Elianna

It actually was disappointingly comfortable. :)

Try this: https://picasaweb.google.com/eruppin/IronThrone?authkey=Gv1sRgCI_bqNCtpO2oigE#

Don't read Fluffy's posts, and don't highlight my posts. But you can click on the picture of Adam and me! :)

Good point, except that ACBL has consistently ruled that things like this are "conventional" (even if they are not artificial). I don't know if it's logical, but see their classification of Muiderberg as conventional. I am not arguing that they are right, or the logic behind it makes sense, I am just saying that this is how they've been known to rule. ETA: I think that it's the 5+C, 4+ of a major option that would make it conventional in ACBL's eyes.

I have no clue what chart is governing where this was played, so I'm answering under the most common convention restrictions we have, the General Chart. ACBL General Chart: http://www.acbl.org/assets/documents/play/Convention-Chart.pdf See specifically Disallowed #2: "Psyching of artificial or conventional opening bids and/or conventional responses thereto. Psyching conventional suit responses, which are less than 2NT, to natural openings." So while the agreement is legal, if this is ruled a psyche (which seems rather clear in my opinion) then psyching this is not legal under ACBL General Chart. What the director is supposed to do about, I don't know.

I would not put them in early 30's either (I think that they're older than me) but I could be wrong about that. :)

Both of those gentlemen are comfortably over 30. Although perhaps the OP was stingy in attribution of years. Also, at least on Sunday, they were not playing on a pro team. I don't feel like looking at all other days. But speaking of their non-pro team, perhaps the person is referring to Dayou Zhou, who I would also not guess is in his early 20s, but could be close to it.

Also, to show how nerdy Adam and I are: (and there's two more versions where that came from. :) )

I've been trying not to say anything that would spoil the series for those who haven't read the books (or at least put it in spoiler text, and even that is not too specific, I hope). I'm glad that you're loving the series. I am really impressed with the good job that they are doing with the whole "feel" from the books. This is not a spoiler, but what sealed the deal on the Cat hate from me is in the book, during Jon's goodbye to Bran, she told him that she wished it were Jon that had fallen. That's what I think that they cut to try to make her less hateful.

Haven't been to BBOF in a long time, didn't see you had a thread about this! I made Adam get HBO for this series. I've been enjoying it so far, but I have been concerned about some of the changes. Like they seem to be trying to make Cat less hateful. Fluffy, two of the "bad" guys gets theirs in the third book. Also, he actually finished! Looks like GRRM might make that July 12 date! Yeay! I just hope that he stays ahead of the series. And that there will be enough of a series for him to stay ahead of.

I agree with Justin about the non-need to jump to 4NT, and also would point out that I wouldn't be so sure that partner has 2 kings. He might have none (he might be playing specific kings), and have a overbid for his 2C bid. Or the 2C bid was based on shape, and not HCP, and then we may need to be in 7H not 7NT. Which leads us back to Justin, and the fact that ACE-ASKING IS NOT A TOOL TO DECIDE ON SLAMS (it's to stay out of bad ones).

The ten only counts as one card, not two.

Not if the guy was reaching for the stop bid. Of course, since OP doesn't say that the guy claimed that, I guess it's not what happened.

Speaking of 3NT down 9, once at junior camp playing in central park, someone opened 1NT (two non-touching suits). I doubled. His partner bid 3NT. It came back to me. I doubled, and it was redoubled. -9.

You seriously think that this is a bridge discussion?

I guess Frances and I are no one.

We always played it without the outer box as well.

2N in this auction is invitational to 3NT (2H was passable). In this specific auction, the people I play 2/1 with would treat 3H as invitational with 2 card support (with 3 card support in this auction, most would raise to game, but maybe with 4333, one could treat it as 2 card support). If instead opener rebid 2D, then 3H would show three card support. You may notice that I put a lot of caveats in this, as I do not feel like an expert on 2/1 as most play it. I also would have rebid 3H with the south hand. You don't have the classical amount of points, but are there on playing strength (invite to game in hearts).

In my defense, I actually DO lessons about playing the hand every week (we meet once a week), I teach it constructively (meaning that they play a few hands, and then build the "how to play" meaning from that, rather than me telling them how to play certain hands, though, and only occasionally highlight certain plays to watch for. But most of our discussion after the hands is how to play better, or how to defend better. I think that beginners execute play ideas better when they can come up with the ideas (guided by a teacher) themselves, rather having someone tell them how they should play types of hands. This way they can come up with ways to recognize themes in play of the hand, and can have better recall.

I know that this is not really useful, but I can tell you that you can't do this using the edit movement menu, as it won't let a board be played in two rounds simultaneously. My primary suggestion is to not do this, and do a full barometer instead, if you have enough sets of boards. Otherwise, if you are really set on doing this, you can manually assign scores to boards. What I mean is, say you have 5 tables, and you have all tables play board 3 at the same time. ACBLscore (if you set at three boards a round) thinks that the boards should be played: NS vs. EW score 1 vs. 1 aaa 2 vs. 3 bbb 3 vs. 5 ccc 4 vs. 2 ddd 5 vs. 4 eee But instead you had 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, 3 vs. 3, etc... You can manually enter this board using the special score command as you enter the boards, and assign the scores to the correct pair as so: NS vs. EW NS score EW score 1 vs. 1 aaa -aaa (wouldn't have to be entered special) 2 vs. 3 bbb -ccc 3 vs. 5 ccc -eee 4 vs. 2 ddd -bbb 5 vs. 4 eee -ddd where "-" means the opposite of the score on the traveler. If you chose this method and need more help, let me know. Also, I would do this on the boards divisible by three, and set up the rounds for three boards at a time. It just makes it easier to remember. And the order would be different for boards 6, 9, etc, you would have to make sure that the NS write down the EW# they played against.

I think that he has several concerns: 1) Experts who deliberately play slowly to try to avoid the other experts who play fast. 2) An expert playing with a novice, and have different systems in their profiles, so you have to ask what they play. I don't understand this one (can't you just ask that they alert, the partner doesn't see alerts), nor do I understand why the point is made that they are from the same country, nor that they have disparate self-ratings. 3) Chat to whole tournaments giving away things in specific hands. And also that it's a lot of noise (ironic, huh, given the post)? 4) Something specific about a hand that I am not interested in thinking hard enough about to translate. Honestly, Shubi was easier because at least his were shorter!

I just finished reading Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities. Even though it was written twenty years ago, not a lot has changed. I bring this up because it contains a lot of side-by-side comparisons of schools in the same place, and the comparisons are horrific. If I were on the jury there is NO WAY I could convict the lady for trying to get her child into the better school, and I think that the state of some our schools is an embarrassment to our country.

Many people call a 2♦ opening bid showing 18-19 balanced a "Mexican Diamond". I have no idea where the name came from, or regular replies to it. According to the ACBL convention charts, it is a general chart convention, as it is a strong bid (but it should be alerted). See opening bids #5a for the rule allowing it, and you can look at the alert chart to see that it is alertable. As clubs are free to set their own convention chart, I can not say if it is permitted at the club level, but if they claim to be strictly following the GCC, then it should be allowed.

According to my friend, the Israeli experts like it too. That's partially why I started the thread, to find out if that was actually true. ETA: But you've reminded me that I can find WBF cards online, and it seems that they DO play her carding (not the Polish style, though, that I made her play). But they don't do her A=ALWAYS attitude, K=ALWAYS count.

But she says that she wants to play this solely for the reason of telling the difference between H86 and 862! This is the part that I don't get.