[gnasher]

 VixTD, on 2013-February-20, 09:23, said:

They would have known from the alert and answer not only that EW had no agreement, but also that East was going to act in such a way as to allow for an alertable (i.e. non-takeout) interpretation (otherwise why alert?)

Would they know that? If my partner makes a bid of whose meaning I'm unsure, where one of the possible meanings is alertable, I usually alert it. I know I'm probably not required to do that, but I also don't think it's prohibited. Often I haven't even decided how I'm going to treat it.

[lamford]

 aguahombre, on 2013-February-19, 23:16, said:

1N (3S) X
We should alert the opponents that they are going down, so next hand won't raise causing them to go down more.

Your example is poorly chosen, as 6 out of 10 players I surveyed at a strong London event recently played this double as takeout. I presume the other 4, being members of the Orange Order, correctly alert it when it occurs.

[lamford]

 gnasher, on 2013-February-20, 11:12, said:

Would they know that?

They would be entitled to conclude when you alerted and answered "no agreement" that you were intending to treat it as being alertable. If there was "no agreement" and you were intending to treat it as not alertable, then I think it is wrong to alert, although the converse is not specifically in 5B10.

[gnasher]

 lamford, on 2013-February-20, 11:49, said:

They would be entitled to conclude when you alerted and answered "no agreement" that you were intending to treat it as being alertable. If there was "no agreement" and you were intending to treat it as not alertable, then I think it is wrong to alert, although the converse is not specifically in 5B10.

Even with no agreement about the particular sequence, I would nearly always have some agreement that might be relevant, so it would be covered by "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. " or "a player must alert any inferences drawn from partnership experience or practice which have a potentially unexpected meaning".

Anyway, if the L&EC wanted to prohibit alerting when you don't know what it means but intend to treat it as not alertable, I think they would have said so.

The real answer is for the L&EC to change this ill thought-out rule (5B10, I mean - the rest of the alerting rules are fine).

[Trinidad]

So, how about a takeout double in the case of transfers?

• 3♦ (preempt in hearts) - Dbl
  
• 2♦ (weak two in hearts or strong options) - Dbl
  
• 1♣-Pass-1♦ (T-Walsh showing hearts) - Dbl

In the third case, I know at least that there is an alternative way to play (maybe even better) where Dbl shows diamonds and a 1♥ cue is the takeout double. But I don't know of anybody serious who would play the double of a 3♦ transfer preempt as penalty (indicating a diamond stack). If I ran into someone who would play it like that, it would be so completely unexpected that it would deserve an alert.

Rik

[RMB1]

 Trinidad, on 2013-February-20, 13:21, said:

So, how about a takeout double in the case of transfers?

• 3♦ (preempt in hearts) - Dbl
  
• 2♦ (weak two in hearts or strong options) - Dbl
  
• 1♣-Pass-1♦ (T-Walsh showing hearts) - Dbl

Unalerted doubles of artificial bids are penalties / show the suit of the bid [named in the bid]

[blackshoe]

"the suit of the bid" meaning, presumably, "the suit bid" rather than "the suit shown"?

[gnasher]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-21, 09:21, said:

Is this a lot different from ...

Yes, it's different when the bid is not discussed but may be intended as alertable.

"If there is no alert and no announcement, opponents can assume that, through agreement or general bridge knowledge, the bidder's partner believes that the intended meaning does not fall into an alertable or announceable category."
If it's not discussed, you alert.

"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."
If it's not discussed, you don't alert.

[blackshoe]

I've split of the discussion of how the EBU regulation should be changed to a new thread in the "Changing Laws and Regulations" forum. Please continue your discussion there.

[Zelandakh]

I can see a bit of a loophole in the EBU alerting rules. Say the opponents make a call and alert it because there is no agreement but one of the potential meanings is alertable (and another is natural). If you double this, which is the non-alertable meaning?

[Vampyr]

 Trinidad, on 2013-February-21, 02:11, said:

So, now the Dutch bridge league has the regulation that the "vague" penalty - takeout doubles are not alerted, but the specific doubles (support, etc.) are. IMO, this is by far the best alert regulation of doubles that I have played under.

This is interesting. I should have thought that the takeout/penalty distinction is the most important, since there are a number of auctions where both are possible (ie they have made a simple or jump overcall over our 1NT opening, or our first double after which we have made a strength-showing double or redouble or a 1NT overcall).

 sfi, on 2013-February-21, 05:00, said:

If you're playing somewhere where no doubles or redoubles are alerted...

Pairs who play really strange meanings (X=transfer, penalty doubles over 1 level interference, etc.) will pre-alert the opposition.

I find pre-alerts intriguing in many situations, but here it definitely seems as if the pre-alerting of the strange doubles is needlessly time-consuming compared to alerting them when they come up.

[sfi]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-21, 10:46, said:

I find pre-alerts intriguing in many situations, but here it definitely seems as if the pre-alerting of the strange doubles is needlessly time-consuming compared to alerting them when they come up.

It's not time consuming. A common phrase is something like "we play transfers in many competitive situations including X or XX. Please ask if they come up." You have to pre-alert the transfers anyway since the opponents may need to agree on a defence, so the last bit is all of three seconds extra. Nobody would go through all the permutations.

But it's important to realise that the principle behind the self alert of doubles and redoubles is that there is not a standard meaning much of the time, so the regulations don't arbitrarily select takeout or penalty as the non-alertable meaning. I like it because I'm used to it, but it's just a slightly different approach to that of the EBU.

The EBU approach also seems fairly straightforward. Despite the quirky situations that will sometimes occur, it looks easy enough to comply with.

[blackshoe]

Grrr. Do I have to lock this thread?

[Vampyr]

 sfi, on 2013-February-21, 10:57, said:

It's not time consuming. A common phrase is something like "we play transfers in many competitive situations including X or XX. Please ask if they come up." You have to pre-alert the transfers anyway since the opponents may need to agree on a defence, so the last bit is all of three seconds extra.

You may well be right. I am not familiar with pre-alerts since we don't have them here.

 blackshoe, on 2013-February-21, 11:13, said:

Grrr. Do I have to lock this thread?

For what possible reason?

[WellSpyder]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-21, 11:27, said:

For what possible reason?

To stop people being able to post to it, perhaps?

[blackshoe]

If you're discussing the original case, fine. But the first two posts after my notice that I split the thread seemed to be about 'what should the regulation be?'

[Vampyr]

 WellSpyder, on 2013-February-20, 03:37, said:

What else do you suggest, when everybody at the match is in one team or the other (including VixTD)?

Probably a telephone consultation.

[Trinidad]

 Vampyr, on 2013-February-21, 11:27, said:

For what possible reason?

I feel that the laws forums are overmoderated in this respect. These are not business meetings where we have an agenda that tells us what we discuss and nothing more (and even in business meetings it doesn't work like that). The discussions in the forums are discussions at a party or over a cup of coffee: They start about one subject and can morph into an interesting discussion about an other subject.

IMO the moderators should appreciate that a discussion about how -in the context of the topic at hand- the laws should be or how they should be interpreted is completely different from a proposal to change the laws. There is no reason to split a thread as soon as someone writes: "I think the law should mean..." or "I think the law should be". The fact that -in the opinion of the moderator- such a post could also have been written in the Changing Laws forum doesn't mean that it can't be written in the current discussion when it is relevant for both. Splitting threads has a very negative effect: it leaves us with two threads without context.

What I see here looks like a cooking forum with subforum about -among others- potatoes, pasta, rice, beef, porc, and ground beef. When someone starts a topic in the pasta forum asking for recipes for spaghetti I could post a nice recipe for spaghetti with meat balls. At that point the moderator interferes. The meat ball part belongs in the ground beef forum. The result is one thread that says: "Put the spaghetti in boiling water and take it out when the package says you need to take it out." and a thread in the ground beef forum about meat balls in tomato sauce (which IMO is about the worst way to serve meat balls - unless they are served with spaghetti - and I would never in my life post a recipe for meatballs in tomato sauce in a ground beef forum).

There is a reason why this discussion board is divided in a range of forums. And it is important that when a topic is started it is started in the appropriate forum. But there is a reason for that: It is done to ensure that those who are potentially interested in the subject will see the topic and a nice discussion can start. If you want recipes for spaghetti, don't start a topic in the ground beef forum. And if you want a recipe for meat balls don't start a topic in the pasta forum.

In the case at hand we are not dealing with the start of a topic. We have a lively discussion with interested participants. This discussion is running its natural course and at some points touches on what the laws/regulations should be, rather than on what they are, all within the context of the original topic subject. That should be perfectly fine.

The fact that there also is a forum for changes to the laws is irrelevant. The topic wasn't started in that forum. The comments were not made with the aim to petition for a change in the regulations. (The posters are smart enough to find that forum if they want to.) They were written in the context of the discussion at hand. The effect of splitting the thread and moving some posts to another forum is that their context is removed, killing the meeaning of these posts. That should not be the aim of moderation.

Rik

[Zelandakh]

 blackshoe, on 2013-February-21, 11:29, said:

If you're discussing the original case, fine. But the first two posts after my notice that I split the thread seemed to be about 'what should the regulation be?'

Mine was one of those 2 posts. Nowhere does it suggest changing the EBU regulation. It is not even asking what the regulation should be. It was asking what the regulation actually is in a specific case that has come up during the discussion. It may have escaped your attention but this is a discussion forum. It is natural that there is some degree of drift in long threads and also that sub-discussions start. This is generally a positive thing for forums and many of the most entertaining discussions have begun with very mundane OPs.

Obviously, as a moderator it is important for you to make sure that threads are begun in an appropriate forum. Also, that a thread does not become hijacked due to malevolence or weighed down with flames or any other violations of the ToS. But it does not feel right to me to moderate sub-discussions that branch off from the original issue/question once the OP has been answered. Or do you really think it is necessary to start a new thread for every question?

[aguahombre]

Zel's view above is well presented ---to a point.

When a particular offshoot, rather than many small offshoots, becomes the main subject of discussion I believe the mod should indeed create a new thread for it.

The focus turned to whether the regs should be different in this case, and moving it was appropriate. After doing so, IMO two things should happen:

1) A bit of tolerance from the mod and posters when things continue to overlap.
2) A link and reference in the first post (created by the mod) to begin the new thread.