Rule Changes -Announcements

From August 1st this year there will be rule changes which will affect all Bridge players. We intend to introduce these changes at the Daten club from this date.

The most important of these is the introduction of 'announcements'.

For some bids this replaces the existing alert procedures with a statement about partners bid. There is only a limited number of bids that announcements apply to; all other conventional bids are alerted as at present. The bids subject to announcements are shown below:

• If partner opens 1 no trump you are required to announce '12-14' (or whatever range you may use) and 'may contain a singleton' (if that is what you play).

• Most opening 2 bids are subject to announcements which must say either "weak" or "strong" and "forcing" or "non-forcing". Note that this does not apply to a 2 club opening bid which is still alerted.

• Stayman for 1NT- announce "Stayman"

• transfer bids e.g a 2 diamond bid over 1NT would be announced as "hearts" and a 2 heart bid announced as "spades".
  
  A useful summary table can be found at:
  
  http://www.ebu.co.uk/publications/Convention%20Cards%20and%20Systems%20information/Announcements%20Table.pdf