Re: great idea -- explain own bids

I wrote: "If the complete verbal agreement is "Cappelletti", you are
not allowed to say Cappelletti. Actually at the table, "Cappelletti"
is a perfectly acceptable answer if the opps know the meaning of
Cappelletti. If they don't, then you have to tell them the meaning of
the bids you are making."

Ed (blackshoe) replied:

"Bull****. In the ACBL, at least, and also in other jurisdictions if
I'm not mistaken, 'explaining' a call by naming a convention is
*explicitly* illegal. See the ACBL Alert Procedure."

Hmm. Nigel Guthrie has started complaining about laws that people
ignore. This is one of them. If the auction goes 1D - P - 2D alerted
and asked what that means, the most common answer is "inverted." Most
of the time the opps know what that MEANS and everything is smooth.
And actual explanation of the meaning of the bid would slow down the
game and annoy people, because it would actually be harder to
understand.

And now for the exceptions. If I do not know the opponents, or think
they will not know the meaning of inverted, then I skip the jargon and
tell them the MEANING.

The unfortunate cir***stance is when the opps do not know the meaning
of the jargon. Then they ask the MEANING and are told the MEANING and
everything is fine.

Emphasis here on the im****tance of explaining the meaning of the bid.

Now, are you claiming that outside the ACBL, that it could be legal to
say Cappelletti and refuse to say more because that is our full
agreement? In other words, that the laws allow this? Was the ACBL just
explaining the law (the law requires you to give the meaning of a bid,
not just your explicit agreement), or was the ACBL changing the law
(the law allows you to say just "Cappelletti" if that is your whole
agreement, but the ACBL prohibits this."