David Stevenson
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Whatever you may think of the bidding, no one did anything wrong legally. When someone bids a suit (below 3NT anyway) and there is no alert then it is natural and shows that suit. Certainly, when players bid 2H over 1H like that 99% (at least) of the time it is artificial. But then it gets alerted. If East meant it as natural he is right not to alert and it seems both East and West took it as natural.
If you have any doubts about the meaning of a bid on BBO you click on it which asks the bidder to explain.
One thing that I have stressed again and again over they years in Mr Bridge’s magazine, and expect to stress here again and again is that different people do things differently and you cannot expect them to do the same as you. You only have rights otherwise if they do something illegal, like not alerting or explaining when they should, or using an illegal convention.When you are told that 3C over 2NT or 2C over 1NT is Stayman that does not mean it is promissory. The term Stayman refers to either promissory or non-promissory. In fact players generally learn it as promissory but experience makes them realise non promissory is more useful. When invented it was non-promissory.
Nevertheless the 3C bid looks a bit strange and I would have mentioned it to the director in case it was not Stayman at all. I could imagine it was 5 card or Puppet Stayman with the three hearts but they are alertable and should not be described as Stayman.
As for BCL my understanding is that live alerting rules apply, which means if it was Stayman whether promissory or not it is announced as Stayman, but if it is something else it should be alerted.While what Julian writes is very sensible unfortunately opponents do not always cooperate. My experience of 1S responses to a short club is that some play it as diamonds, some players as clubs but the majority play it as the denying a major so it could have clubs or diamonds or just be balanced. What do you recommend, Julian, over
1S showing clubs?
1S showing no major?
The document you were looking at is a complete system that may played at Level 2, not a description of what may be played. The rules are quite a bit more free than might be expected, especially after the opening bid.
I am not sure what document you have looked out but the important one is the EBU Blue book which says at the end of 6C3:
‘All the standard responses are permitted, but (apart from negative responses to a Strong 1C opening, or a catch-all 1NT response) artificial weak bids in response to a one-level suit opening are not.’
I believe that really allows any response that is constructive which clearly includes the Jacoby 2NT showing four card support and a game force. Note that some people play a 2NT response as four card support and a raise to 3 or better. This is a sensible alternative convention, allowing a direct raise to 3 to be somewhat pre-emptive, but should not be called Jacoby.Assuming by control you mean length and/or strength in clubs, no alert is required. Doubles of artificial bids are for penalty indicating length and/or strength in the suit bid. The reason I ask is that control usually means something else but I feel confident this is what you mean.
Just as people who play in clubs sometimes fall into the trap of assuming that people who play in a different club or in an event will play the same way, people are playing online in various different platforms. When you play in BBO it is very easy: you alert before making the call and write an explanation in the explain box. If you need to add to or correct that explanation, possibly because of a question from an opponent, you just tap on the bid and an explain box appears again and you can correct or add to the explanation. The great advantage of this method is that your partner will neither see your alerts nor your explanations. StepBridge is similar.On RealBridge there are different methods of alerting. The most common in clubs is Partner alerting because it makes the game feel like live bridge. In that case you just alert your partner’s calls and explain if asked and the Partner can see your alerts and hear your explanations as in live bridge. You should just not worry about this which is the same as live bridge and it is up to Partner to make sure she does not use any information from your alerts or explanations. While I have not played or directed on BCL I understand that BCL is the same as this.
Some RealBridge sessions use self alerting which I think is better and now it is just like BBO since you alert yourself and type an explanation in the box. It can get a little complicated if questions are asked live but they have introduced a private chat facility so it is possible to avoid partner seeing your chats. Unfortunately so far you can only chat to one opponent at a time so you may have to repeat yourself. Some sessions use screens where you can only see or hear one opponent except between hands. This has the same effect as self alerting and self explaining in the explain box but you can also talk to one opponent without Partner hearing and some questions are dealt with this way.
You never alert anything during the play. Most players play some sort of discarding system but there are a lot of them. I can think of attitude, which is usually the first one taught to beginners or novices, reverse attitude, count, reverse count, Lavinthal aka McKenney, revolving, Roman aka Italian, Dodds, Blue Club and “we throw what we don’t want”. Names are often misleading. Even some of those are not played the same way by all people. In general if you want to know, ask, and do not accept any incomplete explanation especially when a name is given: ask again if necessary.
I have never heard of Dunsby discards and my guess is either they have the name wrong, or you do, or it is something made up by a small group. I have a very wide knowledge of conventions.Yes, they are both artificial and all artificial calls are alerted (apart from those which are announced, like Stayman). For the redouble I would say “Forces 2C, shows a 5 card suit” and for 2C I would say “Forced”.
The simple answer, of course, is for South to wait until it is his first turn to play and ask questions them. The only real disadvantage of this is that South loses thinking time since he could have been thinking when dummy appears. The idea of North changing his opening lead is irrelevant. North can only do so if the reply to one of South’s questions demonstrates that there has been misinformation and the director can always deal with that later by an adjustment.
However much we want to follow the laws there is no doubt that online we have to make some changes. Partner alerting on RealBridge has the advantage that it seems much more as though it is like live bridge but there will be disadvantages as well. It seems to me that the principle of leading face down for Partner to ask questions is one feature that is just not available on RealBridge.
It is acceptable to ask further questions to elicit more information. You can always chat to opponents and Partner will not see it. However in practice if your opponents are going to ask questions to the table at large I really think it is at their own risk if you answer to the table at large.
But I am highly dubious about this ruling by the director. A lot of people play a bid of the opponent’s suit as asking for more information and not just asking for cover for no trumps. If that is the way you play it then the director was wrong.
In principle I tend to answer the question asked. While there are often the matters I can cover it is not always helpful since people can always ask more questions.
A tournament can legally ban psyches of artificial calls, but it is illegal to ban psyches of natural calls. So a tournament that does this is not running a proper bridge tournament. It is, however, considered acceptable to run tournaments for beginners, novices or for teaching purposes which ban psyches.
A psyche is a gross and intentional deviation from the pair’s agreed system. If a pair has agreed to play weak twos as 3-8 points then it is a normal opening not a psyche. If a pair has agreed to play 5-9 points then it is a small deviation and not a psyche.
It is an unfortunate historical idea that weak twos have a range while weak threes do not. The reason why weak twos have a range is because they were almost unheard of when I was first playing and when they were proved to be legal it was decided “following North American advice” to make limits to their range. Since there were limits to what range could be played it followed logically that you had to have a range. That idea has been dispensed with over 25 years ago and there is really no reason now for a weak two to have a particular range. It may be helpful to Partner and the opponents to have some idea of what constitutes a weak two so it does not hurt to have a range so long as it is understood that it is perfectly legal and normal to stray out of that range.To give you some idea of what is normal I would certainly open 2H with
xx
KJTxxx
xx
xxx
but would not even think of opening 2H with
QJx
9xxxxx
Kx
Kx
You were lucky that East told you he had pressed the wrong button. You have no right to that information. The only information you have a right to is the meaning of 2C in their system which would probably have been unhelpful.
All I would do as a director would be to explain the rules both to you and to your opponent but since he has given you free information you will not get an adjustment whatever happens.
Two points. Whether you know your system or not is not a matter of fairness but of good bridge. But your opponents have an absolute right to know your system correctly and misinformation may lead to an adjustment.
The other point is that a lot of people assume incorrectly that there are only two sorts of doubles, penalties or takeout. In some sequences doubles just suggest general strength and are optional, these days often referred to as cards or value showing, with no suggestion that partner leaves it in or takes it out, leaving Partner free to do the right thing (or the wrong thing!). An example of this can be seen in the thread Action Doubles in the Ask Julian forum. Julian gives the sequence (1H) X (4H) X which I would call an optional double. You may play doubles as completely artificial, such as a double that says do not lead this suit. That is why I refer to “takeout or alertable” since all doubles of a suit other than takeout below 3NT are alertable, including penalties, optional, artificial and so forth.
