NotButter

Hideous, I'm not sure what the book line is to play this suit but my gut feel says run the nine then enter dummy and cover RHO's card. Perhaps someone with more patience than me can do the math. NotButter.

I've tried to keep up on Zar points. I understand the model, it certainly has some good ideas...albeit complex but that's OK. It's akin to keeping abreast of the tables of % or suit combination plays. But answer me this... to what extent is this a theoretical discussion... or better still which leading players are employing Zar Point evaluation. Go on... name Names ! And I mean names. NotButter.

Hear Hear! delete the slandering mongrels! Or better still revoke their posting privileges. People... it's a game. A game... a game. Sigh. NotButter.

yeah yeah - freedom of speech, land rights for whales etc and yada yada. Let's put the Never Ending Story thread into perspective. It was started and continued but a bunch of very bored people. It has little to do with bridge. I can't see the sense of cluttering up a worthwhile forum with off-topic discussion. There are plenty of media available to those of you who want to play storyteller games. In the meantime, dont forget Bridge Base Forums is about bridge. NotButter

Chamaco, I'm not sure why you asked this question as you answered it yourself but here goes: - As you said, "3NT is to play" - To play ? Define to play? - You mean most hands with say 14-16hcp and say ♠AQ? - Or you mean a balanced 20 count with short hearts? - Or an hand with ♠A or Kx and 6-7 self-sufficient hearts - or any balanced 14-18 and something resembling a spade stop? In other words, a wide range of hand types. I think you need a very good reason to rip 3NT in this sequence. Why torture partner with 4minor so he can go 1 off in 4NT? Partner has expressed an opinion of the hand by bidding 3NT. Do you really want to punt 5minor? For what possible gain? As you pointed out, Partner has already bid a piece of your hand. Chamaco, you have to learn to play with the odds in this game and the chances of partner having the right cards for 6 minor (or cards more suitable for 5 minor than 3NT) are way longer than your partnership's assets being right for 3NT. Take the positive and put your hand down as dummy. NotButter.

Flame, don't be put off because Claus tells you the market will shrink (he is so wrong). The market for bridge software is booming and the primary market is 'empty-nesters', those people/ couples whose children have left home and are getting their first PC. As it happens, these are the same demographic as a large proportion of the bridge community. Great business plan, huh? You should give up the idea because there's no need to re-invent the wheel. Savvy entrepeneurs are years ahead of you in terms of development and on the whole have designed mildy acceptable products - there are of course exceptions worthy of discussion in another thread. Better to spend your time coming up with a better mousetrap. NotButter

You want to become a good bridge player? Give up duplicate (I won't even begin to talk about what on-line bridge does to your game) and go play in a decent rubber bridge school for 12 months. If possible, get staked, but you need to lose some of your own money as well. NotButter.

Pass. Clear-cut action, and come into the auction later. We call this walking the dog. How else do you expect to get doubled? NotButter

As long as we're agreed now that Tournament Directors can, at their discretion, ban psychic calls from their tournaments, as long as it's specified in the tourney conditions: I'd like to encourage some consistency within these regulations. We must also encourage these Directors to ban defensive and declarer falsecards. Who amongst us hasnt been suckered in by one of these devillish coups? Just yesterday a defender played high-low with a doubleton, yet their system card said they were playing reverse count! I was both shattered and infuriated by this gross mis-statement of his spade length. No grey areas here - his system card said black and he played white! I've recovered now, but I was mad as hell about this psychic defensive play. Nick Sydney

re: my original post: There was no evidence of connection difficulties (red dot, although this doesnt always occur). Moreover, West didnt say anything like: "sorry phone", "Sorry, front door bell", "sorry, had to make a comfort stop" etc. For the rest of the two boards their conneciton and tempo seemed normal. I suppose what concerned me was that the Director did not want to entertain my suggestion of UI and said (rightly) that West was allowed to think and pass and (wrongly, in my opinion), that East was entitled to bid what they liked, irrational though it appears looking at their hand. While we werent playing for the world championships, it was disappointing to receive a ruling that appeared to condone an action not in the spirit of the Laws. NickF Sydney

I just finished playing in the Indy (Details of which indy and who directed deleted by administrator as not germane to the question) and am very concerned about a ruling. Perhaps some of you can enlighten me. NS vul IMPs Dealer North. North: T62, KQ975, 86, A54 West: KQ983,6, Q74, KQT7 East: J74, T4, AKJ952, 63 South: A5, AJ832, T3, J982 North dealt and passed and East opened 2D alerted and explained a weak. South overcalled 2H and West, after perhaps 45 seconds passed. North raised to 3H and East bid 4D. At this stage I (south) called the Director as I beleived East was acting on UI. The Director dismissedmy protests and said East could do whatever they pleased - even though West had hesitated for so long. Your opinions please? Nick Sydney

I don't agree. Exposing potential customers to more features of Deep Finesse can only stimulate demand for the product, rather than decrease it. The commercially available Deep Finesse product is a double dummy hand solver. I use it after a bridge session to input hands and see where and how I could have played or defended better. We're grateful the DF people have made available a cut-down version to BBO, but I suspect the reason other features have not been implemented are related to the time and cost to Fred and Uday to code them into the software. Nick Sydney

The Deep Finesse facility is a terrific tool when we're in Kibbitz mode to see whether a declarer or defender has winning or losing choices. But there's more to Deep Finesse than just that. In Australia, many clubs use dealing machines and the printed hand records can display the makeable contracts on each hand. see http://www.dealmaster.com/whatsnew.htm (about two-thirds of the way down the page) to see the hand records I mean. Could the *makeable* contracts be displayed on the screen during the auction (or play for that matter) ? If nothing else, it would be an invaluable resource for commentators during Vu-graph presentations. I have yet to see the "makeable contracts" analysis on a hand record wrong (over a period of about 5 years). any opinions? Nick Sydney

The Vugraph Schedule on http://www.bridgebase.com/online/vg.html currently lists starting times based on local times in New York and Paris. Is it possible to code the page so it uses the one's PC clock and lists the time (and adjusted date, if necessary) to local time. Nick Sydney