daveharty

Due to limitations on the number of poll questions, I have split the categories into two threads. Don't forget to vote in part #2! After considering cherdano's request to include a "none of the above" option in each category, I ultimately decided not to do so. It's important to me that this is a recognition of positive contributions to these forums; I am hopeful that everyone will find at least one worthy choice for each award. I hope this omission doesn't prevent anyone from participation, and as this is a work in progress, I will revisit this issue (along with other things such as the number of awards and specific categories) next year. I have removed two categories from the poll: "Individual Post of the Year" and "Best Signature". Neither garnered sufficient nominations before the deadline. I don't really care about the latter, since it was a non-serious award anyway, but I really hope that there are lots of nominations for "Individual Post" next year. I realize that a lot of great posts from earlier in the year get lost/forgotten, and it's a lot of work to track them down later even if they are remembered; so, with that in mind, I will create a "2012 nomination thread" that can serve as a place to record nominations throughout the year while they are still fresh in the mind. When next December rolls around, I will start to sort the nominations so people can revisit outstanding posts/threads that they may have overlooked or forgotten. EDIT: Links to the threads listed above are here. FURTHER EDIT: Part 2 of the voting thread is here. Voting will remain open until FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, at 12:00 midnight EST.

Someone is going to register the username "noneoftheabove" and completely dominate next year.

Nominations are closed, thanks all. I will create "official" voting threads later today.

If I played double as bluecalm, I would choose that. But I'm not bidding 3H on my own here with all those losers, even with all the aces. This is a great hand for defense, bidding on could be turning a plus into a minus if partner has some random 2533 junk. If partner has a better and/or more shapely hand and makes any subsequent noise, of course I will be happy to cooperate but until then I would pass.

I only included Best Sig because it's a silly, non-bridge-related category that a few people suggested and has the potential to be amusing. I don't want to expand the bridge-related awards for reasons already discussed, at least for this iteration of the awards. If people think it's a good idea to have more awards, I will expand them for next year. EDIT: FWIW, I am nominating MrAce for Best Sig. That picture cracks me up every time.

Nominations received thus far: Newcomer of the Year Antrax, VM1973, SimonFa, Statto (Lurpoa was nominated but joined in 2010) Thread of the Year inquiry for "B/I Defensive Play Series" (first is here) flametree for "Most hopeless/clueless comment?" timve for "The New Star Policy" Cascade for "The Five Level Belongs to" Chris2794 for "What's the funniest system you have played?" relknes for "Developing Bidding Judgement" chudecek for "SLOW Play USA Trials" Individual Post of the Year mikeh for "Expert Thought Processes" EDIT: Post #28 in this thread. hrothgar for "Sneeches" "Bridge in the Real World" Award JLOGIC, fred, rogerclee, FrancesHinden, MBodell Most Helpful B/I Poster Zelandakh, inquiry, hrothgar, FrancesHinden Best Signature no nominations yet! Poster of the Year gnasher, JLOGIC, hrothgar, mikeh, FrancesHinden, awm Nominations will remain open until this Monday, January 23, at midnight (Eastern). On Tuesday I'll create a separate thread for the actual voting. There have been a few comments about how things of this nature become a "popularity contest"; I hope that's not what people are taking away from it. I have gone back over some of the nominations and the posting history of some of the nominees; it's really mind-boggling to me how much time and effort many of these individuals put into what is, essentially, a completely zero-reward volunteer task. If there is a better online resource for improving your bridge game through interaction with some really good thinkers/writers/players, I don't know what it is.

All of these things, as well as your location and credit card activity, are already monitored. The only way to disrupt their plans is to wear a San Diego Padres cap lined with tinfoil.

Pass. I guess if you are swinging for the fences, 6C and a prayer for a pointed-suit lead has a little appeal...but no thanks.

My head hurts

I don't think I've ever heard of a competitive endeavor where one is permitted to duck an opponent for playing legal methods. In basketball, you aren't allowed to skip an opponent who plays zone defense; in chess, you aren't allowed to skip an opponent who frequently opens 1. c4 instead of the more familiar 1. e4 or 1. d4; and if the pair from the OP were vacationing in Europe and decided to play in a local bridge club, I doubt they would be allowed to skip pairs who played Multi. Of course I have some sympathy for the lady; my guess is that she's had the following not-atypical experience: she played against an unpracticed pair who were trying out Precision. They were probably younger players, who are more likely to experiment with nonstandard systems. Maybe they had an auction or two where they didn't quite know what they were doing but happened to get a good result; maybe the lady thought, rightly or wrongly, that there was UI involved. Or maybe she just got her head handed to her by a superior pair. Either way, it probably had nothing to do with what system her opponents were playing; the same thing happens all the time against people playing more standard methods, but because the opponents were playing Precision, she remembered it and it stuck in this lady's craw. Maybe her local club doesn't allow strong club systems; I don't agree with such prohibitions, but I recognize that the ACBL grants clubs the power to do this. But this was a regional tournament; and though it was a limited event, it was NOT a 49er or 99er event. This lady chose to play in an event where she was even likely to face (gasp!) some "Life Masters." Had I been the director I would not have appeased her by allowing her to relocate, although I would have reminded her that it is her right (indeed her obligation) to call the director if she thinks there has been an infraction at her table. I suppose this makes me sound harsh, and if, as a result, this lady gave up bridge and convinced all of her friends to do the same, I would be truly sorry. But I just don't think you can allow the inmates to run the asylum.

I'm not so sure about this part, I expect to go down a fair percentage of the time. South's bid is really wide-ranging, from utter garbage to quite decent, so it wouldn't shock me to have partner put down a rotten entryless dummy and be forced to play the whole thing out of my hand. That being said, of course this is an obvious 4H. No reason not to make the best descriptive bid.

Both good threads...and both several years old.

That's a great idea. I'll add it as a bonus category. Nominate away!

Fair enough. I will leave nominations open for another week, until Monday, January 23, at midnight. Then I'll create a separate thread for the "official" voting. On Friday or Saturday, I'll post another list of nominations I've received so far, so others can see if I've made any glaring omissions. As for deciding on the categories, my strong inclination is to stick with my original list of five awards (Newcomer, Best Thread, Best Post, "Real World", and Best Poster) with the addition of 32519's excellent suggestion of "Most Helpful Poster in B/I". That is such an important function of the BBOF that I think it deserves a separate award. I think issues like instructional vs. non-instructional, A/E vs. B/I, etc. can sort themselves out through the nominations and the voting. There hasn't been much call for increasing the number of awards, so I guess I'll just go with this scheme; if people subsequently decide there should be more/different awards, I can factor that in next year's poll. EDIT: Also, if you nominate a post/thread, please include links, as gwnn has done above. Very helpful.

I think it's a worthwhile exercise to have a vote even in cases where there is a clear front-runner, if only to recognize those others who had noteworthy accomplishments that might have been overshadowed. What's the old saw, It's an honor just to be nominated? Plus there are occasional upsets that leave most of us scratching our heads ("Shakespeare in Love" anyone?); you can argue about whether such choices reduce the credibility of the award, but at least it's interesting to talk about. If the final vote is a "popularity contest", well, at least the process makes some of us aware of some posters' accomplishments that we might not have been aware of; I knew about Justin's great year, of course, but I didn't know much about some of the others that have been suggested, and I'm glad that's been put right.

My intent is to establish annual awards in all the categories, so "of the year" will be the norm. Whether or not older posts/posters should be grandfathered into consideration for these first awards is something I didn't really consider, but in the case of clee and jdonn it didn't seem too relevant since clee is still active and they aren't up for "separate" consideration. But I'm not really married to any particular rule or set of rules, just the idea of recognizing excellence by forum posters. And if someone distinguishes themselves in second-tier real -world events, by all means, nominate them (I consider MBodell nominated by Phil). As for the number of awards, I share Vampyr's concern about the awards becoming too specialized and watered down. That being said, if a lot of people think that more awards should be established along the lines of what Phil suggests, then I will run with that.

Nominations I have received so far: Newcomer of the Year: Antrax, Lurpoa "Real World" Award: JLOGIC, jdonn/rogerclee partnership, FrancesHinden, fred Thread of the Year: flametree's "Most hopeless/clueless comment?" Individual Post of the Year: no nominations yet Most Helpful Poster in B/I: Zelandakh, Inquiry, hrothgar Poster of the Year: gnasher, JLOGIC, hrothgar I will take nominations for a few more days and then create a poll. Remember, you aren't voting for a winner at this point, only making nominations; feel free to nominate multiple posters/threads. Ideally I would like at least five nominees for each category, certainly no fewer than three. I know that the "Thread" and "Individual Post" categories are a little tricky since it requires either a good memory or some diligent searching back through the last year's threads. If I don't get enough nominations for them, I will leave them off for this year; I think it might be a good idea for future years (yeah I'm thinking big) to create a "nomination thread" to which people can easily post possible nominees throughout the year.

Fixed my own post.

Not to get in the way of a good argument, but I did want to point out that whatever one's personal interpretation of the term "Negative Free Bid", the original post gives our partnership agreement: 5-10 with good diamonds. When you see partner's hand, you might disagree with his bid, but I think he was making the best of an uncomfortable situation given our agreements. Also, given the vulnerability, I would expect him to be on the high side of the range more often than not. If you think he is too strong for a NFB, then exchange the club queen for a low one, and it wouldn't change much. The full hand: [hv=pc=n&s=s3hqjt865d86cak54&w=sqh972dkqj974cq87&n=sat542hdt32cj9632&e=skj9876hak43da5ct]399|300[/hv]

My first thought was to split the "Thread of the Year" and "Post of the Year" into two categories each, "Instructional" and "Non-instructional". Then I thought that five total awards was a nice easy-to-manage number, and that it might be more interesting to let issues like that sort themselves out through the nominations and subsequent voting. If people disagree, I would certainly bow to the will of the majority. I do think it's impractical to have, say, a different award for each forum category. That being said, I do think that an award along the lines of "Most Helpful Poster in B/I" would be worthy, and if a lot of people agree with you, I would be happy to add such an award.

I realize I'm a couple of weeks tardy, but anyway...I've often thought there should be some sort of semi-official recognition given to those who are noteworthy in their contributions to the BBO Discussion Forums. In the spirit of the movie/music awards season which is just around the corner, I therefore call for nominations for the 2011 Posty Awards (unless someone thinks of a better name). I suggest the following categories be recognized: Thread of the Year (to be awarded to whomever initiated the thread) Individual Post of the Year (could be instructional, funny, whatever) "Bridge in the Real World" Award (for the BBOF poster with noteworthy bridge accomplishments in the real world) Newcomer of the Year (to the outstanding poster who made their first post in 2011) and the big one....Poster of the Year. What do you think? If there is sufficient interest, I would be happy to sort through nominations and create a poll. Nominations could be posted to this thread, or sent to me privately. The winners would have bragging rights until next year, and would forever be able to precede their name with "Posty Award Winner."

;)

I'll double. If partner has a decent spade holding (a distinct possibility with no spade raise by RHO) we could crush this, or play 3NT which is probably no worse than a club hook. If partner jumps in hearts, I am okay with that too; I will bid 3S over 3H from partner. I think the hand is too good for 3C, and passing is absurd.

That's so weird Han, I've heard he says the same thing about you.

Do you have a bridge nemesis? Someone who regularly gets the better of you at the table? This might be someone in a local game who always seems to get finesses right when you are an opponent, or someone who always takes suspect actions against you but seems to catch a magic dummy, or maybe just a really good player against whom you can't quite get over the hump. My own nemesis, I believe, is an older gentleman who is widely regarded as one of the weakest players in the local club; he regularly turns in sub-40% games, but never seems to get punished at my table. I remember one specific incident where he made a vulnerable 2C overcall on a balanced 10 count with Jxxxx of clubs and was given a gentle raise to 3C by his partner. My partner doubled him off with a decent defensive 9 count, but he caught AQxxx of clubs in dummy with a side void opposite xxx. There have been two separate occasions where he has gotten a good result against me because he mis-saw his hand (he is legally blind and requires very bright lighting to see the cards, as well as holding them very close to his face), bid accordingly, and my partner and I couldn't work it out. Anyone else have a situation like this? Is there a psychological element at work here? Were you ever able to shake the curse?