aray

This reminds me of the famous anti percentage finess of ♣ Q by Bochhi in the world championship against USA very recently. We all agreed and appreciated the line of play because he needed a swing. For arguments sake, if an USA player would have alleged the same way that Bochhi's parner signalled where ♣ Q is what would have happened? Without an agreement of whether someone saw the cards or not, is there a mathematical % defined as a threshold that if your % falls below that and you win then there is a case of cheating? It can be very well the fact, that the appeal body is right. But the law demands evidence and simply because a suspected line of action was an winning line, can not punish one. Never before a single isolated incidence was picked to punish a pair. In absence of evidence, the match could have been declared null and void, but the punishment looks amazing. In every game there are some disliked players and people wait to take action against them. Their success troubles others. Similar thing has happenned in Cricket against Saurav Ganguly, I suspect may be this pair was also not liked by others and may be even in their country? And lastly, is it legal for a dummy to look into the defender's card? If it is not, why did not the the defender called director before the game was over and waited till he saw the contract made?

I do not have the guts to challenge Mr. Convention (CSDENMARK). Who knows the year 2005 version of DONT? But yes Elianna, linking DONT with 2/1 appears a completely new concept!!

I am afraid you are not in the minority. However when you read forum comments, it definitely appears so. It is because majority of forum posters are persons who pass their maximum available free time only in bbo, it is a vritual club for them and so besides playing bridge bbo is also a forum for them to interact with others, make friends and share opinions etc. And for obvious reasons these social players will not want a gradation which would divide BBO. However beyond the regular forum users, there is a vast majority of regular bbo users who are serious bridge players and would like to see rating system. (we can not ignore equivalent popularity of a competitive online bridge site among serious tournament players, whether it is aligned with bbo goal is altogether different). However these players hardly use forum or hardly bother to let thier voice heard. I do not have stats to support the above, but may be a figure like how many gold stars (excluding yellow) use the forum would be good stat to prove my point. Again the result of majority/minority would probably be strictly dependent on number of social/tournament bridge players in BBO and it may be that the former is a majority because of the free nature of BBO, however I am sure the later is also of significant volume.

Do not know if anyone will ever read the post now after such a long time but can not resit my desire to comment on after reading all the threads. Hope I will not be hammerred by the same guy, who has so badly tried to attack another person just because he does not like his opinion!! 1. There is absolutely nothing to complain about BBO. This is the most wonderful thing one can get free of cost and this has undoubtedly revolutionalised online bridge (with or without rating) 2. It is understood that rating system would cause various problems but somone should accept that there are controls to check issues like cheating. I believe it is impractical to ask for those controls to be in place in a free site because that demands for additonal effort and associated cost. 3. But a player with good rating not being willing to play with a player of inferior rating should be a non issue to be discussed. Will Fred play with me in a NABC tourney? when the answer is no and it is perfectly ok, it should be the same in online as well. There are social players and serious players and online bridge should serve both the communities. Forum comments is not a true reflection of BBO community, purely because of the low % that use forum. 4. We should also try to accept the fact that the rating system in paid tourneys are no way flawless and it is probably a commercial compulsion inevitable to do such an wonderful job like BBO. 5. We as bridge players should know and believe by heart that a very few % of bridge players are cheaters anyway. I must repeat that there are very few. There are majority of players like me who use BBO ti imporve their game and would be happy to have a scientifc comparison with rest of the players and it hardly matters if the dataum is not that perfect because of 5% people who cheated. 6. Online bridge though popular is far far away to replace real life tournments. Everyone knows that you may have a .9/1 rating in a bridge site but if you are a dog in real life, you remain there. So, do not think there would be any undue importance to rating. Offcourse there are some players like one of my friend who said to me that some national champion in India is not a good bridge player because his abalucy rating is below .5 (with due respect to abalucy rating system and the standard of play), but there are many more like me and my friends who laughed at him. Again I must restate, none of these are written to demand a rating system at BBO, because BBO has given us so many things without asking that I can not really demand anything. But it is just posted to make us think of the other side of the coin and understand that rating system is not so bad afterall. Rating system would probably not spoil the fun in BBO more than it does sometimes when you choose an expert partner who can not count!!

since 2♥ is game frocing, unless partner is mad enough to jump over my 2♠, it is the right rebid. if partner now rebids 3♣ i bid 3♥ and if he continues over that with 3♠ me 3nt showing semi stop over his 3♦ again same and over 3♠ bid 3nt to calrify semi stop. I do not understand since when 2♠ rebid is 6 carder. If any chnace i have a good 6 card ♠ suit, i might have rebid it without biding 2♦ anyway.

Really surprising where all those ♠ gone. Looks like partner is 3-4-5-1 or may be 3-3-5-2 (if this, then high strength) and 3-3-4-3(then super strength to take action with such flat hand). also i have seen people opening weak 2 with 7 card and so partner can be 2-4-5-2 as well. With all these I need ♥A, K ♦ K and ♣ A with p to make slam which is nothing but the minimum partner must have. While playing with my partner I would brust to 6♦, while playing with someone I do not have agreement but believe is a good player will cue 4♠ (do not care if it means ace or void as long as i show willingness for 6). But offcourse there are partners who double on any 12 point, where 5♦ is good enough. By the way no doubt, 3♦ response over double is too timid and 3♠ is the correct bid.

I guess all the comments are mostly influenced by seeing the hand . 3♣ is undoubtedly a bad bid. you are saying 5-4 with a 6-3 hand.. length difference of 3 actual and stated 1. offcourse very easy to find that in this hand it is easy after 3♣ but in many hands it would be a disaster if partner is allowed to exercise his mind. 2♣ is better than 3♣ as u get more chances to hide your bluff and correct the scenario. But stilll you can not pass the message properly and in a danger to be passed out because partner would be less inclined to play a 5 level contract with poor support in ♠. What about 3nt? it should show 18-20 and a 6 card ♠ suit (if u r not too old to not to open 1nt with 5 card major) but more prefereably a 6-3-2-2 hand and offcourse rules out 4♥ Auto splinter? in support of what?? if you think ♠ is the suit, you deserve to get more awful breaks than this hand. What about 2♥? with 4+♥ and something more than a dog, it is almost going to be alive by partner.. and it will not be jump supported (opener's 2nd suit can not be jump supported with 4 card). If partner bid 3♥, bid 3♠ to clarify or else if he bids 4♥ happy.. offcourse all these assume, you do not know the italian variation..

just because you told it is silly here is the justification: You have 8♦ and 4♠ which equal to 12 long suit points Diffrence between young longest suit ♦ and shortest suit (too short) ♣ is 8-0 =8 and so short suit or distributional point is 8 Total high card strength is 3+2+2+1=8. Nothing to be deducted. all working. so HCP point is =8 You have one control K =1. control point =1 So total 12+8+8+1=29 ZAR points which being > 26 qualifies for one opening.. Offcourse if your partner expects you to produce two defensive tricks and double on that assumption.. you better not open 1♦. Still then 3♦ means putting all the eggs in one basket.. better to pass and hope to jam the bidding later. Hope, this is not silly?

1♦ is perfect. What else in this hand? Well done rona