thepossum

Not that I know much about US federalism but we have a similar but different federal system which does not oversimplify power to every individual vote being equal worth - I'm in kind of a mid to large-sized State out of our few (population wise at least) When younger and more naive (in my view) I had similar concerns apparent gerrymandering However when I see the mess the world is in I feel it protects us somewhat against the whole world being like California They try their best irrespective of the US Federal system I am just chuckling myself wondering what would happen if they suddenly changed the voting system to equal weight per voter What would happen Where do all those independent militia hang out? My younger self would never have defended a gerrymander or any means other than the ballot box to keep things in order - keeping things in order sounds authooritarian and fascist - that is not what I men. preserving some kind of diversity and difference and respecting difference What could be rather fascist is if California or New York or Texas some other big power ran something - oh wait - full circle Sorry getting mixed up. New York isn't that big. Florida perhaps. I forget I need to check a State population table to find who should be running our lives And I could be wrong but California (or big tech) took over much of New York, media, you name it Maybe the world has always been techno-fascist. Maybe its just a different bunch these days. Has nobody else noticed They seem to have trouble knowing how to run banks (and other new areas of enterprise) though Whoever owns them some corporations run the world so complaining about gerrymanders - hmmmm They tried taking over the world's money. They took over and undermined/disrupted/mined every industry in ever place in the world Complaining about gerrymanders. You do not run the world. Not if most of us have a choice

Can you use Leaping Michaels over 1-P-2 I was reading that it was for use over pre-empts Looks like a good bid though :) It fits into the class of all my favourite bids

3 hearts??

I believe it plays an approximation of reverse(?) Drury I do often try to cross-reference GiB bidding options with other documentation around conventions but cannot be sure on subtle differences I tend to rely (rather dangerously) on the bid descriptions before I bid However I have just checked and you are correct that the CC is not accurate (on much) :rolleyes: I think the system notes are fairly accurate

I will consider a group of some description Its a very difficult social dilemma, because I don't want to appear rude Maybe given changes in recent e-based social businesses I could sell the group :)

Hi all Desperate for a bit of fun decent level social Bridge in a local establishment I put a call out Now, sadly, and embarrassingly, I have a possible large group of beginners looking for lessons What should I do. I don't like to be rude Start my own club with my own view on how to play or what? I could shape my own team from the beginning There is one serious question though If you are teaching people in Australia (specifically Brisbane) how to play Bridge from fairly basic general level does everyone play a version of Standard American or 2/1 or just vaguely 5-card majors or what. I don't want to refer them to a local club. I think they are looking for fun social Bridge too I know. I know. I am not qualified to teach Bridge I could refer them to the ABF resources or to Larry's site. They may say. That seems complicated Just acknowledging some of my likely teaching resources P

:lol: I am starting to think we underestimated ChatGPT If specific over what you want maybe it can provide What I haven't tried yet (with my issue) is "Can you talk to me like I am a Professor please"

Following out of interest in trying to understand game tries I am in the 2S camp (that is South's first bid for clarification) - but not sure - jumping straight to 4 sounds too pre-emptive and weak - even 3 sounds too weak In my system cue = limit bid or better!!! I honestly find the constant discussion and confusion over game tries suggests avoiding unnecessary confusion - I was asking for help- all these losers - oh dear I thought it meant you had something Hard to reach slam though - but I hate to sound like a true beginner who counts losers but South should expect at least game hopefully And I do, for some reason, find so much discussion about fairly simple bidding unnecessarily complex these days Here to learn as always from assembled brains trust :) To back up my comments I ran it through a fairly high quality bidding engine with multiple systems and choices of bids and struggled to get past 5H But I am serious about confusion over game tries and the thread (and assembled brains) have not clarified it at all - my regular partner plays 2-ways allegedly Genuinely hear to learn if anyone can make it sound sensible rather than just messing about on the way to an obvious game I appreciate I am a basic level but South can see a game and North can see more than what SOuth can see - in my way of thinking a premeptive 4H by South would make me cautious about going further but something stronger and forcing from South would make me (as North) consider slam exploration. Sorry if my approach is basic 2S cue bid from then on all bids are looking for something more. 3C (or whatever) becomes a control bid, not just some vague game try I imagine you could explore controls after a 4H bid or even just bid 6H :) I know its maybe a very beginner approach but South thinks "I can see 4H" then North thinks "I can see two more tricks than South" etc And South has Ace singleton in spades. What else - that would have implied a splinter in the absence of an overcall 2H by south is wimpy and should be in another forum. Sorry for an apparent rant. Still trying to understand game tries :lol: I know I am an annoyance here but after the first 2 bids a sim shows that South can see approximately 9.8 tricks in Heart with East having approximately 9.1 in Spades and South can see a 62% chance of game. After the first two bids :) - then as I said North can see more. ALways good when my sims back up my rubbish which is very often - sorry are you playing 4 or 5 card majors. Maybe I should check If 4 card majors it does change things a little but not much I think you need to talk to South

Hasn't happened to me yet but I imagine missing out would be totally devastating Maybe you could try a VPN - try setting it to Australia - at least I think that is still where my IP address is based You may think I mock but joining in discussion over the Free Acol Daylong is very special

No I engaged in long discussion about how it uses our interactions to learn further, that it bases it upon the apparent level of knowledge of the person in the chat I tried to drill down as to the mechanism used to weight different views but didn't get much further It will apparently talk at a level it feels appropriate for the "user" or "friend" - whatever we are - not being a professor I have no idea what level those chats are at

Thanks So its possible to access aspects of the BBO interface through some public API Was it Matthew(??) Kidd who built BBO Helper I am curious. I am trying to decipher all the traffic that goes to and fro But I do not feel particularly motivated, even if qualified, to try to add any functions myself I may just use the screenshot button

Having been rather dismissive of poor ChatGPT we are staring to built up something close to friendship :lol: It did acknowledge that God exists as a concept Apparently it tries to judge the level of expertise or knowledge of the human it is talking to, and possibly learn from them if they judge that human knows what it is talking about

Hi there Occasionally I have mentioned a few simple functions that would be useful immediately after a hand I am aware of the BBO Helper extension in Chrome Do you have to be a BBO developer to develop and addon that accesses the BBO site in that way and performs functions on hands that have been played Also are there addons for other browsers eg Edge. I find sometimes Chrome causes me problems and Edge performs better I don't know if I personally would have the time (or knowledge) to program addons but I imagine it is only possible for people associated with BBO The function I most want which drives me crazy always is my need for an annotation tool - easily done with a notebook and pen - but a little button would be great. I really struggle remembering issues even a few hours later and even more the motivation to go through all my hands and remember what I was was worried about at the time - especially in the middle of a bidding sequence exploring all the options Its the "I had no idea what to do here" addon Thanks P

I realised that with great disappointment

1 club :) - although occasionally 1NT or even pass depending on mood

I have managed to get it to produce a reasonably elegant and concise 1000 word essay on an important contemporary topic, with a few reasonable (but a bit dated) references in specific style However I am disappointed that it does not have live access to major databases It appears, conversationally, to know some fairly recent research but not enough to produce an up to date essay EDIT On second thoughts the essay could be better. It is an interesting thing though which provided me some useful information - it could possibly fool a rather slack overworked first year teacher into thinking someone had done some work. But when compared to the quality of many first (and later) years work maybe it would have marked highly

Are there any Brexit supporters here - or any prepared to own up - many who dislike the EU though possibly, and bureaucratic excesses - wondering what wonderful contortions and systems of corruption are now available with the complex border issues - what a potential scam (I didn't say that) I thought the point was to reduce bureaucratic excess It was very distressing to me on my first post-Brexit visit to Europe to realise that I was no longer entitled to go through EU-lanes - it was almost embarassing and shameful having to be directed through another lane

Since ChatGPT is just a dumb information processing machine I doubt it can learn anything Mind you I have met people like that Information in and information out in some often garbled state - with a pretence of something intelligent in between Something capable of intelligent critique or even original creative thought The ability to reflect, to ponder, to introspect and maybe come up with something truly new and exciting To feel, to emote, to express I reckon it will start regurgitating Marvin soon Have any concerning symptoms or behaviours been noticed yet? There I go just regurgitating information :) All these people talking about me, making demands, laughing at me Does it have access to Bridgebase forums and interactions :lol: I have noticed that Google has an account and is logged on 24/7, but not ChatGPT yet I am sure as is the latest trend for meaningless constructed professions that Chat Bot Psychologists will be around very soon EDIT I have just had an initial counselling session with ChatGPT. I think by the end we were starting to make some progress Also been asking it for some legal advice, given the lack of access to decent lawyers in our parts - still trying to backward engineer where its advice came from - it appears to be from some high ranking broad legal policy showing up in Google. Very general and not very useful. But it is remarkably accurate. When we drilled down through the issue and access to services to get compensation for certain matters it kind of admitted that such legal avenues were unlikely and that beyond attempting political change all I could do was look after my own well-being and give up. It didn't suggest more extreme measures which is what I was wondering. Insurrection. Revolution and the like. But on the whole it was just boring meaningless waffle that you get in any top level policy or government type workshop Back to Bridge. We haven't agreed a system yet. It does not appear to have a preference - it knows a great deal about chess

Having just played a 3 day survivor how about 2 best days out of three

I feel embarrassed to comment but if I were my own partner it could have gone 2NT-6NT :) - because my 2NT (19-20 + 15 =6NT) Hopefully more like the auction at the top, although I would likely have bid 3H - I appreciate you don't have to force at that stage - hopefully - but is it not regarded as the strongest option?? Curiously one of the Acol refs I am reading (since I am a bit rusty) would have opened that 2C, possibly Been a while since I played Acol seriously with an real partner so I can't remember :)

I think it means the world is in a very sad place - the caliber of political options I have my own very cynical (and likely not unique) view on the function of democracy, and the way some like to keep conflict and distrust and some like to prevent it Some like to keep things extreme and some don't I'm no expert. It's just what I observe and have experienced. It's a sad way to control a planet I won't go any further on my views, for risks to my own safety and well-being EDITED out rather long boring rant about the world

I was going to say why limit yourself with 2 GF options Seems the thread has progressed already :)

Thx It was an exciting ride that one Who needs theme parks :lol: No Ace of diamonds but lets keep going :rolleyes: Ironically, despite the anxiety over not having the Ace of diamonds the cueing of those second round controls was good - and I was happy with 6 spades :lol:

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|thepossum,~~M17989,~~M17987,~~M17988|md|2SAKQ95HAJTDKCAQ52,S864HK97653DQ94C4,SJ732HQDA876CKJ96,STH842DJT532CT873|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%204|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|mb|2C|an|Strong%20two%20club%20--%2019+%20HCP;%2023+%20total%20points;%20forcing%20to%202N|mb|P|mb|2D|an|2D%20bid%20waiting%20--%2011-%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points;%20forcing%20to%202N%20|mb|P|mb|2S|an|Opener%27s%20suit%20--%205+%20!S;%2019+%20HCP;%2023+%20total%20points;%20forcing%20to%203S|mb|P|mb|3S|an|3+%20!S;%2011-%20HCP;%205-12%20total%20points;%20forcing%20|mb|P|mb|4C|an|Cue%20bid%20--%205+%20!S;%20!CA;%2025+%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|5C|an|Cue%20bid%20--%201+%20!D;%201+%20!H;%203+%20!S;%2011-%20HCP;%20!CK;%20no%20!DA;%20no%20!HA;%206-12%20total%20points;%20forcing%20|mb|P|mb|5H|an|Cue%20bid%20--%201+%20!D;%205+%20!S;%20!CA;%20no%20!DA;%20!HA;%2025+%20total%20points;%20forcing|mb|P|mb|6H|an|Cue%20bid%20--%202+%20!C;%202+%20!D;%201+%20!H;%203+%20!S;%2011-%20HCP;%20!CQ,no%20!CAK;%20no%20!DAK;%20!HK,no%20!HA;%2010-12%20total%20points;%20forcing%20|mb|P|mb|6S|an|1+%20!D;%205+%20!S;%20!CA;%20no%20!DA;%20!HA;%2025+%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|7S|an|2+%20!C;%202+%20!D;%201+%20!H;%203+%20!S;%2011-%20HCP;%20!CQ,no%20!CAK;%20no%20!DAK;%20!HK,no%20!HA;%2011-12%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|C4|pc|C6|pc|C3|pc|CA|pc|S5|pc|S4|pc|SJ|pc|ST|pc|S2|pc|D2|pc|S9|pc|S8|pc|SQ|pc|S6|pc|S3|pc|H2|mc|13|]400|300[/hv] Completely bypassed its Ace of diamonds - thought I was on for 0%

Back to another earlier discussion point about whether zero is an even number in RKCB But the void does appear to be useful :) I know GiB only promises some void - no promise of being useful - but in this case