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I've played a lot of the 8 board daily MP. I played a lot of live bridge in the past and just played in the Reno Regional. I play the daily MP because they are fast so do not require much of a time commitment. They are the equivalent of eating junk food. I'll go through periods of good scores and bad scores. The GIB play their hands very well. Their bidding can be illogical. When I believe a previous bid limits the strength of my hand the GIB thinks I have 25 points on a subsequent bid. A person must be diligent about clicking on your bid and the GIB bid to see what it actually means. The programmers are constantly tinkering with the bidding and sometimes I feel like a lab rat. The quality of the ACBL play in the tournaments I play in is not extremely high. The GIB don't defend like a live opponent. There are a lot of tricks when GIB is defending particularly in NT contracts. When I hold up against a damaging lead, the GIB frequently shifts to another suit. They also like to hold up when defending and a person can steal some tricks. There is a lot more for me to discover. Playing good bridge and playing results are not the same.

I'm going to be at the tournament from October 3-6 and am looking for partners to play flight B open pairs. I have over 300mp and having only been playing online with robots. I haven't played live bridge for some time. Rather than trying to find a partner at the tournament and rushing to fill out a convention card, I would like to work out the conventions before and practice a little for compatibility. My system is modified 2/1 but am willing to work out the conventions.

.06 gold .18 red for my finish.

I joined ACBL in the early 60's and I don't know what color points were awarded other than black. I rejoined in 1978 when I started playing again with my wife as a partner. I believe I was grandfathered in with the requirements when I rejoined. I thought silver points were added to encourage sectional play. I don't know if I would be a LM if I kept my original membership. I played in national and regional events under my old number. I didn't particularly care about being a LM. It is a cumulative rating, unlike chess and other ranked activities. I decided to add becoming LM to my bucket list.

My wife was my bridge partner for over 30 years. She can't travel. I played in one or two Gold Rush events and didn't like them. Playing in flighted events, we had some idea what was happening at the table. If I continued playing, I would have my points.

With the success of this event, ACBL should have more of these events; stratified and non stratified. I haven't played in a Regional event in a long time. I tried this year, but ran into some issues. The first one was health related and the other was finding a partner. I need a few gold points to make LM and that's all I am interested in. My attempt at finding a partner was unsuccessful and I am not optimistic about it in the future. I tried the unit's website for partnership and the partnership desk at the Sacramento regional. To find a partner I would need to find someone at the club games and I am not willing to spend the time. The next alternative is to just show up at the on site partnership desk and take my chances. Expecting to win gold points with a pick up partner is difficult. At least with the robot partner, a person has some idea of what to expect and I can't blame my partner for misplayed hands. The current online format makes cheating difficult (other than being coached through the tournament or having someone play for you). Ethics and pride should help with this. I am looking forward to more of these tournaments.

I suppose I won a moral victory under the latest rules. Top 33% and .25 points.

I learned bridge in the early sixties and played in ACBL events within a few years. I have taken very long breaks in play and whenever I come back, I see the same people. I was always younger than the average age. In 2011, the average age was 69.55. I was 66. That was the most recent I could find. Even with mortality, I believe I am still younger than average. I believe the average age of a BBO member is much lower than that. I played in the 4 day ACBL event and finished in the top third and close to the best of my ability. Playing in a local regional, I expect I would have placed much higher.

I completed my fourth day and don't expect to see any points. I played close to my ability, but it wasn't good enough for this field. I play a lot of bridge with robots and normally have issues with them. I can't blame them for my results. I consider the strength of my game my declarer play and yet it kept me from placing higher. Best session was 63% and a 4 day average of 52.5%. I haven't played live bridge for quite a few years and all I know is the same people that played years ago are still playing now. I played well enough to pick up some points playing in a regional. This field was much tougher. 63% didn't get squat. I'm glad I played and am not terribly disappointed. It was a more valid benchmark of my ability than the live bridge I played. If the event is repeated, I might sign up as it is structured today. I would be more likely if it was stratified. I am a flight B player that needs a few gold points to make lm.

I believe in starting a tournament and finishing, but it makes sense regarding the scoring.

I have been playing in these recently. I do well in IMP and MP, but really suck at TP. I am very curious about all those 5000 pt scores.

I have two newspaper subscriptions. U get most of my national news online. Paper provides local sports, local news, crossword puzzle, sales ads like groceries. My older son has very little interest in bridge. He supported himself for a long time playing poker. He also spends too many hours with phone games. When he plays cards he wants to make money and very few people his age play bridge. I'm trying to learn poker and it's difficult. Making decisions with little information and remembering the behavior patterns of the other players.

The last article I read concerning bridge is that in the U.S. it is fading away. I may give on my search for gold. Chess players are ranked by who they have played against recently. Bridge ranking is cumulative. Bridge is a good game for brain stimulation and more people should play it. I didn't feel I was getting my biggest bang for the buck playing in a regional with an unknown partner. Sticking with bridge but moving on to low stakes online no limit holdem tournaments. Poker adds some additional thought processes.

Is the main bridge club the same tables as take me to the first available seat? If it is, people come and go and your partner may leave shortly after you arrive. I currently don't have a partner on BBO except my wife. When she doesn't play, I usually play with robots and hate it. It also costs some money. The best deal on BBO is the Express free individual tournaments.

Google says there are 8.6 million people in my area. I wonder how man of them are on bridgebase.

Which forum? Nothing in the live bridge forum now. I don't have the interest in spending a lot of time at the local club establishing a partnership. It would be about as bad as dating, but that's just me.

I haven't played live bridge for 5 years. I'm retired but spending 4 hours playing in a club game isn't a good use of my time, so I play here. About 3 months I decided to play in the Santa Clara regional. I need 3.5 gold points to make life master. I added it to my bucket list. My plan was to find a partner and practice before going to the regional. I posted on my local units online partnership desk and ACBL. No response. I emailed the partnership contact twice with no response. I noticed on the flier that there was a tournament partnership website. I clicked on the link and it said the tournament was over (2015). I emailed the tournament chairman about finding a partner and was told that the online partner desk was no longer being used because the index card system works so well. After exchanging a lot of emails the chairman supposedly put in a card for me. I provided her my phone number and email address. What I was expected to do was show up at the tournament and see if anyone was interested in playing with me. My plan was to drive to the tournament, play two sessions and drive home. Total driving time 2 1/2 hours. I am not willing to do that with only the hope of finding a partner in an open pairs event. I take care of my wife and spending a few days away in a hotel was possible, but not practical. I am 71, retired for two years and was a systems analyst so my brain is still functioning well. I have played bridge for almost 60 years. I took a twelve year break from playing and when I resumed I saw the same players at the tournaments. I was always younger than the field and when I was 66, it was the same. These players, have cell phones, tablets and use the internet, yet finding a partner for live bridge is antiquated. Is there a huge divide between live and online players? Given the number of worldwide players and the technology you would think there would be worldwide gold point events. I understand the issues of hacking and cheating. ACBl could consider having proctored sites like the SAT with communication restricted, but I guess they are happy with the way things are until most of the live players die off.

The partner is my wife and I taught her to play almost 40 years ago. She stopped playing live tournament bridge about five years ago. We play against robots here as a distraction for her. When we were playing tournaments the bidding of 1nt with 4 spades was an extremely rare occurrence. More frequent now and she is convinced that she is correct. I explained that her bid made it impossible to find a 4-4 spade fit and my hand didn't have the strength to reverse. She insisted that I needed to prove to her that she was wrong. I tried doing a search on this to prove my point and mistakenly decided to post the issue here to get some opinions. There was no intent to shame or embarrass. The responses here make it impossible to show her the posts. I should have known better.

http://tinyurl.com/j2kr46t My partner insisted her 1nt forcing was correct. http://tinyurl.com/j2kr46t

My partner and I played a very strong 1nt 19-21 which worked well within our bidding structure. We occasionally got a bad board by not opening 1 nt with a standard range from opponents entering the auction. Our 1nt rebid was 13-16. We could clarify the range on our next bid. I can't tell you how many times we had the director called. Always the same answer, what's the problem? People were stuck on a 3pt range. Some directors suggested that we announce the range which at the time was not necessary and incorrect. We always announced are opening nt range.

Bridge is about taking tricks and basing bidding entirely on points is not accurate. Overall hand texture is best. Playing with a partner that is expecting a certain point count range like robots will produce bad results and not allow you to show the true trick taking value of your hand.

If it wasn't natural previously and common practice, should have it been alerted?

There will always be cheaters in any competitive sport. The most subtle of these is private partnership understandings. I've complained about opponents who open 1 nt with a singleton. I ask the partner if this is usual and they play dumb. If a player does it at our table they have likely done it before. I have complained to a director about bad behavior and to the head director and was not at all satisfied with the action taken. Bad behavior and cheating are normally not a one time thing but a pattern and action taken against these issues is inadequate.

I've played bridge on and off for 55 years. I started with Goren and KS. Around 1975, I bought the Rosenkrantz Romex book. I skipped over the chapters on the dynamic NT, strong 2c and Mexican 2d and learned a lot about the opening 1 bid auctions, weak 2 and preempts. I found the concept of loser count and cover cards to greatly improve bidding than the straight point system. I taught my wife the system and we played it for many years. As a beginner, we won a sectional swiss team event because she bid a grand slam based on losers and cover cards. For years she resented that I never taught her "standard" bridge because she felt uncomfortable playing with another partner. We played together for 15 years and then took another 12 years off from playing bridge. When we resumed, we found that bridge had changed somewhat, generally more aggressive bidding. I bought some more of the Rosenkrantz books written in 1985 and we tweaked our system and improved it a great deal. It put us more in line with the current bidding style and still retained the emphasis on losers and cover cards. I know that there has been a lot written about tweaking point count for hand evaluation. A few years ago we took some advanced bridge classes and I still strongly believe in the loser/cover card approach. My son who is a very good holdem poker player has been teaching me how to play. One of his first lessons was not to play a weak ace; an ace with a low second card. KQ, KJ, QJ are much better. A square bridge hand with 4 aces has 9 losers. A square hand with kq, kq, kq has 6 losers and will generally take more tricks as declarer. Overall texture of the spot cards is also important in evaluating overall strength. I play a lot of GIB tournaments and find the auctions disappointing because of the reliance on points. I assume the GIB 2/1 style is very much in line with current bidding.

I guess I'm not an expert on declarer play, but the line I take gets good results. Sometimes I feel that I declared perfectly and don't get the maximum result. Some of it might because of the auction. I believe that the robots are best programmed for auctions starting with one NT. I'll open that with 14 hcp and a 5 card suit even a major. I don't think this is radical and will get very good results more often than poorer results and this might be part of the reason for fluctuations in scores. There are others that still don't make sense. The replay feature is a great teaching tool.