pilowsky

A lot of people make this statement: "religion in the (insert your favourite Country) is in decline." It simply isn't true. Regular church attendance is lower - that's for sure. Belief is as strong as ever. You only have to watch the way people play bridge to understand that Hope is still well and truly alive. When Americans say "anyone (born in America) can become President". They really believe it. What they mean is that if they close their eyes and imagine a hairy white man in long robes and ask him nicely then their son/daughter + a bit of money will get into Harvard. I know it sounds crazy but a solid 20-30% of the population worldwide actually believe this stuff. Even when someone who is clearly as thick as a stick, can't string a coherent sentence together, is a known adulterer, is an obvious con-artist etc etc. agrees to pander to their desire to ban abortion and move the US embassy to Jerusalem that's fine with them. The good Lord will take care of everything else. Unfortunately, what happens is while this maniac is rubbing his legs together and sacking the Treasury with his cronies, the Climate is destroyed strange disease-carrying animals enter the human food chain and a pandemic starts causing the economy to be destroyed. I hope that makes it a bit clearer for you. When Marx said religion is the opiate of the masses he meant that literally. To which I would add television is the new opiate. Religion and television are both neurotoxins in the true pharmacological sense of the term. Any time spent engaged in them is time lost doing something useful. You can add non-mind sports to that list as well. Especially golf - you don't even get fit with golf - it's just walking around - except with Trump - he uses a Buggy . As for leadership that's definitely not the problem. The problem is at the other end. There is a structural problem with American society that does not exist in other 1st world countries. It's as though they're playing Whist while the rest of the world moved on to Bridge 100 years ago. It's time for America to wake up.

Wow, now I see it. Amazing.

just checked- it seems it was working but with a long delay.

Here's what I think fwiw AMERICA IS A FAILED STATE Introduction In 1992 Francis Fukuyama proposed in the 'The end of history and the last man' that western democratic liberalism had triumphed over Marxism-Leninism as a form of government. The election of the manifestly incompetent Donald J. Trump to the office of President of the United States of America proved him wrong. This election was only possible because of the Constitution of the United States. This document was put together hundreds of years ago before the existence of the aeroplane, statistics, quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, flight, radar, computing, science and medicine. Yet, elected officials in the United States revere both the document and those that wrote it as "Great men". They talk about them as if they had handed down the ten commandments: they didn't. To suggest that the American constitution has any sort of current validity and is of any use in the modern world is patently ridiculous. Yet neither group wants to touch it. It is a Sacred Object. As Sacred as any Holy text. This problem of the Constitution being considered Sacred raises the other problem. Fully 68% of the American population believe that a God exists. This means that more than two-thirds of the population are willing to defy rational explanations and logic and instead turn to gut feelings and "oh well, I just have to get on with it" explanations. This is the sort of reasoning that the bible advises us to get rid of when we become adults. It's right there: passed down from father to son. It's fine to believe in Santa Claus when you are 2 years old. Not when you are 22. A mysterious 20-foot octopus did not create the world and neither did a man in a white coat. You make the world by your actions. So be careful with it. That is what the advice in the Bible means passed down from father to son over the Millenia. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Corinthians I:11 Rights in America Then, we get to "self-evident rights". What a load of bullshit. At one time Americans thought it was a self-evident right that white men should own black men. And that women should not vote. It may interest you to know that for the past 18 months I have disciplined myself never to say to anyone that they "should" do anything. Nor do I aver that any particular method is the only correct way of doing anything. This seems to me to be the sure path to tyranny that America started upon when a bunch of arrogant white men declared that they knew the difference between right and wrong by saying that certain "things" were "self-evident" rights. Why for example is gun-ownership a self-evident right? This makes no more sense than the right to wear Lycra or to eat an apple on June 15. Why is there a right to free speech? This is complete rubbish. You cannot say whatever you want without bearing any individual or corporate responsibility for the meaning of the words that you say. I am exhausted from hearing Aide-de-Trumps constantly saying "He was only joking" about things that Trump himself threatens to lock people up or file suit for. Political groups in America There are two main political groups in America - just as there are in most so-called democratic societies. Just setting aside that it is a ludicrous assertion to refer to a Society as ruptured, unfair, racially divided, segregated and gerrymandered as the United States as Democratic. Vast swathes of the population are unable to access the vote, health care, education or housing. A vast machine of entertainment in the form of religion, sports and social media serves to anaesthetise nearly all of the population while a fortunate bloated few live high on the hog. If America was not a myopic anodyne dystopia before Trump and COVID-19 surely the blinkers are off now. Raya, a Jewish colleague of mine who left the Soviet Union at the time of Gorbachev told me, when I asked, that glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) were not good for Soviet Jews. She said "It just means they can be open about their antisemitism". She said this to me 40 years ago - it's the reason so many Jews left the Soviet bloc in the 1980's. The Soviets didn't complain at all. The United States is no better. The only difference is they are completely unabashed and unashamed of their hatred of everybody. Why was Dirty Harry called Dirty Harry? Not because he got all the rotten jobs - that was the Last detective. No, Dirty Harry's was an equal opportunity bigot. De Georgio: Harry hates everybody. Limeys, Micks, Hebes, Fat Dagos, N*ggers, Honkies, Chinks, you name it. Gonzales: How does he feel about Mexicans? De Georgio: Ask him. Harry Callahan: Especially Spics. I have sad news for you. I'm sure that you can still see this piece of wonderful entertainment any day of the week. Thank you, America for preserving free speech (and guns) in the name of entertainment. Truth in America In the American legal system, the truth is completely unimportant. Everyone is entitled to a good defence. Specifically, because of the 4th and 5th amendments Americans have the right not to incriminate themselves, and also have the right to counsel. These principles have become perverted. Now, not saying anything when questioned may be deemed to be suspicious, and if you retain counsel that that is incompetent while someone else retains crafty counsel then you are doomed. Effectively, the more money that you have the more Justice you have and the more truth you get. Until: E Pluribus Unum (from many comes one) you get a President who is 100% truthful all of the time and nobody can touch him even when he is a lying totalitarian who cares nothing about anybody else and never speaks the truth if it serves his purpose not too. Lawyers in America are trained this way. Worse still Americans are anaesthetised by endless television shows into believing that this is a reasonable way of acting. Governance in America There is now no effective system of governance in America. At least in the sense that Fukuyama claimed. The Constitutional framework of governance is so fragmentary that it resembles the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Politicians claim that there are three equal pillars of government. They are wrong. There is no effective government in America. Government is the people. From the people and by the people. In America, vast numbers of people are disenfranchised for many reasons. There are so many levels of government that each blames the other while none achieve what they are meant to. Federally, the Supreme Court, the Executive Branch, and the Congress are intended to be "Co-equal". This is complete nonsense as current events have demonstrated. Because so many members of the various parliaments and councils in America have a pre-scientific belief system, they do not understand logical thinking. They don't read books, they watch television. They believe in miracles and God's will. Such people cannot be reasoned with, it is like trying to convince a gate to open by sheer force of mental energy. It can't be done. This is why COVID-19 is such a disaster in the United States. The people in charge do not believe in science. Meanwhile, in the government, nothing can be done because each branch of government is exactly co-equal. In a normal civilised society, the Executive branch is responsible to the Parliament which represents the people. Remember the people? That's right, "we the people", the fourth arm of government, the ones that are really in charge. And not to forget, the fifth arm, the media in all its forms represented as "free speech" which is the only mechanism by which the people can at all times relate their feelings to the other 4 branches at all times. Never before in the history of Society has the 5th branch been so strong and so ignored. What is a 'constructive sense'? What do I mean by a constructive sense? Not the same thing as a bridge or engineering. But almost. A 'construct' is something that is made up and exists only in the mind as opposed to a 'real' thing that exists independently of the mind. A tree exists whether you are there or not, but a song does not. A song requires a mind for its existence. The same is true of God. That is why God is said to be made in the 'image' of man. Not because he looks like a man - that is what a child might think. But because he exists in the imagination of men (and women). God requires, as a concept, man/woman to construct him/her or it otherwise there is no God. This is why animals have no souls. They cannot construct God in the way that humans do, yet they can feel pain and should be treated with respect. God requires 'imagination' just like the song called 'Imagine' by John Lennon. If you do not exist, then neither does God. Why Fukuyama was wrong Fukuyama was wrong because he failed to realise that America is not a triumph. The so-called democracy in America is a complete catastrophe. Evil flourishes. The social contract is completely unfulfilled. The top one per cent of Americans holds over $25 trillion in wealth, which exceeds the wealth of the bottom 80 per cent. This is outrageous. 27.5 million Americans lack adequate health cover. A person can be ruined financially in America if they become sick. In a post-modern world knowledge and facts are not valuable. What is valuable is 'likes', 'shares' and 'crowd-size'. Tragically, these things may be collectible, but like sporting trophies, they are meaningless. They have no tradeable value. Commercially they are worthless. They are not valuable. Who needs your 'likes' except you? This is the fundamental flaw of any system that has popularity as its touchstone. There is no intrinsic sense of ethics or worth. So long as a large enough group of people 'like' and 'share' your 'ideas'. They are 'important' and valuable. Prima facie, this is just manifestly silly, but despite this, both Donald Trump and before him Adolf Hitler both were elected by so-called democratic systems - obviously, something is not quite right. And that's an understatement. Just saying. In William Goldings 'Lord of the Flies' a group of children are marooned on a desert island and left to fend for themselves. The story is a thinly disguised parable about the colonisation of New World. It's successes: Australia, Canada, New Zealand. And its most abject heart of darkness Donald Trumps America. One clue that a nation has become a failed state is that its head is a facsimile of reality. In America, this has happened multiple times with the election, in quick succession of Trump, Reagan and Schwarzenegger. It turns out that despite what you may think, it takes more than just belief and dreams to run a Country. You also need training. You actually have to know what you are doing. But that's just my opinion...

Fascinating, thanks. I'm not a good player (as you know), but I have noticed that bidding NT with a singleton is an effective anti-bot tactic - more commonly with an honour I must admit. I'll look over the line more carefully. Regarding leads, I find that GIB tends to make passive leads more often when it has no clues from the bidding. But that's just a guess - I haven't tested that formally.

In which I bid a makeable 2NT with a singleton, claim after playing the ♣K get rejected, then dejectedly play out my remaining winners only to see the ♣J fall and think that GIB has made a mistake. And then realise I made a simple squeeze. Ending 2NT-1 for 81.5% and still getting a lousy overall score. Here's the link, and the hand. [hv=pc=n&s=saq98hkq86dtcakq8&w=sk62hj73d9865c942&n=s743ht954dj742c76&e=sjt5ha2dakq3cjt53]399|300[/hv]

But deals that I uploaded yesterday are accessible. Not very helpful though...

Well, that's odd because I just tried it and it worked fine :) Edit 12:28 Australian Eastern Standard time - Bill's right - it's broken - uploads are not working now.

It's a quirk of the interface. The deals have uploaded. You simply have to click out of the folder then click back into it! Hey, presto Your deals are there.

The hand is from an ACBL robot tournament - oddly, the ACBL GCC is meant to apply, although GIB is presumably its old USA 2/1.

As always, Mr Cyberyeti is right again. Here is a hand that the East robot opened against in a recent tournament. K&R rates East as 12.3 I tried to interfere but pushed them into a makeable 3♣ contract for -1.67. [hv=pc=n&s=sq9643hk5d754caj2&w=skt87hj962dk92ck9&n=sj5hq874daqjt63ct&e=sa2hat3d8cq876543&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1c2sdp3cppp]399|300[/hv] Here's the solved hand. The top board went to someone South who managed to scrape 3NT out of it: that would not have been me.

As it turns out, I made some money, but not all of it! The best bid was 4♥ making. I was worried - not unreasonably given the way GIB bids IMO - that if I doubled I would end up in an unmakeable 5♥ contract. So, basically, I laid in the bed that I'd made for myself.

The ACBL (and all the other organisations) manufacture them wholesale, like the Royal Mint, then retail them to Clubs. Clubs charge players an entry fee for the competition. At the end of the competition, the top players (number varies wildly) get masterpoints. There's even a fixed exchange rate for BBO masterpoints v ABF masterpoints. I think it's 3.5:1. Masterpoints are like currency except that you accumulate them like barnacles and you can't trade them in for anything useful. Like every other trophy in sport, all you can do is put it on the bookshelf, look at it and say Hmmm. They have no intrinsic value to society. Nobody else wants them. They won't save lives. At the end of the day, they don't really say anything about the instantaneous ability of the player. That's why a relatively weak pair can win against a strong pair on any given day. Given a combination of the time of day, a hangover and corked red wine. On the other hand, in a challenge format against robots, it's a much leveller playing field. Assuming that both humans have had some practice playing robot Bridge. But that's a whole different discussion. The reason that more masterpoints are available in different tournaments is either because: The quality of the candidature is considered to be higher at the startThe entry fee is higher. ACBLThe number of entrants is large - Daylongs.Some combination of the above. Mr Wang explained that to me after we went through the equations and finished lunch. It still doesn't make them more useful to man, woman or beast. But people like you and me will still collect them I guess. So, you do need masterpoints (or something similar) to enter. If masterpoints didn't exist, nobody would turn up. Personally, I think there should be ratings. I think masterpoints are well pointless - see above.

The world has gone to the dogs - that's for sure. The robots never complain about my bidding or play. Mind you I've typed a few choice words into the chat - but they never reply.

Hi, there are many ways to save a hand. Let's start with the easiest. After you play the hand,Click on the History tab.You should see a list of the hands you played.Click on the hand you want to save.Now you will see the hand with the number at the top left and three white lines on the right. - click the three white lines - a menu appears.Click 'export'These are the save options - you can get a 'handviewer link' that you can copy and paste into an email/spreadsheet or document to look at later. or you can 'save deal as' - this will put it into an archive folder that you open later. I use the first method most of the time. There are many other tricks. Is that what you wanted?

A real problem with Bridge is the independent calibration of player ability. Masterpoints have nothing to do with strength - neither do rankings. Masterpoints are basically entry tickets to competitions so that players can test themselves against other players. Rankings are a sort of moving average of skill with variable decay time. A player might play a single hand with extraordinary skill and panache. The next hand you might think the same person was a walking brainstem. That's why every other sport, without exception, uses a rating system. But, Bridge players know better. What can I say?

I'm not sure what the purpose of the 2♥ bid is. West knows that his partner is a passed hand with <11 HCP and South has opened. West has 9 HCP. I would call 2♥ a lead-reminding bid. Which seems to be what happened, it reminded West to lead a heart. To be useful, albeit risky I would bid 3♥. At least this might give opps pause for thought. I always do this against experts (I'm not an expert), because Mike Lawrence recommends it in his book "Judgement at Bridge 2". Mainly not vul. v vul. where it's safer. Since it's clearly preemptive, and partner is a passed hand, and it's ♥ v ♠ I'm feeling fairly safe. It's also much safer with robots - they don't criticise you afterwards. Edit: And just to put my money where my mouth is I bid it vul. with this hand.

Items 9 and 10 are what I'm getting at. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with BBO. I'm sure it'll become perfect in the summer when the heat arrives. Like a miracle.

There's rudeness, and there's silliness. This sounds like someone with the mental age of a 12-year-old. If it was real life I would offer them a dog biscuit and walk away. PS - that's scorn.

Agree

The final instalment:

My propensity for bidding 1NT on anything that looks promising between 14 and 18 against GIB seems to pay dividends in the long run, but as you have noticed, my card play hasn't caught up yet. This one also caught me out - another makeable 4♥ that I missed and only just worked out. I think it relies on a good knowledge of suit combinations. and card memory. [hv=pc=n&s=s43hadat53cakt972&w=saj5hk4dkj972c865&n=sqt92hqj87532dcj3&e=sk876ht96dq864cq4&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=p1np4dp4hppp]399|300[/hv] At least I figured this one out myself - finally! And just to show that there is some justice in the world, someone else did bid and made it in a slightly different way! This board came immediately before the Bots went nuts and gave me 10 IMP's. Here it is.

And so, that's how pilowsky beat some real experts and some other people and why he doesn't think he knows much about Bridge...yet.

Well, 3 people found a better spot than me and came equal second - here's how they bid it. for 8.68 IMP's [hv=d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp2sp3sp4np6hp6sppp]133|100[/hv][hv=d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1s2cdp6hp6sppp]133|100[/hv][hv=d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1dp1s2cdp6sppp]133|100[/hv] 1st prize anyone?

He didn't: Pilowsky is new to the game. He only makes these posts when he can't figure it out - or if he thinks it's pretty funny. His Mother also thought he was trying.