JoAnneM

I have been thinking about all these acts of violence from seemingly normal people. Fathers killing their families, employees killing co-workers, etc. Usually these people have lost jobs, homes, money, their "base". I think we (society, not me) are reaping the rewards of not teaching children and young people to fail. You can't hurt their "self esteem" so everyone is given a trophy whether they come in first or last. There are schools where no grades are given because they don't want kids to be "judged". I read that in the Great Depression acts of violence actually decreased while in this recession violence is on the increase. Maybe we should rethink how we are raising our little darlings who can't be punished, scolded, spanked, or told they weren't as good as someone else.

Stephen, just my opinion but you have talked to the wrong person, unless he was your last stop along the way. Jackie Mathews, D21 TM, and the D21 DIC would be the people to be discussing this with. Or just keep plugging away till you find someone there on your side. Better yet, become involved yourself, which it looks like you are doing. :) You also might try appearing before that board yourself and making a presentation, which I have done, with success.

They weren't rewarded this last election, and which country with perfect people and politics are you from?

When I was still working the folks hanging around the "water cooler" liked to talk about random things........

I had no reason to accuse the forum members of not being polite. I probably should have made the post two paragraphs.

Why the f.... would anyone be polite to an arrogant bastard like Richard or a brain-dead parrot like Jimmy? The purpose of the water cooler is to absorb all the hostile bs that would otherwise contaminate the bridge forums. " If you don't care what the bow looks like then why did you start the thread? " This was my question to the poster. "I think it is time that people started being polite to each other again." This was my opinion about the bow, and obviously I was correct.

If you don't care what the bow looks like then why did you start the thread? I think it is time that people started being polite to each other again.

A nice sub-thread going. Our first home computer was purchased in 1978. An 8K Commodore Pet. Very exciting. I found the pamphlet that came with it just the other day - very small. For the several months we had to either buy programs directly from the programmers or type them in ourselves from books. Then software stores started appearing. My husband was stationed at NSA at the time and shortly after we got it we had a promotion party at our house and most of those computer guys spent the evening playing with our Commodore Pet!

I am confused. If none of your income is from W-2's are you going to get a stimulus check?

Any good detective will tell you "there are no coincidences". So, west has his suit all set up and that just happens to be the time that he doesn't notice that declarer has led a card. There are a few people in my club that I might give that to. One is blind and we have to tell her when a card is led and what it is, and then we aren't always sure what is going to happen (but we love her), and the other one pays little attention to the game and was probably thinking about her cats. Everyone else, no way.

It's quality, not quantity that counts. :rolleyes: Has anyone seen any good movies lately?

What I was trying to point out is that there are different proprieties in different games and that a new player cannot be expected to know them. I think you were treated badly, and that is not good for bridge.

This is an interesting question on ethics and the new player, and how they should be treated. Of course the answer to the basic question is that you do not accept tricks that do not belong to you. We had a new player come to our club from rubber bridge. The first time she pulled out a card when following suit, then put it back and played another one, only later to have us discover that she had a singleton we almost went ballistic. However she said that in her rubber bridge club that kind of thing was standard procedure and "part of the game". This is when you direct the player to the Proprieties and Laws of the game, not when you shun them. Law 71 Concession Canceled A concession may be canceled by the Director in the following situations when made within the correction period established in Law 79: 1. If a trick has been conceded that has already been won. 2. If a trick is conceded that cannot be lost by any normal play of the remaining cards. If playing online I would change to Concession Rejected

He thought 2D was Michaels, and he might have been excited about getting to use a convention? Who knows.... :(

Thanks for your replies, it confirms what I tried to tell my table at the club when we were discussing the hand yesterday. I was the 1d bidder and we defended 2d for a top board when advancer not knowing what to do, and having 4 diamonds - passed. The 2d bidder with 19 points and the majors was bidding michaels, which my partner agreed with. I maintained he should have doubled to show the suits, especially with such a big hand, but that 2d would always be natural. But now I wonder, with a big hand and 5-5 or 6-5, if it is better to just start bidding the suits so partner, with probably little or no points, won't end up as declarer.

1c-p-1d-2d What is 2d in an undiscussed situation?

Maybe this was on a different thread and I didn't see it, but thanks to all the BBO team for the Vanderbilt coverage. I really enjoyed watching it and even learned a few things.

I would like to take all of the stop cards out of the bid boxes in my club. I would especially like to take them away from the players who take them out, put them on the table, and then think about what they are going to bid. To me, that is giving UI. It says "my hand is so good I have choices of how to show it".

So these people never go on vacation? Unless you're attending an NABC local to your home, I don't see how most of these cases are relevant. If you're a surgeon, there's not much you can do to help someone if you have to get on a plane first to fly home. Any organization with an "indispensible" person is poorly managed. What do they do when he gets sick? What if he's hit by a bus? Or worse: one of the founders of my company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_M._Lewin) was on board one of the 9/11 jets that hit the WTC. Although he was undoubtedly considered critical to the company, we continued on without him and have been quite successful. We have people who are on-call to manage incidents, but the duty rotates every week among a handful of managers and other senior employees, and there's both a primary and backup. If you're going away during your assigned week, you find someone to swap with. Individual contributors like myself are also expected to be reachable most of the time, but there's a list of people responsible for each service, and if you're not available, or don't have an Internet connection, when something comes up, they go to the next person on the list. Even the President isn't indispensible, except perhaps in a nuclear emergency. Bush was widely criticized for continuing to read a story to school children while the 9/11 attacks were going on. While it's true that this publicity stunt shouldn't take precedence over a national emergency, would it really have made a difference if he'd gone into action? Almost any decision he might be expected to make could also have been made by the VP, appropriate Cabinet members, or military leaders. Your argument is irelevant because, in fact, there are people who are expected to return pages and calls 24/7 whether you agree or not.

Then you are saying bridge is only for the retired (old people) or independently wealthy, but not for the gainfully employed (except for bridge pros). That is very elitest.

My son (who is not a bridge player) is an IT person at CALpers and is required to wear his pager and have his blackberry available 24/7. My daughter-in-law who is product manager for iTunes is required to be reachable by "guess what" 24/7. There you have two. I can think of all kinds of situations and jobs where some of us may not think people are indespensible, but their companies do.

When this phone ban thing first came up I assumed the $2 charge was because hotel security was going to run the booth, but with the host unit volunteers running the booth I can't see justifying a charge. For one thing, who are these people taking care of the phones, and can I even trust them. For another thing, ACBL provides entertainment and hospitality money plus there is extra money raised. Setting up a booth and making a sign costs very little. Giving out some scrip or however volunteers are being rewarded also takes little away from the other committees. Seems like the $2 charge creates more illwill than the money earned. And the phones not being available IMMEDIATELY after a session was outrageous.

Bridge Pro Tour was a misnomer. It was not a "tour" for pros. It was simply a side game, outside of ACBL, that was being run at Regionals that offered some prize money. I don't think anyone is suggesting that there is anything wrong with the event structures or sponsor arrangements. In fact I wasn't suggesting anything is wrong at all. I just thought that for a legitimate player wanting to be a pro, or a legitimate player wanting to hire a pro, but not knowing any, there might be a need for some sort of central "clearing house". Not every player wanting to hire a pro wants to retain one for the year or sponsor a team in the Vanderbilt. There are many levels of bridge below that.

Bob Lix served as D20 District Director and was ACBL Treasurer. His wife, Sally, was active in the Western Conference and was a supporter of the now defunct Bridge Pro Tour, which was a money prize bridge game held in conjunction with some Regionals for a few years. It never really caught on - for various reasons. But it had little to do with professional players. It was designed for rank and file players with everyone playing the ACBL SAYC card. Some pro players participated, of course. Bob and Sally moved to Alaska last year and are enjoying the quiet life now, and bridge in a club with three or four tables. Our club misses them a lot.

I don't think that was a side game if he got a prize. Maybe it was an I/N game where they do give out prizes. Or, I suppose it could have been a section top prize - we have a limit what we can spend on those, and it's not much. I'd say that walking in - playing with a pickup partner who was pleasant, nice to play with, and you did well - was the prize.