Alerts and Questions
Common Mistakes

In one of her patented e-mails, Annabelle explains a Director's ruling she made recently.
She related this incident:

"At a recent game, a player [the Questioner] came to me, showed me his hand and explained his problem.  I went to the table and had the players reconstruct their bidding, which had gone P by questioner's partner, 1♣ by RH opponent, P by questioner, 1♥ by LH opponent, P by partner, 1NT by RHO, P by player, 2NT by LHO.   At partner's turn to bid, partner asked if the 2NT bid meant that opener didn't have 4 ♠s.  He was told that it did.  This was followed by 3 Passes. The questioner, being on lead, felt a little uncomfortable because he might want to lead a ♠.

This incident has prompted me to review some common mistakes made while Alerting or responding to Alerts.

But first, some background.  In general, any bid which is not part of Standard American must be Alerted.  Simple.  This means that if the meaning of the bid will be recognized by any competent player accustomed to Standard American, it need not be Alerted.  But, if a player fails to Alert a bid with a non-Standard meaning, there may be penalties, if the Opponents were damaged by the failure to Alert.

So, newcomers and basic players never need to Alert any bid.  They do need to know how to respond to Alerts, however.  Newcomers and basic players do need to Announce the "range" of their 1NT Opening.  No big deal, and no penalties for failure to Announce.

In the case of the incident above, the questioner did not need to ask that question -- the NT bid did deny having 4 Spades, as expected, because if it didn't, the bidders would have Alerted it.  If they had an agreement to the contrary and failed to Alert it, the Questioner would be entitled to relief if he was damaged.  (Like if he mis-counted the Opponents' hands, being misled into thinking the NT bidder couldn't have 4 Spades, and then discarding the setting Spade.)

The most confounding issue with Alerts (and other rules, too), however, is avoiding the "unauthorized" passing of information from one player to his partner.  Some of this problem depends on "active ethics" and maintaining the spirit of the rules.  Here are some examples:

You make an Alertable bid and Partner does not Alert it.  Knowing your partner as you do, you know he forgot that bid.  Ethically, you must assume he did remember, but just forgot to Alert.  You may not change your later bidding strategy to account for his having forgot.  You must continue to bid as if Partner responded correctly.  You must not show displeasure or discomfort with his bidding -- no squirming, frowning, sighing, and the like.  Just maintain the old Stone Face and soldier on as if everything is working just fine.

The reverse:  you make a bid forgetting it's a convention.  Partner Alerts.  Oh damn -- you forgot again: that bid hardly ever comes up!  Ethically, you must continue to forget what it meant.  You must not "wake up" and try to correct your mistake in future bidding.  Here again, just maintain the Stone Face and keep going.

The correct procedure is to show the Alert card, and say in a firm voice: "Alert!"

It is the Alerter's responsibility to make sure the Opponents notice the Alert.  (So if your opponent is hard-of-hearing, or visually impaired, or both; you must make sure he knows you are Alerting.)  Nothing more may be said.  You may not explain (Don't Tell) the bid unless asked.

The correct response is to to say "Please explain," if you don't know what it means, and if you had planned to bid something else than Pass.

If you would Pass anyway, you may not ask then -- wait till the auction is over (and Partner has made his lead if it's his lead.)  Note that if you had planned to bid, you may ask about non-Alerted bids as well -- but only if you had planned to bid.

You are required to know which bids of a convention are Alertable before you begin using it.  Learning the Alerts is just as important as learning the bids.  When giving an explanation, you must explain completely what the bid means -- it is not sufficient to give the convention's name.  It's best to do both.  For example, "New Minor Forcing:  I am required to bid at least one more time.  Partner most likely has 5 of his major and an invitational or better hand."

A "strange" rule on Alerts is that bids above 3NT may not be be Alerted except in the first round of bidding.  In the first round, they must be Alerted as usual.  Perhaps the most common cases of this rule are delayed Texas Transfers and Splinters.  The reason for this is that experience has shown these bids are easily missed, and that Partner would be frequently "awakened" by the Alert.

Although not a rule, most good players do not ask about Alerts (Don't Ask) or other bids, even when they are about to bid.  This is because often the "active ethics" portion of the opponents' game is missing, and asking the question may alert the Alerter's Partner of precisely what was meant. 

One more thing and I'll shut up.  You may not be penalized for Alerting unnecessarily, unless it can be shown to have been done to keep partner awake.  The ACBL says you should Alert in any questionable case, rather than be silent.