Re: Can a legal non-alert be misinformation anyway?

Steve Willner wrote:
>> Gordon Rainsford wrote:
>>> Short answer to the title question is "no".
> 
> Gordon's message didn't make it to me, but I agree with the answer.  If
> opponents are not properly informed, that's either their own fault or a
> fault with the alerting rules.

OK for the first, but is the second one fair on them?

> 
> Here's a follow-on question.  In a jurisdiction that requires a
> mandatory pause after a skip bid, should it be (or is it) mandatory for
> the next person to ask the meaning of the bid (or perhaps look at
> opponents' system card)?  After all, the purpose of the pause is to make
> it seem as though the next player is considering action.  How can he do
> that without knowing the meaning of the bid?
> 

In a recent text on the subject, I have indeed told players to ask at 
the beginning of the stop pause, and I even advise the jumper to wait to 
start measuring the pause until after the answer has been given.

> FWIW, if the alerting rules were "nothing above 3NT," I'd always ask
> about a 4C or higher bid on the first round of the auction no matter
> what hand I held.

That seems to be a good advice, but it kind of defeats the purpose of 
the non-alert: not giving UI to partner. Of course the reason for the 
non-alert does not work for opening bids - and indeed the Dutch rule 
used to be to alert anyhow on opening bids. The Belgian regulation is 
simpler and therefore we can accept this small disadvantage.

But anyway - you would always ask in second seat. But suppose your 
partner does not ask (maybe he has looked at the SC) and when it's your 
turn, the 4SP bid has come. Would you still ask? or assume 4Di was a 
transfer to spades? and if you do the latter, would you not feel 
misinformed - would you accept the statement by TD "yous should have 
asked". I'm not sure that I would.

Herman.


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