Gerardo

This is not true. Cuts are possible even if there is no mean. The only thing you need to do is, when walking the list of existing results, find its max and min and skip those. Using sum of IMPs divided by amount of used results is in fact a nice and fair method, because you can gain fractions, i.e. for playing NT instead of major etc. - but it can still involve cuts of extremes. It would only mean that you could not use a simple loop that goes through all results - you would have to use min() and max() functions on the result set and two ifs in the code. And how do you calculate the result for the extremes? And why an honest disaster should not be included? You end up with an hybrid/changed method, which must be fairer than current one in the GENERAL case. Why should get the top scorer less (what you are proposing implies this)? Or bottom scorer more? IMO, you are ruining the method in all cases for just the corner cases (dumped hands).... ...which should be managed by averaging the hand, which has the same end result when these hands appears (hand is discarded for calculations). BUT non-offenders should get A+, and offenders A- (and a procedural penalty if/when available, I'd say 100% of a top should be fine). AND dumper bidder should get a suspension from tourneys. TDs must do the first, the second is not (yet, hopefully) available, then would be at TD discretion, and abuse does the third, WHEN REPORTED. BTW, results can be adjusted while tourneys are still list, even after completed. I'd also say even "no adjustments" TDs must correct these (<BBO hat off> as an aside, I don't see the point in "no adjustment" TDs <BBO hat on>).

You are assuming butler score is used (get all the scores, maybe cut the extremes, get the mean). It's not. Your score is compared with all the others, IMPs are calculated in each comparison, and what you get is the sum of all those results (then this final result is divided by the number of comparisons, to "normalize" it, but this last step is not necessary). So, there is no mean, and no cut is possible.

You can bid 4♣, but your partner can't say "Oh, sorry. He has ♣s, not what I said before" so he is bound by his explanation, and can't pass it.

Matches are automatically cancelled when two players withdraw

Assuming 5 min/hand, you can squeeze 288 in a day in a normal setup.

Found a workaround, just copy a symbol from the page, and paste it in the search field. Going back to symbols then.

Zero chance, IMO. Maybe the players will, but I don't think so either. Don't think nor hope so. Law42A2c: Dummy may not, on his own initiative, look at the face of a card in either defender's hand. That's enough for me. You have to believe either Bareket or Lanzarotti, as they contradict each other. The one you don't believe must be punished, either for making up things (Bareket), or outright lying to the Comittee (Lanzarotti, he denied taking a look). Can't just say "nothing happened, move along". And Comittee decided Bareket was more credible than Lanzarotti-Buratti. Right (IMO) or wrong, was their call. Punishment seems fair to me. Further development of this is yet to be decided, and Buratti-Lanzarotti can fight that. Seems whoever destroyed OJ's wife got away with it. Except players' statements. Being a world champion is not a guarentee of credibility.

My position is clear on text versus graphic suits :) (text) I'm also interested in the bidding template :) Diamond holdings are in a bigger text in later diagrams in Chapter 1. Nice work!

2♣. Would bid 3♥ if ♣s were solid.

Hi.. Thanks, that worked for three out of the four.... that pesky Diamond showed up as a square. I posted the text as you wrote on the blog... if you would like to view it. It would be easy to make diamonds and heart (if a diamond showed up) red. Ben Been there ;) Forums use this in CSS: .spades { color: blue; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 120% } .hearts { color: red; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 120% } .diamonds { color: orange; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 120% } .clubs { color: #00C000; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 120% } then, ♠ is <span class="spades">♠</span>, etc. Verdana, the default font/family, has problem with the diamond symbol

Ben, can you try ♠ ♥ ♦ and ♣ for the suits?

Try Sound -> Customize, then turn off "Join table" and "Leave Table"

No, never, UNLESS there is another person acting as working (NON playing) TD

Happy birthday!

3. If you load a page, system takes all posts in that page as read, no way around that.

Directors can adjust after play is over, as long as tourney is still listed. Any changes at this time will affect tourney results, but not myhands (at least not now). Seems you got the correct result after all.

http://www.bridgebase.com is currently down, http://online.bridgebase.com is another server. The latter works, the former doesn't. I'll have time to look deeper into this when vugraph from Montevideo is over (later today) and I'm back home (later tonight).

Issues like board duplication are incidental to bridge movements. Bridge movements are designed to minimize variance. This can be achieved by ensuring that each pair is matched against every other pair in the same section using a fully meshed movement. Yes, but online you can use the simpler (IMO) round robin. f2f movements take into consideration the boards at each table, we don't need to do that. RR also balances directions (any pair half at NS, half at EW). Not sure, but bet any pair compares with any other pair the same number of times. At this point the movements in BBO are very simple (no change of direction, swiss(-like) with playbacks, unclocked will always have playbacks, indys can have several playbacks, etc). I think that will be addressed someday, I don't know when though. When doing that, I'd go for a round robin rather than a traditional f2f movement. I may be biased by background though (got interested on this while playing chess, which don't have the boards issue, so I understand well the RR, also the swiss (done by hand), which is more complex on chess, because you must alternate colors (think it like any pair must switch directions at each turn, which 2 in a row in same direction allowed if needed (you must balance later) but not 3 in a row). It can be done without playbacks. Now, think about an f2f swiss PAIRS for, say, 50 tables, and you'll see my point about board duplication costs. Here, zero cost just makes it possible, but I think there are better movements than Mitchell/Howell/etc on a zero cost environment. For example, for fully meshed, round robin.

Nah, f2f movements make sense f2f, where board duplication costs are high. Online, there must be better things, taking advantage of the zero cost board duplication.

Happy birthday!!!!!!!

QEMU can be a free alternative to Virtual PC, but you have to test it (still work in progress, and I don't know Macs)

Use the BB$ Account in your profile. You'll be asked your CC number.

v1 or v2? Using v2 here. First, you need the name or IP adress of your SOCKS server, which usually uses the port 1080. Such server must be able to bypass the firewall (maybe located in the same firewall) to be useful. Then, you need to know which version the SOCKS server uses, and configure the client accordingly. If using v5, I guess "attempt local then remote" when resolving names should be best. In any case, you need a SOCKS server available for this to work.

Ana Alonso (AnaA on BBO, Luis' mother) not Ana Blum.

Yes. That method has the hands duplicated, one for Open Room, one for Closed. Just open the vugraph.lin using "Movie" in the lobby, and save it (maybe with another name). Hands in this new file should not be duplicated.