[bd71]

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Following this auction, as North is considering his lead East gives what he believes is a late alert that West's NT overcall has an 11-14 range (overwhelming standard is 15-17 or 15-18 in our area). We do a quick check-in w/ the director, who claims that the NT overcall is not alertable or annoucable regardless of range, and that North/South need to ask or look at the convention card to verify the range.

Is this true...do we have to ask/check every time to cover the 0.5% of the time that opps are using a non-standard range here?

[chrism]

It may depend where you are. The ACBL requires an alert for a natural NT overcall whose lower limit is less than 14 HCP and/or more than 19 HCP so you would indeed have been owed an alert in the ACBL.

[aguahombre]

chrism, on 2013-October-26, 21:03, said:

It may depend where you are. The ACBL requires an alert for a natural NT overcall whose lower limit is less than 14 HCP and/or more than 19 HCP so you would indeed have been owed an alert in the ACBL.

The subline of the thread says ACBL, so it shouldn't depend where he is; I think the ACBL rules are meant to apply all over the area governed by the ACBL.

[chrism]

The mobile website as presented on my phone does not include any"subline" so the sarcasm is unwarranted. Thank you for the clarification, though.

[Cascade]

"Natural NT overcalls with an expected lower limit of less
than 14 HCP and/or upper limit of more than 19 HCP"

I wonder how many people alert their 3NT overcalls - "could be more than 19 hcp"?

[suprgrover]

Cascade, on 2013-October-27, 06:17, said:

"Natural NT overcalls with an expected lower limit of less
than 14 HCP and/or upper limit of more than 19 HCP"

I wonder how many people alert their 3NT overcalls - "could be more than 19 hcp"?

The Alert Procedures (http://www.acbl.org/...procedures.html) have the actual alert requirement:

Quote

Natural 1NT overcalls in the range of 14 to 19 HCP require neither an Alert nor an Announcement. If the top or bottom limit of the natural notrump overcall is out of that range or conventional by an unpassed hand, an Alert is required.

[barmar]

suprgrover, on 2013-October-28, 08:23, said:

The Alert Procedures (http://www.acbl.org/...procedures.html) have the actual alert requirement:

You seemed to be quoting the same requirement back at him, what was the point?

I think Cascade was asking about an auction like (3♠) - 3NT. Couldn't the 3NT be significantly stronger than 19 HCP? But probably no one alerts this.

[blackshoe]

I suppose it could be considered "self-alerting" even though the ACBL doesn't officially use that concept.

[GreenMan]

barmar, on 2013-October-28, 08:54, said:

I think Cascade was asking about an auction like (3♠) - 3NT. Couldn't the 3NT be significantly stronger than 19 HCP? But probably no one alerts this.

I suspect nearly all partnerships have no agreement about that bid beyond "Good hand suitable for 3NT in context," without a specific upper limit.

[aguahombre]

Cascade, on 2013-October-27, 06:17, said:

I wonder how many people alert their 3NT overcalls - "could be more than 19 hcp"?

GreenMan, on 2013-October-28, 09:59, said:

I suspect nearly all partnerships have no agreement about that bid beyond "Good hand suitable for 3NT in context," without a specific upper limit.

Yes. That is precisely what I would say at the table if some SB wanted to take us to task for not alerting a 3NT overcall over 3x. I think the framers of the Alert Procedure did not feel the need to dot cross every "T".

[Vampyr]

I don't understand the last few posts, since the ACBL regulation was quoted above, and anyone who can read would know that the regulation refers to 1NT overcalls, and not to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7NT overcalls.

Plus, unless the regulation has changed, a 2NT overcall is not alertable even if it is conventional. So this is another clue (for those who find the sentence above too challenging) that "1" does not mean "1-7".

[aguahombre]

Why would Ed bring up jumps to 2NT when we are discussing a non-jump NT bid?

[TylerE]

aguahombre, on 2013-October-27, 00:26, said:

The subline of the thread says ACBL, so it shouldn't depend where he is; I think the ACBL rules are meant to apply all over the area governed by the ACBL.

You'd think that, but in my experience clubs are essentially free to do whatever they wish, including things like banning pysches, and ACBL will do f-all about it, as long as they get their buck a table. It's only at ACBL sanctioned tournaments that there is any real expectation of ACBL rules being in force.

[blackshoe]

I have unapproved my last message and Vampyr's response to it as they both may contain inappropriate content. I've asked David to look into it.

Why I brought up jumps to 2NT: for completeness in responding to Vampyr's assertion that "a 2NT overcall is not alertable even if it is conventional".

Tyler: your experience matches mine. We have an organization here, the Rochester Area Bridge Association, which is essentially a sub-division of sorts of Unit 112. In their latest meeting minutes is this tidbit: "New Business: Directors can request that players sort their hand before returning it to the board, but Directors cannot penalize you for not doing it." This isn't really accurate, since it completely misses the fact that the request is illegal.

[Cascade]

I cut and paste from the alert chart. There is no "1" there. It didn't occur to me having found that specific wording that elsewhere there would be a different instruction applying the same requirement to only a subset of the auctions referenced in the chart nor that such a regulation would negate the wider ranging regulation I found.

[mycroft]

Welcome to the ACBL :-)

But seriously, the Alert Chart is supposed to be a friendly summary for people who don't feel they need the legalese and "precision" of the full Procedure. Having said that, we could use more in the Procedure, and there shouldn't be gaping disagreements between the two.

[blackshoe]

While I agree that the chart and the procedure should agree with each other, I'm not sure the procedure takes precedence. Until recently, I believed that it did, but then I discovered that historically the chart came first, and ISTR something either in BoD or committee minutes or in correspondence with HQ, or elsewhere on the ACBL website, indicating that the chart take precedence. Unfortunately, I don't have time to go looking for verification of that right now, so I accept that I could be wrong.

[aguahombre]

I hope you are wrong.

[barmar]

I suspect there's no official precedence between the two, and you have to use judgement to deal with conflicts like this.

It's "normal" to play roughly similar ranges for 1NT overcalls of 1-level bids and 2NT overcalls of weak 2 bids, and the typical ranges are in the 14-19 vicinity. It's impractical to expect a similar range for a 3NT overcall of a 3-level opening, and most pairs don't have detailed agreements about specific ranges.

[gnasher]

From the ACBL General Conditions of Contest For All Events:

While Alerts are generally noted in red on the convention card and Announcements in blue, refer to the ACBL Alert Chart and/or procedure for complete information.