oryctolagi

Zillahandp, your profile (on BBO) says that you're based in GB, so presumably English is your first language. If your intention was to demonstrate that I'm a cr@p player and my idiot of a partner pulled off a brilliant coup which I failed to capitalise on, fine, go ahead, say it. I can handle that - I've been there! But if you shroud your post in the most incomprehensible gobbledygook, expecting me to waste my time trying to decypher it, go and post your rubbish somewhere else please. All right then, chum, so you were typing in on a fancy smartphone and trying to manipulate your touchscreen with fingers the size of pork sausages, was that it? Go and learn to type on a proper keyboard please. I learnt my typing on a typewriter, and there were no spellcheckers for me. If I made a mistake, out came the Tippex (or better still, rip out the sheet and start over). And I don't have a smartphone (I did have one, but I gave it to my son). Quite frankly, this sort of lazy attitude p***es me off big-time. The rest of you - thanks once again for the replies.

Sorry, what's that in English please? :angry:

As it turned out, the clubs broke 3-1 on this deal, so 3NT was cold. I suppose that's what annoyed me - as it would anyone! I could kick myself for not having gone straight there (I put in Blackwood 4NT - probably a silly move - and passed the 5♦ response). But my main cause for being perturbed was that my partner quit the table without a word. I was thinking, was he trying to cover his embarrassment? Or castigating me for mis-bidding the hand? Of course it could have been a totally innocent reason. Anyway, thanks for the replies. I'll try to remember - not all bids are what they seem....

Maybe to you. Bear in mind we were in the Acol club, and I have Acol very firmly stated on my card. We had made no agreement to play otherwise. And in Acol, unless I'm very much astray, a reverse is a reverse, a natural bid showing a strong hand and two suits. Where are the two suits in this hand????

I'm baffled. Perhaps I just don't know enough. This was in the BBO Acol club and I thought my partner was reversing: [hv=pc=n&s=skqhaj743dkt53c94&n=sj9hkdqj7cakqt853&d=w&v=e&b=16&a=p1cp1hp2dp]266|200[/hv] Anyway, liking partner's (presumed) diamonds and (presumed) lots of points, a lot, I thought "slam" but eventually landed us in 5♦. After the fiasco (3 down), I was about to ask partner what 2♦ was all about, but he/she scarpered before I got a chance. Perhaps it's me. Not the first time something like this has happened. Perhaps I'm not up to this game, and others are taking it out on me... :( Should I quit?

You're right, I didn't give full details of this hand because I wanted to have the topic discussed on more general terms (as it has indeed turned out). Bear in mind I was only kibitzing, not playing this hand. As it happens, East held AJ10xx in ♦ plus a side entry, while declarer had Kxx. But East hadn't bid, so it would have been down to guesswork. I'm not a great fan of the person who was declarer, so I was willing West to come out with that Q♦ :rolleyes: . But it didn't happen...

The point is certainly worth making, that all defensive conventions (including things like HELD and McKenney) might give information to declarer as well as to your partner. I don't suppose there's any getting away from it: you can't (legally) exchange any information with partner without giving declarer a few clues... Unlike psyching or other unusual bidding, I don't think there are any rules laid down in the big tournaments, about falsecarding during play (assuming you don't have an undeclared agreement with partner). Or are there?

Why do so many players rigidly stick to that lead in no trumps? Are we talking some sort of rule that 'must be obeyed'? I was kibitzing a hand recently, declarer was in 3nt, and LHO was faced with: [hv=pc=n&w=sq92ht62dq7cj7642]133|100[/hv] Declarer and partner had bid both majors between them. With my advantageous view of all four hands, I could easily see that a diamond lead would have killed the contract. But, predictably, out came the 4 ♣. And 3NT was made - easily. With so poor a hand and only one potential side entry, surely West didn't expect to run his clubs! Wouldn't it be better to 'play for partner's strength'? All I can say is, if I'm defending 3nt, don't expect a fourth best from me every time!

Not merely a mis-spelled quote, but a misattributed quote too. Voltaire never actually wrote those celebrated words - they were penned by someone called Evelyn Beatrice Hall, in a biography of Voltaire and his friends, published in 1906.

Yes I am aware of that. Bear in mind that my fellow players, although some of them are pretty good players, are not exactly world-class! I think the difference between MP play and IMP play would be lost on some of them - including myself! :unsure: Anyway, this is just for curiosity's sake.

I'm not sure whether I should be posting this here, but I have a question or two - so here goes. A few days ago I was lucky enough to secure a place in a fairly informal pairs tourney held by our local U3A. This was organised into seven tables playing 21 boards, scored Match Points. The organiser has E-mailed the results, along with all the travellers, to all participants, and my partner and I came exactly midway: 4th out of seven. Not a brilliant result but I'm not gutted, at any rate. Now I'd like to satisfy my curiosity and see whether we'd have got a better placing if it had been scored IMPs rather than MPs. This is purely for my own edification, vanity if you like, and not anything I want to make public - not even to my partner. Just a private thing. One reason is, on one board we were the only pair to reach a slam: in fact we were the only ones to secure a >1000 score, anywhere in the entire tournament (6NTv+1 giving us 1470). I know well that MPs scoring tends to level out big swings.... So the first question is, is there a convenient (and preferably free :rolleyes: ) tool I can use, to score up the travellers? Or a plug-in for Excel perhaps. I've got the data in HTML text format at the moment. Alternatively, if I have to do all the calculations myself, the hard way (I can easily get hold of a points -> IMPs lookup table), how is the baseline in pairs normally calculated? Simple average, sigma-clipped average, highest/lowest excluded average, median, or what? Any suggestions much appreciated!

I don't know anything about the OP, but I will also add this. On other forums (not bridge-related) which I post on, Shouting is most certainly come down on heavily by the Mods.... :lol:

I would prefer to have the "confirm navigation" warning come up only when I'm actually playing at a table - or waiting for a tourney to start. I don't want to quit the table by mistake: it's so easy to hit the 'close' button by accident. At other times it's a bit superfluous.

I agree with the above, in that I think we've exhausted the topic. I shall remember not to double one-level overcalls for penalties - and make use of the negative double convention. Others are a bit too complicated for me to remember! :unsure:

Interesting. I wonder what amounts to a 'positive expectancy' in your view. To me, the expectancy - the expected return - on a £1 lottery ticket - is always less than £1. Otherwise the 'good causes' wouldn't be able to benefit, nor would the operators be able to make a profit. It's the same with bookmakers and casinos. They're run as a business, not for your financial benefit! Clearly I got it wrong! I thought that these were like what in the UK we do call fruit machine, that means the sort with (usually three) rotors carrying pictures of fruit and other symbols, the object is to line up three identical symbols or certain combinations. Presumably that's one form of what's called 'slot machine' in the USA. But I've just googled a bit (betting shops being off my regular beat! :unsure: ) and it seems the fixed-odds machines offer different games like roulette. I didn't know that. Anyway, the point is, a minority of vulnerable people (I'm not speaking of multitudes of course) do get horribly addicted to these things, push all their cash into them, and end up seriously in debt. And it has erupted as a significant social problem, which is why many people want the things banned.