A new orange book has been published. It makes changes to the regulations regarding alerting and introduces a new concept of announcements. It comes into force on 1st August 2006.
These fall into 3 categories: -
a) Opening bids of 1NT
Whenever your partner opens 1NT, you should announce the range e.g. "12-14" or "15-17". If you have an agreement that 1NT may be opened with a singleton, you should announce "12-14, possible singleton" or whatever your range is. If your 1NT range varies according to vulnerability or seat at the table, you should announce the range that applies to the hand in question.
b) Stayman & Transfers in response to 1NT
If you play Stayman in the traditional manner i.e. 2C asks partner to show a four-card major and a response of 2D denies one, then partner should announce "Stayman" instead of alerting. After this announcement, a rebid of 2D to show no four-card major is not alertable.
Red-suit transfers: If you play that a response of 2D to 1NT shows hearts and a response of 2H shows spades, partner should announce "Hearts" or "Spades" as appropriate instead of alerting. Do not alert the completion of the transfer. All other transfer bids should be alerted as at present. If a response of 2D to 1NT has two possible meanings, it should continue to be alerted as at present.
c) Opening bids of 2 of a suit
All opening 2 of a suit bids which are natural (show only the suit called) should be announced by partner. The description should be one of the following: -
1) Strong, forcing
2) Strong, not forcing
3) Intermediate
4) Weak
All opening 2 bids that are not natural should continue to be alerted.
You should continue to alert the following
Stayman & Transfers after 1NT has been doubled or in response to an overcall of 1NT.
Stayman & Transfers in response to 2NT (you are not required to announce the range of partner's opening 2NT)
Do not alert an opening bid of 1C or 1D that might be only a 3-card suit.
Do not alert any call above 3NT, unless it is an artificial opening bid (e.g. opening 4D to show a long suit of spades). All bids of Blackwood or Gerber and all responses thereto should not be alerted.
Alerting of doubles has changed. You should no longer alert negative doubles but all penalty doubles of suits below 3NT should now be alerted.
All doubles of natural bids of 1 or 2 No Trumps, if not alerted, are taken to be for penalties.
Doubles of artificial suit bids (e.g. Stayman or transfers), if not alerted, are taken to show the suit actually called.
The above regulations contain significant changes to the current practice. Please allow your opponents time to get used to the new system. It may well be better to allow the Director to explain the new system to your opponents rather than trying to do so yourself.