OrShoham

Hi, Just wondering if there's been a change to the Zenith Daylong tournament reward structure. On January 7th, top prize was $4.33 for a pool of 1717 players On January 16th, top prize was $3.66 for a pool of 1733 players Basically the same number of players, but ~15% lower top prize. I did not check if the total prize pool has changed or not, but it seems odd that the top prize would change this much.

Pass. I'm somewhat concerned about 4♠ being on for opps if partner has the reds, but they haven't made any effort to bid it so far, so not too concerned. I certainly wouldn't make a constructive bid trying to get to game.

This one's easy: Over-elaboration. Same problem I have in chess (which has, on one occasion, resulted in getting checkmated in two moves. Yes, it's possible). I look twelve cards ahead, figure out some horribly elaborate ending position, fail to notice something obvious ("What, you mean I have to lose the ace of trumps?"), and go down in a cold game. Even worse, in bidding, I sometimes spend so much time figuring out what hands partner and opps *might* have that I forget to consider some obvious layout and go for -1400 in a phantom save. Ah, well. :)

Perhaps the "Take me to a Game" option can be tweaked so it's biased towards tables that have been waiting a long time (if that information is tracked), or towards tables near the bottom of the list. If the information is not currently being tracked, you could let the table host set a "Looking for (a) player(s)" flag which would track time and be used to bias player assignment. Alternatively, perhaps players can flag that they are "looking for any game" and get pulled in using a mechanism similar to the sub list used for tournaments.

If your partner is not on your friend list, you should be able to send them a private message by using the "Find Member" option, assuming you know (and can spell) their BBO name :)

I'd like to second the quoted suggestion and then some. Currently, when I hover over a name, the loading process for the profile is fairly slow and fairly resource intensive (CPU cycles, in particular). The location of the popup appears to default to the right edge of the primary pane, where it blocks the "Join", "More", and "Description" fields of the table list (I would rather see it at the bottom of the right pane, where it takes up less valuable real estate). The time it takes for the popup to disappear after I remove my mouse is entirely too long by my standards. When coupled with the fact that the table list no longer auto-refreshes, this means that my original method of finding a game - mouse-hover over profiles of potential partners, find a profile I like, and sit down in a hurry - is no longer feasible. I'm not sure how many people prefer this method, but I'd certainly miss it. Additionally, the same event / timer that governs the profile popup on mouse-over seems to take effect when I switch to the "Private Chat" tab. I'd much prefer to have the popup auto-pin when I switch to the private chat tab. Mouse-over popups no longer seem to work in the chat section, sadly. Resource-wise, and especially memory-wise, BBOFlash is quite a hog. Simply getting to the login screen took up over 100MB(!) of RAM, and after a relatively minimal amount of use, ballooned to over 200MB(!!) - a full order of magnitude more than the EXE client used. This behavior persists across multiple browsers (FF2, FF3 RC1, and IE6) and is one I commonly associate with flash. Considering this box's specs (WinXP, 512 MB RAM, 2GHz CPU), the flash client is just too much to handle. Insofar as the overall layout, I find it to be vastly improved over the old layout. It took me some time to find everything, but most things were placed in an intuitive location, so no real navigation issues. I dislike the white background on the home screen, but as I do not expect to be seeing it for extended periods of time, it's no big deal. Using the right pane for results is a vast improvement over the old client. The IMP scale on mouse-over for team match scores appears to have gone MIA in the flash client, nor did I find it anywhere else - am I looking in the wrong place? One disappointment on the feature front - I was hoping the new BBO version would have a played-systems profile option. Allowing players to edit which bidding systems they play (For example, checkboxes for a half-dozen or so common bidding systems) would make seeking a game much more pleasant from my point of view. Currently, the lack of this feature is the reason I do not use "Take me to a game" when I want to play.

I don't think there's any way to wind up in 6♥ and 6NT would be tough to find, but 6♣ can be reached via: 1♥ - 2♣ (GF or GF unless ♥ is rebid) 2♦ - 3♣ 3♦ (5 cards) - 3♠! 4♣ - 4NT (Ace asking of choice) 5X - 6♣

The two ads I'm getting now are static indeed. Previously, the ACBL ad was composed of several frames and was highly distracting. Here's to hoping they stay static. Thanks! ;)

Sounds like a novel idea to me, but I don't think a system could be expected to read the BBO bidding and fill your card based on that. It would be more practical, I think, to have a program that reads a directory of LIN files. Using simple-enough algorithms, you could probably extrapolate a significant number of bids from a smallish set. Conventions, in particular, would be easy to locate and extrapolate to all relevant situations (i.e. Drury for all 1H and 1S openers in 3rd/4th seat, any vul). The results could then be exported to a FS-readable format. If nobody else takes it up, I may make an effort at this when I have time - sadly, this will not be before the school year ends, so we're looking at a goodish 6 months at best.

I'm not sure this is the right subforum, but I thought I'd voice my displeasure at encountering an animated ad in my bottom right corner after DL'ing 5.0.1. While I do approve of commercial ad space in the BBO client (I've clicked through several ads when they appeared relevant to me), animated ads are far too distracting at the bridge table. As these ads are still visible after switching to the classic view, I find myself with no choice but to be constantly distracted by movement and changes to ads. I ended up disabling them by requesting that IE not display images at all (I'm a Firefox user myself). While I would like to continue viewing ads, and I plan to continue clicking on ads that appear relevant, I hope the concept of moving / animated ad files will be reconsidered, and with any luck, replaced by static image ads. Thanks :)

A little offtopic perhaps - but as a late-comer, the best BBO change in 2004 is me! I only showed up midway through the year, and I haven't used another bridge client since (well, once or twice, for friends who couldn't get on BBO). :) In the software, I'm particularly pleased with the recent changes that decrease the loading time. It's now possible to get back into a tourney after a disconnection, before the TD has already replaced you. My Yellow-person of the year goes to Uday, for always being willing to help out with any technical problems and questions, even when the end result is only relevant for a small number of users. Forumer of the year goes to Ben (Inquiry) for his wonderful posts in every section, but particularly for his excellent thread on pattern recognition in the advanced/expert thread. And finally, a big 'thank you' goes to everyone who makes BBO tick - thanks for making it a fun place to play :)

A change of the default color scheme. Down with yellow! :)

For what it's worth, I try to say something positive to my partner whenever they make a good decision (opps, as well). Well done, good try, excellent bid, good stop. Whatever is relevant. Doing that also allows me to do the reverse politely - if I don't say anything positive after a hand, there was probably a blatant mistake. Most of my partners, even pickup ones, notice this after a while :)

When playing in a tourney, the only messages you will see are broadcast messages - and these are reserved for a few tourneys, usually pay-to-play ones like ACBL. These messages are usually infrequent (several minutes apart, and no more than three about any given tourney), so they shouldn't clutter your chat much. If you're seeing messages other than broadcast ones, that's a different story.

I voted for pass before seeing the comments or hands. I flat-out can't expect partner to pass the takeout - it's difficult to envision a hand where that would be reasonable, especially if partner expects me to have a 4-4-1-4 shape. It is very possible for me to have no more than one winner in each suit. If the bid had been 5D, I'd axe it (not necessarily a good thing, in this case) for penalty.