Announcements v alerts online
We recently started playing transfer responses to 1C, which are announced. I quite like the announcements, but for playing on RealBridge I've noticed that in some ways this seems inferior to alerting:
- You can't be absolutely sure that opponents have heard your announcement (potential audio/network issues).
- There's no record of the announcement having been made. If you'd alerted instead then it would be marked with an asterisk in the auction.
So I wonder whether it would actually be better to alert AND announce. But in principle this would be going against 4A2 which says that announcements are to be made "instead of" alerting.
While you could say the same thing about other announcements, it's only really for these unusual transfers that I've felt there is a problem.
What do others think?
- You can't be absolutely sure that opponents have heard your announcement (potential audio/network issues).
- There's no record of the announcement having been made. If you'd alerted instead then it would be marked with an asterisk in the auction.
So I wonder whether it would actually be better to alert AND announce. But in principle this would be going against 4A2 which says that announcements are to be made "instead of" alerting.
While you could say the same thing about other announcements, it's only really for these unusual transfers that I've felt there is a problem.
What do others think?
Comments
This is one reason why self-alerting online is better. Of course you can't always be sure when face-to-face that your opponent has heard, or registered your announcement, or alert.
I have seen videos in international competitions where someone who claimed a call had not been alerted, had actually seen and acknowledged it - she was simply thinking of something else and filtered it out as "noise".
BB 9 A 2 Alerting and announcing
EBU events on BBO and some EBU events on RealBridge with screens use ‘self-alerting’ –
players alert their own calls, not their partner’s. (EBU events on RealBridge without screens
use the face-to-face alerting and announcing procedures in section 4.)
Players should ‘alert’ by providing a short explanation of the call before making the call – it is
not necessary to click the Alert button or Alert strip. Failing that, players can click the Alert
button ( on BBO) or the Alert strip (on RealBridge), make the call, and then click on the call and
add the short explanation.
I've definitely experienced situations where opponents have missed our alerts even playing online. (RealBridge has an option to put yellow borders around alerted calls, making them more visible – I generally try to turn that on in case that happens to me.) As such, when using partner-alerts, I've taken to saying "alert" in addition to showing the alert card (both online and in person), which I think is legal as long as you do so consistently.
This sort of thing has lead to some interesting Director calls – opponents complaining that a call wasn't alerted, and being told that it actually was alerted! It's interesting to hear that it happens in top-level play too.
(The alert button on BBO is interesting, being redundant to the explanation except when you don't provide one – in my experience most players either click it whenever explaining, or never click it. I generally aim to click on it only when the call is actually alertable, and leave it off when I'm providing an announcement or am explaining an unalertable call whose meaning isn't obvious, like the 1NT in 1D, (P), 1H, (P); 1NT – different pairs play that substantially differently and so it makes sense to always explain on platforms where partner can't see the explanation.)
Following on, Gordon, you are clearly of the view that self-alerting is better. I agree 100%, so am surprised that the EBU position on this changed when the Blue Book was changed in August 2024.
I am trying to make sense of the current EBU guidelines with regards RealBridge and alerting.
The guidelines states:
EBU events on RealBridge without screens use the face-to-face alerting and announcing procedures in section 4.
Can you please explain what that actually means, and in particular does it mean that for a club or county's normal regular weekly pairs or teams, played on RealBridge, that is considered an "EBU event" and must must be partner (F2F) alert ? Or can a club or county decided to use self-alerting, but without screens for these events?
Clarification would be great.