pilowsky

A law is a law is a law.

I have just looked at this well-intentioned document. Robin Barker is a mathematician. Gordon Rainsford is a sociologist, while Frances Hinden is also a mathematician. All highly skilled in their respective fields and clearly accomplished bridge players. But what are their qualifications for carefully drafting legal documents? Is it possible for the World Bridge Federation to form a Committee of appropriately qualified experts to draft a document? Such a committee might include players at all levels, lawyers, ethicists and key members from major regional authorities. The WBF was constituted in 1958 by a committee of white men. 'stale, pale and male': I really hope that we can do better this time as we move into a new era.

Except when playing against me. Then I get the best hand. But I play really badly so you will always win. Unless Tramticket is also playing - then it's a 50:50 proposition.

Panic ensued on the New York stock exchange today when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that a Chinese Tsunami Laboratory in Beijing had deliberately released a medium-range tsunami named Doris into the Atlantic Ocean near Greenland. "We believe the target was Manhattan, but the guidance system failed". The salt was sourced from North Korea and the printed circuit board was developed at a secret meteorological laboratory 12 meters above sea-level in Hunan. Water was collected surreptitiously from Shanghai drainpipes over a period of 13 years. Not many people know this, President Trump tweeted, but if we hadn't disbanded the Tsunami watch office from the Obama administration, they would be badly wet.

Whatever. The largest bridge 'club' 'centre' 'organisation' in the world, no matter how unresponsive or shabbily run at times, is BBO. I'm happy to keep supporting them.

The tournaments are called save your club not save the starving children. Attach a brain to your fingers.

Laying on of hands perhaps? We should thank our lucky stars!

I agree with nearly everything that you say, Brian. Except that I am still looking for something that is truly 'obvious'. The value of a rating is personal. It is not something for 'others'. The individual uses it as a learning tool to improve their game and to try and work out where their deficiencies lie. It is obvious that a lower-rated player will want to pair with or play against a higher rated player in order to improve. The same is true in chess. The reward structure is coincidentally the same for masterpoints with the important difference that in the masterpoint system there is no altruistic drive to assist the lower-rated player to improve. In bridge higher rated players only want to play with each other because masterpoints are not awarded below 50%. This implies that there is no skill at all below this point. The present masterpoint system, therefore, implies that no learning at all has occurred until a player has reached the equivalent of an Elo rating of 1600. This is the equivalent of a very strong club player in chess. It is hardly surprising that people find it difficult to encourage others to take up a sport where the disincentives are so strong, and the incentives so mild. A famous educator once remarked that the examination is the curriculum. This is a very clear example of that effect. This much is obvious to me. If BBO, or any RA, wants to give players (especially new players) a true sense of improvement they will award masterpoints on a scale that goes from 0 to 100%. There will be no change at all in who the best players are. It is still a logistic curve. But new players will gain calibration and a greater sense of satisfaction as they learn.

I suppose another advantage would be that it might assist Directors in seeding Swiss tournaments or in matching partners in walk-in tournaments - either Online or at Clubs. Masterpoints are generally not terribly helpful in this respect.

You have bigger problems than coronavirus.

Praise the Lord! Not disinfectant I hope?

I'm not sure if anyone cares much about this stuff, but I know that many of us come to bridge from a chess background and are more familiar with the Elo system of rating than the masterpoint system used in bridge. I am aware that discussions on this topic often generate a lot of heat and not much light, but I just came across a little spreadsheet that works in google sheets that easily allows one to convert your results in a daylong tournament into an Elo rating - for what it's worth. Here is an early result - chosen to be as embarrassing as possible to me! from a tournament with 1200 competitors player / percentage / Elo rating / Masterpoints Pilowsky 38 875 0 My friend 48 1375 0 The winner 81 3025 13.87 middle+1 53 1602 0.01 wooden spoon 9 0 0 ~fakebot National Master 55.5 1750 0.07 ~fakebot International Master 64.5 2200 3.07 ~fakebot international Grand Master 70.5 2500 9.51 Clearly, these are cross-sectional or instantaneous results. You don't get to take a 'title' with them. The 'winner', if they achieved the same result many times would no doubt be world champion. Is it useful? Not sure, In a way it may help to calibrate skill levels better than masterpoints which are simply cumulative. This approach tells me that there are certain aspects of my game that I should focus on to improve. It helps to increase awareness of incompetence as Professor Dunning would say.

On the topic of Partnerships - and 'stability' a word that we are all a bit wary of these days, This is probably the best (as defined by most fun) paper (1) that we ever discussed at a Journal club. One of my graduate students, who was famous for throwing 'grenades' into the lunchtime conversation, brought it along. I think that it has wide applicability to the question of partnerships in bridge. The paper discusses the behaviour of two types of rodent. The prairie vole and the meadow vole. The technical aspects of the paper are fascinating, but one interesting take-home message is that "The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is a socially monogamous, biparental rodent species in which both males and females may participate in philopatric cooperative breeding in the parental nest ". "In contrast, closely related meadow voles (M. pennsylvanicus) are promiscuous breeders with no formal social structure that show comparatively abbreviated, uniparental care of pups". I have often thought that partnerships in society come in many shapes and sizes. Bridge partnerships seem to be no different. There are monogamists, 'promiscuists' (to coin a word - meaning people that play with many partners) and even serial monogamists! I'm sure that you can think of many other types. 1) Burkett JP Andari E Johnson ZV Curry DC de Waal FBM Young LJ (2016) Science Oxytocin-dependent consolation behavior in rodents 351:6271; 375-378 DOI: 10.1126/science.aac4785

They mean your work is very tidy

I understand the problem. It's really annoying. Here's an easy solution. Just print this out and press ok every couple of minutes and then they'll know that you are there.

Good news everyone! things might be getting back to normal. This just arrived in my letterbox this morning. My first thought was How do these people wear masks?

Ty Barry :-)

Not so fast - I understand the virus will just go away in the hate - like a miracle...

Let's all hope they make a speedy recovery.

Sounds like 1st world problems to me. instead of 'puppet', 'I have hearts+spades', instead of Jacoby 2NT (who is Jacoby anyway) strong support in hearts or spades. What is it with bridge players and saying things that mean nothing. I sometimes write 'not enough points to bid' when I pass and alert that - takes no time at all. If u really want to go ott, your computer provides u with text shortcuts. or on a mac, it's under 'keyboard'. - I don't use windows so I can't guarantee the method described. Worth remembering when playing online (and in the Club) that opps will have a variety of skill levels, language levels and tolerance for my kind of humour (and spelling). This means that something that is obvious to you may not be to them. Remarks that may seem innocent to you may come across as unpleasant to another person. Just saying.

So you can see how useless this instruction is in online tournaments when at the start of a round Ops announce: we play Acol (or ACOL) or Precision or G__ knows what. All very well at a congress or perhaps a prolonged team match but this is clearly something that: "to my mind, though I am native here And to the manner born, it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance." Perhaps advanced players with complete knowledge of every nuance of every system will have no problem. I suspect that you are being a little optimistic.

Of course, why not Jesse Ventura. In most countries, qualifications for high office are valued but in America, retired professional wrestlers and actors seem to take pole (poll?) position: Trump, Reagan, Ventura, Schwarzenegger have I missed anyone? Of course, you can't be President unless you were born in America because the dynastic inheritance of political office is a bad thing. What a great system of government. No wonder Peter Sellers did such a great job in Being There.

Don't know for sure but he could get Mish Bailey as his running mate Mish/Amash What a team!!

That's a great idea. What is simple Acol?

I agree, retract what you said about thepossum