thepossum

Or inexplicable Given the dire performance of both countries involved I am prepared to split my IMPs this time :)

I hope the coverage of the Johnson No Confidence/Confidence vote fitted US schedules nicely

Hi there I just noticed that the country assigned in the recent BB World Cup was based on IP number rather than country that we thought we were playing for :) Seemingly both countries needed my help this time (remarkable in itself) - one of those variance thingies - its called error isn't it - put me down as unexplained :) P

IMO some people worry too much about how they rank in a meaningless tourney I'm currently pondering gambling a whole dollar on another type of meaningless tourney But if its all about tricking a bot into ridiculous doubled slams why bother - unless you are good enough to make a living from it - but I don't know how tradeable BB dollars are :)

I realise 5M doesn't score well very often but it was in this case the right contract IMO At least it wasn't wrong and would have scored very well🙂

This hand interested me. Being quite experienced with GiB I passed. A few risked 3NT and many people tried to get to 5 Diamonds (ACBL MPs) For those who can't guess what happens you end up in unmakeable spade game or diamond slam. [HV=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|thepossum,~~M40839,~~M40837,~~M40838|md|1SAKT72H5DK97CKJ75,SJ963HAT742D64CT8,S54HKJDAQJT532C96,SQ8HQ9863D8CAQ432|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%207|mb|1S|an|Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!S;%2011-21%20HCP;%2012-22%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|3D|an|Invite%20--%206+%20!D;%203-%20!H;%202-%20!S;%209-11%20HCP;%20!DQ%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|H6|pc|H5|pc|HA|pc|HJ|pc|C8|pc|C6|pc|CA|pc|C5|pc|C3|pc|CK|pc|CT|pc|C9|pc|DK|pc|D4|pc|D2|pc|D8|mc|11|]400|300[/HV]

This thread sums up, to me, what is wrong with Bridge and the Modern World To paraphrase a probably totally irrelevant saying, its not the system but how you use it Sadly I feel that nobody is taught to use their brains and critical faculties at all in anything - EDIT correction. I feel they have thinking taught out of them Seriously. If you are playing rubber bridge you would hope that everyone understands that you don't need to take unnecessary risks but dont miss good opportunities However I assume good players play that way in duplicate - maybe with different judgement criteria Would you be done for psyching if you pass prematurely But along with most other people I occasionally play a tiny subset of SAYC - SA I miss rubber bridge though and sitting round tables with packs of cards

I was interested in this but the above discussion is much more complicated than Smolen As for 55 still working on it. Maybe transfer to your best major and take it from there (risk of being passed). Or even improvise with Smolen with 55 Just Stayman and keep trying to show your suits somehow if strong enough Remind me never to join a Bridge class. I would never get past improver class. Maybe I would never even get into it

Seriously an attack that obnoxious from a so called intelligent person Vicious personal and ignorant A nasty privileged piece of ***. Stop with it You didn't even read what I said. Do you not care about those less privileged than you who never get a chance of anything let alone a life Stop the vicious attacks I don't like responding personally but you keep opening the personal attacks Richard. You know that Spanish style palace you built yourself. Go and talk to real Latins. Ignorance in the extreme Some of you need to get out of your closetted little worlds sometimes. You too Winston And as for wishing me dead as far as I can see I am one of the few remnants of an educated humane caring part of the human race on this whole planet. I see little evidence anywhere. You want that dead I'm over it. You are all welcome to each other I will not list all the personal attacks. Some very creepy and sinister over the last few years. But if there were a way to deal with cowards the old fashioned way lets bring it on Richard. Coward. The moderators will likely side with the trolls and the bullies and get me cancelled. That your end game. Ive experienced it all from some cowards on some forums already. A few of those attacks suggested knowledge of me well beyond a bridge forum and public information from my name and business Care to explain yourself hrothgar? are your really who your ID says on your account or posing as someone. or am I dealing with a hacker or some other form of creep on the platform or in the world The little trolls and gaslighters will be laughing about having elicited a perfectly reasonable human response from a normal human being with feeling and emotion Congratulations you win your sick games. Whoever is behind it Who is behind it - whatever it is - did I call out a bit too much corruption and evil on this and other platforms from people wh should have greater integrity and ethics - to call it out themselves. My knowledge, my training my intellect and ability to question and criticise fairly and objectively was too much of a threat to too many with their noses in the trough. Is that it. Or is it all more evil than simple greed Possibly my last ever comment here is to paraphrase one of the Bush Presidents. If you aren't with me you are against me and against right and good in this world. Can I count on any of you as allies in the fight for justice and against evil in this word. Instead of being constantly viciously trolled and gaslighted and made to look as if I have a problem in front of other people - rather than being the most human of them I may not have a Professorship or even a PhD in anything (or everything) but I know enough about some evils that stop at nothing to set good people against each other, to sow distrust. You with me. Not all of us are naive and trusting. We have experience and evidence beyond most peopple's comprehension. We are easy pickings to be silenced by corrupt power and evil Winston. You should know by now that trying to attack me with association with the likes of North Korea is totally arse about Thanks for ruining my lunch and day and causing such an extreme emotional response while out in a public place and in front of important people in my life - people who sadly still don't understand what is and has been going on What hurt even more is that I thought I had written so much educated well thought out informed ***** that even you wouldn't go after me that way. I appreciate people's emotions are raw. But there was no excuse to misrepresent what I wrote that way. That is part of what we (good people in this world) have been up against with being set against each other in such cruel ways For those who don't know who I am or can easily work it out through their data gathering and analytics I am starting to think my feeling of security behind an alias and avatar would be better served by announcing who I am to the whole world and telling everyone the truth about my life, despite what others may say or write, and tell the world the level of power and evil (intentional or not) that people like me face every day of our lives

It's sad that it can't be done with a pack of cards round a table. How to achieve that by Zoom or whatever your choice No way to get the team together for a while?

Never having had opportunity to use if but I imagine it is called "Gambling" for a good reason :) it seems a wonderfully useful pre-empt from time to time I remember reading on a Bridge teaching site that natural 3NT was generally best avoided so there is a spare bid :) - could the natural and gambling be combined as some kind of multi-3NT or is that what its like anyway?

Looking at the (very preliminary) estimates of excess mortality due to the Pandemic (not the virus) and the likelihood that it is a massive underestimate of cumulative effect for generations to come; and with al respect due to Mr Gates and his interests in treating/vaccinating during pandemics; would it not be preferable to prevent them, or possibly have more measured and less brutal approach to what I still believe has been shown to be a very mild (relatively speaking) illness ...and, at the risk of making people angry (which is inevitable), but I hope not misunderstood, many younger healthy people in lower income economies have had generations of opportunity cruelly denied, to look after the wealthier parts of the world (on average) The implications of that last statement is that you try to prevent or be less brutal I realise I am arguing out of my professional area - its the Water Cooler after all - but are there not many other very serious "pandemic like" things that kill us on a massive scale without the world having to stop. I wonder why? Come to think of it they often take a long time to kill us, often indirectly, and we are kept alive as long as possible to sell maximum product

:lol: :rolleyes: If we bypass their sites maybe. Or if you don't have visitors from the EU maybe. They control most of us with it whether we like it or not I managed to get round their total global control by not using anything on my site that needs cookies :D I was also able to avoid their fascistic control over my design decisions by excluding most content management/delivery solutions too :D I was also able to bypass their meddling in my business decisions by shopping around extensively to find a web hosting company that provided such solutions without needing to use those platforms :D

I hate to boost old threads but... I think (as with most bureaucratic interference) a measure allegedly intended to assist clients/users/customers/visitors/passers by of web sites/businesses in their privacy information has provided a way for unscrupulous entities to get you to agree to something. How many just hit agree without checking Maybe it was always intended thus That's what I think of the EU The inevitable edit. And when you look at the rise of authoritarian/fascist/whatever questionnable tendencies in the world maybe the cookie law was part of the plan

Its a strange question since BBO points and ACBL points are obviously not the same - although the colour of ACBL points awarded for Bot games would be similar value to BBO points I imagine I like the idea of a market for points - can you trade them for crypto? I hate to stand up for average - experienced - maybe even half decent players - with no real points who managed to earn a few meaningless bot points - but since I am one who never earned a real point in a club in his life I have to I regard myself at the low end of average and can still get into 299ers - perhaps The other interesting aspect is that you never need to have played in the USA/Canada/other American countries to join and play in Bot tourneys :) Who knows who you could be playing in the 299ers or 499ers

very dodgy double by the Bot I even put it through some major Bridge software and they made the dodgy double Systems are systems irrespective of simulation. Simple 2NT (or even 3) overcall would have sufficed In the olden days maybe even bid 3 spades (or penalty) How about a pass. That would be my choice

I think I made a similar suggestion a few years ago but I'm not sure GiB's defence is up to much

I think offering to resign is admirably ethical but puts the police in something of a bind Maybe Sir Keir has had enough already :)

Sir Keir (and Deputy Rayner) promises to step down if his "permitted" work drinks "out" from public health is found to be against the rules Edit apologies I believe it's called "Beergate"

They need to be more careful with their constant sloppy language and arrogance that goes with it Organisations like Twitter have responsibilities as well as rights. All of them do I could say that about the whole country and State in which many reside They are huge international utility like corporations throwing their weight around a bit too much Many of us have been on the receiving end of their arrogance and ignorance. I was even defamed by them many times etc They basically make their own laws. Summary injustice etc Many people including the likes of Iglesias and others keep defending what they do. It's frightening You don't like it find another platform. It's cultural arrogance What's even worse are the people who say if you don't like it go and set up your own Nobody is undermining the achievement of certain creative types and the huge global corporations that grew from their idea and unique opportunity. Maybe not everyone can set up an Intel, a Microsoft, an Amazon Web Service, a Twitter,a Facebook, a Hewlett Packard etc. I believe they would sue you for stealing their idea Time to get out of the World Series mentality and think about the real world

That is one of the many likely leads that doesn't restrict to 9 tricks :) Only lead that worked was a small diamond to West's (lonely) Queen taking account of the singleton and the one weakness :)

Just to double check. You are on lead as follows [hv=pc=n&e=sk743hjt5dak53cat&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=p2sp2np3sppp]133|200[/hv] Try to forget everything above. What would you lead against 3 or 4 spades? Double dummy just makes 3 :)

Hi all I need to make a small correction (and apology) for my scenario (my memory is not good these days) The spade suit was not accurately reported. It was AQJxxx so only 7 points but I regretted not joining the immediate 4S high scorers with my beautiful 2NT :) ...and 3+1 scored 0 :) It worked out because the singleton was opposite my weak suit :) - so if it could have been shown as a feature it would have been good! Remarkably it even made 3+1 with a 4-1 trump break and the King being offside :)

Can I ask if the considerations above with 4441 hands are different in a 4-card major system? Or are the same problems there. What I see with 4441 is the amount of time to find a fit It needs some kind of conventional opening bid saying tell me which of the other three suits you like I recall there being one in Precision but that's just strong ones isn't it? I'm reading about some unusual conventions at the moment. I think my favourite so far is the Fighting Irish 2D but that requires both majors :)

I don't think anyone missed my point All I was wondering was if you have, say, AKJTxx,txx,xxx,x is that a minimum Weak Two :) To me after my 2NT positive strong bid I would expect something like QJxxxxx, Kxx, xx, xx - edit maybe the King is wrong for a minimum (maybe a Jack) I accept with my nice 2NT hand that I considered game irrespective of the discouraging 3S Oops. sorry. Additional specification. Playing IMPs against a rather cautious/disciplined(?) field :) - where 3+1 only scored -1 IMP