[bluejak]

gordontd, on 2012-January-01, 20:30, said:

I agree with your first sentence, but I would expect very few pairs still to play that and would regard it as quite unusual. I remember someone who played that way by agreement - it was about 15 years ago. Of course there may well be others who play it like that but have not had the hand to pass it when it's come up against me, or who don't really know how they play it, but I would certainly still regard it as unusual in most fields in England.

The problem is, Gordon, that you are in London. I think if you were to play in clubs away from London you would find many pairs who do not play it as forcing [including several who have no idea that any non-jump is ever forcing].

[Vampyr]

bluejak, on 2012-January-02, 20:00, said:

The problem is, Gordon, that you are in London. I think if you were to play in clubs away from London you would find many pairs who do not play it as forcing [including several who have no idea that any non-jump is ever forcing].

Sometimes it seems like the EBU govern two very disparate bridge cultures.

[mamos]

Experienced and knowledgeable tournament players generally know when methods they use are unusual. Blakjak tells us that there are many poor players who don't understand basic bidding theory, who reverse accidentally and have little idea whether their methods (or lack of them) is unusual or not. I think we should not concern ourselves with the latter group here. I play in the same geographical area as Blakjak and in some of the same games. Much of the bridge is weird and wonderful and I would attach no great significance to any alert or lack of it in these kinds of game. It would certainly not occur to me to claim damage in such an auction.

Cyberyeti tells us that he has methods which allow his partnership to force in a situation where I would bid say 1♣ Pass 1♠ Pass 2♥ and expect partner to keep bidding. Cyberyeti knows his methods are unusual and I would expect him to alert. It's not very obvious how damage might occur in such a sequence so I'd need a lot of convincing before I'd even think about adjusting, but if I played 2♥ here as NF, I'd want to tell my opponents and if my opponents played this I'd like them to tell me because frankly it would not occur to me that this was NF

[aguahombre]

Blakjack is really one person with a split personality.

[Cyberyeti]

mamos, on 2012-January-03, 10:56, said:

Experienced and knowledgeable tournament players generally know when methods they use are unusual. Blakjak tells us that there are many poor players who don't understand basic bidding theory, who reverse accidentally and have little idea whether their methods (or lack of them) is unusual or not. I think we should not concern ourselves with the latter group here. I play in the same geographical area as Blakjak and in some of the same games. Much of the bridge is weird and wonderful and I would attach no great significance to any alert or lack of it in these kinds of game. It would certainly not occur to me to claim damage in such an auction.

Cyberyeti tells us that he has methods which allow his partnership to force in a situation where I would bid say 1♣ Pass 1♠ Pass 2♥ and expect partner to keep bidding. Cyberyeti knows his methods are unusual and I would expect him to alert. It's not very obvious how damage might occur in such a sequence so I'd need a lot of convincing before I'd even think about adjusting, but if I played 2♥ here as NF, I'd want to tell my opponents and if my opponents played this I'd like them to tell me because frankly it would not occur to me that this was NF

My 1♦-1♠-2♥ still shows a very good hand, just the absolute monsters are filtered out, so this means my 2♥ is pretty much the same as it would be for somebody playing an acol 2♦ so what my hand is should be covered by general bridge knowledge in the UK. 2♥ is "forcing" but if partner has improved the contract by bidding 1♠ with QJ10xx, xxx, void, xxxxx then he's entitled to pass if he chooses, it's probably a better spot than 1♦. As such we don't alert this, but do alert the 2N GF unbalanced rebid.

[barmar]

Someone started a thread today in rec.games.bridge, asking if reverses are 100% forcing.

[jh51]

mrdct, on 2011-December-29, 03:16, said:

In reality, when incompetent opponents pass a forcing bid the hugely percentage play is to pass quitely and hope that they have missed a cold game.

I had a partner (who I shall not identify to avoid embarrasment to same) who I was playing with at a time when said partner had playing for about a year. In the same tournament I twice found my forcing bids had been passed by partner. On one occassion I had reversed into a 2 card suit (just to create a forcing auction - I thought that slam was possible) and played in a 3-2 fit. I made the contract but it was worth very few match points. We had in fact missed a slam.

On the other occasion, partner had bid a weak 2 and I (an unpassed hand) bid a new suit. This time your advice did not work out so well for our opponents. 2 of my suit made, but not 3, and 2 of my partner's suit would have been down at least 2 tricks. If partner had known that my bid was forcing we might still have had a decent result going down 1n my suit, but this was better. The director was called, but I pointed out that the convention card indicated that this was forcing (actually I think it fails to indicate that a new suit is not forcing). I was as suprised as my opponents that parter had passed.

[phil_20686]

mrdct, on 2011-December-28, 14:40, said:

In the ACBL: "Natural bids that convey an unexpected meaning must be Alerted. This includes strong bids that sound weak, weak bids that sound strong, and all other bids that, by agreement, convey meanings different from, or in addition to, the expected meaning ascribed to them".

I'm not sure how a bid is meant to sound? Does this mean a weak bid is alertable only if partner slaps it meaningfully upon the table in the way that LOLs do to make sure their partner knows its forcing?

[blackshoe]

No. It means that if a pair have an unusual agreement, such that "a weak bid sounds strong" or the like, it's alertable. An example would be a jump shift by responder in an uncontested auction. If it's a WJS, it requires an alert.

[Jeremy69A]

Quote

I understand that the director can have his own standards on what is alerted, but shouldn't they be posted somewhere?

I don't think he can. In England the club can opt out of following the Orange Book regulations but very few do. If they did decide to to so so then it is for the club committee or owner to decide what is being done. It would be normal behaviour to publish it if you decided on something different to the mainstream. Not all club owners are normal!

[blackshoe]

This didn't occur in England or Wales, it occurred in North America.

[barmar]

In ACBL, clubs have quite a bit of latitude. However, while there are many clubs that are either more restrictive or liberal with regard to allowed conventions, I expect it's quite rare for them to have their own alerting regulations.

And I agree that if they do have such local regulation, they'd need to post it.