the saint

I co-commentated the entire event with Mark (my first commentary) and now appreciate what a tricky task it is. The only comment I would make about commentary as such is that some commentators should be more aware of who they are commentating about. In the case of this particular event, even though there were only Under 25 players on screen at any time, because of the lack of strength in depth of some of the participating nations, some were very inexperienced, and the commentators comments should reflect that - especially since a very large portion of the audience for that event were the direct peers of the players themselves. 99.99% of the comments were fine, but there were one or two (as in any commentary I suppose) that could have been a little more carefully considered. I had an enormous amount of requests to ask for an Under 20 match to be shown, but the feeling in Scotland was that they didn't want the youngsters (some as young as 12) to potentially be humiliated by the vugraph commentary. Now while I know none of the commentators would dream of doing such a thing, I feel it is important that all commentators strive to maintain a friendly approach (which they all do IMO) whilst being 100% objective at all times. Hopefully next time, the Under 20s will regard it as a thrill to play on vugraph and rise to the occasion, rather than feel as if the world is looking to tear them apart. Thanks for inviting me to commentate on this event. As someone who knew most of the players involved and who has taught and coached, and played with and against many of them at one time or another, it was a pleasure. Alan

House Music! :D :) :) :) :) ... Ahhhh its 1989 all over again! The deeper the better. I need a full-on dose of mad 303 action to get the juices flowing. Tribal, Acid, Deep, Electro, Proggy, Breaks - its all good!! And its always good for the soul to be throwing a few shapes whilst reaping a few IMPs!

Evening All Does anybody have anyway of converting all those lovely vugraph libraries of great historical bridge into Duplimate files suitable for dealing machines? Or does anybody know where there is an archive of Duplimate files of these events? I have been requested to find out about this so we can deal them up speedily for coaching purposes. Cheers Me Dears Alan

Having been to TGRs and St John's Wood in London a couple of times and seen the big game in action, I can assure you that there are some seriously minted people lurking around who don't mind losing the odd few grand because it is just pocket change to them. Their money simply allows them to play around and do what they please in life. Their comprehension of risk is just on a totally different scale. I baulk at floating a tenner on anything, they couldn't give a %@&£ about ten grand. The compulsive gamblers have been doing it so often, they just don't care either and have to float that much just to get the buzz again. I have to say that visiting these two places was actually quite depressing. TGR's is in a basement just off Hyde Park and St John's Wood is in a basement somewhere just north of there. Both are pretty dingy, and the thought of spending 24 hours a day in there trying to win a few quid I find really quite depressing when there is such a big wide world out there to see. Just my two pennies worth. Alan

I have been fortunate to watch and play F2F against some of the finest players in the world. The really good ones 'know' what is going on. I saw Helgemo and Forrester defending a routine 3NT contract that had a few pitfalls in defence but should normally be one off provided it was timed correctly. Helgemo systematically solved each of Forrester's problems for him beautifully. His aura at the table was something else. I haven't seen any player so aware of absolutely everything that was going on.

Having just seen it, I would have thought pass was straightforward. Why are people in such a rush to bid? If the hand was say the K or even Q of clubs weaker, people would have been passing in a blink. If partner can't balance, then what has gone wrong? What have we missed? It may well be right to be defending. Having said that, make me a Q or so stronger and you won't keep me out of the auction. :rolleyes:

Bridge in general needs a better personal rating system. BBO certainly does not. If we accept (as we should) that people won't get their own ratings right all the time for whatever reason, but that as an approximate guide it works reasonably well, then there is no problem. I personally never cared too much about my rating during the brief time I was on OKB - my bridge battles lay elsewhere, but it destroyed so many games when people would disconnect at the merest whiff of a bad board. The way BBO is set up, there is always the (very) odd bad egg who will be selfish and ruin things for others, but the overwhelming proportion of people on here are cool, so lets not get stressed about it and just enjoy ourselves!! Alan

As someone born and raised at the teat on 4CM, I personally love it far more than fives. Openin a prepared minor? Yuck, just wait for the pre-emption and partners subsequent complete inability to judge the auction. Those who open the lower of two 4 carders (Major/Minor) are effectively playing 5CM too. Get the majors in there, get 3 card raising! Get your (weak) nuts on the table and let opps sort themselves out! Out of curiosity I did an IMP analysis where I did IMPs/board for each opening bid. 1NT and 1M openings running comfortably better than 1 minor openings over a prolonged period of time against good opposition (about 300 boards of an England open trials). And I find this trend continuing too... Weak NT? High frequency, rapid definition, and I personally like the Crouch/Rosen responses - far better than Stayman/Xfers. But too long for me to go into here. Plus the fact that I've only had a few online bidding practices with them, and can't remember them properly at the monent... :D Yeah, it has its structural faults and wrinkles that need to be ironed out a bit, but is it a teensy weensy bit too aggressive of all you scaredy cat 5CM 15-17 people? Just my few words on the matter... Alan P.S. I bet if Lauria/Versace played 4CM 12-14 they would still win everything and everyone would say what a great system it was.

I'm getting frustrated with all these continual calls to change the game or adjust the scoring because people don't like the way the game has evolved. Lets put all this in perspective. The world is 5 billion years old, man has been on the face of the planet for only a few tens of thousands of years of which civilisation has been around for even less, and the very pinnacle of civilisation - bridge (of course) - has been around in its current form for less than a century. It is a young game and it is still evolving. People forget that the methods we take for granted and play as standard now would be completely alien to those playing only 50 years ago. If you analyse World Championships, the number of unintelligible systems played by the very top pairs has actually declined dramatically from their late 80's early 90's heyday. This has happened as players have re-evaluated their priorities at the table and their methods with them. I have no doubt that such things will return, as these processes are always cyclical, but by then we may have yet more methods as standard that we cannot comprehend today. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the game that requires any shift in the rules as suggested. Destructive bidding is a skill and an artform. The reason why (IMHO) Bridge is superior to chess and poker is that it combines the best of both and then places it within the context of having to do it with the ox sitting opposite you. To complain about destructive bidding is akin to complaining about inventive false carding in defence or deceptive declarer play. These are lauded as fine technique - surely this also applies to fine judgement in destructive bidding. If the player up against you can read you better than you can read them and backs their judgement in the auction, this too deserves some accolade. There are many ways and styles of playing this game, and it is the temperament and intellect of each player that determines which approach they take and which works best for them. It is for us all to understand ourselves better that we work out the best approach for ourselves and our partnership. This self-discovery and the hard work it entails is one of the joys of the game and creates the myriad of differing players that we see. To castrate one aspect of the game because it is deemed undesirable by a facet of players is to remove the cultural diversity. If everyone looked the same, what a boring place this world would be. Alan

I agree, with the above, with one small proviso. If you have VERY GOOD reason to believe that the opps in question psych regularly and in a recurring theme or pattern, the pysch should be recorded to allow such a pattern to be established. Such that in the future, damage through a possibly illicit understanding by the opps in question may be prevented. Alan (aka The Saint) P.S. If someone psyches against me and makes it stick then good luck to you, but I have the memory of an elephant.... And the bloodlust of a vampire! Surely that is the spirit we want this game to be played in? :lol:

Sorry if this has been covered before, but I'm looking for some software or Word/Excel macro that takes in PBN (or LIN?) files and formats them so that it displays hand diagrams and auctions - say 4 to an A4 page - so that they can be printed out for teaching handouts and such-like. Anybody have anything or know of anything I can get hold of that would do this for me? Cheers Alan (aka The Saint)

The one correlation I have noticed between very good players and any one personality trait is that they all have very rapid sense of humour. If you think about it this is quite logical because humourous wordplay requires the same sort of combinations of logical and lateral thinking that bridge does. Or alternatively you can take Michael Rosenberg's view on the whole matter - all bridge players are bad, the winners just make less mistakes. :P

Hi all, I help coach the England U'20s and I hope to be dragging them all in to play practice matches in the junior club against foreign teams. As I'm stillonly 28, I believe I still qualify to play in the club too!! Bonus! Alan

I voted 2C. There are a lot of major suit card lying around and I want to get my support of my chest now so there is no guessing later. A defensive high card raise? Aint that what I got?

Table presence..... You can be the best technician on the planet, but if you have the table presence of a chair leg then you will be kicked around all over the place. Guessing Queens, knowing when to save, pass or double, when to psych, when someone has psyched you. I know a whole load of rubber players who play no system (and I mean no system) at all and regularly rack up the scores based on great cardplay and table presence. You cna develop it to a degree, but some are just born with it. Know your opponent and get inside his head :) , then what can he do to hurt you? (Unfortunately I don't have an evil laughing emoticon to press my point home.....) Alan

Sure its fun to experiment - I do have a hankering for trying one of the relay systems at some point and having a go at Polish club - but in the end I always find myself thinking, 'I wish I was playing my methods'. For the record I am an Acol, 12-14, 4 card major man, and I am not going to go into the pro's and con's of each system. Its just that when I am in the heat of real battle, I know what I am 100% comfortable with, because I know it inside out. Several times I have has the situation crop up where I am thinking, 'I know exactly what I would have done in my system!' By all means experiment, it improves your understanding and knowledge of the game, but remember where your heart lies.

An Acol player here. Gerber has sort of fallen out of favour in Acol-land (UK) mainly because of disdain as much as anything. It is commonly used by (very) weak players with any game raise opposite an opening bid, as a slam try on the way to game. They get their response and stop in game, frequently going off!! Seeing this abuse, 'expert players', tend to look down on this and decide not to play Gerber! Frequently though it is a question of response structure. Clearly over a suit, 4C is to the majority, more effectively used as a splinter, or in more old-fashioned cases, some kind of Swiss-style response. Leaving us with in response to NT bids. Over 2NT, there is a strong case for playing 4C as a natural slam try, but over 1NT this 'structure' issue is less clear cut. Thee are options, but it does depend heavily on how many transfers you play over 1NT. If you only play 2 transfers then you might wish to use a 3C response as some kind of 8-11ish type hand with a good suit e.g. Qxx xx xx AQJxxx, strictly promising 2 of top 3 honours and inviting partner to trytheir luck in if they can fit you. Then 4C may be played as a natural slam try. Of course some people will just bid 3NT on those hand-types anyway! As was also suggested, 4C can have some kind of Texas-style meaning, just don't do what Boris Schapiro once famously did and forget the system! I suppose the reality is that the experts have decided that they can find out about Aces through other more-convoluted means. If you feel most comfortable with Gerber, then you play it.

English Bridge Union

I agree that Bridge is a whole different kettle of fish compared to Freecell and Hearts - thats why we play it and love it so much. And never get bored of it. My point was really that Bridge needs more exposure, and via the PC would be ideal. Although it was a little tongue in cheek I admit! The idea is that if you can arouse curiosity in the game, then some will give it a go. Where is the mass-exposure at the moment? We have just had the most exciting Bermuda Bowl ever and where exactly did the world sit up and take notice?

Hi I am a regional youth officer for the development of Bridge in England. It is a voluntary post.i only do it in my spare time because I have to earn a living! I have been involved in developing youth bridge for 4 years. I am 27 now and decided to get involved while I was still young and the kids could still relate to me. I am also a former U25 International, and I made no secret of this fact because the fact that I represented my country made it cool - a game which we all accept has an image problem amongst the young. I would certainly advocate players of similar status to get involved and gove something back to the game that has given so much. There are many problems I encounter in England. Teaching in schools is preferable - I learnt at school, played for my school and so on. But I was lucky because I had a teacher who played and gave her time. There aren't bridge playing teachers in every school, and increasing curiculum workloads mean they have less and less time to give. Some are unwilling to do so. It would seem therefore that the solution is to get outsiders to go in, but schools don't like strangers with their children. I have to have a police background check in order to do my job because I am working with children. Child-abuse is a very hot political subject in England at the moment. So I have to look for teachers in the schools who play and are willing or people to go in from outside who the schools trust and have the relevant clearances. This is before we even get to the children. Yes, there is an image problem. That was why I got involved. To show we aren't all old and decrepit! Also because when I was at school there were potentially 30-40 really good juniors (I mean really good!). The local county association wasted that talent to the extent that only three of us are still playing in any way. I resolved never to let that happen again, so that any juniors I could help wouldn't be lost to the game through the incompetence of the powers that be. It would be of their own choice. The fact remains that it is very difficult to hold the attention of the youngsters when in 30 seconds they can be doing all manner of exciting things on a Playstation. This situation will only get worse. To counter this, perhaps Bill Gates could bundle Bridge software with every copy of Windows he sells. He can afford it. I know he likes the game. And how many players (especially youngsters)would have their curiosity aroused by it. GO ON BILL. DO IT! The one mantra I hold when doing this is that it must be fun. Take away the enjoyment of playing - surely the raison d'etre in the first place - and no-one will want to play. Junior Bridge was the most fun I ever had in the game with the most fun people and I want to ensure it stays that way. Juniors are noisy, sometimes go too far, but there is never any malice. And they play harder and fairer than the average adult. I have never heard of a junior cheating scandal and I doubt I ever will. Yet in many bridge clubs you can visibly see the Old Age Pensioners curling up their toes at the sight of them. The generation gap rears its ugly head. Yes, as I said it sometimes goes to far and a quiet word after the event doesn't go amiss. I had a couple and it never did me any harm. Is it so hard to co-exist? The junior scene in this country is held together by a handful of hard-working people who give freely of their time, who do a stunning job within the stark limitations of their resources. Its sad, but true. But I won't stop trying to spread my love of the game to those who will follow me. Alan Shillitoe alan_shillitoe@hotmail.com