NT calls, forcing/semi-forcing 1nt response to 1M, short 2- card + non-forcing 1c/1d openers, 1nt opening ranges), and making certain common conventions not alertable.

The following list (not necessarily comprehensive) are off top of my head currently not alerts (some were alertable in the past) in the ACBL:

• strong artificial 2c opener
• 2D response to strong artificial 2c opener, no matter what it means
• 2nt forcing inquiry to weak two (no matter what answer set it asks for, Ogust/feature/other, as whatever it is, the set of hands that bids 2nt is basically identical. It's the *answer* to the 2nt that is alertable, that's when you find out it's Ogust, when they alert 3c etc.) One alerts the actual 2nt bid if it's *non-forcing*, as that would be unusual and unexpected.
• Stayman as the lowest club bid over a NT opening, or natural NT rebid after a strong 2c opening, whether regular or puppet / puppet variation. I suppose something really weird like Gladiator/Baron would be an alert. The *response* to puppet is alertable, not the stayman bid itself.
• Blackwood/RKC/Gerber/other ace asks > 3nt (alert after auction is over)
• direct cue bids of opponent's suit not to play (whether Michaels/Top+Bottom/Astro/whatever, make a habit to ask)
• unusual 2nt
• Most common doubles, but support doubles/redoubles are still alertable. Alert if playing very unusual meanings of doubles, e.g. penalty doubles in situations where nearly all of the field is playing takeout, like 1c-(2s)-dbl for penalty, (3s)-x for penalty.

In most cases it doesn't really hurt to over-alert if in doubt (except perhaps in the case of 2nt-3c puppet stayman, which I totally agree on removing the alert, since it functions as "wake up partner, I'm answering puppet stayman instead of regular stayman"), but if you know which ones are non-alertable, over-alerting can slow down the game by forcing the opp to ask unnecessary questions.

 

In most situations, I simply follow golden rule, in essence; "alert, if in my opponent's position, I would want to be alerted to something unusual going on". If after a non-alert, I don't think the opponent would make any wrong assumptions, I don't alert anything on the above list, as those are all quite common in my view also, and would slow things down unnecessarily.

[barmar]

Techincally, alerting a non-alertable bid is misinformation (see Law 20F5a). But it's practically never penalized.

[steve2005]

I have been told both ways. Just wanted to confirm that you are making a statement rather than asking a question. Is it correct to alert 2NT when using OGUST?

i hate over alerts it takes away from real alerts. ACBL 2N Ogust is not alertable (though responses are)

from alert procedures:

"In ACBL-sponsored events, however, there are some common conventions that do not require an Alert during the auction. These include, but are not limited to:

...

7. Conventional 2NT response to a natural opening two-level suit bid (See Part 5)

 

..

2♦,♥,♠-P-2NT: Not Alertable if it asks for further clarification of a natural weak or intermediate two-bid or if it's a negative or waiting response to a natural, strong two bid. Natural, non-forcing 2NT responses to opening two-bids must be Alerted. "

[beowulf]

It's always good to tell us under what regulating authority you were playing. It stops us from having to guess. If you were playing on BBO and it was an ACBL Speedball, for example, you were playing under ACBL rules, even if you live in Timbuktu.

 

Having said that, under ACBL rules, no doubles are alertable unless their meaning is highly unusual. In this case, their "agreement" would indeed be highly unusual and so it should have been alerted.

[cleveritis]

AFter weak 2 pass pass, 2N is natural - 100% what do you do otherwise with Kxx, Aqx, Kjxx, kxx? If you double partner bids 2s on Jxxx, jxx, Qtxx,Ax - 2N has a little play 2S not much.

[blackshoe]

Why is everyone assuming that the OP is in North America?

Because "everyone" is in North America, and North Americans are extremely parochial. B-)

[KingCovert]

I had a singleton in partners suit with stoppers in other suits. A strong 6 card heart suit of my own -

 

Problem was - with the distribution the way it was, and with rho being able to lead through my quasi 2nd stopper in diamonds, as soon as one finesse did not work, I was down because of the long suits in lho hand.

 

If it had occurred to me that rho was 2 suited, I would have just said 3 spades when the bid came back to me.

 

In retrospect, I should have just passed - but playing 3 of partner's suit would not have been as bad. And, our best place to play was 4 hearts. Partner had support for my hearts and we now have better transportation.

 

I had an opening hand of my own.

 

Not that it's really all that relevant to the actual question, but, surely you would choose to play hearts if the double had been alerted and explained? Really can't do much worse than the 6-1 fit you'd play in, but you can do a LOT better.