Elianna

Contestant's answers: 3♠ 16 pass 8 4♠ 5 5♠ 1 3NT 1

Ok, as I said before, Poky won with a first place score of 540. The second highest score was 530, acheived by Double ! and Helene t (a second secondplace finish in a row, if I recall correctly). Close behind was mr1303, with a score of 520. Very close match! The median was 410, and those above were: Mike777, Blofeld, joker gib, Hannie, shanbari, flytox, HeartA, pclayton, and hrothgar. We had 30 participants (if you're wondering why contestant's answers added up to 31, I counted my own answers there, but not in the official tally of determining winners)

You can take a course in probability (combinatorics will also greatly help) and learn how to calculate conditional probabilities. :P I'm too tired to calculate these for you, except to tell you that I hope that you mean your plus as and OR not an AND. If no one answers in the morning, I'll give a more detailed explanation.

I'm extremely tired (after having driven back from a tournament six hours (seven hours b/c of traffic) from my house, but instead of keeping you in even LONGER suspense, I shall announce the winner: Poky. Congratulations! Second place, etc. will have to wait until I get some sleep and recover from driving. (And to be even MORE off subject, some people need their license revoked. BADLY. If you've ever driven on the 5 between SF and LA, you know what I'm talking about.)

I think that the point that was trying to be made, is that if you've ALREADY turned a partnership game into a "solo" game (ie, by psyching) then you shouldn't aggravate it more by bidding on. For example, if you open 1NT (usually done in third seat) with a 5=1=3=4 shape, and a 4-count (when you're supposed to have, say, 15-17), then whatever partner does, you could pass. This is different (in my mind only, perhaps) than, say, if you opened 1NT in first or second chair with 15 points, and a 2=2=7=2 shape and decided to pass partner's 2♦ bid because you think that it will play better there. Anyway, this isn't the place to debate if psyching is RIGHT, but I just wanted to point out that I don't believe that the action under consideration is what to do if you stretched by a point to make a bid.

A slight problem is that not everyone plays as well as deep finesse!

CONTESTANTS' responces: 2♦ 18 2NT 4 4♠ 3 2♠ 3 3♠ 2 4♥ 1 This problem, while most people agreed, had the second most number of different answers for all problems (and the second most number of people picking the leading answer).

To those who prefer contestants' answers not shown: If it's because you don't wish your bids shown (counted) for this, please send me a private message and I won't count what you answered. If it's for a different reason, could you please tell me why (either by posting here or private messaging).

The CONTESTANTS' answers: 2NT 21 Pass 8 3NT 2 A lot less variation in this one than all the others. :rolleyes:

Since this is also about the tourney list, I figured that I might as well put it here. Currently, it seems, when there are no recently completed tournaments, that folder goes away. It might be less confusing (I was wondering where it was, and then I realized that there might have been no tournaments completed lately) if instead of having it disappear, have it show 0 (that it doesn't contain anything). It might save people some puzzlement. Also, about colors, I think that just a white background (ie: nothing) and (bold) black letting, then normal black lettering for folder contests might be ok. It seems easy enough to read, and not very startling to the eyes.

Well, it would be possible, but we would have to coordinate it, since two different people (Ben and I) work on two different sides of the contest. Also, this would involve one of us getting credit for the work of the other (let's face it, people like to give credit to whosever name appears on the post), which never makes relationships between people easy.

CONTESTANT'S answers: 3♠ 14 2♠ 8 dbl 5 3♣ 3 4♠ 1

Well, BBO-Advanced doesn't address whether 1♠ in this auction is four or five cards, but I know that I for one would treat it as four cards, and a negative double as promising at least four cards in BOTH majors . In an earlier post, Phil (Pclayton) says that this seems to be "standard", and I know that this treatment is the only one I've actually seen used. This allows you to show your suit (as opposed to if double could be just ONE of the majors left), especially if your LHO raises his partner's suit (CHO will be better positioned to know where a fit is, or if there is none. Anyway, just my 2 cents.

I hope that you don't want ME to do this for you! :)

I don't really intend to look through the thread, make note of all the bids, and then count. :)

While I understand your sentiment, I do not wish to be placed in the position of deciding what's "sensible" and what's not ( would interpret that as anything I wouldn't bid! :)). What I COULD do, is wait until Ben posts the answers that received a score, and then only display the number of people who chose those answers. Or, I could only display the most chosen three or four choices (funnily enough, these two subsets of bids, while intersecting, are not necessarily contained in each other (much less equal) for some of the questions)

Thanks for moving everything here, where it belongs! (I didn't know who did it, but I hope that the person who did sees this and accepts my thanks.) If the links don't work now that polls were moved, sorry. Lastly, yes, Ben is right, I DID mean option one to cover what you said, P Marlowe. I'm sorry if the wording was ambiguous.

If you have another suggest, please say below. Please see the BPO forum and other poll (links to come soon) for more information. other poll BPO forum: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showforum=30

See this forum for more information: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showforum=30 And specifically look in the threads for BPO-3A and B for examples. Note that the last two options are different. Choosing the second to last is akin to choosing "I don't care, this doesn't interest me", choosing the last says "Please don't display them" I'm also making another poll that asks WHEN you'd like the totals shown. Other poll Hopefully these all link to each other now.

Testing the waters (again): From contestants' votes: 3♠ 14 2♠ 8 dbl 5 3♣ 3 4♠ 1 I am setting up a poll about what information people want. poll on what you'd like to see displayed: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=8617 Poll on timing of answers: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?act=ST&f=9&t=8618

Funny, it looked EXACTLY like the blue dots, not at all like the padlocks on threads. My eyes ARE getting old, though. Anyway, the forum is reopened, so it's not there anymore.

Ok, someone sent a request to Ben, which was forwarded to me, asking for totals of bids (that you, the contestants sent in). I don't know if I'll do this for all problems, but for this one: 4♦ 14 5♦ 5 4♠ 4 3♠ 3 4♣ 2 3♦ 1 6♠ 1 5♠ 1 Please let me know if you find this interesting/useful. It's a bunch of work, and if only one person wants it, they can just get the file and do it themselves. :P Also, if I see even one post that says something along the lines of "I can't believe that someone (or some number of people) made such and such bid" I will not post any of these totals anymore. Please remember that even if you hate a bid, you should not be mean to people who are feeling their way through the contest, and didn't know that their bids would become public (since it wasn't stated in the COC, and this was just a request made by Ben).

And boy, would you be unhappy if pard passed 2c. ;) (Just referring to another thread in this forum.)

With all due respect here, Wiston, The Hog and I are NOT quibbling over 1 point right now. I agree that it's irrelevant to bridge, but it's completely relevant to how quite a few people on the forums treat others.

Now that you've got my attention, look at even the yellow card, which many people on bbo tend to treat as "Standard American", and at bbo standard and bbo advanced. A link to an image of the yellow card (ie SAYC) is: http://www.bridgeprotour.com/ (click on yellow card on the bottom of the page). I'll await your sources with anticipation.