JRG

Windows has a Task Manager application that allows you to blow away a program that you are having trouble with. You do not have to reboot, which as you noted is a pain. It may have different names under different versions of Windows, but I think every version has this program (under Windows 2000 Pro it also shows you your computer's resource usage - how much CPU is being used, how much memory). Under Windows 2000 Pro, if you right-click on a blank area of the Task Bar (or whatever Windows calls that area where you can see minimized windows), you get a menu. "Task Manager..." is one of the options.

Yes, I know I said it before. Yes, I know I have a lousy sense of humour. I think purposefully silly names with purposefully confusing combinations of letters and digits is silly and annoying. Now I know it also causes TDs grief. I know, I know, ... "Get a life!". Oh well.

Umm Hoggy soo what are the rules on insufficient bids on BBO ???? ;) Why ask The Hog? He makes enough bids for all of us :D Oh, the penalty is you have to help Uday program the bug fix!

I think that is essentially what Gerardo is asking for -- but maybe make it optional, either by a login or user profile option, or by popping up a dialog before attempting to deliver the mail. For example, "You have messages waiting to be delivered. Do you want to read them now?" Anyway, I don't play in tournaments, so I'll let Gerardo respond as to whether I interpreted his post correctly and if so, what options he would like to see.

I believe it is simply a new player option: Click on the "Director Call" button as a player and Uday has added an additional option to the ones that used to be there. This is the "Withdraw from match" option.

Bambi1 For what it is worth, the problem you encountered has clearly been a problem in face-to-face bridge as there is actually a law in "Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge" that covers it. Clearly face-to-face and online bridge differ, but in general the Laws still apply (the ones I think apply are quoted below, purely for reference). My opinion is that the offending players should have been nuked (substituted out) rather than cancelling the entire event; however, with only two tables left in play, it probably wasn't worth it (except to make a point). In any case, I will not argue with your action. In hindsight, it might have been effective to have made an announcement along the lines of "I have been receiving too much abuse from some of the contestants. This event is going to be cancelled.", before cancelling it. It might have been worthwhile to let everyone know why you were about to throw in the towel. ____________________________________ In the section on "Proprieties", Law 74 is entitled "Conduct and Etiquette". Law 74 B says: "B. Etiquette As a matter of courtesy a player should refrain from: ... 5. summoning and addressing the Director in a manner discourteous to him or to other contestants." I suspect a director can use Law 91 to deal with offenses (it seems to bestow sufficiently wide-ranging authority): "Law 91 - Penalize or Suspend A. Director's Power In performing his duty to maintain order and discipline, the director is specifically empowered to assess disciplinary penalties in points or to suspend a contestant for the current session or any part thereof (the Director's decision under this clause is final)."

I had trouble understanding your post (I'm a bit slow sometimes). Tell me if this interpretation is correct: When someone leaves you a Chat Mail message ("Leave mail for"), you do not see it until the next time you login. Since people cannot send private chat messages to someone playing in a tournament, they often send Chat Mail messages. Your suggestion is that there be an option when you login (a checkbox) that makes the system send you any queued up chat mail messages when a tournament you are participating in is over. That way you can respond to them sooner (rather than having to logout and login again to check for such messages or just waiting until the next time you login).

Ouch, I feel like an idiot! I had only briefly looked at the profile settings -- I completely missed the "Board options" which has a place for timezone. It should have been glaringly obvious that "country" would not be enough to compute time zone from (many countries having multiple time zones). Thanks for waking me up Gerardo!

Thank you Ben for putting up the example showing how the scoring is really done. The Online Help had an almost exact quote from Fred (I think it was even from a post here in the Forums). I suspect perhaps he and Uday changed the algorithm (or perhaps intended one and did the other). In any case, I have corrected the Help file. Thank you Klaus for noticing this problem and posting here - much appreciated.

A problem I've had, that resembles yours, is when I'm private chatting with someone and I'm kibitzing or playing at a table. I respond by clicking on the person's name in the Chat Pane. All is fine, until I send the message without double-checking who the recipient is. What has happened is that as I clicked on the person's name, some other chat message appeared in the Chat Pane and it scrolled -- so in fact I thought I had clicked my friend's name, but didn't. I do know the solution, and try to use. Perhaps you could try this for a short while and see if the problem goes away: When your friend sends you a message, use Ctrl+R (press and hold down the ctrl key and then press the letter R - doesn't have to be shifted). The chat dialog will come up with your friend's Id as the recipient. The Ctrl+R "Replies" to the last person who sent you a private chat message.

I'm sorry Slothy, I'll try and keep a sock stuffed in my mouth from now on when I'm kibitzing you. The problem was that when you turned off the speakers, it made me laugh even louder. Again, my apologies.

We will just have to agree to disagree. My position is that the game of bridge requires full disclose. The opponents have the right (when it is that player's turn) to ask about not only the meanings of the calls made, but of the "relevant calls available but not made" (Law 20F1). This is not the same as saying "I hold...". The other thing (and this is purely my opinion and not necessarily fact) is that I believe playing a game resembling bridge where one of the objectives is "Partner, guess what convention I'm using now" is not the same as playing bridge. On the other hand, I agree (again opinion) that if you truly "make up a call" with the hope that partner will figure it out, then (but ONLY then) your position is perfectly correct. If I'm not mistaken, Roth (or someone similar) invented the Unusual NT in exactly this way in a high-stakes rubber bridge game. I guess part of the reason we disagree is that I dislike intensely playing with a pickup partner without at least agreeing on a general system ("I'll play your card, but no..."). Doing otherwise smacks of Poker (and I've never been any good at Poker :unsure: )

It seems to me that the presence, or absence, of the little Red Stop Sign used to be much more reliable than it currently is. Since I live in a country where the government has a monopoly on providing telecommunications service, and also live far enough from a major city that I cannot get broadband, I've become much better acquainted with the "Red Dot Problem" than I'm happy with. It used to be that I'd see the red dot sometimes flicker off and on a few times both on others and on my own name. It seems to me that now I don't notice it come on then go off very often. When I see a red dot on another player now, they invariably become disconnected within about a minute. I've only seen (and also experienced) the "made a call or played a card" problem a small number of times (and not recently). It has happened - sufficiently infrequently that I have never reported it. When I've seen people I play against "woken up" by a message, the response has usually been "Sorry: was chatting" or "Whoops, missed it was my turn".

Time to add my two colones (wish it were the same as two cents) worth. I fully agree with Ben. If you make an artificial bid with the expectation that partner will "get it", then you should alert it. If you made the bid and didn't expect partner to get it, then you were being silly. In other words, alert your artificial bids. It has been referred to here as well as in other threads: Online bridge and face-to-face bridge are different. Look at the alert mechanism itself. I haven't played in Team Trials or other events using bidding screens, so it has always been that the partner of the person who made the bid alerts it. Online (at least on BBO), we self-alert (and partner doesn't get to see). I think it would certainly be closer to face-to-face bridge if we followed the same alert rule (that is, alerting partner's calls, not your own), and it certainly doesn't change partner's not getting any unauthorized information because partner still would not see the alert. It has the benefit that if partner is "going to catch it", then it is a alertable. Yes, I know you can make arguments that partner is, perhaps, going to accept a non-existent transfer and have his bid interpretted as a cue-bid or whatever. However, I believe to say this gives the opponents an "unfair" advantage is fallacious. Firstly: The opponents are entitled to know if we expect partner to catch a bid -- I think this is more or less equivalent to having an implicit agreement (the proprieties (Law 75 A) state that "Special partnership agreements, whether explicit or implicit, must be fully and freely available to the opponents..."). Secondly: Several times I have come across (I wish my memory were good enough to remember the exact circumstances) something that I do not remember seeing in the Laws. I'm fairly certain (sorry about the equivocation) that directors making their rulings expect you to know (and not forget) your partnership agreements. This is different from deviating from your agreements (which is fine as long as it has not become an implicit, but unannounced, agreement). Of course you can "forget" -- as long as the opponents are not hurt by it. I've forgotten agreements I have made with partner and "missed" a bid. The funny thing is, I can never remember getting a good result because of it -- the best I can remember is getting a below average board and more often than not a bottom. All said and done though, like many others here, I prefer a pleasant game without silly results. I have actively encouraged opponents to ask "do you play xxxx" before making a bid. I also agree with those that say awarding Masterpoints or other prizes in online bridge is silly -- any value Masterpoints might have had will rapidly disappear and I suspect others are right when they say the incidence of cheating would skyrocket.

I had Uday's problem when I was playing bridge. I was only able to travel to a couple of tournaments that were more that a short car-ride away. The expense can be a real deterrent.

Funny how different personalities react to things. I thought that nonsense user-Ids were silly and irritating. Oh well...

"User's local time" is out badly (+8 hours). I don't know if this is just for my country or others as well (haven't gone around checking). The example is my Id. My country is correctly listed as Costa Rica. My local time was shown as March 21, 04:45 The actual time was March 20, 20:45 I'm not sure this really matters to anyone, but it is misleading.

Getting back to the original post. I agree with your actions. I also agree with the sense of Richard's post. Nevertheless: From all perspectives my take is: If you are going to deviate by more than 1 (or perhaps 2) points from a STATED HIGH CARD POINT range, by partnership agreement, then you are not explaining your calls. It is hard to infer intention (beginner ignorance, unintentionally misleading, or purposefully deceptive), but change the way you explain. If you open hands that are less than average strength (an Ace, King, Queen, and Jack -- or some approximation) with other than a preemptive bid, then I also agree with pre-announcing (e.g. "We open (unusally) light" or somesuch) -- the opponents have the right to know. This does NOT mean you have to have long-winded explanations. E.g. 2♦ - alert as "4♠ 5♥ less than 16HCP" E.g. 1♣ - alert as "Artificial, forcing, may be as low as xx HCP" If you don't use a "common" guideline such as 4-3-2-1 HCP, Quick-tricks, Losing Trick Count, then explain bids with a minimum of: - Artificial or Natural - Not forcing or forcing to whatever level (eg. for 1 round, to the level of 2NT, to Game or 4 of a minor) A side issue is that I think "Precision" is now as ambiguous as "Standard American". There is a significant issue that a lot of people know a little bit about the early versions of Precision and tend to make assumptions when someone announces they play "Precision" (I have personally been guilty of such, but I know such assumptions are my own fault), such as a 1♣ opening shows 16 HCP (perhaps 15 when judgement is factored in).

For what it is worth, I play that 1M - 2x; 2M is 6-cards with my one regular partner (about 20 years) and with another (about 1-1/2 years) we play that 2NT rebid shows an honour ("stopper") in each of the unbid suits (so 2M maybe just a 5-card suit). I've yet to notice anything significant in the two approaches (though there must be!). The one hand that I find is handled more easily by being able to rebid a 5-card major is 4=5-x-y where I'm 2-2 or 3-1 in the minors (3 in the minor partner didn't bid). If anybody asks, we (long-time partnership) used to play Flannery. We came to the conclusion that it was a waste of time. It occasionally worked well but much too often preempted our own auction and prevented us finding our "best" contract (we were too high to stop in a minor suit fit or we were too high period to begin with).

That's exactly how you are supposed to do it now. You use the View menu to select what you want to see. Use it in the Main Lobby to filter which members show up and in Bridge Clubs (including the Main Bridge Club) to filter which tables show up.

Claus, I have NEVER played face-to-face at a bridge club or in a tournament without a filled out convention card. I have occasionally met a pair in a tournament without one, but I think it has been perhaps 2 or 3 times in the last 20 years. On the other hand, something interesting happened on Friday at the bridge club in San Jose (Costa Rica): The person running it is the chief tournament director for the Central America and Carribean Bridge Federation. He has always given a short lecture before the Friday game starts (generally aimed at the intermediate level players). This week he started a series of lessons on filling out the Convention Card!!! It has always bothered me that almost nobody at the local club has a filled out CC, so I applaud what he is doing (he said EVERYONE should have a filled out CC). Having said that, a filled out convention card does NOT relieve one of the obligation to alert! BOTH are required. I agree with you that every pair SHOULD have a CC, but I am also guilty of not having a CC on the odd time I have played with a pick-up partner online (most people I have played with have posted one and then we have made a few changes). Generally, though, I don't play with pickup partners very often - I don't find it much fun.

I have had the problem (?) reported by pinokiss since wide window mode was introduced. I thought it was a purposeful change to the interface because, at the same time, I noticed the behaviour of the drop-down list in the chat dialog had changed (though it may have been changed for a long time). The drop-down list now only lists members who have been sent (or who have sent you) a private chat. The latter is a feature I like very much (hundreds of entries, never mind thousands, are too many).

Would someone else confirm this for me (that is, that if you select country in a bridge club, you only get tables where ALL the players are from that country)? If this is true, then I have put an incorrect explanation in the new online help. I have to admit I made an assumption that I did not check out (sorry about that). I assumed you would see all tables where AT LEAST ONE OF THE PLAYERS is from that country.

I like the suggested change. It is one I've wanted (I think I might have suggested it). It's not necessary to force a person to enter an explanation, but I think the opportunity should be given before completing the bid (for exactly the reasons given). I also find it annoying when I'm trying to type in an explanation and my explanation disappears because first one opponent and then the other clicks on the bid for an explanation.

Using time, etc., when random dealing hands is normally only used to establish the "seed" for a pseudo-random number generator. If the generator is good and the shuffling alogrithm is also good, then it shouldn't matter. However, I do know that some random number generators put restrictions on the "seed" if you want the generator to perform well. So, how it is seeded perhaps should be checked. The other thing is there are statistical tests (I'm not knowledgeable about them, but I know they exist) that can be run to check the "randomness" of a random number generator. I suspect Fred or Uday have run such tests (if not, I recommend they do so). They might also be wise to doublecheck the seeding. The server is a Unix variant and the kernel provides a seed for this purpose (saving information when it is shutdown so that the same sequence is not generated a second time). I believe there is some kind of statistical testing that can be done directly on the generated hands (to check for "randomness"); however, I suspect it requires some programming. I would imagine several tens of thousands of hands would need to be generated to get a good measure (again, I'm not a statistician, but this has something to do with the "confidence" in the results). I may be greatly over-estimating, but I'm sure 20 or 100 hands are grossly inadequate for testing.