jikl

Fine, I will go into more detail> You have decided to teach transfers. Which ones will be easiest to remember and not mess with other parts of the system? Are we going to be only using transfers to a major? If only transfers to the majors, what does 1NT - 2♠ mean? What is the difference between 1NT - 2♦ - 2♥ - 2♠ and 1NT - 2♦ - 2♥ - 3♠? Are we doing 4 suit transfers? If 4 suit transfers, is 1NT - 2♠ mean NT invitation, or transfer to 3♣ or a transfer to an unspecified minor? (You will get asked this) Depending on the previous answer, what is 1NT - 2NT, a transfer to ♦ or invitational? If we are using jumps of 1NT - 3X as slam tries what is 1NT - 3♣ depending on the answer to the previous part? If 1NT - 2NT is a transfer then 1NT - 2♣ is now either Stayman or invitational. Damn this is getting complicatd quickly. By the way, your beginners may take the transfer thing a bit far as quite often happens. You might find 1NT - 3♥ actually means ♠s the first time. Anyway, to competition. The simple answer is system on, or system off. System off is easiest, but you will still have some confusion. For instance, does double count as interference? Does it mean system is off since we have lost no bidding space? This is all going through the beginner's head every time 1NT is opened. Uh oh, partner has opened 2NT, do we do transfers here too? Uh oh, I know we learnt that a 2♣ opening is a GF, and it has gone 2♣ - 2♦ - 2NT, do we transfer here? A beginner is usually already scared enough, the easiest thing in the beginning is to learn natural bids, I know it is sub-optimal. How many have seen the 5 card major problem with new players? They have been taught to open 5 card majors so they do it, Problem is the hand shape is 5107. 2-3 months down the track you teach transfers, not straight away. Sean PS: This was primarily in answer to Richard.

OK, there are certain things that need to be said here. Don't try to run before you can walk. At this stage, learning the solid principles of NT structure will be of far more benefit than learning transfers straight away. People that learn transfers without learning the underlying principles have a lesser understanding. It is very simple to learn transfers either online or with a pamphlet. Some people will disagree with this, but this is something I have observed over quite some time. Sean

Now I am glad this is in the Water Cooler. Please add another option to your poll: "The OP is a bored troll" And now the troll is a masterpoint snob as well, to be truthful that seemed fairly obvious from the original post. Where do you get off deciding someone's right to post on this subject by the number of masterpoints they have? You are a troll; nothing more and nothing less. Sean

Nice post. Sean

I think I am a 1♠ or 3NT or 4♠ bidder actually. Given I have ♠ I can always out rank them. I have zero defence but I have a damn good suit, yet given how bad some of my preempts are partner will never believe what I have anyway. :P Sean

Unfortunately I agree with this. With the amount of calculations per second a computer will be able to make soon the only way we could beat them is probably unfortunately in the realms of cheating (if you are playing against computers), by this I mean that wehn playing against you have no "feeling" about who has the Q, or any feeling you have about the bidding is purely from your partner, so therefore drifts into the realms of UI. Sean

To complete a FD card for a pair that have 20+ pages would take well over an hour and would still be incomplete. Asking for an FD card is impractical. A complete FD card is a 10+ hour work, per pair. Sean

Glad you enjoyed it Mike. I might even do F2F again soon. If and when I get pressured into it I will post a similar rundown :P Sean

Well done Justin :P Sean

Many years ago I wrote an article about computers and strategy games, ie bridge, chess and draughts (checkers). I got into a lot of trouble when I wrote it actually. I stated that draughts and chess were pointless games because they have a solution. Well recently draughts has been solved, there is now no way to beat a computer in draughts. Chess will be solved sometime too. These are "complete information systems", bridge is a "partial information system". The beauty of bridge is that you can not see every part of the puzzle; it can never be solved. That is what brings me back all the time. Sean

I pass, there is too little upside here. And how do the doublers feel when partner bids 3♦? Sean

I abstained because I am sick of the subject and really don't want to read any more of it so there is no way I can make an informed opinion on something I don't care about anymore. Much like many elections I guess :lol: Sean

In actual fact, I don't think anyone is really claiming to be harmed by this sign. The potential signs are the potential harm if this is not dealt with. Sean

To tip one's hat, is a gesture of respect or thanks. Sean

Damn there are a lot of comments after it. :P Sean

Your quoted land will sue someone for tripping over their own shoe, in fact I had a lawyer come up to me when I lived in the US about that outside a shopping centre, he only became disinterested when I told him I bought the shoes in Australia :P So be brave, be free, but make sure you have deep pockets. Sean

OK, note to self, do not respond on forums when watching TV, reading the forums, and in the middle of chatting online to someone. It just doesn't work, I have skipped whole sentences and I now understand why I got some strange responses in the chat. Anyway... I did not mean to mention you Helene in the first sentence at least. I started off in the "some" camp. My analogy of the person with a t-shirt saying (Insert anything really bad here to any culture/religion or all of the above etc) is still valid. They would be stopped getting on the stage or forced to change the said piece of clothing. This could range from the mildly offensive (depending on context), to generally offensive. For instance, let's say it was the planets Jupiter and Neptune in the SSBC (Solar System Bridge Championships; Neptune lost, so when they come up for their silver medals they all wear t-shirts (or bodysuits in the strangely universal sci-fi genre) bearing the message "Jupiter only won because ABC and DEF cheated throughout the whole competition", would this be acceptable? No. Would they be allowed to get onto the stage wearing that? That is an interesting question; who could stop them? Is there some sort of security at a BB/VC/SB (or in my particular case the SSBC) that could stop them? Maybe this is not a relevant point. If they could be stopped with our current measures, they would. As would anyone with a message saying that we should nuke a certain country, ot one that wants to obliterate a certain religion. So now we have the possibility that even clothing can not be properly pre-approved. Which means, (going back to an earlier example I used), anyone could have decided to wear a "Free Tibet" t-shirt to the award ceremony under a jacket then opened the jacket to display it (if it got through customs in the first place). Let's get to signs; any sign can be hidden. Any person displaying any sort of sign without some sort of pre-approval after this event knows that there will be probable sanctions. (On a side note here, this gets VERY complicated where a country might overturn a WBF sanction by their local authority, WBF appeals, but loses in the Court of Arbitration for Sport [if we are defined as a sport, or if hobbies fall into this jurisdiction, again more complicated by recent attempts for Olympic accreditation]). So, will pre-approval work? No, it won't. It will only work for those signs that everyone would agree to, the dying or dead team-member etc argument. Would this need a committee? Politically, probably yes. The team captain or country representative at the event, a WBF representative and the hosting country. If it is purely a dying or dead team member, this will always get through, and it will take them 3 seconds to approve it. If it is anything that takes them longer than 3 seconds then it should probably be disapproved (unless this 3 person committee now needs a 6 person committee so that each have independent translators as it is completely politically incorrect to insist all signs be in English [and then it is possible that not all members can read English, but may be able to speak it to a limitted extent]). Damn, this got very complicated, very quick. OK, now to where I mentioned Helene, she mentioned this: Let's use an ambiguous but extreme example that lurks in a weird part of law. "I saw the Chief Tournament Director and the Head of the Appeals Committee spending $1,000 bills last night after the SSBC final"; the silver medallists wear this, but it is actually true, they were. What is the motivation behind this sign? Is it litigious? The sign-bearers can always claim truth, the defendants will always claim defamation. Both are true, but probably untrue in a court of law. The safest thing is no signs. Otherwise someone will take a sign too far in the future and it will end up in court. (This is even though I would like the "Get well soon" or R.I.P. one for a teammate). Sorry for the lenghty post. Sean

Trust me on this, I knew Dave from my youth days. He is telling the truth, he would. Sean

As Helene has said, (well very much distilled) it is all about pre-approval. If you take a sign up that is not approved you face a sanction. Simple as that. Even it is of the purest intentions for a sick or dead team mate etc. Let me put it this way, if someone was about to get up on the stage to accept a medal with a tshirt that said (Insert multiple profanities here or any derogatory comment), would they be stopped? Yes. Same situation. Sean

Hrm, go away for 12 hours and there are 4 more pages on this thread. In answer to Fred's followup question. I would say No to any political signs. We have all agreed to some extent that this was a political sign. Would we have the same opinion if someone was silly enough to hold up a sign saying "Free Tibet" at the recent VC award ceremony? Most of us would probably agree with the sentiment of the sign wholeheartedly. We would all condemn the person for being very brave but very stupid, and we would probably read with interest about all photos and video of the incident being confiscated. We would also be interested in the diplomatic pressures this might have created, this could have got into major press arenas, especially if a US citizen was detained because of it. Would the majority of us want to see that happen, no. If you do want this to happen, then you are in the "All" camp. For those in the all camp, would you want the US government having to approve all future representative bridge teams going overseas? Anyway, just some hypotheticals. Sean

Another sign which people would have real problems ever objecting to... Get well soon abc abc being the 6th team member not on the podium having suffered a heart attack during the final and currently in hospital. Let's see objections to that one :lol: Sean

In the limitted coverage about this fight that appears in the Australian press, people think Alonso is getting what he deserves. He is acting like a spoilt brat telling the world how it is everyone else's fault that he isn't winning, also that he should just automatically be made world chapion since he is clearly the best driver and that we should be kissing his feet because he is so good. Most people who aren't Alonso fans are glad he isn't winning and hope he ends up at a really bad team :) Sean

I think I would use your first suggestion. Sean PS: Although, if I knew my partner would always signoff after my 3NT bid, I might be tempted to bid 1♥ on the first one. :(

Happy Birthday Roland Sean

I forgot to mention this but the editorial of the Australian Bridge Federation newsletter also referred to this article: http://www.abf.com.au/newsletter/Sept07a.pdf Sean