New ACBL Alert Procedure

[blackshoe]

…the ACBL Rulings people explicitly forbade Pre-Alerting something that we don't play because my partner cannot understand it and thus cannot recognise it and required my partner to Alert when the possibility occurred during the auction.

If they did that, which I doubt, they exceeded their authority. The "ACBL Rulings people" don't make the rules and they are not when answering queries to that email address directing in a game in which you are playing.

[blackshoe]

If you alert opener's second bid, I ask, and you explain it as "not a reverse" when it clearly is a reverse, I will say "I do not understand, please explain further". If I find your further explanation inadequate, I will call the director. If it turns out to be alertable and you do not alert, and I find out later that your first suit is not longer than your second suit or that you do not have extra strength when bridge logic requires it, and I believe we may have been damaged, I will call the director. If it's not alertable, well, I think everyone should be asking what the bid means when it is made.

[Chas_P]

https://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/18177-a-primer-on-reverse-bidding/

[AL78]

Surely from a logical perspective you alert any bid where the partnership understanding will deviate from what most, if not all, will assume it to be. Thus 1♦ - 1♠ - 2♥ where 2♥ doesn't show extra strength should be alerted, because it is the standard meaning that it should show extra values. Similarly I alert 1♠ - 3♠ if it is a pre-emptive, rather than a constructive raise, because the former is not standard in the UK and the opponents are entitled to know our agreements.

[pescetom]

25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know, Seagram & Smith, Master Point Press, 1999, Chapter 5, p. 50, disagrees with you. As does Wikipedia. I'm sure I could find more citations without significant effort.

You are to my surprise right that Wikipedia disagrees. The introduction of the page says :blink: :

A reverse, in the card game contract bridge, is a bidding sequence designed to show additional strength without the need to make a jump bid; specifically two suits are bid in the reverse order to that expected by the basic bidding system. Precise methods and definitions vary with country, bidding system and partnership agreements.

 

And yet the definitions that it lists immediately below give no support to that wild and illogical assertion:

Standard American

In Standard American a reverse is defined by William S. Root[1] as "... a nonjump bid at the two-level in a new suit that ranks higher than the suit you bid first", and by Bridge World.[2] as "a non-jump bid in a new suit that bypasses a bid in a lower-ranking suit already bid by the same player".

 

Acol

The Acol definition is somewhat wider and includes any bid of a new suit by opener higher than two of their first suit.[3]

 

Somebody should edit the introduction to reflect the definitions and explain why it is implicitly associated with strength in a natural system.

[Douglas43]

Just for interest, this is what the EBU does. However, procedures are slightly different even between the countries in the UK. I suppose one day all the governing bodies will agree a uniform set of procedures for alerts and announcements.

 

Bid (ebu.co.uk)

[blackshoe]

I wouldn’t hold my breath for that, Douglas. :-)