TimG

Is it that you prefer to play 3/4 of the boards or that you prefer to play 48 boards? If a long event such as the Spingold were scheduled for 48 boards per day, would you still want to play 3/4 of the boards? What about a shorter multi-day team event like the Reisinger? Would you prefer the two-day and three-day NABC Pairs event to entail just 48 boards per day?

The ACBL convention card that I have in front of me (produced by ACBL CC Editor 1.0.15) does use red suit symbols for hearts and diamonds (except when they are blue to denote a bid which is announced). Forcing 1♣ opening is red because it requires an alert.

I like your autocorrect solution. I have assigned alt-s to a spade symbol, alt-h to a heart symbol, alt-d to a diamond symbol and alt-c to a club symbol. But, so far as I know, there is no way to make sure the alt-d and alt-h automatically insert a red symbol. So, I have a macro that changes everything when I am done. Do you know if autocorrect can be used with the assigned alt keys to get red symbols? I have noticed that when there are suit symbols in headings that are used for a table of contents entry that there is trouble with toc update. Have you encountered this?

I don't know the answer to your question, but Double Dummy Solver will read a .lin file and you can step through the deals one by one (rather than loading them one at a time and without the need for any manual entry).

You need to remember that there have to be events in which the little guys can enjoy themselves and hope to win, or there will be no events at all. Well, I can scarcely argue with that! But I think that this is a little different, because people are entering an event that they have no chance of winning, no matter how well they do. That's why I don't understand the popularity of such events. I'm not sure whether you're talking about entering an open event that they have no chance of winning or entering a bracketed/flighted event which, because they are in a non-top bracket/flight, they have no chance of winning the whole thing. But, either way I can understand why the events might be popular. In an open event, people can compare their result to how they expected to do, they get to play against a few good (or great) opponents along the way which is a draw for some, and they get token awards (match or section awards) along the way. In a bracketed/flighted event, there is the chance to win the bracket/flight in which they are entered. And, you still get the token awards along the way. People choose to play games against less than great players all the time. Do not discount the social aspect of either event.

I'm still not getting it. When the highest HCP is tied, (2) always picks it up, because (2) never discards a deal. Is the problem that (1) discards the ties where south in not involved in the tie? So that in (2) ties are more likely to happen. And, ties are more likely to involve higher HCP totals?

Those appear to be the makeable contacts (on a double dummy basis).

Whether you reverse instead of jump shift should have to do with the relative lengths of the suits rather than the quality. It is not standard to reverse with 5-5.

I've kept track of deals played and passouts for my last 100 or so games. The most deals I have finished is 35, the most passouts is 17, and the most non-passouts completed is 21. Unless I am terribly consistent, I must be completing some non-passout deals in less than a minute and I don't consider myself especially fast.

I'm confused and I will probably regret asking, but... It is my understanding that in Best Hand games, south has at least as many HCP as any other hand. There are probably many ways to deal such hands, but two that come to mind quickly are: 1) Deal randomly, check to see if south has at least as many HCP as any other hand, discard if this condition is not met. 2) Deal randomly, check to see if south has at least as many HCP as any other hand, if not, then rotate* the deal and check again. Repeat as needed. I don't see why these two methods wouldn't produce the same HCP average for South (and the same HCP average for NS). Were you using a 3rd way to produce deals? * Instead of rotating, you could find a hand that did meet the "at least as many HCP as any other hand" and switch that hand with south rather than rotating the whole deal. Should be the same result.

Is it automatic that a BIT creates UI? Even if every BIT automatically creates UI, in my opinion it is important to know what the UI is, not merely that some UI exists.

Actually, as confirmed by a thread in the B/I Forum, 3♥ is normal with the first hand.

You can alert and explain at the same time.

♠Txxxx ♥Kx ♦K9x ♣KTx After an uncontested 1♥-1♠-3♦, GIB rebid 3♠. ________ I thought this was an impossible auction: 1♣-P-1♦-1♠ 2♥-All pass Shouldn't opener's reverse, even in a contested auction, be a one round force?

When this came up, I thought 3♥ was obvious. GIB bid 3♠.

You hold: ♠Txxxx ♥Kx ♦K9x ♣KTx. What do you bid after 1♥-1♠-3♦-? Just a quick check to see what is normal.

Over five years since I registered with BBO forums.

These are not duplicate tournaments, everyone does not get the same hands.

♠-- ♥AT87652 ♦2 ♣AQT72 My GIB partner held this hand recently and chose not to open in 3rd seat.

I don't think you should worry too much about which system is easiest to learn. The difference in difficulty is probably minor. And, bridge is a complex game, if they are going to be turned off by a 5.8 degree of difficulty instead of a 5.4 degree of difficulty, they probably won't last long at the bridge table. Whatever system they learn is just a stepping stone into the world of bridge systems; a solid foundation can be laid with any of the choices you have offered. I think it is extremely rare for someone to learn one approach and then five years later not to have at least experimented with other approaches. I think the important consideration should be what their likely partners will be playing. If they will be playing with each other and you, it doesn't really matter; if they are going to be playing with pickup partners on BBO or in the local duplicate, what is most common in those venues should be considered.

This doesn't sound to me like a crap shoot. At least not any more than most other forms of bridge. In a 64 table MP pairs, I wouldn't expect the best pair in the field to always be in the top 8; there are upsets every year in the Spingold and Vanderbilt.

It requires duplicated boards, doesn't it? The ACBL has been very slow to switch to machine duplicated boards; the last sectional I played in we hand duplicated boards and that was just a couple months ago. In Swiss team events, the boards are typically hand shuffled and dealt prior to each match.

Swiss Pairs at an ACBL sectional, I believe. I would expect the field to be much smaller than the Gold Coast Congress, especially considering ACBL's propensity to flight events. Perhaps Gerben is reading this thread...

That study uses a field size of 128 teams and does not make any mention of the differences in skill levels of the top teams. Are the top 10 team nearly equal? Top 16? How much better than the field was the top team? How much better than the 2nd or 8th best teams? It would be interesting to hear how often a non-top 10% team won the 128 team simulated Swiss. AWM has claimed that a mediocre team can win a Swiss with a good ("lucky") last round match. The biggest Swiss event I could find in the last year's worth of New England regional results was 61 tables. I've played in a lot of small Swisses (that's all there are in Maine). My sense, purely anecdotal, is that the winners are almost always one of the top teams in the event -- very rarely does a mediocre team (relative to the field) end up on top. However, a mediocre team having a good day, perhaps bolstered by an easy last round draw, will often sneak into the overalls.

I doubt many mediocre teams win events this way. It also is good to remember that good teams sometimes have off days and teams somewhere between good and mediocre play well some days. This strikes me as a good place for a simulation. It's a bit beyond me, and I suspect it has been done before. But, perhaps someone will do one, or point us to the results of an old one?