JRG

I bid 4♠ regardless of whether 3♦ is preemptive or Limit+. My partner accuses me of ignoring the vulnerability too often (i.e. I bid it regardless of the vulnerability). Also, your partner can have quite a good hand for a simple overcall - he's got a 5-card or longer ♠ suit but presumably is not strong enough to double and then bid ♠s. He is almost guaranteed to be short in ♦s (at most a doubleton, more likely a singleton - possibly void). You said the final contract was 4♦, that means you got another chance after your Pass. Any particular reason for selling out to 4♦? Yes, you might push them into a making 5♦ that they have failed to bid, but on the other hand, your partner might have a good enough hand to punish them if they do bid 5♦. I think the director was incorrect in his (or her) ruling (you may have to put up with the score you got for defending 4♦, however, the opponents should not get that score). Although most players will bid some number of ♠s on your hand, your action (as Richard pointed out) is definitely one to be considered and some (possibly small number of) people will take it.

My experience is exactly the same as Ben's. We used to pass, because the "free bid" showed some extras. We have all learnt that to do so gets you shut out of the auction. If you would have responded and can still make the same bid, then do so.

PREAMBLE I'm starting off with this preamble in the hope that people will stick to my topic and not get defensive or start throwing brickbats. This topic is one that I believe a number of people have tried to start a discussion on, but the threads got inundated. It seems that whenever anyone makes a post about the "quality" of directing or the "qualifications" of directors, one of the first responses is "try directing for a while", or "it's easy for you to criticise", or something similar. I am, and believe most BBO members are, grateful for the long, hard work of our volunteer directors. I do not believe it is an easy job and would challenge anyone who does believe so. In replying to this thread, PLEASE take that as a given. END OF PREAMBLE I believe there are two different perspectives on directing tournaments online, and on BBO in particular. Even though there are some distinctions between hosting a tournament event and directing in a tournament event, I'd rather ignore those unless they make a significant difference to the discussion (in this post, I include "host" as part of "director" - let us assume a host who is also a director). VIEWPOINT 1 The director's job is to create and run a tournament event. Running it involves dealing with substituting players and deciding on score adjustments (with other things such as dealing with abusive players thrown in to make life difficult). When setting up a tournament event, the director (host) can set some relatively arbitrary "conditions of contest". The director's rulings are final (though if breaking the rules of the site, presumably the director could be reported to the BBO administration). Directors are frequently very busy and have little time for protracted discussion. In addition, there are often language or cultural differences among the participants. As pointed out in some rather humorous posts, some of the participants (players) do not seem to understand some bridge basics (not just bidding and play, but rules of the game). Ruling according the the "Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge" is a nice, but secondary consideration. Some of our volunteer directors are not totally familiar with the "Laws" but strive to be fair using some common sense criteria. VIEWPOINT 2 What we are playing on BBO is the game of bridge which is played according to the "Laws of Contract Duplicate Bridge". A director's job is to create a tournament, including setting the "conditions of contest", and then run it. Running it means making rulings according to the "Laws". There are some problems because the "Laws" do not take in to account some issues involved with playing bridge online (a simple example is Law 68 D - Claim or Concession of Tricks - Play Ceases). Leaving aside such issues, a director cannot change the "Laws" (or as the argument goes, we would no longer be playing bridge). COMMENTS The second viewpoint encompasses much of what the first includes. There are a number of "laws" applying to tournament directors. Here are some excerpts from Law 81 (for reference) - sorry for the length: DISCUSSION (hopefully just the beginning) What people holding the second point of view desire is to play bridge according to the laws (and usually have fun doing so). Saying that the "Laws" don't cover online bridge is not a reason to totally disregard them. What we need are directors who are qualified (in some manner), know the "Laws" (or at least how to look them up), and apply them (versus making up rulings). What people holding the second point of view (in my interpretation) believe is that (at least currently) that is not practical. Is this really the case? Is it really not possilible to reconcile these two points of view? Can we not make a couple of minor adjustments to the "Laws" (and publish them of course) that address the online versus face-to-face issues (such as the oft discussed Law 68 D)? This would be in accordance (perhaps with a liberal interpretation) of Law 81 B2 (see above). Regarding online versus face-to-face, I quoted Law 81 D because, for the most part, much of the technical mechanics that a face-to-face director has to deal with are taken care of automatically by the BBO software (player movement, scoring, reporting the scores, etc.). I, for one, enjoy playing bridge on BBO. I play mainly in the Main Bridge Club, though I may start venturing into tournaments. In the previous discussion, I have tried to keep my personal views to myself (I may not have succeeded, but I did try). I actually side with the second point of view; however, not changing anything will probably not deter me from playing in tournament events (in the future) and abiding by the "conditions of contest". I personally do not think, for example, it is correct to ban psychic calls, though as some local (North American) clubs limit them, I suppose there is an argument that can be made that placing limits on them is just a way of allowing a director to fulfil his responsibilities under Law 81 C4 (Discipline - see above). I do think that dealing with "unauthorized information" and full disclosure presents major difficulties. I would be interested in serious discussion on this subject.

I suspect you meant "you still win the rubber". It's just "opportunity lost", especially at ten cents a point. I agree with you, a lot of people seem to have a lot of fun in the Total Point tournaments (I played in it a couple of times with a good partner and found it (the tournament format and antics of the opponents) a bit of a weird experience though).

The whole point is if it is NOT allowed. If it is allowed, then the whole world knows (and presumably can live with it since the opponent(s) of whom it was requested allowed it); HOWEVER, if it is not allowed, the partner of the person who made the request (in the current implementation) KNOWS his partner wanted to change a call or play. As suggested, this is definitely unauthorized information.

Yes, I ran into that. The problem is the selection you want is "Edit Avatar Settings"; not "Change Personal Photo". I don't know what the latter is for.

I seem to remember seeing a lot of not-so-nice lobby chat. That was not the problem for me. I simply found the volume of messages too great -- I couldn't see table chat or personal messages because they scrolled off the screen too quickly. It also became difficult to see the give-and-take of repartee because of the intervening messages. I think, however, there is also another problem. It is much too easy, especially when trying to reply quickly to someone, to end up sending a message to the lobby when that was not the intent. I have personally been guilty of that error. I used to always send a short apology message when I did this ("Sorry, that was a misdirected private message" or something similar). The last couple of times I made that mistake, I didn't send an apology message as it struck me that almost everyone would recognize the message was misdirected (and the message would seem meaningless anyway), so why add a second message to the clutter? I don't know what the solution is for those of us who occasionally misclick or are in too much of a hurry (for various reasons) and mistakenly send lobby messages.

ROFL. There's too big a cultural difference. It's a daunting task!!!

I only mentioned this as an example of the easyness to take advantage from standard tools free available to all on internet. What I mean here is fx. stating time as: Time is fixed on Wednesday, 26 May 2004 3:00:00 PM Paris time Aut. translation John Goold will be able to put in for help files tomorrow and those important sites will be available in 10+ languages at once. So simple is translation of BBO help sites: Dutch language German language French language Italian language I'm not as fast as Claus! However, I am looking into his suggestion. It may be a while before you see anything (if at all), as I am leaving for Canada in a couple of days to attend our daughter's university graduation. [For two weeks to take advantage of the trip.] Here are the reasons I want to take a bit of time over this (besides being a little slow on the uptake): - When I tried a quick test of the Altavista tools, it failed (because I don't have my own web site and the tool attempts to retrieve the text by downloading the page having the translation icon on it). - The test I tried online (i.e. not translating a BBO Help file) was abysmally slow. I need to determine if this is normal or was just an occasional thing. I don't think we can subject everyone to slow loading of the Help pages. Too many people would feel the Help is worthless if it took too long to display. - The Altavista icon takes up a considerable amount of space on the displayed page - in one test (putting the code in the Table of Contents frame), it was superposed over the Bridge Base Ace of Spades. So I would have to find a way to prevent this translation mechanism from messing up the look of the Help pages. I have tried to minimize the amount of scrolling people have to do, and so far it looks like this would force more scrolling. So, here's the bottom line. The translators may do a poor job, but for some people I can see that a poor job may be better than none at all (I could understand the instructions I used to get with electronic gear, though I used to laugh myself sick at the English). This means it may be worthwhile to implement Claus's suggestion of using the Altavista translation facility. If it is too slow to be worthwhile to anyone, there is no point. If it is just a bit sluggish and I can implement it without totally destroying the Help format, I'll try and do so. This may mean asking Fred and Uday for more disk space (and possibly another link in the BBO client) so I can maintain two copies of the Help files (one with the Altavista link embedded). Oh, one other thing: I dislike going into one web site and having it link to another (e.g. using BBO, bringing up the Help, then the Help linking to another site). This would happen automatically using the Altavista icon (when the page loads, a script that links to Altavista is activated, even if you don't click on the Altavista icon). Also, it would introduce what is effecdtively an advertisement for Altavista into the BBO Help. I need to get Fred and Uday's thoughts on this matter.

Hebrew is still right-to-left.

Before you can get meaningful answers to your questions, I think you need to define a bit more what you mean by Inverted Minors (more later). I play Inverted Minors with two steady partners (and a couple of casual partners). With none of them do we play that: 1♣ - 1♠ - 2♣ is strong. Essentially, inverted minors are "off" in competition (in this sequence I would bid 2♠ to show a Limit Raise or better, not 2♣. What I suggest you clarify, so that you get more meaningful input is: What range of hands does 1m - Pass - 2m show? Many people play that it shows a Limit Raise or better. If this is the case, what do opener's and responder's rebids show? How does responder show that he has better than a Limit Raise? Does opener's showing a stopper for NT promise extra values, or is it forced? I personally consider both the examples you gave (QJx and AJ) as perfectly good stoppers. In fact, excellent ones (I'd be happy with Q-10-x). Getting back to the values for an inverted minor suit raise, with one partner (my friend for many, many years), we play what some people call "Criss-Cross". This is the scheme: 1m - Pass - ? 2m - shows a FORCING raise (denies holding a 4-card major) Jump-shift in the other minor shows exactly a Limit Raise (denies holding a 4-card major) 3m - preemptive So over 1m - Pass - 2m, bidding NT or showing stoppers is mandatory. Over 1♣ - Pass - 2♦, showing a stopper for NT promises extra values (and clearly after a limit raise in ♦, which is 3♣, showing a stopper logically must have extra values). Now where the competition is a Double, I play the same scheme with both steady partners (it is the reverse of what many people play, but I'll give the reasoning): 1m - Dbl - ? 3m = Limit Raise 2NT = Preemptive raise I mentioned that many people play this the other way round (which is what we do in the Majors). We have switched the meanings because it is quite possible for opener to have enough extra as to want to play in 3NT opposite a Limit Raise. If that is the case, we want opener to be the declarer (both for the lead and to avoid tabling the stronger hand). This convention (without our modification) is known as Dormer or Jordan (I think one only uses the 2NT = Limit Raise for the majors and the other for all suits, but I'm not 100% sure).

Neat idea. The only drawback is being able to see the movie when you call the director (or send the director the movie -- though that could, I suppose, be done at the end of the round).

Forgive me if the topic of psyching has been beaten death, but I have a comment and question on psyching in general. I know that psychic bids (and plays) are pefectly legal according The Laws (within certain constraints). I also know that there are players who feel so strongly about psyches that they consider them to be cheating. Also, there are clubs (live) that I have played at that have restrictions on psyches (for example, only one psyche allowed per pair per session). The topic is obviously divisive. Nevertheless: I psyche extremely rarely (just personal style and a desire for partnership trust) and I have a personal policy of trying never to psyche against players who are weaker than I am. Before anyone points out that it is unnecessary, that is not the reason -- I think it simply ruins the game for the weaker players. However, I have no issues with people psyching against me. Perhaps if it happened more often (for example, a certain player's lovely psychic 3NT bid), I would gain enough experience to recognize them and combat them better. However, and here is the question, should we consider psychics in the same realm as (highly) unusual methods? If we do, shouldn't the onus be on the pair that often psyches (I don't know quite how to define "often") to make sure the opponents know that they do so? Another question: Didn't the ACBL ban "Controlled Psyches" at one stage (perhaps still do)? I vaguely remember that the original Kaplan-Sheinwold system contained controlled psyches.

I was under the impression that fielding a psyche, absent pre-alerts or alerts of bids that may be psychic, is considered prima facie evidence of a concealed partnership agreement.

I don't think the lead is 'not consistent with the bidding', because leading from Qxx into a stopped suit is usually giving away a trick, especially if declarer has KJx (very possible imo). 1♠ only promisses an opening hand, but no top honour (or 2). About the non-double, I think you're completely right, it's not a normal bid! If you don't double with such hand, I don't know what you need. Ofcourse it can be a beginner who thinks double would be negative or something, but it's still not normal... It's imo a fielded psych, but I'm not a TD, so I don't know what has to happen :blink: HUH? Bad to lead a ♠ because declarer may hold ♠ KJx?? If partner holds ♠Axxxx (presumably 5-card majors) or even ♠Axxx, declarer gets ONLY the one ♠ trick he is always entitled to. Also, you have cleared and set up the ♠ suit after the first two tricks. Sure the suit may be blocked, but presumably the "opener" has an "opening bid" and will get in once or twice.

What you saw in the Cavendish does not, for the most part, apply. Diagonal screens are used at the table in the Cavendish (and I think all world championships and many top-level team competitions). This means that when a player takes a long time, you do not really know whether it was your partner or the opponent who took the time (also, if one player took a little bit of extra time but the other on the same side of the screen was quick, only the two of them would know everything was not in tempo. The reason I said "for the most part" is that there are still some situations where extra time is taken and everyone at the table knows who was taking the time (because there is only one player on that side of the screen with any reason to be taking extra time).

An alternate method: Bring up the Online Help from any place in BBO (click the red HELP button at the lower right of most BBO windows). If you click the Ace of Spades (or "Show Index") at the top of the left frame of the help, you get an index. You can look up a lot of stuff in the index -- think of a word and go to that section. This includes looking up Convention Card.

I suspect the comment applied to Team Games and not really to Duplicate Pairs.

I do not believe so. If you look at my post, it was a "Quote" (that is, I used the "Quote" button to respond to a post in this thread). You can check Gerardo's original post. The response was to correct a misconception. By the way, Fred has made another post clarifying the requirements for stardom.

LOL. I thought only Moebius strips were one-sided. Now I can also add football nets!

What is wrong with using other venues for this purpose? I'm sure there are all kinds of bulletin boards, forums, lists, etc., on the Internet. I wouldn't be surprised to learn there is a Dr. Who Web Site. If there is another forum (as you mentioned) that has this facility, why not tell your friends and congregate there for non-bridge discussion? The BB Forums are provided free of charge and are specifically for Bridge Base Online, Bridge Base Inc.'s product support, and general Bridge-related discussion. I'm not sure I understand the motivation of trying to subvert this objective (given that there is at least one other, known, forum for non-bridge discussion).

The contract was stated to be 4♥ not 4♠. Therefore declarer can cross back to dummy using trumps as communication. (Or finesse once, cash AK and then ruff out the Q and ruff back to his hand).

I disagree on two counts: 1. Why is it at all obvious that declarer "knew" where the Queen of Spades was? Regardless, it doesn't matter. If the finesse was not indicated in the statement of claim, then the finesse cannot be taken (subject to being "proven" as mentioned in another post). 2. There is absolutely no problem making a statement of claim with the BBO software. The claim dialog has space for text. If you don't think it is enough space, then simply say - "See chat for full statement." and make a full statement of claim. In this case, there is plenty of room to say "finesse in spades".

If you go into the Modify User Profile dialog box (if you are sitting at a table, right-click on your own name), there is a "Friends/Enemies..." selection. Choose it and you get a "Manage Friends/Enemies" dialog. If you click on "Show Enemies", the list will show enemies (and changes to "Show Friends"). You can add or delete people from either list regardless of whether they are online or not.

I don't remember seeing your post about this. I think it would be nice if there was a easy way for people to indicate in their profiles which languages they can understand -- perhaps with an indication of "Fluent", "Can Understand", or "A Little". By "easy way", I mean having a list from which to select and not having a text field that people can expropriate to indicate they play the Canary Club system or some such.