Forum Question 28 – Acol Players in a SAYC country
Acol Players in a SAYC country
This question was asked to: David Stevenson
Question
This may not be a fair question to ask, but I’d appreciate your advice.
A while ago my wife and I were playing bridge in a small country where the standard bidding method is SAYC. We were welcomed to the club and explained we played ACOL as we sat at each table.
On the second time we played, the director (quite pleasantly) told us before the session that as we didn’t play SAYC we should alert calls like 1NT - 2NT, since in SAYC a 2NT response would have a different point range. We wanted to be good guests so we alerted whenever we thought our bid might be different in SAYC, but I wondered whether the director’s advice was correct. If nothing else it supposed we are familiar enough with SAYC to be able to know when to make these alerts.
Was the director correct?
Answer
Yes, the director was correct. Alerting is a matter of regulation and depends on who is doing the regulating.
In England and Wales the alerting rules are set by the English Bridge Union, but while those apply to events run by the EBU, EBU counties, the WBU and WBU areas, clubs do not have to follow them. Nearly all clubs do which is sensible because otherwise players would become confused when playing in the different club.
To take a specific example, most clubs outside London and Manchester find the majority of players play four card majors. It would be perfectly legal for such a club to require an alert when a player opens a five card major.
So in your example the director’s authority, whatever it was, may require a pair not playing SAYC, for example playing Acol, to alert anything that is not the same as in SAYC. I know this makes no allowance for not knowing SAYC and I am sympathetic but those are the rules.
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