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IF I bid ♠ it will be at the one level so when partner bids 2♥ I can splinter 4♦. It is an ugly hand in anything that isn't a relay system. Sean

Happy Birthday Fred :P Sean

The poor decision I was talking about was the suspension, not Bucknor. Sean

http://www.theage.com.au/news/cricket/icc-...9554654297.htmlhttp://www.theage.com.au/news/cricket/lege...ge#contentSwap1 This is what I am talking about. Should a country basically be allowed to blackmail the whole game because of a poor decision? Sean Edit: And Zasanya, I don't know whether you have read this one from Peter Roebuck or not, but: http://www.theage.com.au/news/cricket/pete...ge#contentSwap1 Sean (decided to include another article:) http://www.theage.com.au/news/cricket/icc-...9554654297.html

Realistically, I think he said it. Realistically, I don't think he should have been banned because there were no witnesses. It is a case of "He said, she said" (not putting either of the cricketers involved as the female, it is just an expression that aptly describes this scenario) My reasoning for thinking he said it is that there was footage of him trying to apologise to a lot of people just after talking to the umpires, nothing more. He may not have said it, who knows? That is the key, noone does; he should not have been banned. Now, in reference to the term monkey. This is far more complicated. This has come most likely from European Football (Soccer). Many African players are taunted with that in Europe and find it highly offensive, being that they are the only players of colour on the teams. Andrew Symonds is the only person of colour in the Australian team. Symonds said himself he didn't really care about what happened in India, it was mainly the media that made a big thing of it. After what happened in India recently, it was deemed this was inappropriate. "If" he said it, he deserves to be punished and banned as he was. "If" he didn't say it then Symonds should be ruled out for much longer. The fact is noone knows what was said. Some people have said when the appeal clears Harbajhan Singh (which will happen since the ICC have no balls, but I will get to that later) that he should sue for defamation. He will then be told not to pursue it since it is unwillable. There are too many hot heads thinking about money at the moment. Some people have mentioned the money issue, as I have myself. There is a view outside of the sub-continent that it does not matter if all countries vote against something, it will come back to the money from the TV rights there. Pakistan have had an umpire sacked, now India have too. There is no way Bucknor will umpire again, but the fact is, should a team be allowed to do that? The answer is NO. If the West Indies asked for an umpire to be sacked would they be listened to? If England did it, doubtful. If Australia did it I think the answer would be not a chance. All of the cricket decisions are being made with consideration of the money from the TV rights in the sub-continent. Now there is a good argument that this is where the cricketer's pay is coming from worldwide, including Australia. However, do we want to see this? The ICC was setup to be a unifying body of world cricket. In the earlier days it was considered to basically be England and Australia based. And that was the wrong way to set it up. Currently the ICC is only listening to the money. The ICC are a joke, much like the IOC (International Olympic Committee) who recently changed when swimming finals would be held to suit American television (finals are currently held in the evening but will be in the morning for Beijing despite decades of heats in the mornings and finals at night to suit American TV even though they don't really care about swimming at all unless they are winning). The MCC used to have some backbone, but not much. So then we come down to the current situation. In the current setup, the Indian board are in control, to a lesser extent Pakistan and Sri Lanka. As I mentioned before, if the ICC had any balls they would enforce Harbajhan Singh's suspension, but they will rollover. India will then ask for Mike Proctor to be sacked, and he probably will be. Then everything will go on as it is now. A cancer. Let's look at what happens if they force the suspension. India will cancel the tour, they will be fined a couple of million dollars which they will refuse to pay. Then there will be law suits from some test venues in Australia, who knows what will happen there since there are very complicated insurance issues related to loss of revenue due to unforseen circumstances which may or may not be covered. So India have refused to play, Australia already are nervous about going to Pakistan in a couple of months, would this make them more nervous? In fact they are also due to host Bangladesh shortly after the West Indies tour also this year. Would Bangladesh come if India asked them not to? Then the big one, Australia is due to tour India this year, will this happen in this scenario? This is an ugly situation. There can be no winners. Sure India control the money, but if they want to control the game do it the right way; not the way it is being done now. Sean

Oh, and Roland and others, if you are interested in seeing what is being said in the Australian papers, this one is a fairly good one with links to most capital city newspapers here: http://www.theage.com.au Sean

It is getting much uglier than that now and it will basically come down to lawyers, the BCCI and the ICC. At the moment the tour is suspended until the appeal is heard. I am guessing the ICC will cave in despite the agreement before the tour. There is far more to this than what went on during the match. One of those probably being the stranglehold the sub-continental teams have on the ICC with billion dollar TV rights. Theoretically, this coud be another World Series Cricket moment. If the ICC don't back down on what they consider to be correct process... who knows, there is already a rebel Indian cricket 20/20 league as well as an official one. Sean

I would advocate teaching her a 4 card major system instead of anything which may get her to bid a 3 card suit before a 4 card suit. It is more logical and far easier to adjust to 5 card later. Sean

I remember having a huge argument with about 4 directors and 2 opps over this answer I gave once about a discard: "It means that is the most useless card in his hand and he doesn't think he needs it" :P Sean

Since when did Australia qualify as a large population? :P Sean

For me I can basically decide which way she spins. At first she went clockwise, the phone rang I answered it looked back and she was going the other way. Now I can flip between CW and ACW at will. Sean

At no stage did I say it was legal. I was saying we have heard of people that apparently do this. Whilst we may not have observed this happening you will find that we take the word of the accuser and defend against it. This is an interesting point, since we are now looking for the possible action which means any glance at another player is "evidence" of the cheating. Sean

I voted inappropriate. However, before the TD leaves the table I would ask for an appeal form :) Sean

Personally I think you need a "None of the above" Sean

Slotting is when one looks at a defender or declarer to see where cards are pulled from the hand to work out quickly how long the suits are. Sean

Now that it is summer in Australia again it has been too long since we talked about cricket :P We just smacked Sri Lanka in 2 tests in the post Warne-McGrath era; now we have India for 4 tests starting on Boxing Day. The question is... How long realistically until Australia will not still be the number 1 test team? Personally I can't see anyone coming up in the next 2 years so it will remain the same. Sean

The problem with any cheating allegation is that you are guilty until proven innocent, and it is both impossible to prove if you are cheating, or not. To give you an example... I am sure you all know what slotting is. I am sure you have heard rumours of a player in your particular area that slots. Do you hold your cards under the table against them or out of view? Or do you decide to not sort your cards against them? This in itself could be some sort of cryptic signalling method. Even if it is not intentional. For instance; you and your partner "know" player X slots; yet on board 3 of a 20 board match you actually sort your cards. Do you have a good hand, or something interesting? Will your partner be able to subconsciously keep that out of mind? All of you will say yes, of course I could, but think about it. Is it reverse cheating, is it cheating? If you were reported for sorting your hand because it was good, how could you PROVE you were not cheating? You can't. Once you are accused you are guilty for life regardless of whether you were doing anything. Sean

This is why bridge is dying. Bridge in the US and ACBL-land is so over-regulated noone can play it except in real competitions. This is such a pathetically simple convention to defend against when you are used to playing against weird stuff. Bridge in the US is so over regulated that it comes down to when does one use their brain and actually think. Oops, you thought, automatic minus for BIT, shoot the sort of person that thought and give them a bottom. I would expect any partner I played with to know the meta-defense to this convention without discussion. I wouldn't even be concerned about coming up against this in a 2 board round MP pairs. Sean

heh, that looks like the start of the closing of the thread. B) Sean

Another interesting read which I don't think covers Katz-Cohen it does mention the Kleinman book at least once is Cathy Chua's "Fair Play or Foul". May be hard to get hold of except in Autralia. (One section was serialised in IPBM back in about the mid 90s) Sean

Hrm, can I say doubleshot? Sean

It is also that they are seeded since they have a much better chance of advancing to the latter rounds with an artificially high seeding. Sean

Thanks for the response. The disparity in who is being taught is quite different. 5 Weeks to Winning Bridge is indeed a good book to teach from. When I taught, and for me it has also been a while, I always taught 4 card majors since it makes more sense logically. Bid your longest suit, 4s up 5s down etc. I just wanted to get natural bids in their minds rather than introduce artificial bids too early. Sean

Interesting question, depends on definitions i am too lazy to look up, my easy answer without research is 5 points in xyz and one somewhere else. Sean

I respected you quite a bit before these posts Richard. My one question is have you ever taught absolute beginners? ... Let us assume we are using some sort of vague version of SAYC. SAYC is one of the worst possible systems to teach. You will find your students bidding suits in the wrong order and never understanding that a rebid shows a change in the length of 2 suits. The easiest system to learn is an all 4 card system, all rebids are easy. The beauty of the 4 card approach is that when you change to 5 card suits you might know what order to bid suits in. My least favourite opener playing so called beginner SAYC? A 16 hcp in a major that is balanced. Sean