[VixTD]

Swiss Teams:

---

West's overcall was alerted as showing spades clubs (sorry)
Double was for takeout (of spades, presumably, but it was not clear this was a partnership agreement).
East's pass showed spades, but was not alerted.

Result: 3NT(S)-2, lead ♠10, NS -100

South called me at the end of play and said that had she known East's pass promised spades she would not have bid 2NT, but rather bid 3♦.

How would you rule?

[paulg]

For foreign readers I'll post what I think are the relevant sections of the alerting regulations from the Blue Book.

4 B 1 Passes and bids
Unless it is announceable (see 4D, 4E, 4F and 4G), a pass or bid must be alerted if it:
(a) is not natural; or
(b) is natural but has a potentially unexpected meaning.

4 C 1 The following are considered 'natural' for the purposes of alerting and regulation of partnership understandings (see also 3E1):
[...]
c) A pass which does not unexpectedly convey values or specify suit holdings.


Based on these two regulations, the first decision is whether a pass showing spades is natural or not. This decision, using 4C1, seems to hang on whether it is unexpected for a pass to show spades here. Given that West has shown a weak hand with clubs, I would expect that passing a double of two spades suggests playing there, so I'd rule that pass is natural.

Then I have to go to the first regulation (4B1(b)) and decide whether pass has a potentially unexpected meaning. Either this is tautology or refers to a call with multiple meanings where one or more may be unexpected.

In this case I think if the ruling is that the pass is natural, per 4C1, then it can not have any unexpected meaning and it should not be alerted.

So I rule that table result stands.

[gordontd]

There's an error in the original post - the text says 2♠ was alerted as showing spades, the diagram says it was alerted as showing clubs.

[paulg]

If I thought of it, then I would've liked to ask South what they expected the pass of the double to mean as surely most weak hands just bid three clubs?

[ahydra]

Good analysis by Paul, but I think it would help if the L&EC gave us an official alerting rule when it comes to the sequence "... <artificial bid> X P)" - for pretty much any meaning of X, but likely depending on whether the artificial bid shows, may show or does not show the suit bid.

ahydra

[iviehoff]

VixTD, on 2013-October-10, 06:56, said:

West's overcall was alerted as showing spades.
Double was for takeout (of spades, presumably, but it was not clear this was a partnership agreement).

I presume the first incidence of Spades should read Clubs, consistent with the details on the auction diagram.

If the double really was agreed to be for takeout of Spades, which is consistent with N's hand, then such a double should have been alerted - this is not the unalertable meaning of double of a transfer bid.* So we will know a lot more about what is really going on if we know whether the double was alerted. My money is on N/S having a misunderstanding and/or not knowing what they are doing.

*What the Blue Book says is sufficient to know that much. It says:

(d) (doubles of} Suit bids that do not show the suit bid
Alert, unless the double shows the suit bid.

This post has been edited by iviehoff: 2013-October-10, 08:25

[campboy]

I agree with Paul.

[gnasher]

paulg, on 2013-October-10, 07:53, said:

Then I have to go to the first regulation (4B1(b)) and decide whether pass has a potentially unexpected meaning. Either this is tautology or refers to a call with multiple meanings where one or more may be unexpected.

I think "potentially unexpected meaning" simply means "a meaning that some people would not expect", whereas "unexpected meaning" would mean "a meaning that this pair of opponents did not expect".

[paulg]

gnasher, on 2013-October-10, 08:44, said:

I think "potentially unexpected meaning" simply means "a meaning that some people would not expect", whereas "unexpected meaning" would mean "a meaning that this pair of opponents did not expect".

It would be ludicrous an unfortunate consequence of the regulations if a director ruled that pass was natural and expected to show spades by the opponents at the table, but then said it should be alerted because of opponents who are sitting at other tables

[iviehoff]

paulg, on 2013-October-10, 09:16, said:

It would be ludicrous an unfortunate consequence of the regulations if a director ruled that pass was natural and expected to show spades by the opponents at the table, but then said it should be alerted because of opponents who are sitting at other tables

But it would only matter if there were a pair who decided to make a MI complaint about a call they had understood perfectly well in the absence of an alert, because they thought they had a chance of getting it ruled that it should have been alerted, and thus they could get their own mistake attributed to MI rather than a mistake. Hang on, that's just what we are suggesting NS is doing here...

[barmar]

Since almost anything could be unexpected by really inexperienced pairs, or players coming from places where other systems are common, a literal interpretation of "potentially unexpected" would require alerting almost everything. But obviously no one enforces that interpretation.

It seems like they must have intended something more like "likely unexpected" or "potentially unexpected by a significant number of players".

ACBL is as bad. They say "Natural bids that convey an unexpected meaning must be Alerted". Unexpected by whom? "I didn't alert, because I expected him to hold that kind of hand." They try to clarify with examples like "weak bids that sound strong". Bids don't have any inherent meaning, they mean whatever we agree they mean; it's like saying "nouns that sound like verbs".

[VixTD]

I thought at the time that the pass required an alert, and so did the first other TD I consulted. I wasn't entirely sure, and I'm even less sure now. Anyway, I thought that if South bid 3♦, North is likely to continue with 3♠ and after that there is little chance for NS to improve their score. They might play in 4♦ and go one off, but that's far from certain and wouldn't have changed the result of the match so I ruled there was no damage and left the score to stand.

If the consensus is that these passes are not alertable then I did the right thing for the wrong reasons.

[mycroft]

"Verbing weirds language." - Calvin (to Hobbes)