DenisO

Just remembered - there was another series called Master Bridge boadcast on Channel 4 (in UK) about 1982. This was an individual tournament with preset hands and featured Rixi Markus, Jane Priday, Jeremy Flint, Martin Hoffman, Irving Rose and Robert Sheehan. To get as big an audience as poss these were suplemented by Zia and Omar Sharif! I can't remember anything about it but Nicola Gardener (daughter of Nico - joint author with Victor Mollo of Card Play Technique and herself a World Champion) has written a book about the programme giving hand analysis pre play and after. Denis

There were two International matches (UK v USA) broadcast by the BBC in the early 80's. I have the book of the second called Grand Slam. The 2nd match was televised in 1983 over a number of weekends - 78 boards. For the USA there were Neil Silverman,Matt Granovetter,Jackie Mitchell and Gail Moss. For UK it was Tony Priday, Claude Rodrigue, Nicola Gardiner and Pat Davies - all world class players. I can't remember much about it but it was enjoyable viewing at the time - I think it used to go out on a Sunday afternoon in winter so was pitched at people who didn't know much about bridge ie a lot of explanatory stuff. I don't know if the BBC made any videos of the series. Denis

Ok - so there were a few hiccups, but this didn't detract from a great weekend of bridge viewing. I thought it very exciting - and there was some really good bridge as well! Result was in doubt right to the last few boards which is quite something considering the teams had all played eight 32-bd matches (over the two weekends). A great big thanks to BBO, Roland and his team of commentators and all the bridge lovers who organised the matches in Scotland and N Ireland. Denis

Yes - a big improvement - very easy to read, as are the links.

Hi Flame There is a nice little freeware program called Suitplay which is very useful for analysing any card combination you want to throw at it. You can get it at : http://home.planet.nl/~narcis45/SuitPlay/ Denis

Thanks Fred - very grateful for you fixing it so quickly :rolleyes: Denis

Hi Fred I'm constructing some lin files from pbn files (normal match format). When I do the usual Open With NetbridgeVu.exe I get a small window : "Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library A buffer overrun has been detected which has corrupted the program's internal state. The program cannot safely continue execution and must now be terminated" I've never seen anything like this prior to V408 - any ideas? I'm running XP Home Edition with Service Pack2 Thx Denis

:P Not sure how to take that Free - I'm just a BIL intermediate member looking for good advice from you experts :) I think, using Rule of 11, that ♣8 is routine play. I don't expect pard to underlead his Ace so that puts it with declarer and that's his only card higher than ♣6. If I've got this wrong I'll go back to being a beginner :( There is another saying which also works very well "Keep a card to beat dummy's best" ;)

Many thanks all for comments - especially Fred for detailed analysis - very instructive esp the comment about "forcing game" not being so effective against part scores. For the record the hands were: [hv=d=w&v=n&n=s5hqj972d64caq763&w=s8hak1085daq1072c102&e=saj963h64dk85cj54&s=skq10742h3dj93ck98]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] North led the ♣6 and I played the ♣8 , giving declarer the cheap trick :P. Pity North hadn't read Mike Lawrence's Opening Leads! Denis

MPs N/S Vul dealer West: (in a multinational simultaneous pairs event) Bidding goes: 1♥ - (P) -1♠ - (P) 2♦ - (P)- 2♥ - AP What do you lead as North with: ♠5 ♥QJ972 ♦64 ♣AQ763 Analysis welcomed - even after looking at the textbooks I'm not sure :) For interest - how happy are you with your lead - scale 1-5?. Thx Denis

Is there anywhere that describes how "mainstream" Moscito has evolved over the years? It would be interesting to see how/why bids have changed in the search for greater efficiency. Denis

If I can't reach the forums with the shortcut on my desktop, I find that trying: www.bridgebase.com/forums usually works. Denis

The DVD is now on sale in the EBU (English Bridge Union) shop in the UK at £17.99 +P&P - but there is a 20% discount for EBU members. The discounted price equates to about $27US. My experience is that Bridge software in the UK is generally some 30 to 40% more expensive than in the US or elsewhere - hence I tend to buy from BridgeBase.com -but have also bought from Canada and Australia (Nick Fahrer's Bridge Shop) with good savings on UK prices. Denis

Sorry if this has been asked before but I couldn't find the thread. I wonder if BBO plan to try live voice commentary for any of the Vugraph presentations. BridgeClubLive recently did a show with voice commentary which was very enjoyable. I think Swangames also have occasional shows with voice. Denis

Thanks Uday - great fix. Logged on in 3 secs with Firewall enabled and 3000 members logged in. Presumably OK to keep this new setting? Denis

OOPs sorry ! -Please ignore above post - file I was converting was a 24 bd match and players changed positions after bd12 thus confusing the issue. I'll look at this some more. Denis

With V396, when I convert a pbn file of a team match with Open/Closed rooms the player names are not being given correctly in the lin file. Some players are shown in both rooms. Its a few weeks since I did any conversions so I'm not sure when this bug crept in. Denis

Since about a week ago, I've got a wireless network for our 3 PCs. These operate behind a router with inbuilt hardware firewall which will block incoming intruder activity. For max protection I'm told I also need a software firewall to prevent unwanted outbound traffic. All 3 PCS have XP but the XP firewall won't stop outward traffic. I'm currently trying Kerio Personal Firewall on my host PC. Only problem so far is that when I have this enabled it takes about 30 secs to logon to BBO (V3.9.6) If I disable the firewall I can logon in less than 5 secs. I wonder if anyone else has experience with Kerio or seen increased logon times with firewalls? Denis

I've also used Ad-aware (free version) for several years - good program but only for removing spyware that had loaded. I've now found a free blocking prog called SpywareBlaster which looks very good. It runs in the background and my two most recent scans with Ad-aware have found no spyware :)

Yes - I tested online with a Spingold match in the BBO Bridge Library Denis

Hi Fred Bug is still present in V3.9.6 Denis

#1 - this is the recording of the recent World Championships in Istanbul. I've watched two of the Sky progs and recorded the others to tape for viewing soon in the New Year. Excellent programmes bringing to life the atmosphere of the tourney and also the thought processes of the players. I really enjoyed Bocchi in prog 1 taking us through his analysis of his own declarer play. David Burn's analysis and Zia's presentations are well worth seeing. Even though I have the tape I'd still be interested in a DVD at the right price - I think more would sell at $20 than $30. #2 - I'd buy at $10 Denis

Possibly you misunderstand the way you are supposed to use Jack. You cannot define your own bidding system nor your own defence to one of Jack's systems. You must always use one of Jack's predefined base systems - but you have a lot of choice in developing that system by adding whatever conventions you wish from Jack's large list. To have a user defined bidding system or defence you would need to consider something like Oxford Bridge but the effort involved is tremendous and then you might find that Oxford is not such a good card player as Jack :) Deniso

Thanks Fred - this sounds good - and will make the vugraphs even more enjoyable !

I seem to be getting a score bug when I watch a lin file of a team match. When I open any board number in the Open room the state of the match is shown below the West hand as: Team 1: X Imps Team 2 : Y Imps If I then switch to the Closed room, I get: Team 2 : X Imps Team 1 : Y Imps when I should see: Team 2 : Y Imps Team 1 : X Imps Anyone else getting this?