Elianna

I'm pretty sure they don't. :P Sorry, just got around to this. But in their general conditions of contest (in the PDF file on page 6 http://www.acbl.org/assets/documents/play/...-AllEvents.pdf) it says, under play #7: It's still not clear that these apply to club games, as I have never, ever seen these CoCs posted in a club, even though it says that it should be, below. It definitely seems to apply to regionals, sectionals, etc.

Welcome Geoff and Jason!

I agree Walddk's is standard. If you're playing with a regular partner, you may prefer to have #4 start with 1♥ with strong hands and 1♠ with weak hands, so.... 1♣-1♥-2♣-2♠ is forcing, 4 hearts, 5 spades 1♣-1♠-2♣-2♥ is nonforcing, 4 or 5 hearts, 5 spades 1♣-1♠-2♣-3♥ is forcing, 5 hearts, 5 spades Otherwise, it can make certain auctions difficult. It may be too early in the morning and I may be missing something, but what do you do with the GF hands and 5♥+4♠ if you do this inversion on #4?

Ok, fine, you're right. But isn't 2007-1975=42? :)

Thanks for reminding me Gerben. Happy birthday Adam! I hope that you enjoy being 42.

Me: clockwise. My mom: both.

I agree the US citizen part sounds funny. I wonder, though, if it may be a way of dealing with the idea of foreign students (who are students at American universities, but not considered residents)? Although if that were true, maybe they just would say are "US residents", so my guess is likely wrong. -Elianna, who is sad that's she's too old by any mark.

Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails' Hurt.

I get carded depending on how I dress when I'm alone, but I NEVER get carded when I'm with Adam.

At Harvey Mudd, some statistics (mainly for error analysis) was taught in our physics labs. Also, probability had a very tiny amount of statistics. But I was never required to take a proper statistics class through a math undergrad degree, and would not have been required for a PhD (UNL).

I teach it to my 12th graders. But I'm not at Public school. I don't believe it's in our standards (CA), but I can look it up. Hey there Quick point of clarification: When I said that this was covered in High School in New York, I was referring to 11th grade Social Studies rather than any of the Math classes. As I recall, the Math core was very focused at progressing towards Caluclus in an efficient fashion. "Real" Statistics (as opposed to probability) never got covered. However, the 11th Grade American history course included a combination of history, civics, and current events. Statistical literacy was probably slotted under civics... Yea, I was teaching a math class, but it was more a survey course, then a pre-Calculus class. This year I'm teaching more of a pre-calculus class, so I likely won't get near covering statistics (or even probability for that matter) as the girls have not even had standards from Algebra II covered (functions, logarithms, etc). It's very frustrating. But I bet you that my students last year could have found confidence intervals from a given poll.

I teach it to my 12th graders. But I'm not at Public school. I don't believe it's in our standards (CA), but I can look it up.

My point is that the length of time it takes for an answer is the longer of the two, not the sum.

Actually, you double your chance of a quicker answer. Let's say it takes one of your opponents 35 seconds to answer, and another 65 seconds to answer. Asking just one of them gives you an expected answer time of 50s (1/2*35 + 1/2*65). Asking both at the same time (using the double arrow chat) gives you an expected answer time of 35s (the amount of time the faster person takes). If you really want to hear both answers, that only takes 65s (the time of the longer answerer) not the 100s you seem to imply that it takes.

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=22589

I should preface my post by saying that I've never heard of this person or his system, but I'm highly dubious of his claims. I will first note that being a bridge teacher and unit president has NOTHING to do with bridge skills. He also doesn't note WHERE he got the 83% game. (Not doubting that he acheived that, just wondering in what type of game. Tournament could even apply to a club game, or a side game in an awful field.) I also note that he just lists that as his only bridge accomplishment, and not any national wins. So I have doubts as to his credentials as a player. This is not to say that learning his system might not improve your game. I bet that it's carefully thought out, and that if you adopt it, you will be playing a more detailed system than what you are currently playing (assuming that you are a typical beginning/intermediate player). Many people find that changing to a different system automatically gains them better results (once they learn that system). However, there have been many thread here about whether it's better for beginning/intermediate players to learn new systems/conventions, or whether they should concentrate on more fundamental issues. Anyway, it's up to you whether you wish to purchase it or not. If you really want advice, I would say that if you have the money, buy it, and then take it to a local expert and ask him/her to review it for you. Otherwise, if you don't have money to burn, you'd probably be better off getting a detailed book about your current system. There's a lovely book review thread here that might give you good ideas of where to start.

The Larry Cohen who wrote so many LAW books and is the regular partner of David Berkowitz is from Florida, and is NOT the same person who was suspected of cheating when playing with Richard Katz. I think that there are actually three Larry Cohens. I think that the one playing with Berkowitz is not the same as the one that wrote the book. I have no proof of this, I just thought that someone told me that. The one playing with Berkowitz also looks different than pictures on the back of books, but that is not so unusual.

Learn to evaluate a hand in context, and not place so much emphasis on WHAT you bid as much as on what it SHOWS, and you see how quickly YOUR bidding improves. My bidding in context of my system is fine. I don't mislead partner and cause him to get to the wrong contract. I also know how to quote correctly on the forums.

Hah, really funny there. Adam rebids 1NT on singletons all the time, when no other bid describes the hand. In fact, we alert that bid, as "could have a singleton in partner's bid suit", because we'll rebid that way on more hands than many people. However, just because you HAVE a singleton, that doesn't mean that you SHOULD bid 1NT. If another bid describes the shape of your hand more precisely (length and strength in minors) why not make it?

Transfer preempts are midchart legal although they aren't the most intelligent call ever devised. Oh, but they're much better when they could show either the suit you bid or the suit you're transferring to. :D If the opps haven't looked up/discussed defenses to NT overcalls, that's not my responsibility unless it's made to be by the regulating authority (for example, certain ACBL midchart conventions). Why should I have to tell them a defense to all natural bidding over their NT, for example?

Brogeland is third from left. He's the only one I know. :) Edit: Adam adds that Helgemo is on the far right, and he thinks that Helness is standing next to him. Edit 2: It appears Adam was wrong. HeeHee. He doesn't have my secret power for identifying certain men.

A slightly less "political" topic might be to remind people that the subforums exist for a reason. I especially see people abusing the general bridge subforum, and posting things that better belong in the standard bidding, or interesting bridge hand subforums. The Beg/Int ones seem to be used appropriately (I see it as being both for theory/application), but I agree with Justin, that the Adv/Exp could use extra rigour. I don't think that there should be a requirement to post, however, as one can't categorize everyone, that's just too big of a task. And some people might be advanced/expert in one category (analyzing hands/play for example) and not in another (like bidding). I'd still like them to be able to post on the topic of which they're knowledgeable. Maybe a general reminder of self-editing even outside the water cooler would suffice? For example, of not repeating your point over and over. If someone replies that they disagree, that means that you need to say something NEW to convince them, not just repeat yourself (which they can scroll up and read for themselves). And a reminder to choose forums in which to start your topic carefully?

I absolutely agree. To add on to what was said, I believe that it is allowed in midchart under #3 over 1st and 2nd seat.

It is in the US. Any type of artificial raise by an unpassed hand needs to be a jump shift like Bergen. Or a 1NT response to a 1M opening Note that 1NT may not GUARANTEE invitational or better values. It may include limit raise hands, it just needs to include other possibilities, too.

Maybe the important phrase is "A Regular Member may be qualified as follows:", meaning that they're qualified to be a regular member, not automatically made one? (In case it's not clear, I DO mean it as a question, not as a sarcastic remark.)