JRG

My PowerBook G4 doesn't have a PS/2 port -- and I don't want it to get one :-)

I have an optical mouse and have no problems with BBO. HOWEVER, it is on a Mac (I have a PowerBook) and I run BBO under emulation using Virtual PC. So my experience probably doesn't count. BUT, before I nuked my wife's notebook PC and gave her mine in exchance, I used the same optical mouse on my notebook PC, and hand no trouble. For what it is worth, the optical mouse is a Logitech one.

I think Cave_Draco's response was tongue-in-cheek. Clearly 6-2-2-3 is a specific distribution; whereas 6-3-2-2 is not.

The original post queried the lack of information in the Online Help files about which systems are allowed. The Online Help has been set up to explain how the BBO software works: such things as bidding boxes, alert dialogs, setting one's user profile options. With the advent of tournaments, the Help system has grown. There are things in it that are not strictly about how the software works. There is even a FAQ, but it tended to answer questions such as "When are you going to improve the convention card facility?" and has not had anything new added to it in a long time. So, the questions: Do people feel there is stuff in the help that doesn't belong? Do people feel there is stuff that should be added to the online help? Any constructive criticisms?

If 2NT was alerted (it appears from your post that it was), then I think it is a grave mistake NOT TO ASK the meaning of 3S. Once or twice when I've felt hurt by an opponent's failure to alert, playing face-to-face with my regular partner, he has had no sympathy with me and told me it was silly of me not to inquire. In this case, it has to be clear that 3S maybe: - psychic - legitimate, long spade suit (LONG as he didn't take a preference to a minor) - something artifical While I have some sympathy because of the failure to alert, I don't have a lot.

I don't play 1c-1NT promises 4 or more clubs; however, it tends to work out that way. I like to play Inverted Minors and bidding 1NT over a minor denies a 4-card major. If you have a maximum of 6 cards in the majors, you obviously have 7 or more cards in the minors. One often has a hand with support for clubs (similarly with diamonds) that is not worth a limit raise but is too good to preempt, so what do you do? If you have 4 diamonds, you might bid 1D over 1C, even though holding 5-card support for clubs. Without 4 diamonds, 1NT is often a reasonable bid. So, frequently, but not always, the 1NT bid shows club support (occasionally, it will 3-3-5-2 so my partner cannot count on the support!).

I have a problem with the poll. Like many polls, it is biased. It doesn't simply ask questions, it editorializes. For example, I did NOT respond to the poll because an honest answer is that I have never opened 1NT with a six-card minor; however, it is not illegal, I do not think it is unethical, nor do I feel it will be disastrous. I just haven't done it, which, by the way, doesn't mean I won't. John

There is nothing wrong with what you say. You can vary conventions according to seat or vulnerability, etc. What you cannot do is something like the following (assuming you are sitting North-South): When North opens 1NT, then South plays Jacoby transfers; when South opens 1NT, you play natural suit bids (i.e. no transfers). This done with the objective of getting North to play more of the hands. The other example was North is the only member of the partnership allowed to bid NT (for the same reason).

Just curious: When two players hold the Club King (or the Diamond Ace), and they are both played to the same trick, which one wins -- the first played or the last played? John

Here is the response I got from John A. MacGregor, Chief Tournament Director, Central American and Caribbeasn Bridge Federation: Under Law 40 (Partnership Agreements), subsection E (Convention Card), paragraph 1 says: "The sponsoring organization may prescribe a convention card on which partners are to list their conventions and other agreements and may establish regulations for its use, including a requirement that both members of a partnership employ the same system (such a regulation must not restrict style and judgement, only method)." Under the rights given the Zonal organization, the CACBF has opted to make it a requirement that both members employ the same system.

I remember having a discussion on this topic a few years ago. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this information but I'll check with a WBF director (Chief Director for the Carribean & Central America region) that I know. I seem to remember quite clearly that the varying conventions by which partner is bidding is illegal in ACBL land. As I said, I'll check WBF rules. John

I assume the problem is that you go into the Tournaments Lobby and then click on the Create Team Match button. In the resulting dialog box, you click "HELP". Please tell me if this is the case or not. Please let me know if the problem recurs. (I just logged into BBO and tried the above, it seems to work all right.) The posted workaround should simply bring up a browser window with the relevant file. It should be exactly what you get by clicking on the HELP button (it is the URL the HELP button uses).

Apart from normally accented characters (people should be able to use real names!), what's the fuss. Personally I think using asterisks, percente signs, at signs, etc., in names (or "handles") is silly. When I first saw it, I thought it was an egoistical attempt to get one's name sorted near the beginning of the list of players in the lobby (or the list of tables in the club). So, how do you pronounce "_gl*y" - just "spell" it out? By the way, you can set input locales under Windows. That gives a "dead key" way of entering accented characters and keys for special characters. That's what I do when I'm using a Windows machine and want Spanish accented characters and punctuation. Setting the input local specifies that the keyboard in use is the one for that part of the world. You can set a hot key sequence that allows cycling through whichever input locales you use (I only use "US" and Costa Rican Spanish. The major problem with this is that the key caps may not be a good indication of the character. I find the Spanish keyboard is not too bad - some keys are simply easy to remember and I used it enough to get most of the rest. Cheers, John

Of course you are right about clocked tournaments. I have noticed when kibitzing that a lost or, even worse, poor connection seems to raise the tension level at the table. I've only played in a couple of tournaments and have been relatively lucky with my connection during that time. John

There is another problem when making substitutions. If a member who is kibitzing is substituted (at some other table), then he will play some of the hands he has already seen. This happened to me yesterday when I was kibitzing and saw a chat message to "Tournament" for substitutes. I volunteered and played two or three hands I had already seen. It was not a problem as the tables I saw bid fairly normally and I simply repeated the same bids (even though I knew the result would not be good). I was dummy for two of the hands and held a yarborough on defense on the third (partner had to realize he had the setting trick and not panic). I would suggest, as a work-around, that substitutes be requested from the lobby, not the tournament. I assume that since the same set of hands is going to be played by most (I hope!) of the pairs, that this problem cannot be avoided without barring substitutes who have been kibitzing. Or is this only a problem with "untimed" tournaments? John

Uday's notes have been added to the BBO Online Help. This is a good thread to post information about directing that you feel might be worth adding to the help system.

Being a person who lives in a country where the government has a monopoly on both the telephone system and Internet Service Provision, I concur heartily. It can take me several attempts to get reconnected to the Net. I think 3 minutes is a good time period (if it is going to take me longer than that, it is apt to be 5 to 10 minutes and that is too long to hold up a tournament). John

For what it is worth: Post the leader board immediately, but put some indication at the top ("Subject to adjustments"?). Then, the host (or whoever is responsible for the final score adjustments, if any) should have a simple way of indicating the results are final (change the indication at the top to "Final Results"?). John

I guess I agree with Cave_Draco, whenever my regular partner and I are starting a session against opponents we haven't played several other sessions against, I always alert, "2/1 and UDCA". That isn't much of a pre-alert as we have various conventions we play, including "modified Smith Echo" and coded 10s and 9s on defense, but I figure it gives a general indication. Also, my regular partner and I are scrupulous about alerting bids. If anything, we over-alert. We play the game to enjoy it and the opponents are entitled to know what our bidding and defense signals mean.

I consider myself a bit past Intermediate, but I would welcome a system discussion such as you describe. If it is kept to the level of beginners/intermediates, I think it would actually be more beneficial than if aimed at advanced players!! Perhaps this is because I think having a general concept of other bidding systems is important and that it is easy to get bogged down in detail. If I were "expert", I might want to prepare detailed defenses against systems I am going to run up against, but I prefer the concept of having a general idea so I don't do "stupid" things in competition. Also, a basic general idea of the opponents' bidding system means that defense (i.e. when playing a contract or defending) will be better. John

You should be a good guesser, I prefer to know than to guess :-) Misho is correct. Bridge is supposed to be a game of full disclosure. Not disclosing is cheating, pure and simple. Luis, you are also correct, if you actually know the opponents' system, you have an advantage that you don't, in practice, get from full disclosure. I think one of the major advantages is knowledge gained from negative inferences, although, in theory, full disclosure should give you all the information you are entitled to. An example of the sort of thing I mean is, that I haven't really seen on BBO (although as a kibitzer I am not privy to private chat between one pair and their opponents): My partner and I alert our one-suited Brozel double of an opponent's 1NT opening as "A one-suited hand, keeping in mind that we have ways to show two-suited hands". So we try to adhere to the spirit of full disclosure. Note that the "rules" (I am pretty sure) don't require me to explain anything about any other bid in our system except the bid made. Having said that, I believe if an opponent were to ASK if we had a way of showing two-suited hands, I would be required to answer that we do. John

Excellent idea! Personally, I would prefer only ONE line be added as the space is at a premium. However, making it a horizontal line (underscores do a good job), would make it an excellent and easily visible divider.

"I was taught to value my name and be proud of who I am and to extend that to all with whom I came in contact. I was taught that the greatest insult I could extend to another was not to acknowledge their name and/or to withhold mine from them. ..." It must be the generation gap you referred to Maureen (one of my daughters is named "Sonja Maureen"). I also feel uncomfortable when I encounter people who do not use a name, any name, in their profile. I do, however, play with or against these people. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they have a reason that is not simply an affectation, for withholding their name -- though I would prefer in such cases that such a person make up a pen name. My feelings about this extend to my login name: I would have preferred to use my actual name, but that wouldn't work (at least when I originally tried it), so I chose to use my initials. John

Actually I generally do that (make the table invisible). I do it from the beginning. Sometimes friends message one of the players and I temporarily open the table to allow them to kibitz ("Permission Required") and then make it invisible again. Making a table invisible does not make it invisible to people who are already kibitzing (which I think is a nice feature not a bug). However, some people don't like playing at invisible tables. If you only make the table invisible near the end of the session, then you may have acquired a number of kibitzers you don't really know (if I host an visible table, I never set permission required to kibitz - it's too distracting and I don't really mind anyway). Some of those kibitzers may then try to sit (that is when I've run into the problems I mentioned). Anyway, it's not a big deal, but I still the "Table is Closing" status.

Since everyone is being invited to jump in... I thought I was old fashioned, but we play: - Redouble suggests we may be able to punish the opponents and denies to ability to make any kind of constructive (and obviously destructive) raise in partner's suit. - Contrary to modern practice, we play both 1 and 2-level bids in a new suit as forcing, and unlimited. - Jordan/Dormer with a modification in the minors (see below) - the rest pretty much as one would expect NT suggest playing in NT but we may prefer trying to punish the opponents, especially if they are VUL. The modification: - 1M - Dbl - 2NT is a limit raise - 1M - Dbl - 3M is preemptive - 1m - Dbl - 2NT is preemptive raise of partner's minor - 1m - Dbl - 3m is limit raise of partner's minor The reason for modifying the last two bids (it may even have a name?) it that partner will sometimes have a nice hand that wants to play in 3NT - but NOT from MY side!