smerriman

Are either of those a problem? The former is more than 50% since partner might have another club honor. The latter is only bad if they're the wrong two aces AND partner doesn't have the king AND opps find the right lead. The downside is more that there's a decent chance we play 5♠ with 3 losers..

To all in group B - yannnos has been replaced with billyfung2.

Given that this is not the first time where you've let challenges expire, this time I'll assign a score. Will use the same rules that were used in the EBL qualifiers: Non-offender: the higher of 13 or (a formula based on average results of other matches by both sides) Offender: the reciprocal score (but not 0 to encourage you to complete the rest of the challenges). As I've repeated many times, do not accept challenges if there is a chance you are going to not complete them.

Hi - please post links to the results (instructions are in the first message). Also, yannnos is the only new player yet to complete a challenge. If he doesn't end up checking in I'll replace him with billyfung2 who intended to register but forgot to add his name to the poll where I copied the entrants from.

To me, 5♣ showed concern about spades, and 5♦ showed spades were covered (not necessarily anything about diamonds). I have the ace of diamonds and good trumps so I'm bidding 6♥. [edit] Oh wait, matchpoints, I never know when to bid 6NT instead of 6♥ at matchpoints.. but I'll stick with 6♥, partner could always bid 6NT if they wanted to.

It's a 60 day rolling average so dropping to 90% makes sense mathematically if you only played 10 tournaments in the last 60 days (that always felt a bit small a range to me). But since you're famous no doubt someone like barmar can fix it for you ;) (I saw you ranked 14th overall on the bidder's challenge leaderboard btw, nice job!)

Thank goodness for two lucky boards - a one IMP win surpasses my pre-challenge expectation :) https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:bef64c80.3610.11ec.b879.0cc47a39aeb4-1635220609&u=smerriman&v3b=web&v3v=5.9.4 smerriman 19 - 18 GIB

Who are you and what have you done with johnu? GIB bids the same way with Jxxx QJxxx AKxx -, so nope, doesn't show anything at all in spades. Also (ignoring South's hand) bids it with Jxxx KQJxx Axxx -, where it doesn't have spades *or* the extra diamond. Incidentally the 3♦ bid also denies a void in clubs, since GIB treats ace and a void the same way. Both 3♦ and 4♦ mean I have some points and no idea how cuebidding works.

https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:dc6cafe4.34d5.11ec.b879.0cc47a39aeb4-1635085367&u=smerriman&v3b=web&v3v=5.9.4 smerriman 25 - 16 heart76 https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:d47b6c1b.349f.11ec.b879.0cc47a39aeb4-1635062161&u=smerriman&v3b=web&v3v=5.9.4 smerriman 30 - 6 lhrljr

1) It's extremely basic and mostly meaningless, but based on results of the previous 22 challenge events, of which you haven't played any. 2) Yup, as cherdano mentioned above some people challenge those near them on the list, though there's no specific constraints, as if people have too many challenges they can simply reject some. 3) They're very rare and there's basically no excuse for them happening. Scores will be adjusted if necessary.

Details have already been posted: https://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/86427-event-23-information-score-reporting/

It's not just you. Appears to be a lot of server issues at the moment.

If your partner is going to think double is penalty you were probably right to pass. But double with anyone else seems clear. [edit]Sorry, the way I said 'anyone else' sounded way too harsh. But it's very rare someone would play it that way.

Final: billyfung2 vs smerriman Complete four 16-board, best-hand, IMP challenges. If tied, 8-board challenges will be played until there is a winner. https://www.dropbox.com/s/haf0b22we318ixt/Event%2023.xlsx?dl=0 Round 2 has been posted. Complete one 16-board, best-hand, IMP challenge against the remaining players. The deadline for round 2 is Thursday December 2, 11:59pm Eastern time. Note to group B - yannnos has been replaced with billyfung2. Players have been split into three groups here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/haf0b22we318ixt/Event%2023.xlsx?dl=0 Play one 16-board, best-hand, IMP challenge against everyone in your group. Do not check the advanced robots checkbox - these challenges will be upgraded automatically*. Two of the pools have GIB added to even out the groups. For this, use 'challenge a robot'. Only your first 16-board, best-hand, IMP challenge after the date of this post will count. *The GIB challenge won't be auto-upgraded, so it's up to you which robot to use. The top 5 players from each pool will carry forward scores to a second round robin and play 10 more challenges against the other top 5s. The deadline for round 1 is Saturday November 13, 11:59pm Eastern time. As always: If a challenge hasn't been accepted in a day or two, cancel and reissue it to make sure you don't time out after the other player accepts. Please only accept a challenge if you are positive you will be able to complete it in time. Partially completed challenges are annoying for everyone. (At least) one player should report the scores of each challenge here by pasting a results URL. You can get the URL via the History tab, clicking Results, then the icon at the top right to open the results in a new window. Copy and paste the resulting URL.

That's OK, I'll add you in - that was really there to ensure people read the rules and didn't just vote on the poll without realising what they were registering for.

Are you 100% sure that the robot bid 2♥ and not 3♥? To GIB, 2♥ is invitational with 5 hearts and 4 spades. But 3♥ is game forcing with 5 spades and 4 hearts (the Smolen convention). This is very standard and what I would expect without discussion with a human partner. In both cases you can see the definition before you choose how to respond.

I never received a challenge from you based on the rules in the first post so I didn't have you on the list. But I'll make an exception and add you in.

I know the forum software is massively out of date and you can't update it due to having made BBO customisations. But I've just discovered that if I send a private message to someone on the forum and they're on a mobile, they simply will never see it. On desktop you see a clear notification at the top right; it's hard to miss. On mobile it doesn't show up anywhere. It doesn't even show something like (1) if you tap on the menu icon next to the word Messenger (though since you can fully navigate the forum without the menu, even this wouldn't really help). Unread messages really need to show up visibly above the list of forums, without expanding the menu. I know you're super busy with other tasks, so happy to work on / provide the code myself if I had access to it.

No. No. Yes; you can do a statistical analysis of your hand records. Or you can look at posts in the past where people had similar suspicions, and statistical analyses were done, and proved in all cases that they were wrong. It's a common assertion, but that's what you expect from true randomness - only people who have experienced a poor run of hands notice it and post in the forum about it, but in the long run it turns out to be nothing unexpected.

Would bid 1NT as South. As North, I would bid 2NT if playing the good/bad 2NT convention in order to compete to 3♦. Otherwise pass.

Ah, right. Is there an advantage in doing it this way? It seems you're giving up the ability to use the 4 level bids as splinters, without gaining too much in return as you can still go through a control bidding sequence either way. I guess all that it could really be is 1444 looking for a minor fit.

It's not new, it has always been there, and it's the most popular forum topic of all time :) If you don't want it to happen, get the host to change the table setting to permission required to play, which disables timeouts.

Hmm, I'm not following - what are the three bids to show a control? Do you mean 3♣ and 3♦ are both control bids? What do you bid in the more likely case you have no fit but want to show a minor? And what's the 3rd bid over 2♠ if 3♥ isn't one? By natural misfit do you mean basically a replacement for quantitative 4NT?

The last update to GIB bidding was made in February 2019. The last known update to GIB play logic was made in December 2014.. where GIB was changed to force it to lead an ace against 7NT :) Leading partner's suit is never something that a robot can / should be forced to do though. That, like most other play logic, is done by simulating hands and figuring out what the best lead is double dummy (on average, in the long run). That's often not the suit you bid, even though it relies on you defending double dummy from then on to be successful.

In 2/1, to show an invitational hand with 3 card support, you bid a forcing 1NT and follow up by bidding 3♠. In Standard American, 1NT denies an invitational hand, so you show that hand by bidding 2 of another suit, then supporting spades cheaply (with a jump to 3♠ game forcing). Inviting with 2NT would deny spade support. Opener should therefore be rejecting the invite by passing 2♠ with a minimum. 2♦ is forcing in both - in Standard American, a 2/1 promises a second bid.