geller

I'm not quite sure I understand this. To draw an analogy with another mind sport: you can resign in the middle of a chess game, can you not? No one would cast doubts on your sportsmanship for so doing, would they? Not that I've ever played chess, but I believe the situation in a chess game is quite different. In chess a concession takes place when a player realise that the game has reached a point where it is inevitable that checkmate will ensue within a few moves. It happens frequently and is a completely normal means by which a chess game ends. A concession in a chess game is more analagous to a defender of a bridge hand conceding the rest of the tricks when he realise that no matter what he or declarer does, declarer will win all the remaining tricks. It is quite a stretch to suggest that conceding a bridge match in the middle of a segment is the same thing. In bridge, the established protocol is that when you sit down to play a session of bridge you finish the session. As I said before, I'm not aware of this sort of thing ever having happened before in a major tournament. Yes, but in any bridge event other than a KO event quitting in mid-session isn't allowed where it causes a disruption to the game. This is obviously not the case in a KO event. Quitting in the middle of a sesssion is something I've never heard of before but what harm was done? And after all, the Director did give his OK (apparently). Similarly, in a Swiss teams event if two teams both announce their intention to withdraw before the Director has made pairings for the next match, no harm is done to the smooth running of the event. If someone thinks it's right to play to the end of the session personally I think that's what I'd do too, but why should we criticize mid-session quitters in a knockout as long as they do it politely. The argument that this is never done in sports (say soccer) involves commercial considerations. But in American high school football for example it's common for the coach of a team getting trounced to ask the referee to keep the clock running when normally it would be stopped, so as to get the agony over with ASAP.

I take a less extreme position. It's obviously bad sportsmanship to walk away without saying anything, but (depending on the score before the 3 disasters) it might be appropropriate to stop play for a minute and call the director and respective NPCs and if all agree then concede the match. Of course in the future let's hope sponsorship takes off so that the match has to be played through to the end for commercial reasons. :-)

Bridge is a team sport. Like any team sport we want some quantitative evaluation of individual performance (our own and others). Masterpoints give one such scale. Some sports lend themselves to easy statistical evaluation of individual performance (baseball) while others do not (soccer). It would be great if someone came up with a whole variety of statistical measures other than masterpoints (e.g., % of makeable contract made, number of "unforced errors") to supplement MPs. These would be very hard to keep track of in F2F bridge but in on-line play it might be possible to automate the statistics somehow. But until the (faraway) day when this is done everyone will be following their MP totals as well as other stats like regional of national or international wins, etc. -Bob

Why not 1. New BBO Flash version (click here) 2. Classic BBO Version (Download client) (click here) 3. Report problems (click here) Like "new Coke" and "classic Coke". (I hope the BBO flash version won't end up like "new Coke" :-) ) -Bob

If they really want to prevent forfeits they could warn the forfeiting team for the first offense in a 5 year period, fine them EU2000 for the 2nd offense, EU4000 for the 3rd and subsequent offenses. This would hit the federation, not the players. The fact that they haven't adopted such a rule means they're willing to let the forfeits continue. This presumably means they've decided this is the most practical approach.

It seems to me that frquency of occurrence needs to be considered more in coaching. The coaches and players both have only a finite amount of time. Investing X hours in exploring relatively esoteric questions that seldom arise will produce far less gain than the same amount of time addressed to matters that occur frequently (and are easier to fix). The start of coaching (or self-coaching) should be an analysis of ten or twenty sessions by the pair, to see what sort of problems are actually causing them to drop points, and then fixing those areas of their game first. This is essentially what Hamman meant in his book "At the Table" when he said, "Don't screw up the easy ones."

I haven't read the whole thread so my apologies if this has already been answered. What are the plans (if any) for adding language options other than English?

Here in Japan we give the forfeiting team 0 VP. The winner by forfeit gets the best of (i) 18VP, (ii) their average VP, or (iii) the average VP won by the opponents of the forfeiting team. Obviously (ii) or (iii) can only be evaluated at the end of the round robin so (i) is the interim score. Giving the forfeiting team 12VP (AVE minus) as was apparently done for Lebanon is absurd.

Why does everyone always say "with no problems"? With all due respect, someone left their phone behind, and many other people were probably inconvenienced. If they didn't complain that doesn't mean it wasn't a problem for them. It would be nice if there had ben a questionnaire survey of the affected players in Detroit to get some objective data on opinions regarding the new rule. Was this done? I like the odd snark myself now and then, but may I suggest you use a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer. I'm sure the ACBL people care about member opinion but like any organization run by human beings things don't always work perfectly. Also, there are lots of different groups and it's hard to please everyone. If you feel a mistake has been made there are lots of channels, formal and informal, for trying to input your point of view. I know it can be frustrating at times but you catch more flies with honey rather than vinegar.... or something like that.

Why does everyone always say "with no problems"? With all due respect, someone left their phone behind, and many other people were probably inconvenienced. If they didn't complain that doesn't mean it wasn't a problem for them. It would be nice if there had ben a questionnaire survey of the affected players in Detroit to get some objective data on opinions regarding the new rule. Was this done?

I've only met him a few times over many years and briefly at that, but I can't imagine he thinks "everyone cheats." Perhaps he thinks that it's important to eliminate possible ways in which improper conduct could occur. As a non-participant in ACBL tourneys for about the last 20yrs, I don't have "a dog in this fight." After reading this thread I have a suggestion though. Running a tourney is in some sense like developing a new software product. Before you release your product to the market you run through a series of "beta tests," where real or potential customers test-drive the product before its general release. The cell-phone ban is like a new software product (in some senses). I fully agree with the stated reasons for the ban, but I also agree with the posters who point out the problems with loss of access, etc. My suggestion would be that at the summer nationals the ACBL should suspend the cell-phone ban except for the last three rounds of the Spingold (quarters, semis and final). These are the rounds for which security is most important anyway, and there are only 8 (then 4 then 2) tables. If the ban works out OK it could gradually be expanded to other events at future nationals, while problems that occur could be ironed out before larger scale implementation. -Bob

I didn't open 2NT either, nor did my partner or teammates. But this is a real problem from a real tourney, so given the start (which may not be to everyone's taste, including mine) I'd appreciate knowing what people would call now.

imps, None Vul, East Dlr You, South, hold ♠AJ53 ♥K ♦AKQ86 ♣K84 East passes. You open 2NT. West passes. North responds 3♣ (Puppet Stayman). East overcalls 3♥. You pass, LHO (West) passes, North doubles. East passes. What call do you make?

Here in Japan we have two "ranking systems." The first is basically similar to the ACBL MP system. The second is called "seeding points" (SP). Your SP is 5% of your career MP total (truncated at 3000, regardless of how many MP you have) plus 50% of the number of MP you won in the last year (updated monthly on a rolling basis). All flighting is done by SP, rather than by MP. This basically achieves reasonable (albeit not perfect) flighting. In particular formerly high-ranking players who have gotten old/rusty are automatically flighted down without their losing their lifetime MP or having their feelings hurt. The SP system in Japan would work OK in the US with some adjustment of the numbers in the formula. -Bob P.S. Let me add an example. Take a player with 10,000 career MP who won 600 MP in the last tweve months. (Both rank around 10th in Japan out of 7000+ JCBL members.) This player's SP would be 0.05*3000 + 0.5*600 = 150 + 300 = 450. (Note that the factor of 0.05 is 3000, i.e. the upper cutoff, rather than 10,000, the player's career total. This is necessary to keep the career totals from dominating the SP calculation. At this time a player with a career total of 3000 MP would be ranked 100th or so out of 7000+ JCBL members.)

Not that it really matters all that much in the context of your discussion, but isn't this a 14 card hand? Incidentally, I think (even though you've omitted names someone from your area could probably figure out who your opponent was), it's better to refer matters like pulling out one bidding card vs. pulling out the whole pile depending on strength to the district recorder rather than bring it up in a public forum like this forum. -Bob

That sounds reasonable, but begs the question then why can we accept the insufficient bid to begin with? Suppose you pass over the insufficient bid without calling the director, thereby condoning it (whether deliberate or because you simply didn't notice). In this case the laws have no choice but to allow the auction to continue normally. That being the case, a player who duly calls the director after noticing the infraction shouldn't be penalized for this by being denied the right to have the option to accept the insufficient bid. At least I suppose that's why this is allowed. -Bob

Is there any difference from the text quoted at the beginning of the thread? If so, what is it? I haven't checked it word for word, but there shouldn't be. I also haven't checked but the web site shows a comparison of the old law to the new law so readers can see what's changed. This may be of interest. -Bob

The text of the New Law 27 is here. -Bob

I have a vague recollection that this was called New York Times syndrome (or something like that) in an article or book (maybe by Mike Lawrence?) about traits that the Dallas Aces deemed desirable to be avoided. -Bob

AFIK there is a tendency for the commentary to be in the same board no. from another match. This may help you to match it up. Not sure if this is always the case. -Bob

You mean the alleged destruction of the tapes. Since they presumably weren't "tapes" but were presumably stored in some digital form there must be lots of copies in servers and PCs all over the CIA. It's impossible to believe they managed to zap every single copy anyplace.

good point. Could a sysadmin move it please. Thanks. -Bob

This morning I've already received two emails of the following form. I can appreciate the reasons for sending the first email but if from now on I'm going to get such an email from BBO every time someone spams BBO sending mail purported to be from me the spam will mount up fast. Any chance these notification mails could be limited to once every two months unless the resipient replies positively to the first mail? -Bob

I recommend you try the free software Spybot S&D. I had a problem with popups (triggered by BBO but not the fault of BBO) a while ago and Spybot S&d got rid of the adware/spyware program. -Bob

Yes, Sumo wrestling is my specialty. I am happy to learn that you got women involved in the UK. My only wish is that they are bit slimmer than the guys in Japan. Roland Sumo wrestling is sometimes called the "national sport" of Japan (actually baseball is the most popular sport in Japan by far, maybe followed by soccer), but sumo in Japan has been racked by a series of match-rigging scandals of late. Nothing sportsmanlike about the dumping here.