TimG

Breaking hotel rules is bad because it jeopardized the sponsoring body's ability to hold future tournaments at the same site. I agree that it would be strange to penalize someone for merely breaking a hotel rule if not stated in the CoC or Disciplinary Code, but I think it entirely reasonable to put in any CoC or Disciplinary Code a blanket rule about following host site rules.

In Han's proposal AT is written AT0, in mine it would be AT2.

That would wastefully use an extra character whenever you have a 10-card suit. Not if you use T for 10.

How about: AK6 AJ3 A2 QJ2 Would it hurt the environment if extra spaces are added: AK 6 AJ 3 A 2 QJ 2

If a standard opener only has 3 clubs, then there is an 8+ card spade fit when responder fit jumps with 5xx4. I'm not sure why 5xx4 isn't enough black suit length.

When I am using the "input custom deal" window, there is no longer an option to "save deal". If I "finish dealing" and "exit", I am prompted to save, but it seems that if I just change the dealer or vulnerability and exit, there is no prompt. Is there something I am overlooking?

We got 1400 against 6♣X. So, didn't quite manage par which looks to be 6♠ making.

Thanks for the replies. I wondered how automatic 5♥ was, looks nearly unanimous. For what it is worth, here is the full deal. I expect that most people did not open 4♠ (some must have had to deal with a 2nd seat 3♣ opening), because the board was nearly flat: all 680s for EW except for an 850 and two 1400s. [hv=d=e&v=e&n=sqhak87652d7532ca&w=skjt7654hdakjt6c6&e=sa3hqjt94d98ckt97&s=s982h3dq4cqj85432]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv]

Do you know what a fit jump shows? I doubt it shows the same thing for everybody, if it did this would be a much easier problem. It would be useful if we knew what kind of suit quality requirements we have for a passed hand fit bid, but I expect if we had solid agreements matmat would have told us.

NV v V at MP, you hold ♠ Q ♥ AK87652 ♦ 7532 ♣ A RHO opens 4♠ in 3rd seat. Go quietly or stick you neck out? Does it make a difference if hrothgar is on your right?

I do find that GIB pauses when declarer (presumably to think things over) and that he play post-pause often goes very quickly. I seriously doubt that I have ever experienced a 60+ second pause, probably never even a 30+ second pause. I don't doubt that such pauses have ever occurred. But, I suspect that the perception of a long pause is often influenced by the otherwise usually speedy play of a robot game.

You'd also want to factor it to a 12 top, I think. Your averages were for a 13 top.

Concede? That seems to put things in adversarial terms. Being adversarial is seldom the way to get your issue addressed.

I've gone over 25 hands plenty of times. Probably average over 25 hands. (Actually, 24 1/2.)

Maybe the black aces can be switched and the hand recycled for a later bidding match.

Shouldn't partials be worth a little something if some slams are going down? <ducks>

I think it is more practical and fair to stick with specific actions by the opponents that don't depend much on how the auction goes or choice of opening bid. There is probably a reason you don't see a whole lot of competition from the opponents in BW's CTC.

There's no plan to change or prematurely end this contest. Some of us are simply looking forward to this being a regular feature of the forums.

The point is that changing the laws to allow for this sort of hesitation would add an extra bid to the bidding box or move us closer to adjective bridge. In this case, your partner doesn't have to risk 3C, he can simply make a slow pass to let you know he has something and leave the final decision to you while with nothing he can pass in tempo. This is effectively what your partner did on this hand. It may have been unintentional, but he none-the-less conveyed the information. The real answer to all your concerns is to call in tempo.

hand recording did not work so well for me, I had to copy the final contracts from what I had hand written and send them to Ben.

I think one of the lists before all scoring changes were added was used; I don't think we should be bold.

Doubling 2♠ seems a mistake.

Would it be OK to specify that spades break 4-0? Or, that a particular honor was onside? Maybe I was being a bit critical, but it was meant entirely constructively. I hope this contest becomes an ongoing event and am just trying to add discussion of how it can be as good as possible so it's more likely to draw interest and continue.

This brings up an interesting question. When west shows majors, certain contracts become better or worse because of the distributional information provided. This is taken into account in the scoring of the contracts. When west is unable to show majors, should the same distributional information be considered when scoring contracts? This would effectively mean two sets of scores depending upon the information the opponents were able to reveal which doesn't seem to be a good thing. Neither does it seem right to consider information not available to all participants. I do not intend this question to be a request for a scoring adjustment, just curious about the issue in general and this is the deal that sparked the curiosity.

The point is that GIB doesn't ever get the GOSH (good one-suited hand) message after a takeout double; GIB's high level heart bids weren't cue-bids for spades. Doesn't matter whether you agree with the double in this case, this example shows the problem.