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AFAICT, on BBO, a user can watch anonymously. Perhaps it is a good user-friendly feature. But sometimes it feels too friendly, Can a table host at least have an option, to disallow anonymous kibitzers but still open to named users? AFAIK, there have been cases some people use this convenience to cheat in online games, playing on a computer while watching anonymously on a cell phone Thanks!

hmm, the radio buttons are hidden and invisible if the split window is not wide enough.

hello, the new html5 client looks cool. but how can I change my account settings ? such as disable card animation (should be default IMHO), auto play singleton etc?

perhaps it's under DoS attack. Just speculating.

(automated) it is your turn, xxx. please play. (automated) it is your turn, xxx. please play. Stuck username xxx automatically removed. I understand many people are impatient. But at least, please, provide a way to turn this off.

I have been through this very unpleasant experience many times, when my side has a big result to come (e.g. making slam when vulnerable), my opponent deliberately disconnect himself and the hand goes to settlement. from the losing side, this is definitely sensible strategy, since a weak player probably would not done any better than GIB when playing/defending the hand. not to mention the odds extremely favor the losing side (-1430 vesus +100), can anyone guarantee a 90% success rate in their slams, even playing with their regular partners? That's why this unethical behavior has been rampant in online money bridge. IMHO, Current settlement rule is too lenient to these people. In f2f bridge, penalty to this kind of behavior is much more severe, even we just consider the adjustment of the score only, and nothing else. I think assess some penalty to disconnected players, who cannot or will not come back to the session in a give period of time, is not unreasonable. for example, the deal is still settled as before by robots, but a penalty trick is automatically assessed against the offensive side. Then the losing side would know he/she is very unlikely to gain by just leaving when opponents playing game or slam. yeah, this may be unfair to someone occasionally have a connection problem. But that's your luck, just as many other things in this game. To be honest, the odds of a disconnection is real, is conceivably less than 0.1%.

some interesting incidence. one hand i open 1nt, with balanced 12p, gib bid 2c then 2nt... when playing $5, thing seems always go against you, one hand I opened a aceless 15 count, gib playing 4S with his 10 card spades. guess what? we lost 3 aces plus trump Q! can't believe my luck.

hi, what are the setting of $1 and $5 games. I feel it's harder to play $5, the distribution are usually not as nice as $1 when you are playing the hands and gib's defense seems stronger, too.

Are the boards duplicated? I guess not? when I am still struggling, some other guys already run away with 5000+.

hmm... sounds not logical While a "natural" 2♦ preemptive open is allowed, which only tell opps about 5 or 6 cards of your hand, this one tells 9 or 10 cards of your hand.

Open 2♦ showing both major suits, 5-5 or 5-4 either way, 6(5)-11 HCP?

MHO: Because it makes more sense to leave these bids (new suit one level higher) for constructive purposes. Just like people would rather play 2C over 1H as GF, than just saying "I have a crapy hand with bunch of clubs." generally it's not profitable to switch suit after partner showing a one suited hand, not to mention it's a level higher. Even if you can justify your bid, why partner cannot use the same reasoning to switch it back? Also, you alway have a chance to run if someone doubles.

bid 4♥, redouble if it gets doubled. :) I cannot imagine that partner bid 3♣ to just "improve" the contract when he couldn't even response in the 1st round. he must have ♥ tolerance. his shape is likely something 4-2-1-6, one ruff and one useful card bring you to game.

Thanks Uday and you all for the information! I just wanna bring your attention to the following incident, because I believe paying customers in BBO ACBL online tourney deserve better service than what happened to my friend and me in one of ACBL MP tourney yesterday. In one of the hands, our opponents made a speculative scrifice and we got 1100, a cold top. After the tourney, THE director adjusted our score of this hand to A+. I asked the reason, the answer was: "because it skewed the result of the all tournament" (What is that supposed to mean?) next, I asked by making that adjustment, what rule of ACBL she's referring to. No answer.

I mean the online tourney played at BBO. Is there any offical procedure of this? thanks

LOL, What I suggested is that they were optimistic for a reason, based on the fact and reasoning, it's likely they had heck of distributions. What you suggested is that they were optimistic for a reason, too, becase they were stupid. :( I couldn't see why this approach is less naive than mine. Not to mention that your opponents in the question are "experts". However, you do have a point. I agree with you that against some opponents, for example, those who tend to assume others are naive, not bidding 4♠ is more advisable in a long run.

My choice is 4♠. Double for plus 200 looks plausible, but one has to assume one's opponents are smart enough for the game too. When they bid 4♥ at this vul, they expect to MAKE the contract. looking at my hand, I can't see how they had a 4♥ bid on power. Given Heart Ace king and spade ace, west barely had a opening hand, and that leaves east Heart Q and other soft value in minors. Do you really think he wanted to try his luck at this vul with a mediocre distribution? Wild distribution strongly favors bidding on, instead of passing or double. I expect they have 10 hearts and we have 9 spades. the LAW says double is a poor decision.

there going to be a war between Christians and Muslims, sadly seems it going to happen during my lifetime :) :(

I like this one, hehe

I overcall 1NT too, if only I know what my pd's cards are, hehehe Be real, the prominent feature is the ♣ suit, and with Aces and Kings instead of QJs, this is hand is suit-oriented. Nothing is wrong to overcall 2♣. never tried transfer advance seriously, seems to me it is not easy to use. praticially, I play new suit forcing, EXCEPT 2 over 1, it seems solve most of the problems.

With club King well-placed, an Ace-6th suit and full of aces and kings, I'd say 1D is an underbid. After double, 2H, 3D, 4D, going slam is quite reasonable.

First of all, the fact is 3D was not forcing, thus pass 5H can NOT be a forcing pass. It's quite possible partner bid 3D with only an excellent suit but nothing else, the chance of beating 5H if far from "sure". Most importantly, passing intendes to involve partner's judgement. he might have a distributional hand favors bid on if you pass, or he might have lots of defensive value, or he might as well pass 5H. you cannot tell what he had by a 3D bid. You have told the whole story and already stretched by 5D. Double is an insult to pd's intelligence.

People just can't help but bidding the same thing twice, and even more times. Does this hand have noticeably more defensive value than a normal opening hand?

I can't see what's the problem here. even without any fancy toys: 1D 4NT 5H 5NT 7D After all key cards confirmed, what else more you need to bid 7D?

multi against multi X: opening hand with EITHER major. 2H: a strong notrump 2S/2N: tranfer to minor, good minor overcall (14+ HCP?) 3C/3D: natural, light constructive. 3H/3S: natural strong one suiter. 3N: to play 4C/4D: leaping michael, the minor and major, 3.5-4.5 losers. With 12-14 balanced, pass first see what happens. rumor has it if you play multi against multi, opps will stop playing multi :)