pilowsky

It was only ever 'illegal' in jurisdictions governed by ACBL rules. There was a very long discussion about this roughly a year ago. In Australia, you can open 1NT with anything; but you have to announce the range and shape. Amongst the many crazy things I've tried out, this was one of them. The announcement required is x-y any shape. This requirement is not my opinion - it came from Australia's most senior director. Some people open 1♣ 16+ any shape. Or 'pass' 16+. Or play Acol. Or 1♣ 2+ clubs. Or all kinds of things that have nothing to do with their hand. Opening 1NT with 16 HCP and a singleton/void is arguably less peculiar.

Good news - thanks. Will they dream of electric cards? They probably won't stay but we'll always be together...

and, as we say in Australia, "you can't polish a turd"

Sign of the times that the main problem with kissing an aide is that it breaches COVID rules. Would it be OK if both wore masks?

Yes, good point. I get the same error trying to load SAYC - Standard American Yellow Card, Simple Modern Acol and BBO Advanced (2/1=GF). The other two seem to work OK.

Say I want to hire three basic robots. I open a teaching table and the menu offers me "Advanced robot: $1/day" or "Basic robots: $1/ week". This means that (apparently) I need to spend $3 per week - or $13 per month - to use even basic robots for practice. Advanced robots on the other hand can be had for $5,99 per month (not an error - for some reason BBO uses a "," not a "." on the English interface). Unfortunately, if I join Prime and pay for advanced robots the advanced robots on the teaching table bid differently from advanced robots in Daylong tournaments. This difference in the two programs sometimes makes it hard to take a hand that I mangled in a robot tourney and work out what went wrong on a teaching table. It would be helpful if there was a detailed explanation about how the third-party robot software worked and if the different robots had different names when they appear. For example RobotA (which coincidentally is the original Czech spelling) for the advanced Bots. and Perhaps RobotB for the basic ones. It would also be helpful if - when hiring robots - some actual instructions were available about where they can be used. And I mean 'actual' in the sense BBO actual. Being directed to the forum where people like me (who don't work for BBO) offer "thoughts" does not count as an instruction manual.

Tell us what you really think. No need to beat around the bush.

The cheating used to be really simple in the previous (2 weeks ago) version because you could add a chrome extension called "instant data scraper" to Chrome. This nifty gadget would allow you to discover everyone's holding during the bidding and play. Making it much easier to decide what to bid and what to lead. This problem was the reason I stopped all Casual table play and left Prime. I checked yesterday and with the new version - or some other update perhaps - the gadget no longer has access to the site. This is in addition to people chatting on the phone or using zoom/Teamviewer/skype etc. Or worse, live broadcasting challenge formats (eg $0.29 robot IMP tournaments) on "twitchTV" so that some players can watch another player play the hand before they get to it. And these are just the really obvious problems.

In the thread that you cite barmar responded: When I look up "mobile version" it says at the bottom "Bridge Base Online Mobile is Powered by http://www.bridgebase.com/images/flash_button.jpg Adobe Flash Platform." Is this still correct? Anyway, I can't find the aA symbol, but I can reproduce the problem by making the window size much smaller! It seems that it may be a 'feature' of the size of the window. Small: Larger:

Very helpful, I should have mentioned that we were playing 2/1. Because I learned 2/1 from GIB some of my calls are a bit - how can I put this politely - antiquated. Negative free bids are one of them. And yes, my partner thought it was forcing, settling in 2NT. What interested me was that this was so common that out of 18 tables this still scored 47.06% (us and one other). Six pairs were in 3NT- a lot with a bunch of 3♦-1 above us. This spray of contracts and results suggested that this is not an uncommon problem.

[hv=lin=st%7C%7Cpn%7CDevious,Pilowsky,Crafty,MBP%7Cmd%7C3ST3HK8DAQTCA97642,SA2HJ9654D7632CK8,SQ9874HQT32DJ9C53,SKJ65HA7DK854CQJT%7Csv%7Co%7Crh%7C%7Cah%7CBoard%201%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C1D%7Cmb%7C2C%7Cmb%7C?%7C]300|300| My partner (much better player: MBP) felt that I had no bid as West. I'm sure that's true. But, (always a but) this problem comes up all the time. The questions are: When is it right for West to bid 2♥ with this shape? and When it is right to bid 2♥ as West, is it forcing? [/hv]

A friend just called because they are playing on a MacBook air and their screen looks like the image below. They can't see the split-screen option so they are unable to have the arrangement they like - any suggestions? They are using Safari - which works fine on my computer. As you can see from their screen shot the 'split screen' option is missing.

In news just to hand: http://bit.ly/SKYchef For those of you outside Australia, Skynews=Fox. Luke Mangan is (allegedly) a cook. Because nobody in Australia knows much about Tony Fauci, Sky(fox)news has taken to bashing the Australian Broadcasting commission's Health reporter instead. His name is Dr Norman Swan a Scottish Jewish paediatrician. Norman Swan's son is Johnathon Swan (Axios) whose face became a meme for "WTF are you talking" about after he interviewed Trump about COVID-19. Gladys Berejiklian is the NSW Premier.

If you want to watch a real-time evolution of a cluster, here is a link to a dynamic map of cases in Sydney. We're up to 208 ATM. http://bit.ly/COVID19NSW

Modelling also suggested that all through the 1960s and 70's we were on the brink of nuclear war (5 seconds to midnight). Information filtered through journalists or politicians needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, mustard, herbs, spices, etc.

Both sayings have validity. The point of the zebra saying is that you shouldn't always think of phaeochromocytoma first when someone has high blood pressure - it's much more likely that they just read something annoying on the Forum. I once arrived at LAX. When the morbidly laconic security person asked me why I was here I replied "a conference". Security: "What about?" Me: "High blood pressure." Security: [after a really long pause] You know what causes high blood pressure? Me: [keeping quiet and waiting] Security: "Stress". The comment about "typical presentations" is more useful. Only about 10% of cases exactly fit the description in the textbooks. Not everyone with gallstones is "fair fat female forty and female". Many don't even have the typical cluster of symptoms and signs. I suppose this is Bayes theorem in action. You see many examples of this dichotomy in life (and Bridge) - where it's called "Judgement".

There's another saying - common things occur commonly but the "typical presentation" only accounts for 10% of cases.

[hv=lin=st||pn|pilowsky,~~M30835,~~M30833,~~M30834|md|2SKT3HA873DAKTCA43,SQJ64HKQJDQ853C85,SA87HT5D764CKQJ97,S952H9642DJ92CT62|sv|o|rh||ah|Board%208|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|mb|1N|an|notrump%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2015-|mb|P|mb|3N|an|2-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-4%20!H;%202-4%20!S;%2010-11%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|HK|pc|H5|pc|H2|pc|H3|pc|HQ|pc|HT|pc|H6|pc|H7|pc|HJ|pc|S7|pc|H4|pc|HA|pc|CA|pc|C8|pc|C7|pc|C2|pc|C4|pc|C5|pc|CK|pc|C6|pc|CQ|pc|CT|pc|C3|pc|D8|pc|CJ|pc|S2|pc|H8|pc|S6|pc|C9|pc|H9|pc|S3|pc|S4|pc|SA|pc|S5|pc|ST|pc|SJ|pc|S8|pc|S9|pc|SK|pc|SQ|pc|DA|pc|D5|pc|D4|pc|D2|pc|DK|pc|D3|pc|D6|pc|D9|pc|DT|pc|DQ|pc|D7|pc|DJ|]300|300| Thanks - Mr Google failed to come up with that possibility. I had a somewhat easier time of it.[/hv]

[hv=lin=st||pn|Unfortunate,Robot,Robot,Robot|md|2SKT3HA873DAKTCA43,SQJ64HKQJDQ853C85,SA87HT5D764CKQJ97,S952H9642DJ92CT62|sv|o|rh||ah|Board%200|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|mb|1C|an|3+%20%E2%99%A3;%2011-21|mb|D|an|Takeout%20double%20--%202-%E2%99%A3;%202-5%20%E2%99%A6%20%E2%99%A5%20%E2%99%A0;%2011-%20H|mb|2N|an|Truscott|mb|P|mb|4N|an|Bwood%20%E2%99%A3%20%27s|mb|P|mb|5S|mb|P|mb|6C|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|]300|300| Is this something new in (under) the hood? This happened to another player in an ACBL robot IMP's tournament this morning. I cannot find any reference to Truscott - or his friend Jordan - being used after opening 1 minor.[/hv]

I don't see what you're complaining about. EW has an excellent mini-Moysian. Just shockingly bad luck with the trump split, the complete lack of points and the rather poor distribution of honours - many of which seem - for no apparent reason to be in the defender's hands. Clearly, GIB has been tweaked to cope with the optimistic nullve NT point range. Something that I've recently been emulating with minimal success. [hv=https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|pilowsky,~~M45844,~~M45842,~~M45843|md|1SA4HJ84DAQ84CQT94,SKJ732HK932DKT9CK,SQ985HQT76D75CJ87,ST6HA5DJ632CA6532|sv|e|rh||ah|Board%203|mb|1N|an|notrump%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2015-|mb|2D!|an|Cappelletti%20-%20majors%20--%205+%20!H;%205+%20!S;%2011+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|2H|an|My%20better%20major%20--%203+%20!H;%2010-%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|SA|pc|S2|pc|S9|pc|ST|pc|S4|pc|SJ|pc|SQ|pc|S6|pc|D7|pc|DJ|pc|DA|pc|D9|pc|C4|pc|CK|pc|C7|pc|C2|pc|S3|pc|S8|pc|H5|pc|H8|pc|D4|pc|DT|pc|D5|pc|D6|pc|H3|pc|H7|pc|HA|pc|H4|pc|C5|pc|C9|pc|H2|pc|C8|pc|HK|pc|H6|pc|C6|pc|HJ|pc|H9|pc|HQ|pc|D3|pc|D8|pc|HT|pc|C3|pc|DQ|pc|SK|pc|CJ|pc|CA|pc|CT|pc|S7|pc|D2|pc|CQ|pc|DK|pc|S5|]300|300| Mind you I did just pick up 4.8 IMPs when EW tried a similar bid in this hand 2 minutes ago.[/hv]

Now the SDNY is using squid to try and catch whales:

Something that may be worth considering is the opportunity cost of insisting on "right-siding" the contract. Particularly if the advantage is - on average - within the error of player ability. By using transfers it is now impossible for a weak responder to bid 2♣ or 2♦ as natural not forcing. Considering the Stayman structure as a whole, would it be feasible to play all 2 level responses to a 1NT opening as weak with 5 cards in the suit? A Stayman-like game-forcing auction would then start at the 3-level: 1NT - P - 2anything = < than 8 HCP and 5 in the suit. 1NT - P - 3♣ = > 8 HCP and whatever Stayman you want to play AND game forcing. 1NT - P - 3♦ = ♥ GF 1NT - P - 3♥ = ♠ GF 1NT - P - 3♠ = [minors] GF etc

Elections for my Club in Australia are about to start. A message came out asking for candidates. I offered to be the person that everyone disagrees with. My offer was declined.

I obviously swallowed the red pill. Or maybe the blue pill and just think I swallowed the red pill.

I've been psephologically inclined since I was 13 years old - maybe younger. The word psephology comes from "pebble". The basic problem with so-called democracy in the USA is that it isn't. Not all people get to cast a pebble. My politician friends tell me that 30% of voters will always vote Conservative in any election, and 30% will always vote Progressive - whatever name you give the parties. In the USA, at the last election, 33% of the eligible electorate didn't cast a vote. If it isn't representative, it isn't democratic. There are structural barriers to voting in the USA, and the process is regulated by individual states resulting in all kinds of problems. So what does a real democracy look like? 1. Compulsory voting - we get a fine if we don't vote in every election. 2. One house of parliament that carries the franchise for the population - not the unrepresentative swill (quote from Paul Keating) that you find in a system with a senate. 3. Exhaustive preferential voting (it's called something else in the USA - but you don't have it - not run-off elections or first past the post (UK) 4. A federal electoral commission conducts elections for a federal parliament. 5. The commission is independent and adjusts boundaries on a population (not political) basis every five or so years. The USA fails every one of these basic tests. Although we still have a senate full of useless party hacks and special interest groups, Australia passes most of them. The structural impediments to voting also mean that there is barely even universal suffrage. Far from 'no taxation without representation, ' vast tracts of taxpayers with permanent residency cannot vote. To say nothing of the so-called illegal immigrants that pay tax and keep the US economy ticking over. Does the Philipino maths teacher (https://bit.ly/EdJulesbergUSA) who helps fill the terrible teacher shortage in the USA get to vote? If not, why not? She pays taxes.