[dickiegera]

At a recent tournament directors said something to the effect that opening 1NT with 15-17 pts does no longer need to be announced.

Later someone said that this is not true.

Question does 1NT 15-17 pts need to be announced?

Thank you

[pran]

dickiegera, on 2018-February-08, 16:13, said:

At a recent tournament directors said something to the effect that opening 1NT with 15-17 pts does no longer need to be announced.

Later someone said that this is not true.

Question does 1NT 15-17 pts need to be announced?

Thank you

Announcement rules depend on the jurisdiction.

In Norway all opening bids within the range from 1NT to 2♠ shall be announced and there is no exception for instance for 1NT with 15-17.
However, I met some Swedes at an event recently and they seemed very unfamiliar with announcing 1NT opening bids at all?

[BudH]

dickiegera, on 2018-February-08, 16:13, said:

At a recent tournament directors said something to the effect that opening 1NT with 15-17 pts does no longer need to be announced.

Later someone said that this is not true.

Question does 1NT 15-17 pts need to be announced?

Thank you

In the ACBL, it is still announceable for all 1NT openings.

[helene_t]

In NZ and England all natural 1nt openings are announced.

On bbo it's good to prealert your nt range but you should still self alert if you're not sure the opps noticed your prealert and might assume a different range. I would not normally alert 15-17 unless playing in the acol club.

[pescetom]

In Italy the rules do not foresee any announcements (yet), although it is quite normal in many clubs to announce details of 1 and 2 level openings.
The alert procedures state that 1NT openings in a range between 15 and 18 and with desire to play in NT do not need alerting (I assume the intention is that not just 15-18 but also 15-17 and 16-18 ranges do not need alerting).

[barmar]

dickiegera, on 2018-February-08, 16:13, said:

At a recent tournament directors said something to the effect that opening 1NT with 15-17 pts does no longer need to be announced.

This is a rumor that keeps coming up, but nothing has changed. It was briefly true when announcements were first created, but it didn't work well so they changed it to announcing all ranges, and it has stayed that way ever since.

Clubs are free to make their own rules, that may be where some people get the idea.

[barmar]

pran, on 2018-February-08, 16:44, said:

Announcement rules depend on the jurisdiction.

The thread subtitle says ACBL.

[pescetom]

barmar, on 2018-February-09, 10:01, said:

Clubs are free to make their own rules, that may be where some people get the idea.

Is this a more or less automatic consequence of Law 80, or does ACBL explicitly delegate some degree of power to clubs?

[blackshoe]

That's a hard question to answer. AFAIK, there is no explicit statement by the ACBL anywhere that says "in accordance with Law 80A3, Regulating Authority powers are delegated (or assigned) to club management for all clubs operating with an ACBL sanction" or anything similar to that. The ACBL Handbook of Rules and Regulations says "ACBL grants a club game sanction on the condition that the club conduct all game sessions in full compliance with ACBL regulations. These regulations help maintain the technical level of all games and ensure that masterpoints are issued under approximately equal conditions everywhere. To retain a sanction the club manager must observe both the letter and the spirit of ACBL regulations." Later, it goes on to say "ACBL retains the right to approve or disapprove any bidding or defensive carding (lead or discard signal) convention for general use in ACBL-sanctioned tournament events. In exercising this right, ACBL has established convention charts that list conventions permitted in games having varying degrees of difficulty. See Appendix A.

A club manager can bar or allow specific conventions and can bar certain conventions in newcomer games but allow them in open games. The types of events for which this applies are club masterpoint games, club championships, club charity events, ACBL-wide events, unit championships, unit charity events, district charity events, and the first level of play in the North American Pairs event. The Alert procedure is used in tournaments and are optional (and strongly encouraged) in club games."

OTOH, "everybody knows" that clubs can do whatever they damn well please, and ACBL will not interfere.

[pescetom]

Thanks, then I gather that probably most of us are in the same boat: Law 80 is clear but the national RA prefers ambiguity to the risk of delegating or assigning power

Here in Italy the clubs are told to apply the national regulations in local tournaments, are explicitly conceded autonomy in terms of tournament fees, prizes etc. They are also explicitly conceded autonomy on some minor matters like use of phones during tournament, but that would seem to imply that they have no autonomy except where specified. And it's not specified for allowable systems or conventions, or for alerting procedure.

[jhenrikj]

pran, on 2018-February-08, 16:44, said:

Announcement rules depend on the jurisdiction.

In Norway all opening bids within the range from 1NT to 2♠ shall be announced and there is no exception for instance for 1NT with 15-17.
However, I met some Swedes at an event recently and they seemed very unfamiliar with announcing 1NT opening bids at all?

In Sweden we do not announce anything at all. At least it's very simple to remember ;-)

[barmar]

pescetom, on 2018-February-09, 10:48, said:

Is this a more or less automatic consequence of Law 80, or does ACBL explicitly delegate some degree of power to clubs?

As I understand it, it's implicit by omission. The regulations regarding the convention charts and alerting rules say they apply to tournaments, they don't say that clubs are required to enforce them.

For instance, ACBL recently changed the Stop card regulation, now prohibiting the use of Stop cards. But the announcement of this change specifically says that it only applies to tournaments, although clubs are encouraged to follow suit.

[blackshoe]

The ACBL, IMO, needs to ***** or get off the pot. It is unconscionable for them to say (in the ACBL Handbook, for example) that clubs are expected to conduct games "in full compliance" with ACBL regs, and then turn around in other documents and say "this is optional in clubs" or worse, in practice treat the situation, without actually saying so in writing, as "clubs can do whatever they want".

Edit: I do not like it when software edits my words.