pilowsky

Outstanding. Now just eliminate the pairs and have everyone at single tables vs 3 bots and it'll be even better.

Now Google is offering Bard as an alternative. I asked it "How does 2/1 bidding work in bridge" and then "Where does that information come from" (Neither care about punctuation) Bard also provided a hyperlink reference.

Hard to believe I know, but Trump just lost another court case.

I just heard a striking writer complaining about shrinking income because of changes in the way streaming organisations compensate them. She said (inter alia) that: "Our door is open but the ball is in their court" "Our demands are extremely reasonable" If they keep their door open and the ball is smashed back into their court it might hit someone in the living room causing unreasonable damage.

Trump was a means to an end. In the USA 35-40% of the population are fervently anti-abortion. They will vote for a ham sandwich if it promises to prevent abortion and allow children to buy guns. In the UK and Australia a much larger proportion of the population are pro-abortion and anti-gun but more importantly, non-US anti-abortionists will not necessarily decide their vote just on that issue. To say nothing of the dog-whistling about the southern border. Australian conservatives ranting about "stopping the boats" and Tories promoting BREXIT to keep immigrants out fall into the same racist idea as the BS about building a wall to keep the alien rapists at bay. No wonder the neo-NAZI's lap it up.

It's hard to believe, I know, but a very small number of BBO patrons are over the age of 60 and aren't IT experts with superfast computers and ultra reliable internet connections. For this tiny population of players any additional feature is a roadblock.

This sequence came up today and 2♥ was described as: 4-6♥; 5+♠; HCP 9+; 3rd suit forcing; looking for stopper, can have fit and at least 4♥ - Forcing. [hv=d=e&v=e&b=6&a=1cp1sp2cp2h(3rd%20suit%20forcing)]133|100[/hv] Not being familiar with 3SF I looked it up and found a Funbridge blogpost which seemed likely to be authoritative given it's Argine. The title of the post was "The truth about the subject of third suit forcing" suggesting that it was not a lie. The post stated that "The next three sequences use a third suit that is outside the box that defines a third suit forcing:" The second of these auctions is the one shown above. This is described as "Without going into detail (this is not the topic of the day), these third suits have a tendency of being natural:" Any thoughts?

Ding Liren is the new World Chess Champion.

Really? I thought the free daylongs used "advanced" GIB? I'm heartbroken.

Does the question "Is 1NT forcing" asked OTB after the dummy has landed result in unfair transmission of information to the partner of person asking? Partner might now consider that opener has a type of hand that they had not considered before hearing the question. My understanding was that questions about the bidding should happen after the lead is placed face down but before dummy is exposed and should be of the form "please explain the bidding". Leading questions such as "was that a transfer" etc could imply information transfer to partner. It seems that by asking a "specific" question at this point could lead to partner considering possibilities that may not have occurred to them otherwise (eg implying that RHO has a specific holding, or that Declarer has a particular hand - a five card holding rather than six). Suppose in the auction 1NT - P - 2D (not alerted) - P - 2H -PPP Dummy comes down and RHO asks - "Was 2D a transfer to H?", might not Declarer ask if the question asked at this point isn't suggesting something about RHO's hand that LHO might not otherwise consider. Should Director calls in these situations come after the play of the hand to avoid muddying the water?

Why not "rolls into retirement". Seems like they mis-'spoke'. So to speak...

Bit of a stretch calling it a Law. How about the Possibility of Total Tricks?

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|customer,opp1,~~M13388,opp2|md|1SK94H976532D7CK94,SJT762HK4DAQJ8CQ6,SAQ5HAJDKT654CJ75,S83HQT8D932CAT832|sv|e|rh||ah|Board%203|mb|2H|an|Weak%20two%20bid%20--%201-4%20!C;%201-3%20!D;%206+%20!H;%201-3%20!S;%2010-%20HCP;%207+%20total%20poin|mb|2S|mb|3H|an|The%20Law:%209%20trump%20-%3E%203%20level%20--%202+%20!H;%204-17%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|SJ|pc|S5|pc|S8|pc|SK|pc|D7|pc|DA|pc|D4|pc|D2|pc|S6|pc|SQ|pc|S3|pc|S4|pc|DK|pc|D3|pc|C4|pc|D8|pc|D5|pc|D9|pc|H2|pc|DJ|pc|S9|pc|S2|pc|SA|pc|H8|pc|CA|pc|C9|pc|C6|pc|C5|pc|C8|pc|CK|pc|CQ|pc|C7|pc|H5|pc|H4|pc|HA|pc|HT|pc|CJ|pc|C2|pc|H3|pc|HK|pc|DQ|pc|D6|pc|C3|pc|H6|pc|H7|pc|S7|pc|HJ|pc|HQ|pc|CT|pc|H9|pc|ST|pc|DT|]400|300| It passes the "Law" with an 8 card fit. You have 6, it has 2. Ergo hic hoc.[/hv]

Seeing him live was a pretty risky proposition too.

Barry Humphries, and his friends Sir Les, Dame Edna, Sandy Stone and many others.

No.

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|helene_t,~~v3fakebot,~~v3fakebot,~~v3fakebot|md|1S6HKJTD8642CAKQJ8,SQJ432HAQ9DT75C62,S8H843DAKQ9C97543,SAKT975H7652DJ3CT|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%207|mb|1C|an|4+!C;%20HCP%2011-23;%20natural|mb|P|mb|1D|an|1+!D;%20HCP%204+;%20natural%20or%20fit%20in%20!C%20-%20Forcing|mb|1S|an|5+!S;%20HCP%208-17;%20natural|mb|2D|mb|4S|an|4+!S;%20HCP%203-15;%20fit|mb|D|an|1+!D;%20HCP%204+;%20penalty|mb|P|mb|5C|an|6+!C;%204-5!D;%20HCP%2011-16;%20natural|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|SQ|pc|S8|pc|S9|pc|S6|pc|HA|pc|H3|pc|H2|pc|HT|pc|S3|pc|H4|pc|SK|pc|C8|pc|CA|pc|C2|pc|C3|pc|CT|pc|CK|pc|C6|pc|C4|pc|S5|pc|D2|pc|D5|pc|DA|pc|D3|pc|DK|pc|DJ|pc|D4|pc|D7|mc|11|]400|300| Just to make it easier to see...[/hv]

If nothing ever went wrong games wouldn't need Directors.

[hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|opp1,customer,opp2,~~M59978|md|4SQ4HJ42DQJ632CKJ4,SJ6532HK9DT87C965,SKT987H6DA5CQ8732,SAHAQT8753DK94CAT|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%2010|mb|1H|an|Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!H;%2011-21%20HCP;%2012-22%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|1S!|an|One%20over%20one%20--%204+%20!S;%206+%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|3H|an|Opener%20rebid%20--%206+%20!H;%203-%20!S;%2017-20%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|DQ|pc|D7|pc|DA|pc|D9|pc|D5|pc|DK|pc|D2|pc|DT|pc|H3|pc|H2|pc|HK|pc|H6|pc|H9|pc|S7|pc|HA|pc|H4|pc|HQ|pc|HJ|pc|S2|pc|C3|pc|HT|pc|D3|pc|S3|pc|S8|pc|H7|pc|D6|pc|C5|pc|C2|pc|H8|pc|C4|pc|S5|pc|S9|pc|H5|pc|S4|pc|C6|pc|C7|pc|D4|pc|DJ|pc|D8|pc|C8|pc|SQ|pc|S6|pc|ST|pc|SA|pc|CA|pc|CJ|pc|C9|pc|CQ|pc|CT|pc|CK|pc|SJ|pc|SK|]400|300| Maybe East was offering choice of game?[/hv]

I don't think that's quite right. Intelligence is not a quality that differentiates humans from apes; or spiders from potatoes. Unsurprisingly there's a vast literature on the topic of what is and isn't 'intelligence'. There's also quite a bit of work done on where 'it' is. Duncan et.al., (A neural basis for general intelligence,  Science (2000) 289: 457-60.) believe it's in the frontal lobe. A simple definition of intelligence might be that it is the quality of any 'thing' that causes it to consciously perform a purposeful task in response to an external stimulus. So an asteroid bending to the force of gravity or a plant turning to the light aren't examples of intelligence. A human responding to a painful stimulus before the signal reaches the cortex to cause conscious decision-making wouldn't be an example of intelligence either. The key is that the response requires consciousness to be aware of the stimulus and then subsequent decision-making to either respond in one way or another. Singing is evidence of intelligence but breathing when you're asleep isn't even though exactly the same muscles are needed for both activities.

In news just to hand it appears that the scions of Llano county Texas, after being told they can't ban books that say the KKK is a terrorist organisation, have decided to solve the problem by closing all the libraries and firing the librarians.

Bridge with three robots has the same name as the game played with four people but it isn't. People also get great scores in best hand games bidding 1NT with flat 12 counts. Characterising it as a 'psych' makes no sense. Sharing useful tips here OTOH is helpful.