Alerting one's own bid when playing F2F!

IanC

North opens the bidding 1NT, and after two passes West bids 2C (Landy) and asks the table "should I alert this?"
This is obviously UI, but what should I, as Director, have done?
East/West do play Landy, but East might well have passed as she does not play Landy with another regular partner. She might have forgotten had West not said anything.
I ruled that East must Pass - I'm fairly sure that was wrong but I can't find any guidance as to what I should have done.
Many thanks
Ian

Senior_Kibitzer

I think that you can only deal with this as UI (Unauthorised Information). The situation depends to some extent on how much time there was between West bidding 2C and asking if he should alert it, as the longer the time, the more evidence that East might have thought it natural.

So I would probably say at the table firstly to West "You don't alert your own calls at F2F. When you make a call that needs to be alerted, your partner is the one to alert". And then to East, something like: "It seems that your partner thinks he has made an alertable bid, but he should not have commented. If you knew that your partner's 2C should be alerted before he commented, then that's fine, just alert now and continue. But if you thought you might be playing 2C as natural or you weren't sure, you need to assume that partner's 2C is natural." I'd then be happy to chat further with East away from the table if she might not understand all that.

As the auction continues, I'd just ask to be called back at the end of the play if anyone might be unhappy.

Laws 73C1 and 16B