TimG

Even if there are not those who have stopped playing completely, there are likely those who play less often and/or are less serious about bridge as a result of system regulations. I can truthfully say that over the years I have played less often than I would have under more liberal system regulations. I do not meant to suggest that I am typical or that those in my situation are significant in number.

Forget it... :-)

Is there a systemic meaning to 2N-3♣-3♦ or 2N-3♣-3M? If not, would it be legal for responder to guess opener forgot the agreement and opened a strong 2NT? I'm not convinced that opener has the strong (20-21ish) 2NT because with that he would have made his normal response to Stayman.

Hmmm. It has been discussed ad nauseam, but it is generally accepted that this is not a requirement. I have seen something like five different legal justifications for this, but the important thing is that rulings are based on this not being a requirement. Not enough: demonstrably suggested over an LA by the UI. I was attempting to follow this: And made an error when I changed "an LA to the chosen action" to "a LA was the chosen action". I thought it looked odd and should have been more careful. My mistake. But, I find it surprising that you would be critical of "the chosen action could demonstrably be suggested by the UI" when you previously said "the chosen action to be suggested by the UI" and later defended your choice of words with:

I think that there are four conditions that must be met in order for there to be an adjustment: UI from partner was available; there was a LA to the chosen action; [edited] the chosen action could demonstrably be suggested over a LA by the UI; [edited] and damage was caused by the choice. When you say: you seem to have already determined that the UI suggested bidding on, but as you later point out there are a number of possible reasons for a BIT that do not indicate bidding on. I don't think it matters what his motivation was if it is determined that the UI suggested bidding on. Even if the explanation is that the Ace of Diamonds was hidden when he rebid 2♦, that does not matter if it is determined that pass was a logical alternative and the UI available suggested bidding on. At least that's the way it seems to me.

Maybe it already has been implemented...

I did not say "end of the round" in my opening post because I wasn't sure whether the signing of the score slip might end the round for this table.

I would rule that pass is a logical alternative. More interesting to me is whether 4NT was demonstrably suggested over pass by the BIT.

Suppose that after the boards have been played, the score slip initialed, and one of the opponents has left the table, it is discovered that there was a revoke on one of the hands that went unnoticed during the play of the hand. The opponent still at the table is not convinced that a revoke had occurred. Is it too late to rectify the situation? If the director is called, what steps should he take?

heh that was the first book I ever read. First book or first bridge book?

Build it and they will come. Let me know when you've got it started.

Justin, I think ratings should be opt-in rather than opt-out. Here is what I envision. Rated tournaments. Players with an established rating can play in a room for rated players (but the play there would not be rated). In order to maintain a rating, a player would have to play semi-regularly in rated tournaments. The main bridge club would remain open to all, rated or not. A good player could go to the main bridge club or the rated bridge club and play unrated games any time he wanted without any stigma associated with non-rated games.

I think the people that can't find a "good enough" partner in the main bridge club are going to be the same people who think a rating system is not accurate (for whatever reason) in their case.

awm, I think just about all your problems can be solved by not making all play rated play. In this way people can opt into the rating system and control when they want to play rated hands. If you're sick or tired or playing with a pick-up partner or watching the game in the background, you can play in an unrated game. And, people could choose never to enter rated games and thus never be rated. As far as initial break-in period, I think a good rating system would handle that without much difficulty. It would not be a simple case of assigning new players an average rating, but rather assign them a rating based upon their first x results. I play a few ACBL speedballs. My motivation for playing in them rather than in the main bridge club is twofold: 1) the quality of play is generally higher, and 2) the game is not subject to players coming and going. I would happily pay my $1 to play in a tournament that was rated rather one that awarded points. A rating, and a room for rated players, could help considerably in 1) above. BBO owners may read this and think: It sounds like rating you will cost us business because it will make it easier for you to find good games that don't have an entry fee. But, I would be willing to play in a certain number of rated tournaments over time to maintain my rated status. In essence, BBO would be charging me for my rating by requiring play in a certain number of tournaments to maintain a rating, but I'd be OK with that.

Because the only difference is one has a rating system and one does not?

Club managers may not have tried this, but many Units have tried something similar with their sectionals: holding multiple single-session pair games on Saturday rather than the traditional two-session event. Many organizers will tell you that the switch has been good for attendance. My opinion is that the attendance bump is more about convenience associated with a shorter time commitment than the potential for more masterpoints.

HotShot, I think you should assume an efficient, fair and accurate rating system and then address Fred's concerns about when, where and how to display the ratings. It sounds to me that the bigger hurdle for implementation is the social impact of a rating system rather than the ability to devise a reasonably accurate rating system.

I have long suggested that masterpoint awards should be correlated to the predictive accuracy of a given tournament format. The more accurate a format is at determining the best player / pair / team, the greater the number of points it should award. Moreover, the way in which points are awarded in said tournaments shoud be allocated in accordance with predictive accuracy. They should also have something to do with the strength of the field. Two tournaments with the same degree of predictive accuracy should not award the same number of points if the strength of field is not also equal.

A few points or questions: When comparing the length of online games to offline games, it doesn't seem right to me to look at points per board played. Someone should study the predictive qualities of an X board game to that of a 2X board game. Looking at masterpoints as a rating, I expect that 24 boards are not twice as valuable as 12 boards. It is impractical for offline games to run speedballs. There are a lot of things that are done automatically online that cannot be done automatically offline: sorting hands, putting dummy down, scoring boards, moving boards, changing tables, etc. Saying offline clubs could run speedballs if they wanted to is not really true; no way could an offline club run a 1 hour game with 12 boards and 4 rounds and not fall behind hopelessly. There are differences in directing (or how games are run) between online and offline games. In an offline club, I have never seen the play of a board stopped due to time conditions and then a score assigned by the director. In my offline club experience, very rarely is a board not played due to time conditions, in online play (speedballs, anyway) it is not an infrequent occurrence. How important is it that the points won in BBO tourneys are ACBL points? I'm sure there are plenty of people who pay attention to POTM/POTY races and otherwise keep track of their points won. But, I wonder how much tournament business BBO would lose if the hourly tournaments run by BBO did not award ACBL masterpoints but rather a special class of BBO points awarded only in BBO run tournaments.

Last weekend, in a local event, my partner and I had a Polish Club auction to 6C. After the auction, the player who was going to be on lead leaned forward in preparation for asking about the auction and I started to explain both my partner's and my bids. I was cut off with a wave of the hand and told that I couldn't do that. He then pointed to one of my bids and asked my partner: "Is that natural?"

I have not read the regulations, but... It would seem to me that it would be more useful to alert 1♣-1♠ when 1♠ is not game forcing. Game forcing is the expected meaning after a strong club. After I read the opening post, I wondered if a non-game forcing (but natural) 1♠ response to a Polish 1♣ ought to be alerted. Edit: I now have read the alert regulations that Blackshoe linked. I think a natural and game forcing 1♠ response to a strong 1♣ opening falls into the "natural calls not specifically noted" that are "about expected strength and shape".

I don't think that online bridge eats much into tournament play -- those people who travel to tournaments are still going to travel. It may eat into club play, but I do not think it is as significant as many think. It seems to me that for the most part BBO attracts people that would not be going to the club anyway rather than drawing folks away from club games. For instance, when I try to set up an online game, I often am told that someone can play any night except for one (that one being their weekly club outing). And, don't forget that ACBL games online generate revenues for ACBL as well as BBO.

After passing 1N?

Is there really that much yelling going on? If I started an online partnership and found that my partner was prone to yelling, the partnership would end quickly. Anyway, I think the emphasis should be on partners that don't yell rather than on scoring mode which will be more or less likely to cause partner to yell.

There must be some chance of an opening diamond lead being ruffed that no one seems to be factoring in. Edit: missed Rob's mention of a ruff, but still not considered in the %.