[dburn]

In English, the proposition "X is alertable or it is not" is not strictly incompossible with the proposition "X is alertable and it is not". The Law of the Excluded Middle has yet to find its way into either the Laws of Duplicate Bridge or the Orange Book.

Of course, this position is absurd, but so are our alerting regulations.

[campboy]

VixTD, on Apr 1 2010, 02:07 PM, said:

What I cannot do is say "It either is alertable, or it isn't, but nobody knows which." This is just guaranteed to wind up the poor punters, who want a practical answer to a practical question, not a philosophical conundrum.

And is also false, since alertability is not a property that exists independently of people knowing about it (where, for the sake of pedantry, I include "being able to look it up" as "knowing"). If we get a definitive answer then it will become one or the other, but at the moment the cat is neither alive nor dead. The parrot, on the other hand...

[bluejak]

VixTD, on Apr 1 2010, 02:07 PM, said:

Those who have offered opinions so far, including some EBU directors, referees and experienced players, don't seem able to agree on this. You don't seem able or willing to come down on one side or the other. So how can you maintain that this bid either does or does not require an alert?

Whether one specific person gives an opinion or not on IBLF does not mean that a call is not one or the other: that is absurd.

[blackshoe]

When the regulations, or for that matter the laws themselves, are unclear, and the authorities (NBO, ZA, WBF) have not given an interpretation, it is up to the TD to decide. Law 81C2. Some people object to this, saying it would be better if the laws and regulations were clear. Okay, they're right — but so what? Whatever we might want the rules to be, sometimes they aren't clear.

It seems to me the TD's proper answer to the question "is it alertable?" in such a case is "the regulation is unclear, which leaves it to the TD to decide. For this event, I'm going to decide it is (or isn't, take your pick)". The downside, of course, is that the TD at the next event may go the other way. So the players will have to ask before every event. Perhaps eventually enough complaints about that will reach the ears of the aforementioned authorities that they will do something about it.

[iviehoff]

bluejak, on Apr 1 2010, 12:33 PM, said:

iviehoff, on Mar 31 2010, 03:41 PM, said:

I'm guessing the third possibility is "the regulations leave it unclear whether it is alertable or not".

It is still alertable, or it is not. Whether the regulations are clear or not does not affect that.

Many things in life are not binary. Sometimes there is more than two categories (eg, yes, no and maybe) and sometimes there are unclear dividing lines between categories. Here you can either say that there are two categories with an unclear dividing line, or else you can say that there are three categories: the (definitely) alertable, the (definitely) non-alertable, and the unclear. It amounts to the same thing.

The aim of the alerting regulations might have had the objective of making a perfect binary split between the alertable and the non-alertable. But the reality is that the dividing line is fuzzy. The regulations are written in a way that requires the exercise of judgment, for example as to whether something is "unexpected" or not. So in fact there is not a perfect binary split.

[VixTD]

bluejak, on Apr 1 2010, 09:52 AM, said:

VixTD, on Apr 1 2010, 02:07 PM, said:

Those who have offered opinions so far, including some EBU directors, referees and experienced players, don't seem able to agree on this. You don't seem able or willing to come down on one side or the other. So how can you maintain that this bid either does or does not require an alert?

Whether one specific person gives an opinion or not on IBLF does not mean that a call is not one or the other: that is absurd.

Well, no, but no one has suggested such a thing. You're misrepresenting the argument yet again.

You are saying that either (i) the call is alertable, or (ii) the call is not alertable. You allow for no other possibility.

I am (I think) agreeing with Campboy that it is absurd (from the practical point of view of the player, at least) to declare a call as either alertable or not alertable if its alertability cannot be ascertained.

I'm saying that if a cadre of directors, referees, Laws and Ethics Committee members and other worthies who are best placed to interpret the regulations cannot decide whether (i) or (ii) applies in this case, then it is pointless to argue that either (i) or (ii) applies, as it can never be known.

If you know yourself which it is, could you please tell us. If you're not sure, but have an opinion as to which is more likely, could you at least tell us that. I have, after all, had some straight (if not always certain) answers from some people.

How do you otherwise propose to resolve this? Build a big replica of Deep Thought and set it working on the problem for a hundred years?

[aguahombre]

Give Bluejack a break. His "truism" was part of a response to a scenario where the opponents of the person who alerted took him to task for doing so, with a specious objection.

This doesn't mean I like the alert. It creates unnecessary confusion. But, sheesh.

(Edit) By the way: the very term "alertable" sucks. Able to be alerted? Requires an alert? Probably requires an alert, so when the jurisdiction is in doubt we should be too, therefore alert?

[mjj29]

VixTD, on Apr 1 2010, 10:44 AM, said:

If you know yourself which it is, could you please tell us. If you're not sure, but have an opinion as to which is more likely, could you at least tell us that. I have, after all, had some straight (if not always certain) answers from some people.

Yes, indeed, this whole thread has descended into an absurd discussion on semantics, with very few people trying to answer the original question vis:

Do the regulations in the EBU require an alert for a 2NT opening showing 20-22 high card points and a balanced hand which explicitly does not include hands with a 5-card or longer suit.

I do not believe that they do - you certainly don't need to alert if you only open balanced (4333/4432/5332) hands whereas most people would also include at least some semi-balanced hands, although I agree that it should be disclosed when asked and on the convention card.

[WellSpyder]

I believe they do, and have always alerted something similar when I have played it (based on separating 2N bids with and without 5M rather than 5 of any suit).

But it is clear that the belief one way or another of an individual player will not determine the issue one way or the other - and neither would a majority vote in a poll.

[barmar]

dburn, on Apr 1 2010, 09:12 AM, said:

In English, the proposition "X is alertable or it is not" is not strictly incompossible with the proposition "X is alertable and it is not". The Law of the Excluded Middle has yet to find its way into either the Laws of Duplicate Bridge or the Orange Book.

Of course, this position is absurd, but so are our alerting regulations.

You're talking about boolean algebra, not English. In common English usage, "or" almost always means "exclusive or", because there's rarely any point in making a statement that incorporates both alternatives being possible. In cases where there's a potential ambiguity, you might emphasize the exclusivity by prefacing it with "either", but most of the time this is just assumed.

[dburn]

barmar, on Apr 2 2010, 11:00 AM, said:

dburn, on Apr 1 2010, 09:12 AM, said:

In English, the proposition "X is alertable or it is not" is not strictly incompossible with the proposition "X is alertable and it is not".

You're talking about boolean algebra, not English. In common English usage, "or" almost always means "exclusive or", because there's rarely any point in making a statement that incorporates both alternatives being possible. In cases where there's a potential ambiguity, you might emphasize the exclusivity by prefacing it with "either", but most of the time this is just assumed.

Actually. I was talking about English and not Boolean algebra. In the latter, an expression of the form "p or not-p" is analytically true (it is a tautology), while an expression of the form "p and not-p" is analytically false (it is a contradiction). In the former, "p or not-p" is still analytically true, but "p and not-p" is not analytically false (since both p and not-p may be true for certain values of p).

In the present case, where p is the proposition "a 2NT opening that has certain not generally accepted distributional constraints requires an alert", p is true (or may be true) according to one regulation, and is false (or may be false) according to another regulation. This places an intolerable burden upon those who wish to ascertain whether p itself is synthetically true, and they are not greatly assisted by receiving the information that "it is and it isn't" (nor, of course, the non-information that "it is or it isn't", since they already know this).

As a practical matter, if I were playing such a 2NT opening I would give what I suppose might appropriately be termed a "fuzzy alert" - that is, I would wave an alert card around in deliberately vague fashion and if an opponent showed the slightest interest, say something like "strong and balanced but with no five-card major, 4-4-4-1 possible" (unless 4-4-4-1 was not possible). Is this contrary to regulation? I do not know, and I do not care; the purpose of an alert is to tell the opponents what they might otherwise not know, and not to conform to some regulation or other.

[blackshoe]

A lot of people do things incorrectly, because they're basing their actions on what they think the correct action is. So doing does not make the action correct.

The relevant sections of the OB are 5E1b, 5F1b, 5G3c4, and 5G3i. Taking all these together, I conclude that the bid in question does not require an alert. In fact, as a couple of those OB references say "do not alert", I would say that one should not alert this bid, even if one thinks one should do so "to be helpful".

If you want to argue semantics, please take it somewhere out of "Simple Rulings".

[jallerton]

Well, Ed, another section of the Orange Book is also relevant:

EBU Orange Book said:

5 B General
5 B 1 The purpose of alerting and announcing is to draw the opponents’ attention to any call by partner that may have a special meaning.

This demonstrates that the pair playing this method mentioned in the opening post are complying with the spirt of the alerting rules. I don't think anybody should be criticised for over-alerting unless the Orange Book makes it 100% clear that one should not do so.

mjj29 said:

although I agree that it should be disclosed when asked and on the convention card.

True, but most opponents would not look at the convention card, and if they ask a question it will be "what range is 2NT?" to which the reply "20-22" would not be deemed by the EBU to be misinformation (to find out the surprise about the distribution as well, the opponent is supposed to ask "what did 2NT mean?" or "please explain the auction").

[barmar]

dburn, on Apr 2 2010, 03:11 PM, said:

As a practical matter, if I were playing such a 2NT opening I would give what I suppose might appropriately be termed a "fuzzy alert"

How about, "I'm not sure, but I think I should alert that."?

[bluejak]

This reminds me of people who used to post that we should not follow some Law or other because of what is said in the Scope of th Laws. While it is nice if Regulations or Laws say what they are doing, not following the actual rules is an infraction. The presumption of individual players that they understand what needs to be alerted [or whatever] better than the rule makers may easily be flawed, because they look at a single item and not the overall effect of what they do.