Announcements- more bureaucracy?
The change is the introduction of 'announcements'. Instead of an alert some bids will require the partner of the bidder to make an announcement. For example if partner opens 1nt, you will be required to say '12-14', '15-17' or whatever range you use.
Only a small number of bids require announcements by partner:
they are:
- natural opening 2 bids
- Stayman
- red suit transfers over a 1nt opener
If, for example, partner opens 2 spades you will be required to say, strong or weak and forcing or non-forcing. A full description is to be found in David Stephenson's article in the latest Bridge magazine.
My initial reaction was 'what is the point of this?'.
This was closely followed by a vivid mental picture of the reaction of the average member of my club. For example every pair plays a 12-14 no-trump and everyone else knows that. What a lot of unnecessary verbiage. It seems this might be necessary in a high-level tournament where players do not play each other on a regular basis. Is it just one more example of rules being designed for the elite in tournament at the cost of alienating the average club player?
Alan Chapman comments:
Absolutely right, designed for tournament elite, to the annoyance and confusion of Club players. We have tried these out in advance of the start date at a small Club that I run. We have concentrated on the Announcements initially, and even those are generally seen as unnecessary and without merit. If you look via the EBU's website, you will find a two-page "summary" of the changes, which I think is meant to simplify them!!!I AM GOING TO SUGGEST OUR CLUB IGNORES THEM. Anyone like to start a campaign of civil disobedience?
Joe writes:
It is interesting to get a reaction from 'real' bridge players. It confirms my worst suspicions about the 'announcements' change. I think there is a problem here though. If clubs ignore the change, will their members be disadvantaged if they attend another club which is using the new rules? I did see a suggestion that it should be possible for players at a table to 'turn off' announcements if they are fully aware what all the 'announced' bids made by opponents mean. The other problem is that these changes are made by a body that has lost the confidence of many 'local' clubs who don't wish to be members of it. Maybe we need a body to represent us which has our interests at heart (PlayBridge UK?).
Update 3rd Oct 2006
I thought it would be good to report on the 'success' of announcements! Simply, for the average club, it has been a nonsense. People simply forget to announce their partners no-trump range and, when someone reminds them, everyone just smiles. They are smiling at the irrelevance of it, since all in the room know what the range is anyway.
Some things seem a little better, such as the changed rules on when to alert a double. There is also the question of whose rules these are anyway. Do they apply in all countries? (Replies to this are welcome!). They certainly don't seem to apply to internet Bridge-there have been no changes that I can detect on Bridge Club Live.
posted by Joe Ridyard at 10:20 am
3 Comments:
Absolutely right, designed for tournament elite, to the annoyance and confusion of Club players. We have tried these out in advance of the start date at a small Club that I run. We have concentrated on the Announcements initially, and even those are generally seen as unnecessary and without merit. If you look via the EBU's website, you will find a two-page "summary" of the changes, which I think is meant to simplify them!!!
I AM GOING TO SUGGEST OUR CLUB IGNORES THEM. Anyone like to start a campaign of civil disobedience?
Hi, I've only just come across this blog so hope you will excuse this late reply.
In the latest EBU magazine an EBU official actually came out and said that clubs do not have to follow the EBU rules if they don't want to. Read into that what you will - maybe it means they are regretting some of the changes.
I'm actually in favour of announcements myself. I play in a club where there is a little bit of variety in systems played, and there the announcements do seem to be very useful. Admittedly not everyone remembers - particularly when it comes to 1NT openings, because these didn't even used to be alertable - but when they forget we're still no worse off than we were before.
But if literally everyone plays weak NT at your club, then I can't argue with the suggestion that that announcement is unnecessary. Maybe then it is worth thinking about having a "club rule", so long as you can avoid confusing any visitors or people who play at more than one club. How about something like this:
"It's not compulsory to announce 1NT openings, but you are encouraged to announce if your opponents might not already know what range you are playing, particularly if you're not playing a weak NT."
Would that keep everyone happy? I do think that saying, "Please *don't* announce your 1NT openings" would be a mistake: it must be better to make it optional.
Incidentally, I can answer the last question above: most countries outside the UK would have very different alerting rules to the EBU's. But announcements are used in various places, including North America (the ACBL). Apparently the reason we're having announcements over here is because they've been shown to work in America. (And if you think our alerting rules are complicated, you should see the ACBL's ...)
Cheers,
David Collier
(No relation to the infamous Terry!)
My experience of announcements in the two clubs I play in has been that most players don't know when to announce, when to alert, and indeed when not to alert. In short, it's chaos!
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