pilowsky

Normally, the idea of Democracy is premised on the principle that all citizens and legal residents are entitled to vote to decide who governs them. In America, the founding principle was no taxation without representation. This is subtly but importantly different. Currently, it appears that at least one party is firmly of the belief that the right to vote is something that only certain legal residents ought to be allowed to exercise. This notion sits behind the rhetoric of the current Republican party. They don't believe that everyone is entitled to vote. In South Australia, we had a parliamentarian who put it like this: "How can you talk about one vote one value when 90% of the state only gets 10% of the rainfall?" He was a member of the Conservative parties.

Thanks I'm not allowed to post the link to the hand here because it comes from another site. the ♣Q was led and I made an easy 2NT+1. Without interference, others found a nice 4S.

I've seen American tourists in Europe, so I can see where the misunderstanding arose.

[hv=lin=st||pn|Me,Jean,Partner,Joan|md|4SKQ43HAQ974DAK7CA,S5HTDQ964CQJT9862,SA987HK2DJT32C543,SJT62HJ8653D85CK7|ev|b|rh||ah|Board%2017|mb|2H|mb|2N|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|]300|300| This hand came up in the Club yesterday (IMPs). I was making up a four at the last table and agreed to play partner's card. EW was playing some sort of multi-everything and East opened 2H - meaning spades and hearts 'weak'. I bid 2NT which was passed out for 2N+1 and -3 Is there a "rule of table 17" where you can open without points? Or is this a reasonable preempt? [/hv]

Your wife must be a friend of my wife! Here is the method that I use (stolen from Nige1) to post in the Forum. Open any tinyurl in a new tab and it will look like this: (your example) 'https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|~~M1589owt,~~M8978vak,~~M6140x9p,~~M4824do6|md|2SQ53HKQT32D6CQJ83,ST2HJ4D9854CT7654,SAKHA86DAK732CK92,SJ98764H975DQJTCA|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%204|mb|P|mb|2N|an|Two%20NT%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2020-21%20HCP%20|mb|P|mb|3D!|an|Jacoby%20transfer%20--%205+%20!H%20|mb|P|mb|3H|an|Transfer%20completed%20to%20H%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2020-21%20HCP%20|mb|P|mb|4C|an|4+%20!C;%205+%20!H;%208+%20HCP%20|mb|P|mb|4D|an|Support%20for%20H%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%203-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2021%20HCP;%2022+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|4N|an|Blackwood%20(H)%20--%204+%20!C;%205+%20!H;%2010+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|5C|an|Zero%20or%20three%20key%20cards%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%203-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2021%20HCP;%2022+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|6H|an|4+%20!C;%205+%20!H;%2010+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|CA|pc|C3|pc|C4|pc|C2|pc|S6|pc|S5|pc|ST|pc|SA|pc|SK|pc|SJ|pc|S3|pc|S2|pc|H6|pc|H9|pc|HK|pc|H4|pc|H3|pc|HJ|pc|HA|pc|H7|pc|H8|pc|H5|pc|H2|pc|D9|pc|DA|pc|DQ|pc|D6|pc|D8|pc|DK|pc|DT|pc|C8|pc|D4|pc|D2|pc|DJ|pc|HQ|pc|D5|pc|CQ|pc|C7|pc|C9|pc|S9|pc|CJ|pc|CT|pc|CK|pc|S7|pc|D7|pc|S8|pc|SQ|pc|C5|pc|D3|pc|S4|pc|HT|pc|C6| now remove "https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?" and add hv= at the start and "300|300|" at the end. then write whatever you want and finally add '[/hv]' the hv= and the /hv must be in square brackets but it doesn't look right when I try to add them here. You can use the same approach with any hand that you make on the Forum. Here is a link to the way it looks in a google doc - which will make more sense - http://bit.ly/HowToForum [hv=lin=st||pn|~~M1589owt,~~M8978vak,~~M6140x9p,~~M4824do6|md|2SQ53HKQT32D6CQJ83,ST2HJ4D9854CT7654,SAKHA86DAK732CK92,SJ98764H975DQJTCA|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%204|mb|P|mb|2N|an|Two%20NT%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2020-21%20HCP%20|mb|P|mb|3D!|an|Jacoby%20transfer%20--%205+%20!H%20|mb|P|mb|3H|an|Transfer%20completed%20to%20H%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2020-21%20HCP%20|mb|P|mb|4C|an|4+%20!C;%205+%20!H;%208+%20HCP%20|mb|P|mb|4D|an|Support%20for%20H%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%203-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2021%20HCP;%2022+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|4N|an|Blackwood%20(H)%20--%204+%20!C;%205+%20!H;%2010+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|5C|an|Zero%20or%20three%20key%20cards%20--%202-5%20!C;%202-5%20!D;%203-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2021%20HCP;%2022+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|6H|an|4+%20!C;%205+%20!H;%2010+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|CA|pc|C3|pc|C4|pc|C2|pc|S6|pc|S5|pc|ST|pc|SA|pc|SK|pc|SJ|pc|S3|pc|S2|pc|H6|pc|H9|pc|HK|pc|H4|pc|H3|pc|HJ|pc|HA|pc|H7|pc|H8|pc|H5|pc|H2|pc|D9|pc|DA|pc|DQ|pc|D6|pc|D8|pc|DK|pc|DT|pc|C8|pc|D4|pc|D2|pc|DJ|pc|HQ|pc|D5|pc|CQ|pc|C7|pc|C9|pc|S9|pc|CJ|pc|CT|pc|CK|pc|S7|pc|D7|pc|S8|pc|SQ|pc|C5|pc|D3|pc|S4|pc|HT|pc|C6|]300|300| so that now it will look like this![/hv]

Great. Now you are beginning to see the problem. People like me that enjoy playing robot Bridge - I know it isn't for everyone - use the Prime area to practise with the advanced version of GIB. If you go into the Prime area you will see that most tables are occupied by the host sitting South and three robots. In this way you can compare your bidding and play to 16 other people that bid and play the hand - usually but not always - with human South and three robots. The specific problem arises because the Prime area is advertised as a place where you are playing with advanced GIB. You are usually not you are playing at a hybrid table where your GIB is advanced but the comparison is being made with other people many of whom are playing the other version of GIB. This is why playing in Prime is pointless. You need to compare your result to optimum contracts using the Bridge-solver extension because comparing your result to others using the scoring feature provided is not an accurate way of seeing if you played well - or in my case badly. The bidding and teaching tables don't seem to use advanced robots at all. This is really annoying because I like to see how advanced robots would tackle hands that I play in Daylongs. The fact that many people regard robot bridge as a loathsome and contemptible past-time played by "BBO experts" is of no interest to me. I like it and I don't get what is advertised.

This is not correct. You keep making this same wrong explanation but it has nothing to do with the problem that Ken is alluding to and which I have also complained about. You are providing an answer to a different question - presumably because you do not understand the problem. It is obviously related to the table type BECAUSE the different tables are (likely) using different types of GIB. In the Prime Club - which I have just left again - hands are dropped on the table from all over BBO. As barmar commented elsewhere (I'm paraphrasing) "we make NO effort to ensure that hands played in Prime are all played by advanced robots" - even though the players in Prime think that are in an area where only advanced GIB is used. IMO this sloppy approach to a paid service is completely unsatisfactory. It makes paying to play in an area that is supposed to have only advanced GIB completely pointless because you don't get to compare your bidding and play against the same program. The situation is even worse on the teaching tale in Prime. The reason that I wanted to use the Prime teaching table is BECAUSE the Prime area is advertised as a place where I would get so-called 'advanced' GIB. This is obviously not true. The teaching table seems to only have basic GIB. Why? Because the way that a hand is bid on the teaching table is always exactly the same and different to the way the same hand is played against advanced robots in (for example) Daylong tournaments.

A friend of mine once described a compellingly attractive young woman as being "like a shark in a swimming pool" - fascinating to watch, but you wouldn't go for a swim. The entire former US administration was (and to some extent continues to be) absolutely riveting viewing. That's what happens when fake TV stars think they are real. No doubt you have seen or read Jerzy Kosinski's "Being There" when Chance the Gardener is mistaken for a supremely intelligent being. The moment Tr**p was elected, I knew that Life was imitating art. At the start, people thought he was a big joke who could do no harm. No-ones laughing now. What the modern Republican party has become is so malevolent, it is incomprehensible. And I speak as a person who has looked at documents describing the murder of his family members by Germans as a "state policy". Tr**p is just the tip of the pustulent boil that infects the whole organism. Whenever the world appears to be making progress towards a civilised society, the impulse to slide back into feudal warlordism seems to overwhelm. Tr**p was the "lottery ticket" or "long shot" that people buy when they are desperate - it's the same reason that stocks in gambling companies surge during hard times. Create a system that dispossesses large swathes of the population from adequate Health Education and Welfare and Tr**p or Hitler types will emerge. Tr**p isn't the problem. There's a reason that one-third of the eligible voting population threw in their lot with him. It isn't just minorities discriminated against when a tiny proportion of the population is permitted to own nearly everything, and everyone else is just fodder. Do I watch other countries? Yes, where it is available and of interest. America is unusual because it is the elephant in the room. Incompetence or bad behaviour by the American President affects the whole world. The stupidity and incompetence that is rampant in Australia affect only a few. I lived in New Zealand for a while. Pretty strange and horrible things happened there as well but it's such a small place no one really cared. America is different. Anything the American government does touches the whole world - and not in a nice way. The funny thing about that quote is that it's from a hymn "Greenland's icy mountains" which Tr**p wanted to buy.

Doesn't she own a 'cheap bar'? Or is that the other one?

The QANON congresswoman thinks that wearing a mask is equivalent to being forced to wear a yellow star in nazi Germany. Words fail me. And that doesn't happen often.

try 'https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/dealer/dealer.php My link

White House press conferences are very boring now. Occasionally Peter thingamy or the Newsmaxie asks a question, but the 'straight bat' sarcasm from not-Kayleigh is nowhere near as much fun. I almost miss the old days.

I would also like to know. As a workaround, I save the URL in a separate file in a spreadsheet/document Afterwards, I use the hand editor to reproduce the hand on a teaching table. Or you can extract the lin file part of the hand and import that into your account. This takes much longer and is prone to error.

Agree - please make teams substitute separate from tournament substitution.

Apologies - the hand came from the Club. I was East and my (better) partner was West. Afterwards, I was (slightly) admonished for not bidding Lebensohl. After the original hand, I figured any bid at all would be forcing and I could take it from there - "Pilowskysohl" perhaps?

[hv=pc=n&s=skq7432h7dkj5c753&w=sthakq8642daq3cq8&n=s9865ht9dt86cakt6&e=sajhj53d9742cj942&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=2sdp3cp3h3s(North%20wakes%20up)4h(You%20don't%20fool%20me%20twice)pp4s(Let's%20be%20difficult)pp5h(after%20a%20long%20pause)ppp]399|300| Can't say I'm not a quick learner. This hand came up in the Club today with the same partner. This time I was ready.[/hv]

[hv=lin=ZZ%7C%7Cpn%7Cpilowsky%2CRobot%2CRobot%2CRobot%7Cst%7C%7Cmd%7C4SKHAK4D8754CJ8543%2CST976H3DAQJ3CKT92%2CSAQJ432HJ65DT6C76%2CS85HQT9872DK92CAQ%7Csv%7CE%7Cah%7CBoard%206%7Cmb%7C1H%7Can%7CMajor%20suit%20opening%20--%205%2B%20%21H%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%7Cmb%7C2N%21%7Can%7CUnusual%20notrump%20overcall%20--%205%2B%20%21C%3B%205%2B%20%21D%3B%203-%20%21H%3B%203-%20%21S%3B%2012%2B%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%7Cmb%7CD%7Can%7CPenalty%20double%20--%2010%2B%20HCP%7Cmb%7C3D%7Can%7CPreference%20--%203%2B%20%21D%7Cmb%7CD%7Can%7C3%2B%20%21D%3B%205%2B%20%21H%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C3S%7Can%7C4%2B%20%21S%3B%2010%2B%20HCP%7Cmb%7CD%7Can%7C3%2B%20%21D%3B%2011%2B%20HCP%3B%20biddable%20%21S%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CHQ%7C]300|300| From yesterdays DL no. 1 A disaster except for this gem. Can anyone tell me which part of a simple 2/1 system West's bid of 3♠ is part of? Even if West thought East had 1 fewer ♦, why is suddenly having a spade spasm right? [/hv]

Could not agree more. I won't detail all the possible causes of 'stroke', but in the sense that anything that deprives the brain of oxygen for long enough will cause permanent damage to (irreplaceable) neurons then yes, this can be called a 'stroke'. Typically, doctors reserve the word 'stroke' for brain damage that is caused by vascular problems. Of course, you can get similar-looking damage from all kinds of pathology. Watching Fox news will probably cause "functional" brain damage. In my opinion, television is a neurotoxin, but not everyone agrees. In some ways, Doctors are like Bridge players. None of them knows everything. All of them know something and some know more than others. I think that's why it's best when they work in teams. Like Bridge, in the end, you only get one chance to get it right. It pays to be an inquisitive patient. Some Doctors find this annoying - you seem to have struck gold with yours.

A TIA is not a stroke of any kind. It is a "transient ischaemic attack" - it just means that for some reason or another the supply of blood (oxygen) to the brain is very briefly interrupted. TIA's only last a few minutes (maximum) because otherwise, they would be a RIND - a "reversible ischaemic neurological deficit" - RIND's can last up to a maximum of 24 hours and then any deficit is completely reversed. A stroke big or small is where there is a permanent loss. AHI -apnea-hypopnea index is the amount of time you spend with low or no breathing during a sleep study - obviously it is bad not to breathe because it reduces the oxygen supply everywhere - including the brain. Sleep apnoea is commonly associated with hypertension and/or obesity. Intermittent narrowing of the upper airways because of fat in the airways combined with other mechanical factors causes it - even so, non-obese people can also get it. The main treatment - a device sold by RESMED - generates a continuous positive pressure in the airways when you are asleep. It was invented by a friend of mine from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital - Sydney University - Dr Colin Sullivan. Blood pressure measurement - when, where, who - is a big problem in the diagnosis of high blood pressure. This is why the gold standard is a 24-hour ambulatory measurement (see above). The ABPM is the blood pressure equivalent of a Holter monitor which checks your ECG for 24 hours. In a way, it is also political. Successive Australian governments have decreased funding for medical research and training. Now they complain that we aren't making and distributing vaccine because of 'supply problems' - not at all surprising when you remove funding from all the 'suppliers'. Trump's contempt for research - "I could have been a scientist - it's easy - I know all this stuff - the Doctors are amazed" - to paraphrase - was a massive problem. Progress was made because the residual infrastructure worked around him.

I wish they would play themselves a bit better!

Spooky. What are the odds of 5 players getting exactly the same percentage on each of 8 boards?

That's why people see Doctors and go to hypertension clinics. OTC BP monitors are for AFTER the diagnosis and, if necessary, treatment. They are not available so that people can compete with each other about their blood pressure readings, although since this is a Bridge forum, I can see the appeal. The OMRON device is recommended by the HBPRCA.

Best news ever: Scotland is planning an "Unexplained Wealth Order" concerning the Trump golf course. If he can't explain where the money came from they can seize it. https://www.business...021-2?r=US&IR=T

See above. It is too out-of date. Things have changed - a lot.

Your blood pressure can vary (in the resting state) from ~80/50 (asleep) to ~130/80 (during the day). Everything will affect it, walking, eating, sleeping - visiting the Doctor - so-called white coat hypertension. It is problematic if it stays over 140/90 on multiple occasions. The Australian BP guidelines are widely available. Arguing about the guidelines is a blood sport at hypertension conferences. If you have hypertensive readings on >3 occasions it may be helpful to have ABPM at a hypertension clinic. You will need a referral from your GP (in Australia).