[bluejak]

A correspondent has sent me this from the Icelandic Bridge Festival.

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The lead was ♠6. 2NT was not alerted, thus inviting to 3NT if W had a filler in ♣ + side quick trick. The 2NT bid made me wonder if I was pushing them to an unbeatable game but soon I had other things on my mind, declaring 3♥ doubled.

To cut a long story short there was little doubt in my mind that ♥K was offside. To prevent a ♣ ruff if W held more than 1 ♥ I rose with the Ace and played a ♥, 8 tricks. If I finesse I get 6♥, 2♠ and 1♣ tricks for 9 tricks. I did call the Director, claiming that I had gone down as a result of misinformation. E admitted he had meant 2NT as takeout.

West said they had no agreement about 2NT in that situation and appeared as if the complaint was the most stupid thing he had ever ran into. TD ruled that he did not see that there had been any misinformation so there was no case. I have some difficulty swallowing that.

In a further piece of correspondence this was added:

About 2NT in this sequence then you have a convenient double available, showing ♣ + ♦ + tolerance for ♠ or no tolerance but longer minors. Thus 2NT might be a 3♣ bid with ♥ stopper + something extra. I took it as such a hand as West showed "no signs" that the 2NT was unusual. I could have asked but I´m not used to asking about nonalerted bids in a natural bidding sequence.

[HighLow21]

East has some camels out back to sell you. West can show you the way to his tent.

[ArtK78]

It is irrational to assume that 2NT was natural and invitational after the EW bidding subsided in 2♣. I would expect East to have about what he had - 6-4 in the minors.

[CSGibson]

This appears to be general bridge knowledge.

[dburn]

If so, mine is clearly lacking - I don't at all mind the notion that an unalerted 2NT should be something like ♠xx ♥Kx ♦Ax ♣AQxxxxx. Or should I have opened a strong no trump with that?

[CSGibson]

dburn, on 2012-February-03, 17:23, said:

If so, mine is clearly lacking - I don't at all mind the notion that an unalerted 2NT should be something like ♠xx ♥Kx ♦Ax ♣AQxxxxx. Or should I have opened a strong no trump with that?

I'd probably make a 3♣ call with that initially instead of 2♣, but I have no strong objection to 2♣. Having said that, it's very common for 2N to be used as an unbalanced take-out in competitive auctions, and I have never heard it alerted; it's always been explained to me as general bridge knowledge. I have also taken to not alerting it when I think my partner is using 2N as take-out oriented because I believe it is covered under general bridge knowledge,though I will let opponents know before the opening lead the inferences available from the auction (which I believe to be correct procedure).

If I sat down with another random high level player, I'd use the bid in the same way as this east-west pair hoping partner was on the same page, but I would not be surprised if they weren't. Maybe that means this isn't general bridge knowledge. I have no idea what the threshold is.

Anyway, I will be interested in seeing the answers to this. It may be that I have been unintentionally committing an infraction by not alerting these 2N bids.

[bluejak]

My understanding is that in the ACBL you are required to alert artificial calls with some common exceptions. Thus I would expect 2NT to be alerted in the ACBL, general bridge knowledge or not. I would certainly alert it.

[c_corgi]

West's double suggests he was expecting a more NT suitable hand from his partner. Having placed East with a "natural" 2NT, South might consider what is left for West to hold: it is an odd-looking double.

[lamford]

I don't know about the alerting regulations in Iceland, but I would have expected 2NT to be secondary diamonds using general bridge knowledge. Showing seven clubs and a heart stop seems an unusual treatment. But I would also alert it.

[blackshoe]

bluejak, on 2012-February-03, 18:09, said:

My understanding is that in the ACBL you are required to alert artificial calls with some common exceptions. Thus I would expect 2NT to be alerted in the ACBL, general bridge knowledge or not. I would certainly alert it.

David is right: in the ACBL conventional jumps to 2NT do not require an alert. This 2NT was not a jump, and is conventional, so it requires an alert. I have no idea if it requires an alert in Iceland.

[Vampyr]

lamford, on 2012-February-03, 19:29, said:

I don't know about the alerting regulations in Iceland,

blackshoe, on 2012-February-03, 20:59, said:

I have no idea if it requires an alert in Iceland.

This information would be handy.

[blackshoe]

ACBL regulations are relevant to the ACBL player who wondered, in this thread, if he was violating the ACBL alert regulation by not alerting this kind of 2NT bid. We have informed that he has been violating the regulation. I don't see why that should be a problem.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-03, 20:59, said:

David is right: in the ACBL conventional jumps to 2NT do not require an alert. This 2NT was not a jump, and is conventional, so it requires an alert. I have no idea if it requires an alert in Iceland.

If someone makes a 2NT bid in a situation where it's practically impossible for it to be natural, I wouldn't expect it to be natural, and wouldn't expect an alert. How can he have a hand that's worth a 2NT bid after the opponent has bid, but wasn't worth it on the previous round?

It's like a 1NT overcall by a player who passed initially: it can't be natural, so it's effectively self-alerting. Even if the alert regulations require it, I don't see how the failure to alert could damage anyone beyond a novice.

[vigfus]

When this case came to us, - the two TD's at the tournament, we saw of course the misunderstanding between E/W. Clearly West took the 2NT bid as natural, and doubled the final contract based on heart values in East's hand. (and of course club ruff values). This is of course one of those cases where partnership does not get bad score based on their own misunderstanding. Where partnership gets bad score because of their own misunderstanding, the TD almost never hears of it.
We decided to let table score stand. Let's continue to play bridge.

[joostb1]

The basic question is "What agreements, if any, have EW about 2NT?" Up till now I have not seen any proof of an explicit or implicit understanding. which means that there is no misinformation and therefore also no infraction. What E meant, is totally irrelevant for the case and it's a waste of time to speculate about it. I completely agree with the TD, table result stands.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-February-04, 03:04, said:

If someone makes a 2NT bid in a situation where it's practically impossible for it to be natural, I wouldn't expect it to be natural, and wouldn't expect an alert. How can he have a hand that's worth a 2NT bid after the opponent has bid, but wasn't worth it on the previous round?

It's like a 1NT overcall by a player who passed initially: it can't be natural, so it's effectively self-alerting. Even if the alert regulations require it, I don't see how the failure to alert could damage anyone beyond a novice.

I looked for "self-alerting" in the regulation. I didn't find it.

[lamford]

bluejak, on 2012-February-03, 14:21, said:

I could have asked but I´m not used to asking about nonalerted bids in a natural bidding sequence.

I don't know about the experience of bluejak's correspondent, or whether similar guidelines apply in Iceland, but the OB 3A3 states:

It is expected that experienced players will protect themselves in obvious misinformation cases. If such players receive an explanation which is implausible, and they are able to protect themselves by seeking further clarification without putting their side’s interests at risk (eg by transmitting unauthorised information or waking the opposition up), failure to do so may prejudice the redress to which they would otherwise be entitled.

5B5 contradicts this:
If there is no alert and no announcement, opponents can assume that there is no agreement that the call falls within an alertable or announceable category.

I imagine that inserting "Except as covered by OB3A3" at the beginning of this clause would be more accurate.

And 5B9 states:
"General bridge inferences, like those a new partner could make when there had been no discussion beforehand, are not alertable <snip>"

In my opinion I would expect an experienced player to protect themselves here, and I think it also falls under the "general bridge inferences" of 5B9.

Now, the regulations in Iceland might be completely different ...

[phil_20686]

I was under the impression that you should not alert calls about which you have no agreement.

If I was playing with an expert partner I would expect this to be clubs + diamonds with no spade tolerance. I think that is what this hand has.

I expect west to alert this if he thought this was what his partner was showing, even if they had no agreement.

It seems like west did not think this was the case, or he would not have doubled 3h. I do not think there should be an adjjustment when west guesses wrong about the meaning of a bid for which there was no agreement. If west had treated this as diamonds + clubs I would expect a ruling as a failure to alert.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2012-February-04, 09:16, said:

I looked for "self-alerting" in the regulation. I didn't find it.

The word may not be in there, but the idea exists. The reason most cue bids aren't alerted in ACBL is because the natural meaning is so unlikely that everyone can simply assume they're conventional, and this is informally referred to as "self-alerting"; we alert them when they ARE natural, since that's the weird case opponents need to be warned about.

Similarly, if a player who has already denied the strength to bid 2NT does so, without his partner having shown any additional strength, it should be obvious that it can't be natural (very few pairs have agreements to cover the case of finding a King that they didn't notice earlier). So even if an alert is technically required, it's just telling you something you should already be able to infer, so there shouldn't be any damage from a failure to alert.

You could give the pair that failed to alert a PP to remind them to be more careful in the future, but the NOS shouldn't get an adjustment in their favor.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-February-05, 00:52, said:

So even if an alert is technically required, it's just telling you something you should already be able to infer, so there shouldn't be any damage from a failure to alert.

You could give the pair that failed to alert a PP to remind them to be more careful in the future, but the NOS shouldn't get an adjustment in their favor.

Failure to alert when required is MI, even if in the case at hand someone thinks the requirement is silly. The TD must determine, in each case according to its own merits, whether the NOS were damaged (as defined in Law 12). Only then can the TD judge whether an adjustment is appropriate. As for a PP, you know I'm more in favor of giving PPs than most, but in this case if you give a PP but no adjustment you will appear to give the players conflicting messages. "It's an infraction, so a PP, but it shouldn't be an infraction, so no adjustment" just doesn't work.