pilowsky

Good question. If a sub leaves a tournament and a tree falls in the forest do you hear the sound of one hand clapping?

Fair enough - for reasons that are unclear to me I am bombarded with emails from the DNC three times a day. They don't provide information, facts or policy: just requests for money. I don't know why - I've never lived in the USA for longer than a few weeks. I did try to purchase a mug once from the Obama campaign with his birth certificate printed on it but they refused because I'm a foreign person. Fortunately I was able to acquire one from a friend. Unfortunately I never get "real grassroots social media campaigns". If it's any consolation the right-wing political BS in the USA has infested Australia, but with any luck we'll turf them out in a few months. It's all very sad. The world's gone to s**t.

Possible - but that might have an adverse effect on your TCR or BCR. Of course you could play really, really, really ... until 2 other players quit which is all it takes to for the team match to auto-close. Not recommending such a course of action but I imagine others might.

The only conclusion I can draw is that because anyone can start a team match, some people just do it because they can. They then frantically advertise for random subs who get drawn into an often boring match that random people frequently withdraw from. This fantastically annoying state of affairs has been the subject of frequent criticism on this forum in the past with multiple people (including myself) begging for a change to the system so that a sub can specify which format they are available for. But like "Mrs McCave (who) had twenty-three sons and named them all Dave, it wasn’t a smart thing to do. But" they've done it and don't seem inclined to change. One solution would be to auto-sub in robots until the match spirals into the drain.

I'm still trying to get my head around the concept of a "fake social media campaign". What other type of social media campaign is there? You can read the whole article here. Levin also wrote a 300 page book in 2020 that includes a rather comprehensive analysis of the effect of Russian interference on the Clinton campaign - he appears to conclude that it caused the Trump win. No surprise there.

The irony of Putin complaining about the President of another country suggesting that there ought to be regime change in Russia at the same time as he is actually invading another country and shooting its citizens in an attempt to bring about regime change is mind-boggling. Imagine for a moment if America invaded Iraq and Russia suggested that Bush ought to be removed from power.

[hv=lin=st||pn|~~M46475,flacas1,Mstr2010,~~M46017|md|4SAKQT9H976542D7C4,S83HAK83DAQTCA732,SJ7654HQDJ532CT95,S2HJTDK9864CKQJ86|sv|n|rh||ah|Board%202|mb|P|mb|P|mb|1N|mb|P|mb|2S|mb|D|mb|3C|mb|P|mb|3S|mb|P|mb|3N|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|HQ|pc|HT|pc|H2|pc|HA|pc|H3|pc|C5|pc|HJ|pc|H5|pc|C6|pc|C4|pc|CA|pc|C9|pc|HK|pc|CT|pc|S2|pc|H7|pc|DA|pc|D2|pc|D4|pc|D7|pc|DQ|pc|D3|pc|D6|pc|S9|pc|DT|pc|DJ|pc|DK|pc|H6|pc|CK|pc|H4|pc|C2|pc|D5|pc|CQ|pc|H9|pc|C3|pc|S4|pc|CJ|pc|ST|pc|C7|pc|S5|pc|C8|pc|SA|pc|H8|pc|S6|pc|D9|pc|SQ|pc|S3|pc|S7|pc|D8|pc|SK|pc|S8|pc|SJ]320|300|[/hv]

To get a real-time sense of the effect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have a look at flightradar24. You will see that there is no air traffic at all between Moscow and Warsaw. If you zoom in and click on an individual aircraft you see what it's up to. Pakistan International airlines PK798 - a 777-240(LR) just flew over Moscow a few minutes ago after leaving Toronto - heading for Lahore. China Eastern is still using Russian airspace, so is Emirates and Air China. There's an Aeroflot A330 airbus heading for Moscow. Almost all of the fleet arriving and departing from Moscow ATM are Boeing or Airbus. At some point they're going to need parts replaced.

Thanks for that. I'll try to be clearer in future posts. The issue of what kind of minor raise is forcing is the specific question. I am not a "good player" but my impression is that for the bulk of players there is a great deal of variability about whether or not 1-3 is weaker or stronger than 1-2 in the minors. All that aside you seem to be saying that the default "undiscussed" assumption is that minors are not inverted and that 1-2 is weak and that in the absence of any agreement can be passed. Which is what I wanted to know.

Whenever you sit down to play with someone and there are no agreements - especially on BBO where players come from all over the world - how do you 'know' anything? You don't. You take a punt. You risk it. You are often wrong. Knowing what the commonest beliefs are is something we all grapple with. Your claim that inverted minors is OFF - is a bold assertion. Are transfers available? Is it normal to lead x from Axx? Is 1anything - 3anything weak or strong. Why do men live or die for a dream?

The team is headed by Veronique Ventos - AI specialist.

Madeleine Albright - CNN obit.

From a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine - a generally reputable source. Published 16 March 2022 This brief letter to the Journal appears to suggest that a fourth dose is extremely safe and causes a marginal improvement in antibody titres. It is worth noting that the subjects were health care workers (likely to be younger). A marginal benefit in young people may (or may not) translate into a larger benefit in older people with a disease that causes more problems in an older age group.

FYP The problem with Bridge in a nutshell.

I was South. Partner bid 2♣. My default system is basically GIB 2/1.

Are forcing passes alertable here as they are in other systems? What happens if the passer fails to pause prominently and their partner lapsing because of the failed pause prevaricates? And you only discover it later when the monkey comes out of the sleeve - so to speak.

No, that's what "with no partnership agreement" means. When I started out 1:2 would seem to me to be weak. Later I started playing it as quite strong - nice long minor and prob. game forcing with 1:3 being weak. ATM - for a bit of fun I'll play in an individual or as a sub. - and wondered what (in the absence of interference) the player on the Clapham omnibus would think. It looks like on this bus anyway most people play inverted minors.

Thanks - Inability to distinguish gold from dross is a problem for fools that as Shakespeare W. points out can have dire consequences. The idea that 'personal responsibility' and 'greed is good' and 'anyone can succeed if they really want to' might be good for some but leaves the rest to die. A political philosophy that always leads to civil unrest.

[hv=pc=n&n=s7hjt32dj6ck86432&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1cp]133|200| With no partnership agreement what's your call (matchpoints - if it matters)? I'm aware that different people manage this type of hand differently. I'm wondering what the average 'bidder on the North seat' does. [/hv]

The answer is that health, education and welfare are infrastructure items that the whole population should support because they all benefit from them. No healthy, highly educated workforce, no vaccine, no computers, no health care. The cult of toxic libertarianism and "personal responsibility" that has consumed the American Republican party pushes political discourse in the USA so far to the right that there is only a rump of political thought that believes that barn-raising - the architectural equivalent of health, education and welfare spending - is worthwhile. Sure, the USA has the highest total GDP in the world - it has for more than 100 years - but what is this built on? And does the whole population benefit? Will it last much longer. One could also imagine USA capitalism - built as it is on slavery, indigenous genocide, contempt for the worth of every member of the population, and the destruction of the environment - as an .An economic-social system modelled on Lord of the Flies/Battle Royale/Hunger Games (an obvious metaphor for capitalist philosophy) may burn bright momentarily, benefiting a few, but in the end everyone suffers.

Exactly the point I'm making. North bid 1NT. East passed. I hovered over 2♦ and got the explanation for a Cap bid by east. This was a prepared hand that I set up on the bidding table. North was a human. I saw it the first time we practised it and then repeated it (taking the screenshot). The next day I set it up and tried again with a robot sitting North and the 'bug' wasn't there.

If the 'random choice when faced with equal cards idea was correct', doesn't that imply that faced with the same situation GIB would sometimes choose different cards? This doesn't seem to be the case. I've played hands multiple times at a teaching table and it always seems to play the same cards even when faced with apparently equal options. In any event, are there any testable hypotheses that one could examine based on your thoughts?

You know you're further to the right than Attila the Hun when Newsmax runs a story titled: Russian Foreign Minister Praises Fox News' Invasion Coverage

Practising on the bidding table when it came round to me and I hovered over 2♦ I got this alert. The next day... Because it was unusual I tried it twice yesterday with a human partner and the 'controlled by host' setting and the same thing happened both times. Today - with a robot sitting North - it provides the expected alert when I hover over 2 and then the ♦ symbol viz., Jacoby transfer -- 5+ ♥. Very strange.

The idea is not completely odd. Since Bridge is a system based partnership game it might be helpful if players joining a table could know if it was for example: a 2/1, Acol, Standard, strong club etc. This is clearly a lot of work to implement BBOside. Regarding skill level it could be useful for casual tables to have the option of setting rank bands (0-3, 3-5, etc). This would be IMHO more useful than the current 'no new user' and 'board completion rate' settings. Unfortunately, this would have a secondary effect of encouraging people to buy/earn masterpoints. Maybe it's a bad idea then since it might encourage people to enter more paid competitions and spend more money on BBO which is obviously undesirable.