[shyams]

mikeh, on 2025-June-01, 07:30, said:

I’m not sure why you suggest that the OP was pretending to believe anything. Do you seriously argue that he bid to 4Sx down 6 despite believing that 3C was natural?

Now, if you want to argue that the OP ought to have protected himself by asking, which it seems the director thought, that’s a different issue and one that gets us into a pretty grey area, but that’s not the same as claiming that he knew that 2C was any strong hand. How do you explain the result?

In addition to not protecting himself by asking,
* OP alerted partner's 3♣ bid. This is correct in principle as well as practice.

* OP then explained it "both majors". This is wrong. They had no agreement so the correct explanation would be something akin to "I am not sure".
If OP had added an extra (perhaps superfluous according to rules/Laws) comment like "We have not discussed nuances over a natural strong 2♣", all would be revealed.

* OP also wrote "when asked, explained that as both majors, despite that I was not playing with my regular partner where there was a meta agreement that under any circumstances overcalling in the opponents' only suit was Michaels".
Presumably the bolded section was meant as a comment for this thread. Had OP included these words in the explanation to opponents who queried, I reckon it too could have helped undo any misinformation.

OP can clarify other details, but IMO his concocted explanation ("both majors") may surely have constrained OP's partner from not acting on the unauthorised information. I am not sure how the UI can affect, but for a stranger/guest playing in the UK, it surely would have affected their final action.

[mikeh]

helene_t, on 2025-June-01, 06:34, said:

Shyams is right, of course. Even Mollo's Secretary Bird would would not get away with pretending to believe that the annoucement was correct.

People get the announcement rules wrong all the time. Everyone knows that while "strong" ought to mean "strong with long clubs", it always just means "strong".

If the same had happened with a 2♦ opening the discussion would have been more interesting.

I’m not sure why you suggest that the OP was pretending to believe anything. Do you seriously argue that he bid to 4Sx down 6 despite believing that 3C was natural?

Now, if you want to argue that the OP ought to have protected himself by asking, which it seems the director thought, that’s a different issue and one that gets us into a pretty grey area, but that’s not the same as claiming that he knew that 2C was any strong hand. How do you explain the result?

[mikl_plkcc]

The whole night was a mess with the large amount of artificial strong 2♣ openers (3 including this out of 27 boards), and I also got a hand where I was strong enough to open strong artificial 2♣ but not being able to do so since the opponents had bid, and my eventually bidding went wrong afterwards. Normally I don't even see this opening appear more than once in a session.

[mycroft]

Very aside: "The vast majority of 2♣ openers are not alerted or announced" in the ACBL because they are the non-Announceable/non-Alertable variant: "Very Strong, Artificial and Forcing". So "except for ethical big club players or others who use 2C in unorthodox fashion (eg weak in diamonds or strong and artificial)" - well, yeah, people have to Alert Alertable bids. And most people playing them do. Those playing "strong with clubs" also have to Alert it, too, as do those who play it as "strong Artificial and Forcing", but may not have a Very Strong hand (almost always, "we have 8.5 tricks, so it's strong. Whaddayamean not everybody would open 85 AQJT95432 6 J 2♣? Well, no, we don't know what we would do after it goes 2♠-p (GF)-4♠. Why do you ask?")

Now, the Alerting rules are different in the EBU, as everybody here should know. In this particular case (and by that I mean "2-level openers"), I believe very strongly they have made a much better decision than we have. (My opinion of the) Relevant parts of the regulation:

Quote

1 A natural one-suited opening bid of two of a suit showing 5+ cards is announced by stating its range from the following categories. Partner of the opener says the words shown.
(a) “Strong, forcing“ (b) “Strong, not forcing“
© “Intermediate“ (d) “Weak“
4 All two of a suit openings are either announced (if natural, one-suited and 5+ cards) or alerted (otherwise).

I can absolutely see the same directors who, here, don't correct people who (still) don't Announce 15-17, or who say (only) "you should have guessed that was a transfer even without an Announcement" saying there "you should have guessed that they meant "Alert, it's the meaning everybody plays" when they said "Strong (, forcing)".

I am a strong proponent of "I'm not going to believe experts who tell me with wide innocent faces 'of course we believed them. why shouldn't we?'" (especially when they will also say "but we didn't say that [2♥-p-2NT] showed any values, it just asked for suit strength and hand quality, why would they think it promises invitational values?") even in a world where " a player who is misinformed by an opponent’s failure to Alert will be protected." I guess it just means that they can learn to live with the reputation they develop along with the rulings in their favour. I mean "a stickler for the regulations" is something to be lauded, especially by Secretary Birds, no?

But here, we don't have that. And while this is a very expert game, this pair is clearly newer, and has played the game often enough for the directors to know that. And there, it is absolutely reasonable to say "your Announcement showed clubs. The explanation given for the cuebid was correct for the agreement you gave them, even if it wasn't the agreement you actually have. Sure, they should have thought it odd enough to confirm, but surely you should know by now what the correct thing to say is over your system?" Another relevant quote from the Blue Book:

Blue Book 2A3, my emphasis said:

It is expected that experienced players will protect themselves in obvious misinformation cases. If they receive an implausible explanation, and can protect themselves by seeking further clarification without putting their side’s interests at risk (e.g. by transmitting unauthorised information or alerting the opposition), failure to do so may prejudice their right to redress.

Here, clarification would not put their side's interests at risk (unless "their side's interests" were "I think they're having a misunderstanding and I don't want to wake them up", I guess).

So here, even if I decide that "nobody plays Strong 2s in the YC any more, even new players to the game shouldn't have believed them/should have clarified", I'm happy to double-bad this one under the "yeah, it's not going to cause a problem except one time in a thousand. But you made a clear, obvious, and elementary disclosure mistake, and this time was the one." philosophy. I'm rolling this back to [whatever they would have got to if everybody knew it was clubs], you score [result]. And when they gripe about "how can you possibly give them this gift/doubleshot/clear trying for a 'technical' mistake", I'll tell them "I didn't say *they* were getting that score." (If they want to look up what I did in fact assign after the game, fine. Most don't care *that* much, though.)

To end with that "Very aside", the people who play "2♣ includes 'overstrength preempts'" that fail to Alert them (note, this is *much more complicated to see*, and they're newer players usually) and this time bamboozle the Flight As out of their game (or slam!) will get a similar ruling. And again, I won't tell the As what score the 2♣ bidders are getting (of course, they're much less likely to ask "and are you punishing them as well as giving us what we deserve?" so, you know, if it ends up being a double-good with an explicit explanation of their requirements (and attention paid to them the rest of the week/end to ensure they're doing it after), well then, everybody walks away content.