pilowsky

The question of what should I open with has been puzzling me for a while. "Do not open the bidding if you have fewer than 13 points. Including a minimum of two top tricks." William S. Root. 1970 "The truth is that in any one club system 1♦ is something of a moveable feast It takes care of not only of hands in the 12-15 range which contain…". Terence Reese. 1975 Reese gives 5 examples. HCP(13,14,14,13,13). Interestingly None of his examples contains 12! More recently the number has sunk to 11 or 12 depending on system seat, vulnerability, time of day etc. BBO was developed in 1990. The 2/1 system from OKbridge uses an opening strength of 12. Over the last few days, I have been trying to learn shapes and probabilities better. It turns out that you will get the following: HCP percentage of the time cumulative probability 10. ccccccc 9.4 ccccccccccccc ccccccccccccc 56.2 11 ccccccc 8.9 ccccccccccccc ccccccccccccc 65.2 12 ccccccc 8.0 ccccccccccccc ccccccccccccc 73.2 13 ccccccc 6.9 ccccccccccccc ccccccccccccc 80.1 These data suggest that 65% of the time you will get a hand with less than 11 HCP. If we were to follow the pre-1975 Standards 85% of hands might be passed out. Was Bridge a different game then? Computers did not exist in 1975. Does this mean that it might be reasonable to lower the bar to as little as 10HCP? Currently, with the bar at a solid 12, nearly 3/4 of the time you will not have an opening hand. If you add in strictures such as I must have exactly15-17 HCP and no 5CM to open 1NT (definitely not me) you would very rarely open 1NT. At one point I wondered about a system of opening 2♣ to indicate fewer than 5 HCP if I was in First seat. At least then everyone else would know that they did not have to worry about me. Kindness personified.

I do not work here, but this is what I have learned so far.That is correct. Each board is exported into a folder one at a time. First, go to deal archive and click the '+' to add a new folder. Click on the pencil and then change the name of the new 'untitled folder' to something like 7Aug2020. Click on the 'tick sign to complete the change. Now you can add hands to the folder one at a time. Click on the hand, then on the three white lines in the top right corner. Hit the menu item 'export' 'save deal as' Change the title of the deal to something meaningful eg 6CN board4 and scroll to the folder that you just made and click it. Your hand is now safe. Here is the tiny URL of the hand that I just saved doing this. https://tinyurl.com/y5tr29tb I think that it was possible to export entire sets of hands into folders. This functionality went when BBO moved to HTML. This works well for single hands. If you want whole groups of hands then you can copy and paste the tournament results, Or you can go to BBO hand records. The active links will allow you to find the hands. There is a lot more available as well.

I recently started playing high encourage. Now I almost reflexly discard the highest of equivalent cards if only to remind myself that all the cards in the suit are 'top'. Just today I recall discarding Ace from AQT after the J fell under the K. It was quite comforting to win the T over the 9 at the end. My understanding of GIB is that they use RC to prevent really clever people from figuring out where the Honour is. This is useful if you are working out the German tank holding in WW2, but probably not that common amongst the average Bridge-player - by which of course I mean me. Not you.

You are right Dr msjennifer - the ROBOT must have misclicked. I shall write a stern letter to the management - in triplicate. Thank you for the advice re the HK, I will do that instead.

It's interesting that you say that. My impression from playing chess is that an accurate rating system has the opposite effect. People know where they stand regarding ability at the game (if nothing else). It is a deterrent to rudeness. The two things seem to be completely unrelated. The moment competition is introduced, rudeness will appear. When 'points' and 'money' are involved greed and awful behaviour ensues: it's a lethal cocktail for humans. Psychologically, the smaller the stake the nastier people become. This is a well-known phenomenon. It happens because people can easily understand small amounts. (The Law and the Profits - C Northcote Parkinson)

From the 2♠ bid I played West for the ♥J - but yes, I was feeling pretty smug . Also, I just discovered that the 'y' at the end of my name was a clerical error on my Father's birth certificate - Nige1. So I'll just have to lyve with it. c'est la vye.

13 people made 3NT+1 for 430 and 70%. I found 4♥-2 but it is makeable with a nice (imo) ending. Here's the hand. [hv=pc=n&s=sqjhq987dq4cakj84&w=s75hj532daj32c972&n=skt6haktdkt8765c6&e=sa98432h64d9cqt53&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1d2sdp3dp4cp4hppp]399|300[/hv] Here's the moment where it's makeable but I stuffed it up. South to play and make 4 more tricks.[hv=pc=n&s=shqdqcaj84&w=sh3dj32c97&n=skhdkt876c&e=s432hdcqt3]399|300[/hv] Edit - yes 5

What 'sense' did you use to determine this?

Robot individuals. Challenge games. Although the robots take a bit of getting used to, and they sometimes do some unexpected things in bidding and play, at least everyone else suffers in exactly the same way. Some humans lie, cheat and deceive. This is because some humans believe that masterpoints = talent. They have no moral compass.

I was not the author of the material - as I pointed out - there is an expectation that when a person publishes material, the source will be attributed to them when it is reproduced. This is especially so when the original person has put their name on every page and added the copyright symbol. What happened, in this case, is that the offender copied the material added their own name with "Free lessons with "___" at the top removed the name of the author and the copyright symbol and then produced in hard copy the lessons. Dozens of times. The person then proceeded to read out the lessons - badly - while complaining about the content. It could not have been more obvious that this person was not the author. Only later when I left the Club did I discover where the material was plagiarised from. This may be OK with you. In my world, it is not.

It is important if you are the person (not me) whose copyright teaching material is being stolen from the web then copied hundreds of times without your name on it and used as if you (this other person) had created it. This is called theft of intellectual property. Large companies can seek remedy, But the average 'Joe' can do nothing. It is morally wrong because the person in question is using the material to increase the profitability of their organisation and enhance their job security.

Rusted on defender of GIB that I am I find this cunning play hard to fathom. My colleague the North robot opens 3♣ - He's got 7 and East bids 3♠. With a 2♣, a 9 card fit and 14 total points I optimistically bid 4♣ hoping to push them into 4♠. West obliges. I am scared to double so I pass. I lead the ♣7. Here's the hand as played by me. It's 7431. I know it, East knows it. Why can't North put up the Ace? Where did I go wrong? [hv=pc=n&s=s32hak973daj87c73&w=skq96hj54dq65cqt8&n=s85ht86d9cak96542&e=sajt74hq2dkt432cj&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=3c3s4c4sppp&p=c7c8]399|300[/hv] 7 - 8 - 9[clubs ]!!! What is it that makes the lead of the ♥A or K so much better? Any advice on the best actions in the bidding or lead appreciated.

I do understand the concept of 'minimal disclosure'. Then you arrive at another difficulty. What is sufficient disclosure for every individual person? Every language has its 'codes'. Shorthand signalling methods save time where time is short. It is not 'your time' Time does not belong to you. On a ward round the junior doctor starts by saying "Here is Mr Jones a 61-year-old man who woke at 6 am with central chest pain radiating to his jaw". The doctor then talks for 5 more minutes. All the other doctors know that they are listening to a story about someone who has had a heart attack because of that first sentence. The patient who is not a doctor does not. Mr Jones is not a doctor. He does not speak the code. In Bridge, special bids are alerted and their meanings are supposed to be clarifiable within a range to prevent damage. In a timed game you ask, take your answer, use the information and at the end if the Director considers that you were damaged an appropriate adjustment can be made. 1. Complete misinformation was provided. Damage 2. reasonable information was provided that you misconstrued. no Damage 3. and so on This is what a Director does - they adjudicate, they referee, they review, they apply their knowledge and judgement. "It ain't nothin' till I call it." Bill Klem Play on

There are reasons why someone might enter a tournament under multiple usernames. They would need to be very narcissistic. By which I mean they would have to want masterpoints for the sake of having masterpoints even if they had no talent. It might work this way. A person - with money of course - enters a paid daylong tournament using multiple identities. They do poorly with all but one identity. This increases their chances of gaining masterpoints. Increasing the number of participants inflates the number of masterpoints available to the field so they win both ways. It's a bit like buying lots of lottery tickets. Simultaneously pointless and stupid. In the old days before computers. Rich people simply paid poor but talented people to be their bridge partners. https://observer.com/2013/11/million-dollar-hobby-inside-the-world-of-big-money-bridge/ Bad writers have ghostwriters. Bad Bridge teachers steal good teachers material from the web and claim it as Free lessons with (___). Fraudulent and unethical behaviour is everywhere. Some people call it being 'smart'. I call it being as cunning as a gold-toothed rat. There are other names.

http://www.bridgebase.com/tourneyhistory/

Do you have the same problem when you play on your cellphone? Have you checked the 'outages' map for your provider in your area?

I have multiple monitors (and computers) but use only one login. On one screen I have seen players observing themselves on twitchTV while playing in an IMPS tournament or in a Team match. This means that in an 8 board "Host: bboadmin" robot duplicate tournament which takes ~30 minutes to complete, some of the competitors are watching this live TV show and observing the play of one of the players hands while listening to the persons commentary. At the same time, Other people are in the same room preparing cups of tea for the host and also commenting and playing the same hands. This means that within a tournament of 8+ people 4-5 are part of this twitchTV group and the rest are not. Chat is happening on a sidebar. On a separate occasion, I observed the same pair playing a match against another pair in a different country who were also observing themselves (as well as this pair) on their own separate twitchTV channel. I began to wonder if the hands were being played, quadruple dummy! ethical/bizarre/odd/hilarious I gave up and did something else.

You are misunderstanding the difference between sets of continuous (KS) and discontinuous (G-test) groups. The G-test has been around for more than 40 years. It replaces Chi-square for larger groups.

The correct test is the G-test for independence, not the KS. But you have to know about statistics to know that.

If you are playing in a best hand game with robots, then definitely 2♥: Soloway strong jump shift and go from there. Control bid to show void etc. Not much to go on. You have 18+ Does North really have 5♦?

It's ridiculous - otherwise apparently normal 70+-year-old men fighting over seats on a Wednesday night. My friends regular Wednesday partner, Perry used to race in early to the Club to grab the North seat on Table 14 so that Chaim couldn't get it. C. Northcote Parkinson and FM Cornford wrote about in the civil service and academia respectively. (names changed for no particular reason)

Shyams, recruit your other brain cell into the conversation. Here is how Richard attempted to impress us with his astonishing CV in an earlier post: "The job that I held before this one was the product manager for MATLAB's statistics system The job that I currently hold is Principle Data Scientist at Akamai" I just thought it was a delightful choice of words for such a highly-strung man of principles - or perhaps Akamai looks after value systems and Richard really is in control of all of them WTF do I really care. Maybe Akamai is where Trump should go to buy some Ethics. If Richard is the Data Scientist for principles I'm sure he could give him some really significant ones. I'm reminded of Ryan O'Neal telling his daughter that he had scruples in Paper Moon. She replies "I don't know what they are but if you've got them you stole them from someone else". smerriman has told me not to put in large blocks of text so if you want to find out about me you can use Mr Google.

I am agreeing with you. I also liked Freebird when I was 12 years old. I liked them when I was 62 years old. It was only last week when I had cause in the context of this discussion about BLM, confederate statues and so forth to change my mind. It has absolutely nothing to do with you at all. I never make ad hominem attacks although - like you - I certainly feel the need to sometimes. Good humoured ripostes seem to work best.

Hitler was a vegetarian. But on the whole, being a genocidal murderer makes home not good and I don't like him. My family would still be alive in Poland if it wasn't for him. Donald Trump does not drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes as far as I know. but he failed to listen to good advice and as a result, thousands of people died needlessly in the current pandemic. Nazi doctors performed experiments on human subjects that allegedly resulted in the collection of data that was used to save the lives of German soldiers. Simply because some people have a 'skill' in an area that someone else finds admirable or just because they believe that what they are doing is in a 'good cause'. does not make it admirable. What is admirable about being the world champion at Bridge if your partner has a heart attack and you do not know basic first aid. If you consider the producers to be 'dumb' or do not understand why Southern Rock in the USA may not be all that great or why the 3rd Reich was a bad thing, then your moral compass may need re-alignment. By the way, most 'pop/rock is all the same - just listen to . Or . There is nothing impressive about being paid large amounts of money for doing nothing productive at all.

your spelling hasn't improved, neither has your knowledge of statistics. At least you are a man of principals.