Changes to the Announcing & Alerting Requirements
From 7th Aug. 2017 changes were made to Announcing & Alerting requirements.
The main changes are as follows:
a) Section 4 – Announcements. The use of Announcements has been widened, with clarity that they only apply on the first round of bidding e.g., we now name the suit for all transfers or “proxies”; we state whether bids are forcing or not; we extend the announcement with full disclosure where appropriate such as “forcing, may include a weak raise”. It is important, particularly while these changes bed in, that we are all understanding of mis-alerts or mis-announcements while we get used to them.
b) Section 4B2 – Doubles The meanings of doubles later in the auction have a greater tendency for misunderstanding and can create issues of unauthorised information. We have removed the need to alert (or announce) any takeout or penalty doubles after the first round of bidding. Later, only alert if the double (or redouble) has an unexpected specific message e.g. I bid hearts and the opponents then make a bid in hearts, if I double to say “try and find another lead” then this is unexpected and should be alerted.
c) Section 7C – Opening Bids above the 1 level This has always been a challenging area to find the balance between flexibility and regulation and its complexity has resulted in several requests for clarification. We have made two changes: i. The presentation of the regulations. We hope the tables help clarify. ii. Widened the ability to open 4 card suits using the Rule of 20
d) Glossary – with links in the body of the text to it Finally, we hope the revised two-page Announcement & Alert Summary document provides a succinct explanation of what to communicate when.
To view the updated Announcing & Alerting Table go to the EBU website (ebu.co.uk) or on our sister site that also has a direct link.
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