[campboy]

 FrancesHinden, on 2015-March-26, 04:16, said:

The EBU does not now and never has discouraged 'always asking in certain spots'
There are certain auctions in which I always ask (notably 1NT (alerted action) ?)

They don't like blanket 'always asking' because in practice, everyone who says they do it, doesn't.

The problem is that the relevant paragraph in the Blue Book just says "I always ask whether I intend to bid or not" is not recommended.

It is not immediately clear that this means "I always ask [about any alerted call] whether I intend to bid or not" rather than "I always ask [in this auction] whether I intend to bid or not". I would imagine a lot of players think it applies to both.

[barmar]

 gnasher, on 2015-March-26, 02:18, said:

Yes, that's why we need a rule to cover SEWoGs. But the term "double shot" seems to be used to cover a much larger range of actions. I agree with Cascade that there's no reason to disapprove of double shots in general.

Determining whether something is a SEWoG is a judgement call. So the player is taking a mild gamble that his action won't be viewed as such, in which case he's protected.