pilowsky

[hv=lin=st||pn|pilowsky,~~v3fakebot,~~v3fakebot,~~v3fakebot|md|2SJ9HAK653D654CA43,SAQ5432HQ72DK83C8,ST876HTDAT972CJ97,SKHJ984DQJCKQT652|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%204|mb|1S|an|Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!S;%2011-21%20HCP;%2012-22%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|1N|an|Forcing%20one%20notrump%20--%203-%20!S;%206+%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points|mb|2H|an|rebiddable%20!H;%2013-18%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|P|mb|3N|an|5-%20!H;%203-%20!S;%2012+%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points;%20likely%20stop%20in%20!H|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|D4|pc|D3|pc|D7|pc|DQ|pc|SK|pc|S9|pc|S2|pc|ST|pc|CK|pc|CA|pc|C8|pc|C9|pc|HA|pc|H2|pc|HT|pc|H8|pc|HK|pc|HQ|pc|S8|pc|HJ|pc|C3|pc|D8|pc|CJ|pc|CQ|pc|CT|pc|C4|pc|DK|pc|C7|pc|C6|pc|H3|pc|S3|pc|DT|pc|C5|pc|H5|pc|S4|pc|S7|pc|H4|pc|H6|pc|H7|pc|D2|pc|SA|pc|S6|pc|C2|pc|SJ|pc|SQ|pc|D9|pc|H9|pc|D6|pc|S5|pc|DA|pc|DJ|pc|D5|]300|300| It's the little things in life that matter. North, displaying his usual disinterest in being useful, found the wrong defence. I'm sure you will get it right. What should South lead to take East down 2? I led the ♦4 What would you lead (poll above)? How should play proceed? How do you bring them down? [/hv] What happened to the winner of this board.

Although I am not a card-carrying statistician (as my mentor would have said) I do know a little more than the "average bear". And I'm not even all that keen on porridge. I just played a hand in a Daylong where a slight difference (variance?) in play by our friend the North robot dramatically affected the result. I'll post it shortly when the tournament ends.

It's true, he will - it seems to be a full-time job.

There has been a lot of anxiety in some quarters about the horrors (imagined) of a financial bail-out in the USA because of the impact of COVID19. Putting aside the fact that the US economy's damage was a self-inflicted wound (incompetent management, greed, poor social infrastructure, the list goes on). The quibbling about a bail-out of the now $3 trillion or so in bailout needs to be seen in a historical context. A few short years ago, through a combination of greed, incompetence and poor regulation and governance, the USA managed to destroy 19.2 trillion dollars (2011 dollars). All by itself. No virus required. You can read about it here: https://bit.ly/30w3HmP. Destroying wealth, fighting wars (Vietnam, Iraq etc.) and creating world poverty is central to the United States peculiar form of democracy. A democracy if we can steal it from other people, so to speak. No, Trump didn't do anything to make matters worse; he's just the reincarnation of Naziism that arose from the ashes of the Treaty of Versailles. Like Dirty Harry he doesn't discriminate: he hates everyone. After the destruction of Europe, the USA provided aid for reconstruction (only $13.3 billion in today's dollars). Additional aid was provided by removing people like Werner Von Braun from Germany to America and giving him a comfy place to live and work. You might imagine that this was a generous act. It was not. The USA was only using money that it had loaned to countries like the UK and Canada who then had to pay it back. Wow, declare war on a major power kill people who have done you no harm and come out on top. Fanciful? Yes, they made a film out of it "The mouse that roared" - 1959. "The minuscule European Duchy of Grand Fenwick is bankrupted when an American company comes up with a cheaper imitation of Fenwick's sole export, its fabled Pinot Grand Fenwick wine. Crafty Prime Minister Count Mountjoy (Peter Sellers) devises a plan: Grand Fenwick will declare war on the United States, then surrender, taking advantage of American largesse toward its defeated enemies to rebuild the defeated nation's economy." With enemies like the USA, who needs friends?

What are the odds that sitting South you would pick up this hand AND be playing in a major tournament AND be the worlds best Bridge player? [hv=pc=n&s=shadakqt9865432c6&w=s92hqj97643dcqj85&n=sajt87hk52djct932&e=skq6543ht8d7cak74&d=e&v=n&b=2&a]399|300[/hv] And the lead was a ♠. one in 2,722,762 apparently. If the current pandemic has (re)taught us anything, it's that incredible 1/100 year events only happen once in a hundred years, but there are lots of them. COVID-19, Texas freezing, NSW and California burning, A non-white woman being elected to be Vice-President. The hand may be over, but the war goes on. http://bit.ly/WarGoesOn. It turns out that the odds of being dealt a hand with 9-x-x-x or better are better than 1 in 1700. Last month I played only 750+ hands. One dealing site has now dealt more than 57,527,618,400 hands 26,358,553 of them (0.045874812%) held 25 or more HCP! I've said it before, common things do occur commonly, but uncommon things do occur.

Great, thank you. Useful info and noted. When are we playing next?

I think he may be on to something. I'm pretty sure that if I score less than 50% on a hand opps were cheating. (Different at IMPs of course).

There a difference between actual knowledge and guesswork and inference. Sure, if the opponents or partners cards are faceup, then you have actual knowledge. If you are playing with a person and have little prior knowledge of their habits, then it is guesswork. Finally, you might be inferring that a card is of a particular suit or number because of its location in their hand, but you don't actually know. In fact, what you are is Bertrand Russell's inductivist turkey. You are applying the principles of logical positivism (a wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung) to the way that you apprehend the world. This fallacious scientific world view leads many people to believe that they 'know' things when they don't That this thinking is embedded in Bridge law (and lore) harks back to the pre-scientific era (i.e. before Fisher, Gossett, Pearson and then computers). Conan Doyle famously believed in fairies. Many great scientists held unshakeable mystical beliefs. Sure, it's fun to imagine that you can tell where a card is from the position that the player draws it, but the truth is you can't. It does not follow that because someone pulled the Ace from the left once, then that is what they will do next time. Within a few weeks of starting to play, I started randomising whereabouts the suits were placed; and then whether or not the cards in the suits were arranged L->R or R->L. Now that I play Bridge online-only, none of this is a problem. Of the many things I do not miss about FTF, intimidatory Director calls about fanciful ideas concerning the timing and card placement are surely in the top ten.

Why not have a bit of a boast and gloat? What would the world be without gloaters? http://bit.ly/NoGloaters The palpable contempt that many Forum members have for Bridge played with robots is reasonable and inaccurate at the same time. It's reasonable because Bridge played against robots is not the same as the game played against three other people. It's inaccurate because both games require many of the same skills. By playing with and against robots, I am learning a great deal about many fundamental elements of bidding and card play. In 'psych-speak', there is an obvious 'positive transfer' of skills acquired in one form of the game to the other form. Bridge at its most basic can be (IMHO) visualised as a combination of attempting to solve the four-colour map theorem (as defined by a mathematician called Guthrie - any relation?) combined with integer number theory. Layered on top of this are a variety of rules and regulations designed to make the game difficult and interesting. It ends up as a form of doubles tennis with four different coloured balls of different sizes at the same time, but with less exercise (most of the time). As opposed to cricket, a game where, as Bill Bryson famously commented "the spectators get more exercise than the players". All the same, robot Bridge is a completely different game because it is a pure video game where each competitor attempts to outwit the other players using their knowledge of how the program works. I don't think it makes it less interesting, just different. A big advantage of robot Bridge is that you can boast about upsetting the opponents or rail against your partner because they will not take offence. Another big advantage of robot Bridge is that if you discover a cool technique that works (some per cent of the time) against the robots I feel it is entirely appropriate to share it with the rest of us so that we can also try it out and enjoy the results - or complain when we stuff it up. By contrast, in 'people Bridge' I find that the degree of 'sharing' of useful information can be somewhat constipated - except on this Forum where everyone is generally very helpful, and not boastful at all.

Still not listening. I highlighted the error in your post. They never give different results if the bidding is the same. Never. Or are you wilfully ignoring the point? They give EXACTLY the same result on the same bidding but a different lead. The ONLY difference is that Prime members get one lead and non-prime members get a different lead. CONCLUSION: the two populations are playing different robots. btw, one full stop is usually enough.

So that's how I get to be an advanced player, Open 1NT with 12 HCP and 6 losers. All this time I thought my card play, bidding and hand analysis were the problem. What I don't understand is why you didn't just open 4NT?

res ipsa loquitir Telling me that something that is obviously bad is a feature and not a bug is not helpful. You are flat out wrong. If you have (mis-)interpreted someone else to be saying there is no problem (even though he does actually work as a programmer for BBO) is unhelpful. Listen carefully Stephen: I KNOW IT ISN"T A BUG. The computer is working just fine - both of them. The error is in the implementation. BBO advertises Prime as a place where something can happen. Because of the poor way that they have implemented it, it doesn't. It's a little bit like saying to a fencing club "look we don't have enough space for you and the cricket club, just use that flat area in the middle of the grass. You might have to duck and weave a bit more than usual on account of the people with sticks and the one throwing a ball, but it's the best we can do." So that's why I keep making these posts. I want to use the Prime area. I like it. But I keep getting hit by bouncers and jostled by two people with sticks.

It doesn't matter, but you can click through the play by hitting the 'next' button on the diagrams and see for yourself if you are interested. There are two types of robot on BBO. Basic and Advanced. They are programmed in different ways. One type plays according to one set of rules compared to the other. The example I have given above is simply for illustration. Change the bidding slightly get a different result. That is not the issue. The issue is why is it that during one session Prime punters get one type of opponent and non-Prime punters get another? As a side-note, the only reason I started writing on this Forum (even though I'm a beginner/intermediate) is that when I wrote to BBO (support) about a year ago they told me to write on the Forum. On the Forum, the people that run BBO don't reply. There is no acknowledgement. But, I'm patient; I keep trying. On the plus side, I have learned a lot more about Bridge, made some friends, met Richard Willey and Mark Sheldon and a guy called Chas. So, not a complete loss.

I joined the Prime Club for several reasons: 1) Unlimited access to advanced robots for practice. 2) Ability to invite friends for practise in an environment where other people wouldn't mind while ironed out bugs in our understanding. 3) Ability to try out different approaches on the teaching table using the same advanced robots that I played the hand with in the first place. It turns out that the advertisement - the basis on which I am paying for my membership - may be inaccurate. It seems that the teaching table robots in the Prime area behave consistently completely differently to the Advanced robots in the daylongs. Their play appears consistently worse than daylong GIB. To add insult to injury, rub salt in the wound and really twist the knife; if I try and play and 8 board round in the Prime club, it turns out that much of the time, I might be playing with one iteration of GIB while others are playing against an entirely different iteration of GIB. The hand shown below was played 16 times. On the 2 tables where the bidding went 1S-4S and South was a Prime member a ♦4 was led, and the contract makes for +9.2 IMPs. On the 12 tables where the bidding went 1S-4S and South was not a Prime member, a ♣K was led, and the contract is 4♠-1 for -0.9 IMPs. Now, when I bring friends - even nice ones - (I know, how can I tell?) onto a Prime table for a few quick practice hands, I first have to explain to them not to worry about the scoring at all because it's meaningless. Sure, it's a 'nice friendly place' in the sense that no-one in Prime ever (insert whatever here). Even so, social or not, the Prime Club is still a duplicate Bridge scoring Club. I'm sure that people who pay for the privilege would prefer it if their bidding and cardplay was compared with other people playing the same GIB. Even if the hands are NOT always being played in the Prime area. In the example below, only Prime players get the diamond lead. All the non-Primers get a club lead. It sometimes works to the disadvantage of the Prime players. Either way, it isn't nice, it isn't friendly, and it sucks the fun out of practice. Can I ask: 1. Are you aware of this issue? 2. Does it matter to BBO? 3. Are there plans to change it? Here is the advertisement: (28 October 2019) [hv=lin=st||pn|pilowsky,~~M13553z4,~~M5536tt7,~~M4184zs2|md|1SAKQJ8HJ9763D2C96,S72HK4DJ754CKQ753,S96543HQT52DATCT8,STHA8DKQ9863CAJ42|sv|e|rh||ah|Board%203|mb|1S|an|Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!S;%2011-21%20HCP;%2012-22%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|4S|an|Preemptive%20raise%20--%205+%20!S;%208%20HCP;%204+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|D4|pc|DA|pc|D6|pc|D2|pc|S3|pc|ST|pc|SA|pc|S7|pc|SK|pc|S2|pc|S4|pc|D3|pc|H3|pc|HK|pc|H2|pc|H8|pc|CK|pc|C8|pc|C4|pc|C6|pc|H4|pc|H5|pc|HA|pc|H6|pc|DK|pc|S8|pc|D5|pc|DT|pc|H7|pc|C7|pc|HQ|pc|C2|pc|HT|pc|D9|pc|HJ|pc|C5|pc|H9|pc|C3|pc|CT|pc|D8|mc|10|]300|300|I open 1♠ North raises to 4♠, and I get a ♦ lead and make 4S=[/hv] [hv=lin=st||pn|pdmunro,~~M2603ude,~~M5587pk1,~~M5605pv4|md|1SAKQJ8HJ9763D2C96,S72HK4DJ754CKQ753,S96543HQT52DATCT8,STHA8DKQ9863CAJ42|sv|e|rh||ah|Board%203|mb|1S|an|Major%20suit%20opening%20--%205+%20!S;%2011-21%20HCP;%2012-22%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|4S|an|Preemptive%20raise%20--%205+%20!S;%208-%20HCP;%204+%20total%20points%20|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|CK|pc|C8|pc|C4|pc|C9|pc|CQ|pc|CT|pc|CA|pc|C6|pc|DK|pc|D2|pc|D5|pc|DA|pc|S3|pc|ST|pc|SK|pc|S2|pc|SA|pc|S7|pc|S6|pc|D3|pc|S8|pc|C3|pc|S9|pc|D8|pc|DT|pc|DQ|pc|SQ|pc|D7|pc|H3|pc|HK|pc|H2|pc|H8|pc|C7|pc|H5|pc|C2|pc|SJ|pc|H6|pc|H4|pc|HT|pc|HA|pc|D9|pc|H7|pc|D4|pc|S4|mc|9|]300|300| Everyone else with the same auction gets a ♣K for 4S-1[/hv]

You see what happens when you put two people in a room and both of them believe they know everything about everything all the time? Is the collective noun for such people "a Bridge Club"?

FAKE NEWS!!!

The problem may be more subtle than simply asking, "Are the hands dealt randomly?" This is a fairly "easy" question. Given that so many hands are dealt and played, it is doubtful that a single individual (even those of us who play hundreds or thousands of hands a week) would detect any non-random pattern or if they did, be able to use it to their advantage. Remembering that a non-random pattern (as pointed out earlier) is not a series of hands where patterns don't appear from time to time. A true lack of randomness would exist if the coin turned up "heads" every single time. As Tom Stoppard explained in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" when that happens, it is proof that you are dead because it's impossible (like the spade I suppose). All kinds of illusory ideas about randomness pop into one's mind only to be quickly dismissed, either by ourselves or with a few caustic comments on the Forum. In education, there is a different problem: the "quality of candidature". It works like this. In a total population of students undertaking a final examination, it is necessary to generate a single final ranking. This ranking is used in many ways, but one way is to allocate students to their university entrance preferences. The system may differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Still, somehow it is necessary to "moderate" results so that the students that undertake modern European history are ranked in the same way as those studying advanced calculus, biology, legal studies or design. How is this relevant to the topic at hand? If we look at the Daylongs, there is an anti-cheating measure in place. Each contestant plays 8 boards (in the DL1, for example) played by roughly 30 other players. This means that I am in a pool of ~240 contestants in a competition where about 1000 people finish. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy my DL1 - even though the Zenith seems to have pinched some of the participants, but: If 1000 people are playing 8 boards each that about 30 other people also play, then 1000 players in the DL1 compete against vastly more players than entrants. This is where we run into the quality of candidature problem. It may not be the deals that are non-random, but it seems that the opponents are. Reductio ad absurdum, imagine for a moment that you are playing a team match against another pair, and you are doing reasonably well when suddenly the pair that you are competing against leaves and Nige1 and shyams step in. One could argue that as a test of your skill, this is not a bad approach. I'm not so sure. My understanding of how a Bridge competition is meant to work is that the hands are randomised, not the opponents. Elsewhere, barmar argued that although this may be true, The "good players" consistently do well. What about the rest of us? My results oscillate so wildly it's hard to know who I'm playing against. Is it a bad result simply because my opponents on the day were all Nige1's, shyams' or kenberg's or are my good results happening through a judicious combination of luck and strangely incompetent opponents. To make the competition fair, it would be necessary to use the same "quality of candidature" tools that the Board of Studies uses to ensure that all students are ranked fairly before the results are passed on to the next stage. If this level of randomness of opposition is truly the case, the tournament might better be described as a race where the runners are completely blind. In the end, you rank "x" depending on who else showed up on the day. It's satisfying until you learn that every other blind competitor had a completely different pool of opponents: some of whom were using bicycles.

Thanks for the tip! Perhaps we are heading towards a variant of reverse upside down Bridge where you have to play the hand backwards 13-1 then figure out the bidding! That would be "an aid" to our understanding of the game .

We're up to page 600 - 3NT= vulnerable - Is this some kind of record?

You will be unsurprised to discover that there is quite a bit of research concerning people’s knowledge about probability as it applies to real life. I mean, what are the odds that you can make money out of other people misunderstanding things. Here is a table reproduced from one of these studies. (Regarding) Independence of events There is a Lottery number that has not come out in the last 10 draws. Is it more likely to come out on the next draw? Answer_________N____%___CI Absolutely no:___759:_57.9:__54.6–61.2 Mostly no:______300:_27.0:__24.0–30.1 Mostly yes:______175:_13.5:_11.4–15.9 Absolutely yes:____23:_1.6:__1.0–2.5 (Tomei A., et al., (2017) Misbeliefs About Gambling in a Convenience Sample from the General Population. J Gambling Studies 33:899-906). More than 40% of people do not understand that the chance of a lottery number being drawn is independent of the numbers drawn previously. This belief system is not surprising. Elsewhere in this forum, we have discussed various strange beliefs that people hold for one reason or another, even when there is clear evidence to the contrary. Medical students are taught that “common things occur commonly” and that “if you hear hoofbeats outside the window, think horse, not zebra.” - In Australia anyway. Students are taught all kinds of mnemonics to help remember common patterns that appear in certain diseases e.g.: fair, fat, forty & female = gallstones. They don’t tell you (know) the proportion of cases that the so-called typical presentation accounts for (I’m guessing about 10-15%). Two interesting things about randomness. First, life requires a certain amount of variety. If your heart beats monotonically, you’re dead. All the same, the interval between beats is not entirely random - that would also be bad. The second thing is that the human nervous system has evolved to see shapes and patterns: This ability is useful to bridge players. A sheep has specialised neurons that activate when they see other sheep and entirely different neurons that fire when they see a sheepdog. If shown the image of a dog that is upside down the neuron fails to fire. Monkeys are different; they don’t care about the orientation of the threat - but sheep spend minimal time swing around in the trees. If Bridge hands were monotonically different, then as smerriman notes, something would be wrong. It may or may not be ‘hard’ to learn, but as they say, if you don’t know, you don’t know. To be fair, though, most of the people who write here enjoy collecting masterpoints, an activity that bears little apparent relation to skill. But, there are other benefits to acquiring masterpoints. There must be. Why else would people bother?

[hv=y&lin=st%7C%7Cmd%7C3SA76HAK4DKQT9CKJT%2CST4HJ72DA874C8754%2CSQ985HT98653DCQ92%2CSKJ32HQDJ6532CA63%7Csv%7C0%7Cah%7CBoard%201%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C2N%7Can%7CTwo%20NT%20opener.%20Could%20have%205M.%20--%202-5%20%21C%3B%202-5%20%21D%3B%202-5%20%21H%3B%202-5%20%21S%3B%2020-21%20HCP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4D%21%7Can%7CTexas%20--%206%2B%20%21H%3B%2011-%20HCP%3B%205-12%20total%20points%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4H%7Can%7C2-5%20%21C%3B%202-5%20%21D%3B%202-5%20%21H%3B%202-5%20%21S%3B%2020-21%20HCP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CHQ%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CC5%7C|]300|300| In my defence, I played pretty dismally this week. "Nu? So what else is new?" As my Bobe would say. Along with 222 others, I 'achieved' 4H-1 on Board 1. It felt like there was something clever going on towards the end (congrats, shyams btw). Or did I just mess it up? [/hv]

Allan McDonald engineer. (https://n.pr/2ObUD3N) It is fitting in these times to remember the Engineers at Morton Thiokol who attempted to prevent the Challenger shuttle's launch. Boisjoly, McDonald and the other Engineers commented that “We all knew if the seals failed, the shuttle would blow up.". NPR reports that: “McDonald and his team of Thiokol engineers had strenuously opposed the launch, arguing that freezing overnight temperatures, as low as 18 degrees F, meant that the O-rings at the booster rocket joints would likely stiffen and fail to contain the explosive fuel burning inside the rockets. They presented data showing O-rings had lost elasticity at a much warmer temperature, 53 degrees F, during an earlier launch.” McDonald resisted intense political pressure and refused to sign off on the launch. The Morton Thiokol executives over-ruled him, and the rest is history. At the time, I knew nothing of this. My clear (incorrect) recollection was that Richard (Surely you're joking, Mr) Feynman was the person that discovered what happened and demonstrated it to the commission by dropping an O-ring into liquid nitrogen. If ever there was a system that was over-engineered to avoid catastrophic failure, it was meant to be NASA. In the words of Seeger P., “When will we ever learn?”:http://bit.ly/SeegerLearning (in English with Swedish subtitles and a little German). The more things change, the more they stay the same: scientiam veritatis vires. Not as politicians might have it: qui curat

Being economical with the truth (lying) is a long-standing tradition in American politics. The Cherry tree story is known to be rubbish. Maybe that's where the term "cherry-picking" comes from. If it doesn't, it should. As Mark Twain did not say: "SIN MO SCÉAL DÍOBH, AGUS MÁ TÁ BRÉAG ANN, FÁ É, MAR NÍ MISE A CHUM NÁ A CHEAP." Lying is embedded in political discourse in all countries. It should not be tolerated. There are no alternative facts. The tooth fairy does not exist and the former occupant of the White House wasn't funny.

At my first Club, the playing director had a habit (almost a twitch) of crying out "What are your signals?" every single time I played with or against (it was generally the latter, whichever seat I was in) her. Eventually, I just put my thumb on my nose and waved my fingers in the air and replied, "If I do this, it means I don't like my partner". Possibly, it may not have escaped your attention that some Bridge players lack a highly developed sense of humour. Early on, this Club (it was a short club Club) insisted that lo-like; hi-hate was the only way to play. Later I added McKenney to my repertoire. Although, to be fair (not sure things have changed much), I actually had no idea what I was doing, but my partner thought that I was discarding McKenney and seemed happy. Sometimes I had an American partner; then I would switch to Lavinthal. One pair played upside-down carding, reverse Bergen and reverse Drury: I asked them if they were left-handed. Obviously, in Australia, these methods are in fact the right way up. Then, I started playing with robots. Here I discovered that signals and discards were of little value (bidding was somewhat useful). The thing I like about GIB signalling is that there isn't any. You have to fall back on native cunning and try to work out who has which cards from the bidding and play. So now, unless I am playing with a partner who is incredibly enthusiastic about signals and discards, I just throw away the ones I don't want. I just found this quote on the ABF site "Although these signals are often helpful, there is no substitute for using your own logic at the table. Take notice of what's in dummy, how declarer is playing the contract, and realising that sometimes you don't need a signal at all!". It seems like good advice, but I'm not sure what is meant by "using your own logic" - is there a reverse logic that might be more helpful in some situations? Given that during the bidding, we are meant to alert what our calls actually mean and not use terms such as "Jacoby", etc., does the same apply to "What are your signals/discards?" It never made much sense to ask since the reply should be "he wants a Spade" (Wait for the smile or grimace). Better to sit stum and try and figure out more important things.

[hv=lin=st||pn|wbartley,~~v3fakebot,~~v3fakebot,~~v3fakebot|md|2S65HKQJDA8732CAK4,SQJT9HA863DK64C65,S874HT42DJ5CQJ732,SAK32H975DQT9CT98|sv|n|rh||ah|Board%2012|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|mb|1C|an|Minor%20suit%20opening%20--%203+%20!C;%2011-21%20HCP;%2012-22%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|P|mb|D|an|3+%20!D;%203+%20!H;%203+%20!S;%209-11%20HCP;%2012-%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|2C|an|11-%20HCP;%2011-12%20total%20points|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|DJ|pc|D9|pc|D8|pc|DK|pc|D6|pc|D5|pc|DQ|pc|DA|pc|D7|pc|D4|pc|C7|pc|DT|pc|C3|pc|CT|pc|CA|pc|C6|pc|HK|pc|HA|pc|H2|pc|H5|pc|ST|pc|S4|pc|S2|pc|S5|pc|SQ|pc|S8|pc|S3|pc|S6|pc|C5|pc|CJ|pc|C8|pc|C4|pc|H4|pc|H9|pc|HJ|pc|H6|pc|CK|pc|H3|pc|C2|pc|C9|pc|D3|pc|H8|pc|S7|pc|H7|pc|D2|pc|SJ|pc|HT|pc|SK|pc|HQ|pc|S9|pc|CQ|pc|SA|]300|300 [/hv] It's a fairly simple bidding misunderstanding. West thought he was bidding modified Cappelletti showing both majors. East was distracted. North was inarticulate. Poor old North - always being misunderstood https://bit.ly/NorthProblem. South was lucky.