Unusual overcalling system
We have a pair at our club with many years' experience who play that overcalls require opening points and do not require a 5-card suit. They effectively play as if each side opens the bidding rather than there being a separate opening side and overcalling side.
The Simplified Rules book (2017) states:
"Players should disclose their overcalling methods on their System Cards."
-and-
"A suit overcall should be of at least 5 cards, with some strength in the suit and approximately 8-15 points"
Our club is EBU-affiliated but is quite informal and we don't use system cards. Should this pair announce or alert their unusual (and unexpected to most players) overcalling system?
Thanks,
--- John.
Comments
As system cards aren't used in your club, the players should announce (F2F) or pre-announce (online Realbridge) if their overcalling system is far from the norm. In online games, the players should post a summary of their overcall system in the chat screen, including anything unusual that their opponents need to know, together with any agreement to make an overcall at 1-level with 4 cards in the suit overcalled.
Hi John
I think this needs a bit of discussion with the club committee to decide how to deal with this situation. Things to think about are:
what are their "opening points" is this 12 - 15 or 12 - 19?
do they have a "standard" for the suit (like "suit quality" or is it just "bish bash bosh"
Do the pair "target" the weaker players or is the same system used for all pairs?
Is there a difference between 2nd and 4th seats?
Has their bidding caused problems for other players and in what way?
Have they also come a cropper on more times than they "pulled a fast one"?
I would suggest that the EBU regulations covering this are in the Blue Book. I think that rkcb meant to say "Alert (F2F) if their system is far from the norm." should the committee confirm as such. The Blue book 4 A 2 specifically states "Announcements - never apply to overcalls". The committee could suggest that the two players must have a system card that specifically gives details of their full system, including overcalls and their responses.
Of course the committee could decide to bring in a teacher and hold a session specifically to show how to deal with any overcall, leaning towards the details given by this pair.
Hope all works out ok.
I have seen a guide to Acol that suggests this sort of overcalling style as suitable for absolute beginners, so that they don't have to learn how a more normal overcalling style works – i.e. the suggestion is to play it not because it's good, but because it's easy to remember. (The guide does, however, recommend that it shouldn't be done on a four-card suit even though you could open such a suit in Acol.)
The "alert things the opponents won't expect" rule creates a surprisingly large barrier to entry to bridge, because it basically forces players to learn the entirety of standard bidding to be able to play at all – if you're playing a standard system you have to learn it, and if you're playing a system that's simpler than standard, you nonetheless have to learn a standard system to be able to alert the differences. I am not sure whether this is a solvable problem or not. (Non-bridge-players who I talk to about bridge are often confused why system disclosure exists at all – to them, the game would be so much simpler if pairs were allowed to keep their system secret.)
For what it's worth, I'd advise the pair in question to pre-alert along the lines of "our overcalls have the same meaning as an opening bid in the same suit", if indeed that's what they're doing – it's easy to explain and should hopefully be easy for the opponents to understand.