pilowsky

Interesting. BLOOD PRESSURE The first BP monitor I bought was the cheapest. It kept telling me that I was hypertensive (which I am, but that's another story). Eventually, I took it to the chemist and made a side-by-side comparison - both arms - comparing mine to the one they have on the counter. Mine was consistently wrong - so I bought the OMRON HEM-7320. Since I am an expert on cardiovascular physiology, I felt a bit silly for being parsimonious with my original purchase - perhaps retirement addled my brain. It is important to remember that - apart from when you get annoyed by things on the Forum - blood pressure has a natural daily rhythm - lower at night with a surge in the morning. A few days ago, the Australian Dept of Health decided to include 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) as a relatable item on the medicare schedule. ABPM is a valuable diagnostic tool to detect hypertension in daily life. Most major hospitals have a hypertension service that can do this if there is a suspicion of hypertension. OPEN-ACCESS Your comment on open access needs to be understood in the context of different types of open access. Typically it will cost ~USD2000 to make an article open-access immediately on publication. Your average research scientist can ill-afford this expenditure. I get hundreds of requests every year to publish in open-access journals - they are basically vanity publishing sites. Here is an example from yesterday - Hailey is excited that it is morning, but I am unsure what the ellipsis has elided. She seems to have her use of aposiopesis in a tangle.

PLOS one is the dernier cri of Open Access journals. I'm not a fan of open access. Not a big thing in my field. It seems to be where knowledge goes to die when it can't be published elsewhere. Still, PLOS probably has the best reputation of all of them. "PLOS One is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science since 2006. The journal covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine." It has an impact factor of 2.74 - 'archival' by biology standards.

A friend sent me a hand that he played in the last Forum tourney that made 4S-1 (for 73.7%) we both bid it differently but when I put the hand on the teaching table after rejoining Prime, the Prime robots bid it completely differently. If the Forum robots are advanced, does that mean that the Prime GIB is not? [hv=pc=n&s=skhat3dak9874c542&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1sp2dp2sp3dp3sp4sppp]133|200| As bid by my friend - he was so impressed by Norths (3X) rebiddable spades he bid 4 - and made 4S-1[/hv] [hv=pc=n&s=skhat3dak9874c542&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1sp2dp2sp3dp3nppp]133|200| Here's what happened when I put a robot in the South seat. (http://bit.ly/RobotForum4S) [/hv] [hv=pc=n&s=skhat3dak9874c542&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1sp3ntp4sppp]133|200| Here's what happened to me.[/hv] It's an impressive traveller. someone made 6S-1, 6 people made 4S (after the same bidding made by my friend) and a few clever people stopped after North bid 2S. A few people made 3NT - and made - pretty good since DD it only makes 1NT. Interesting hand since despite having a combined 25HCP, no game is available.

Thanks for that. It is the same link that I provided above: "This link from BBO seems to be working now - it's the same place that pescetom (and I) used in a recent post. 'www.bridgebase.com/tools/dealer/dealer.php" Unfortunately, the documentation associated with it is a little sparse. When I ran the (very useful) code that pescetom provided, it worked fine, but I could not find the details about his instructions in the help file. Is it possible to provide a more detailed list of possible (or a complete list, even better) functions? Also, is it possible to generate a list of hands and then provide a list of makeable contracts from the DDE?

Yalch has just published a paper in PLOS ONE titled "Dimensions of pathological narcissism and intention to vote for Donald Trump" - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249892 The study is open-access so you can download it and read the whole thing if you want. Turns out that they expected that "...narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability would increase the likelihood of intending to vote for Trump over and above other demographic features..." and as you will see in the abstract aspects of narcissism did indeed predict voting intention. The respondents may not have been Bridge players but they were capable of adding 5+1 (I'm talking Expert and above here).

Interesting. In my (extremely) limited experience (only 3 sources) I haven't come across a version of 2/1 where after a game forcing 2minor over 2major bid it is appropriate to rebid a 5 card suit. I will widen my search.

2♦ - playing 2/1 2♥ would show 6+ ♥

I just ran your code in the link I gave above. It produced the following: n AJ9.T94.AK6.KQT7 e T3.A8652.Q753.A2 s KQ875.J73.J942.4 w 642.KQ.T8.J98653 n AKT2.QT7.A987.95 e 7.KJ8543.KJ4.KQ6 s Q53.A9.63.A87432 w J9864.62.QT52.JT n AK.KJ4.8764.KQ72 e Q963.A963.T5.963 s JT852.875.K93.54 w 74.QT2.AQJ2.AJT8 n K654.A75.AK9.A95 e 732.2.QT62.J7632 s A8.QJT8643.74.T8 w QJT9.K9.J853.KQ4 n K76.65.AKT3.AQ73 e 932.AK87432.4.54 s AT8.QJ.J9762.JT6 w QJ54.T9.Q85.K982 Generated 139 hands Produced 5 hands Initial random seed 1621218079 Time needed 0.001 sec

In ancient Aramaic and then translated into Latin - by toddlers.

Playbridge provides a GUI that generates hands. This link from BBO seems to be working now - it's the same place that pescetom (and I) used in a recent post. 'www.bridgebase.com/tools/dealer/dealer.php n AKJ.AQ9.AK63.AK6 e T53.J65.QJ87.QT5 s Q987.K874.T9.J82 w 642.T32.542.9743 n A5.AK6.AKQJ.AK76 e Q84.9732.943.Q94 s KT97.J85.65.T853 w J632.QT4.T872.J2 n AQ.KQJ7.AKT4.AKQ e KT65432.A3.J7.63 s 987.962.Q32.J975 w J.T854.9865.T842 n AK8.AQ65.AKJ5.AK e J42.KJ93..QJT984 s QT965.T87.Q4.765 w 73.42.T987632.32 n KQJT.AKQ.A5.AKQ9 e A86.T52.T96.T875 s 9743.763.K42.643 w 52.J984.QJ873.J2 But there is a separate site http://www.playbridg...ating-software. - there is a picture of the dealer selecting the cards randomly on the home page - which explains why you have to hold your breath waiting for the deal. That allows you to download an Exe called dealer4 when you click on the image at the bottom of the page. The files are on Jane Marsden's Google Drive. Here is the link to the library file and to the .exe file I haven't tried it. To generate (up to 64) hands for practice, the GUI at playbridge.com is fine. Here is the link to Henk's page He provides a 'tutorial' here And downloads here Random.org provides a free RNG based on 'atmospheric noise'. For a bit of fun, I made a dealer that works in Google sheets - it works but only generates a few random hands. - I don't know how random =randarray on google is.

This issue was discussed in a post on February 13. - #entry1017658 I'm not sure it was resolved to the OP's satisfaction. Here's the link.

4/4 in the majors - double for me. Acol is a HUM

When I worked at UNC in the 1990's many things were new and surprising. When my daughters missed the school bus (such things don't exist in Australia), they were returned to us by a couple of friendly police officers.The airport at Charlotte had the worlds best second-hand bookshop. This area has the highest concentration of PhD's in the world.The supermarket had so many varieties of potato it was nearly impossible to choose.What are grits anyway? But one thing stood out: our fully vaccinated children could not attend school until they could prove that they were immunised against Haemophilus Influenza B. This happened in the antebellum south. You could almost hear Rhett telling Scarlett that he didn't give a damn. Go to school without being vaccinated for a much more lethal respiratory disease, sure!

It's hard to believe they caught him. Wasn't he wearing the juice? http://bit.ly/WheelerJuice

It's hard to believe they caught him. Wasn't he wearing the juice? http://bit.ly/WheelerJuice

It is rare in Club Bridge in Australia to use Bidding Boxes. Typically Bidding pads are used, and players write their bid on the pad. When I learned that the bidding was supposed to be covered after trick 1 and tried to cover up the pad, there was outrage. The first time I used a bidding box was at an interstate teams trial (I was a fill-in). I don't plan to return to Clubs even after COVID is under control in Australia. I was constantly getting respiratory tract infections. The previous system of sharing dirty pieces of paper amongst senior citizens is a super-spreader event. Who needs it? Online is fine for me - it's 52 cards wherever you are.

Some spelling/grammar checking add-ins or extensions do this. When I disabled mine on BBO the problem disappeared. Unfourtunately I now have a lot of speling and grammar eros in alerts.

[hv=lin=st||pn|pilowsky,~~M46746,~~M46744,~~M46745|md|2SAKJ4HKQ8DAQ43C87,ST853HJ9542DJ72CK,S2HA76DK865CQJT43,SQ976HT3DT9CA9652|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%204|mb|P|mb|P|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;%2020-2|mb|P|mb|3S!|an|Minor%20Stayman%20--%204+%20!C;%204+%20!D;%2011-%20HCP;%205-12%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|3N|an|2-3%20!C;%202-3%20!D;%202-5%20!H;%202-5%20!S;%2020-21%20HCP|mb|P|mb|6C|an|6+%20!C;%204+%20!D;%2011-%20HCP;%2012%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|DT|pc|DA|pc|D2|pc|D5|pc|C7|pc|CK|pc|C3|pc|C2|pc|H2|pc|HA|pc|H3|pc|H8|pc|CT|pc|C9|pc|C8|pc|S5|pc|CJ|pc|CA|pc|S4|pc|H5|pc|D9|pc|DQ|pc|D7|pc|D6|pc|SA|pc|S3|pc|S2|pc|S7|pc|SK|pc|S8|pc|H6|pc|S9|pc|HK|pc|H4|pc|H7|pc|HT|pc|HQ|pc|HJ|pc|D8|pc|C5|pc|S6|pc|SJ|pc|ST|pc|C4|pc|CQ|pc|C6|pc|D3|pc|H9|pc|DK|pc|SQ|pc|D4|pc|DJ|]300|300| Bah! I just lost 13 IMPs after GIB North bid 6♣, meaning: 6+♣; 4♦; 11-HCP; 12 total points - with this hand - over my perfectly makeable 3NT. The bid of 3NT specifically denies support for North's two minors. It's time to give the advanced robots a calculator/abacus/pencil and paper. [/hv]

[hv=pc=n&s=sq85hjt8dkq87c982&w=st9hak9753d94cqj6&n=sak7432hqda53cat3&e=sj6h642djt62ck754&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=pp2hdp2np3sppp]399|300| Here's the entire hand and auction. Matchpoints btw. Earlier that day, my partner sent me a message saying a friend had 'dropped' for tea, so Lebensohl was on my mind. I thought that the double meant she had a strong hand with no decent 5-card suit to overcall with. One of the lines that I took away from Lawrence on Takeout Doubles was "a five-card suit is gold". I know there were 300+ more pages to the book and even stuff not covered, but with that in mind, I assumed my partner lacked a 5-card suit and had lots of points. The 3♠ bid surprised me, and I assumed North had a strong hand with four chunky spades - so I left it. Double-dummy suggests 3NT is optimal, but the top 6 pairs were in 4♠+1. The bidding on the 4♠ tables reflects the results of the poll: On five tables, West opened 2♥. One person overcalled 3♠, Three people overcalled 2♠, and one person doubled (followed by 3♦ 3♠ 4♠) West opened 1♥ at two tables, making it easier for NS to reach 4♠. Afterwards, I decided that since EW and I were all weak, I should have taken my partner to be much stronger than I imagined. [/hv]

[hv=pc=n&n=sak7432hqda53cat3&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=pp2hdp]133|200| This hand came up in Speedball Tourney. When the dust settled, I decided to cop most of the blame, My question is: What's your call as North in this auction? [/hv]

BBO is a global site that posts the start time of tournaments only 2 hours ahead. Please provide a single site that allows people to easily find the start time of any tournament several days into the future. I played a Speedball game with a person in a different time zone. Today I found a table with a list of start times on a separate site. I'm sure this list will be out of date soon.

It says something that in order to protect themselves and others America is "gamifying" the vaccine. Soon there will be a vaccine leaderboard, Vacpoints and Gold stars for people that get their vaccine on time. In no time at all people will be getting multiple shots of vaccine with different usernames to enhance their chances of winning. Good to know that the free market operates with altruism in the USA.

As Louis Pasteur remarked: "Fortune favours the prepared mind". Perhaps he went to preparatory school. Maybe he was A "trèfle" trop préparée.

Interesting question. I googled about a bit and did manage to find one reference to the "prepared club" and found this in Wikipedia: The "phoney club" or if you want to spend $20 (Australian), "The phoney Club: the Cleveland club system" - David Marsh-Smith is (according to Tim Bourke - of Bourke relay fame - another method I don't know) From this link on Paul Lavings website: http://www.bridgegea...lub-system.html And from this Forum in 2016! https://www.bridgeba...-prepared-club/ Where someone asserts that: "I believe most bridge teachers in the US teach to not bypass a four card spade suit to bid 1NT (i.e. would bid 1S on 4-3-3-3.)". Many of the commentators from that thread appear here. And this on the "Prepared Club Opening Bid" from the Raunds Bridge Club UK https://www.raunds-b...pared-club.html I had heard of short, big, strong, and now prepared and phoney; the poor club seems to carry a lot of weight. The opponents in this auction were not from Australia or the UK - I suspect that the word "preparatory" has crept into their argot. The only place that refers to "preparatory club" is Italian (pescetom?): in "a few words with Valerio Giubilo" from the Neapolitan Club (the magazine).

I'm pretty sure that the delay in packets travelling to the USA from Sydney isn't the (main) problem. Although intermittent slowness does occur. I am aware that during the stock market frenzy a couple of decades back, Brokerage companies paid extra money to have their computers closer to the main server in the belief that their trades would happen faster. In this case, the throttle seems to be the sleep mode setting. I had it set to turn off after 1 hour of inactivity. As soon as I turned off this "feature", everything returned to normal speed. All of the programs on the iMAC were running excruciatingly slowly: now not. It could be a coincidence, but BBO was and is working fine on all my other devices.