Gerardo

What about allowing traditional f2f limitations? I know that identities are easy to fake, but they may make sense in tourneys, provided open tourneys are available, I think. Race and religion are plain out, of course. What about Ladies (same thing, the other way) or Mixed? Youth? Country/Region of origin/residence as inclusive? (ONLY italians, for example) I mean, I think "f2f tradition" is a fair rationale for establish a limitation. "Male only" has no such justification. Personally, I don't think it has a good rationale (nor Ladies nor Mixed, in my view, other than f2f) Youth has experience, and geographic, in my view, are overcome in online, but it may have some uses, like knowing people before you play f2f with them B)

Another nitpick: I got used to have the indexes of what I read updated when I read a topic and go back to main. Seems like IPB doesn't mark a topic read when you do this. (by observations @ bridgetalk)

Seems nice, John :) Nice work! You lose a few things in your local profile, no biggie, you can reenter them. At this point, it seems, the ability to localize the interface is lost (see Language Packs for IPB 1.2 though, some of them appear to be unfinished. I know, this exceeds the Quick and Dirty work :). On a personal note, I can't access the yellow forums there. If this goes forward as it seems, IPB has a template facility which is used in http://forums.bridgetalk.com to enter a hand (all 4 players, or only one). Would be nice to have that, will investigate how that works

Todd: That's my interpretation of The Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge 1997, Laws 12A2 [board can't be played], 12C1 [the A-/A/A+ definition, I put them in the poll almost verbatim, it says "directly at fault", "partially at fault", and "not at fault". Need not balance], and 88 [which stresses the 'not at fault OR CHOICE OF HIS OWN gets A+'] (emphasis mine) I think you are offered a choice (request a sub), so I'm not inclined to give A+ to troubled pairs, and certainly not less than A+ to pairs facing troubled pairs, when their are not at fault Not trying to throw the book at you (which you know well, as you show in another thread, just fundamenting my choice)

Time runs out, and result can't be determined, so you have to assign an atificial score. The party which had no time issues get A+, as they were not at fault. Assume connection problems, and not deliberate slow play, that makes clear the fault.

Reviewing the rules (which I am no expert of, please correect if wrong) A- implies party is at fault A implies party is partially at fault A+ implies party not at fault. So, if no one is at fault, it should be A++. :) Now, I personally assign A- on conn problems, but I can see good reasons to assign A= on them; however, I think the other pair should get nothing short of A+. I don't think it is A++ though, if not your fault, your conn is your responsability, IMHO. In fact, I may start to apply A+= and A=+ instead of A+- and A-+, it may be fairer. I'll move this topic to a new thread and start a poll on it.

I see your point now. You are giving rest to declarer, just in case. It could be right, and then no adjustment required. It can help sometimes, but not sure how much.

You can disallow them, or allow them silent. I prefer the latter.

Director(s) always can take a look at the movie and adjust accordingly. That's what I do when I direct, and what I request when I play.

Maybe a good default, but personally I'd prefer to make them unrestricted. Could that be an option? (see 3. below) We need Procedural Penalties to make this fair. By adjusting a result director perjudicate the partner of the offender. Related to 1., please add c) No enemies and d) Unrestricted :-) Nice work, Uday. Thanks! (globally, not only for 4.)

I found today two such beasts, which become quickly an unsalvable mess. I advocate to remove tourney hosting permissions to people who hosts such things. Also, I think it is aan EXTREMELY good idea to be at least a pair at directing, that allows bigger tourneys, and coping with eventual dropped conn of dir.

Sometimes TD doesn't either :o <rant> In a important tourney (South Am Open Pairs qualifying, last year, in Chile), my opp claimed (+1 I think), was rejected (Ace of trumps still out :P ), then she LIFT her cards, tried to play, I asked her what was doing, call her cheater (didn't know rules back then :(, still, I know that was against them ), she was offended, call herself a lady, threaten to summon TD, I said "*I*'ll call him", and did so. When he arrived, she has all cards in her hand, and the director (top chilean dir, third in charge behind Kojak and Gustavo (Chediak, the top South Am director)) LET HER PLAY :o >:( :(. There was an issue about the timing of giving up the trump Ace, a side suit trick would be available if timing wrong, so the correct result was -1. Wouldn't help our cause, but if I would know the rules then as I do now, I would had appeal this (and won ;) ) </rant>

Fred says exactly that, cheapest jump is GF raise, so 1H:2S and 1S:3C, also suggests 3D and 3H as replacements for Bergen jumps over 1S. The mentioned article has 3 parts, I think the 3rd has a set of responses after this.

Play a team match. Almost no luck there. Play several. No luck at all

Agree. THe idea, I think, is people can create clubs and hosts tourneys and establish their own rules there, but yours is perfect for Main Club and *my* tourneys. Most systems are IMO, more precisely defined than SAYC. So, to obtain the same level of info ("What does that bid/sequence mean?"), you have to explain quantitavely more. Certainly true in PC case. As I put in previous post, I assume SAYC knowledge by opps. Should alert if requested to do so. Please see that post to see how I would alert, any improvement will be welcome. Agree 100% Eeeeeeeeeek! If you say "SAYC", 15-17 NT is assumed by definition You have to inform you play "SAYC with 12-14 NT". I think the 1m opening ought to be alerted as "15+ balanced or unbalanced 12+", not 2H Hand before the one I brought to this thread. Bidding was: 1NT : 2S* : 2NT : 3NT 2S=invit in NT or xfer to C 2NT and 3NT should be alerted too, as "minimum" (had to reject a natural 1NT:2NT invit) and "Slam try with Clubs", but wasn't. Responder's hand was (54)=2=2, 9 HCP, said 2S was a misclick(?) after the hand. Opps said they missed the C lead, but here, there was no misalerting, so result stood. There was a gross mirespresentation of the hand, but that is allowed. Here you have to look if opener has an LA to pass after 3NT. But I realized what 3NT was couple of days after B) As Codo asks in a side thread, "Does fail to alert 1H make harder to NS to reach game?" I agree with McBruce recent post, there was damage. You say that they should reach it anyway, so no damage. I don't think it matters what they should do, opp is lying minimum length in their suit, it's relevant, damaging I have a preformatted message to shout in tourneys when I direct, it says clearly damage is a prerequisite for adjustment.

As I understand it, no systems are banned, ANYTHING goes. I personally hope that never changes. However, you should alert as if opps doesn't know your system, and DEFINATELY do so if opps asks you to do it. Currently, most tables are set only for the fun of playing, results are just ad-hoc, rankings are avoided by design, results are not compared beyond a tourney, and at this point, they may be meaningless, as Ben pointed out, in such unleveled field, you have to have good results AND receive more gifts than the others. Maybe, when tourneys get more serious (teams, multi session, etc) it will make MORE sense to rule to provide a CC before the event, to post in a public place. Not that if doesn't make sense now, but bit overkill, and impossible providing you can play with a pickup partner found 1 min before start. I think PROPER alerting is sufficient for now. Check other threads, especially in tourneys section, for long discussion of what is or not a proper alert.

Hrothgar: I kinda agree with you, with two important differences. Opponent may be new to online bridge from a monosystem land, and never exposed to your (main approach) system, or (s)he may not be new, but refused to learn the basics of your system. When this happens and opp ley you know about it, the burden is put on you to alert! I'd like to have a BBO-Polish, BBO-Acol, and BBO-Prec cards available in official BBO CC facility (current, yours [personally like it,is flexible], or any other which could come in the future), and also any basic approach which become considered main by consensus [critical mass playing it]. This would serve to cover basic bids, like Polish 1C, and 1D, subsequent bids to these too, Precision 1D (which is long to alert :)), etc. I like Polish Club, read summaries, hope to start practising it the sooner the better (that helps me to be flexible, goal is to adapt to p's system, also helps me to learn to defend against such systems), however I ask PC opps to alert properly, and ask further clarifications, providing them myself as questions [meaning is this?] in extremem cases, in the (too often) case explanations are incomplete and my doesn't know PC, for his/her info [this is not a requirement, I asked them to alert properly and they should do so. Whatever my reasons are, they should comply]. I never met (online, yet; my weekly live [very closed for my taste] 8-11 person group plays mainly a 4-card M, 16-18 NT, better minor, 1C with min (4-3)=3=3, which I would say it vaguely resembles Acol if I had an idea what Acol is) an opp who said "I don't know your system", where said system is SAYC (2/1 included, with proper alerts). Being there, I'd alert 1m as "12-21, fewer complying with rule of 20, 3+", all 1-level bids as "non-suitable for NT openings with 5+ losers". Am I missing something here? Now, if they want to know why this is so, or want to make best use of this info, then learn the system :) . Would alert rebids as NT as balanced, and reversing as "longer first suit, extra HCP or distribution". All rules may be broken in 3rd , Cansino in 4th. Conventional bids after that are alerted, of course, against any opp. If you think this set of alerts is perfectible (which it is, with probability 1), pls tell how to make it better.

Procedural penalties not implemented yet. 4H may be too drastic, however, 3H seems a no brainer with proper alerting, with 4H not out of the question. Probably Ben's A+/A- best.

Yes Ron, I'm serious. I may be wrong, though. I think only a minority of BBO members have a basic understanding of Polish Club (maybe that doesn't apply to a subset like serious players, or enough skilled ones, or both). I'm all for that to change, the sooner the better. Maybe something can create a BBO convention Card for WJ which we can call BBO-Polish for people who doesn't know it, doesn't want to learn, and doesn't get an accurate description of bids (which they are entitled to) to have an easily accessed reference. (current CC facillity would need to be extended with opener's rebids at least, though). Please don't accuse me of ACBLesque thinking, nothing further from the truth. Would prefer proper alerting. This would have a nice side effect: make people AWARE of the CC facility :) (if this works at all) I'm not for banning anything, but for full disclosure. Antoine and Ron: you are right about full meaning of bids. Luis: you are right, but in most systems I can think of you have to have a 4-card major to rebid it there naturally, so that's what I would expect without alerting. Also I think this caused damage, see the hand again, please. Would he had a 4-card H, I think the damage would cease to exist, so no adjusting. Your second statement is just not true.

Q J 10 J 10 9 4 3 2 A 6 4 3 9 7 4 2 A 6 3 ----------- K 8 5 K 8 7 5 4 2 Q J 9 3 Q 10 2 A 8 5 K 8 5 A Q 7 6 10 6 K J 9 7 E dealer, NS vul W S E N 1C* P 1C=12-15 bal, 15+ nat or any 18+ 1D* P 1H P 1D=0-7, 7-10 with 6+m or 17+ 1S* P P 1NT 1S=0-7, 4+S 2D 2H 3D All pass I adjusted this to 4H by S i think (should be N) =, the failure to alert 1H as minimum hand, 3+ is relevant here, much easier to continue bidding with that info

Agree with you Richard, don't like an uniform standard. At this point of time, however, I think there is a de facto standard. Surely our Polish friends overlooks some inferences taking them for granted, as much as I do playing SAYC. However, their case is more notorious because you can count on people having some idea about SAYC bidding, but you can't count the same way about Polish Club. I'd like to play in such Polish tourneys (have to learn language first ;-), but in such environment I can't make the claims I'm doing here, quite the contrary, I wouldn't expect odwrotka to be alerted, for example (Am I right about this? Don't know the Polish alerting procedures), but I think it depends mainly on what players play and understand, rather than regulations (which build on that). Taking BBO at large, AT THIS POINT, I expect few people not to know SAYC, and also few people outside of Poland to know Polish Club. And, people doesn't have to know a system to play against it (it surely helps, and at a certain level this is not true, but then, you have to provide defenses against your methods). I'd like all to play whatever they care about, but disclose relevant info when opps can't know because they are not familiar with your system. For example, point range. Hope I clarified my point

In my view, Polish Club bids are VERY rarely alerted PROPERLY (sometimes not alerted at all). 1C and 1D openings has very specific meanings, aand if you use them, you have to disclose all of them. I saw 1C explained as "preparatory" (what does that mean?), "12+ not nec C" (horrible), "PREP, STR or NAT" (this one close), and lots of other things I can't recall right now. Furthermore, they need to disclose which of these hands they are showing in subsequent bidding. What's wrong with "12-15 bal, 15+ with 5+C or any 18+"??? 1D is similar, I never got that one fully explained Also, 1D response to 1C explanations usually hinders the 7-11 and 16+ meanings 2D Wilkosz, they forget the "at least 1 major" bit. etc,etc,etc. I'm probably guilty of same charges when I use SAYC or 2/1, BUT SAYC and 2/1 has no such strict systemic definitions, and coventions ARE PROPERLY alerted, AND 90% of the people in BBO knows SAYC (NOT true for Polish Club), in fact, BB-B and BB-A are the only defined systems in BBO for now. Not trying to justify myself, I would try to be more explicit if asked to. When playing precision, I alert 1D as "11-15,n+D, no 5M, no 6C, no 5C+4M, no (whatever my range) balanced", where n can be 0,1 or 2, depending on version, and that's what I think an alert should be.

Penalties I think, but it has to be a very rare auction. Scoring method and vul are relevant here. Why alert them H is breaking badly? H support (3-4 cards min, not sure how many), but probably no stopper. S support, or no stopper at all (3244 or so), p should bid 3NT with H stopper (why ask then?) or better/longer minor without. To play or retreat if doubled thinks 3Dx is better than 3Cx, without agreements. Agreement could be lead directing AND thinks 3D is better than 3Cx To be discussed, could mean various different things, like: a) takeout with lots of H, 2NT with both :) Red hand, penalty c) C (leading) support, if needed I like exactly 4-card S, 2S with 5, partner has 3-card support or he can take charge of auction with his strong hand (18+)

http://www.bridgebase.com/myhands

I'm in. Luis, can you e-mail me the paper in spanish about the German version?