pilowsky

It's a great urban myth though. I used to believe that if the cards were new then I was more likely to get a distributional hand. I got flamed for that thought. Perhaps we should have a Bridge Urban Myths Section? (BUMS).

Welcome to the Forum. Context is all-important. Bridge is a bit different to other mind sports, and players anticipate that - within limits - each person will make their move within a certain timeframe. If you like to take many minutes over each move, then perhaps you should consider playing with like-minded friends. It's a bit difficult to give a considered response without knowing how quickly you play, or which sort of tables you are playing at. After thinking for about 20-30 seconds once I got a message in chat saying "hurry up I have to collect my grandson". Online Bridge is different from Bridge in the home or at the Club. Your partner or opponent could be anywhere and doing anything. I once had a bad result and my partner said I played too quickly. I asked him what the correct speed to play at was. Of course, he had no good answer.

Hi, What you are looking for are the Express Free fun tournaments - 30S per decision or you get replaced by a robot. 80 player indy's matchpoints. They are on very frequently. PS - I'm playing one now - watch an expert execute a pseudo-squeeze https://tinyurl.com/y2xlhxuz

I would bid 2♥ GF and expect to end up in 3NT. What an interesting hand.

fair suck of the sav cobber. I'm just trying to get a straight answer in a language any simple Aussie can understand.

I have seen this when playing at a regular table, but never when playing at a table where the scoring method is 'teaching'. Which type of scoring method do you use?

There is a concept known as the "fully imagined audience". Lawyers (in the UK) might understand it as "the man on the Clapham omnibus". Expressions such as "I know that you know...", and "Every experienced player ought to know..." and "here's my system card look it up..." All fall well short of this critical and important concept. Why? Because they assume the person has special knowledge that they may not have. It is one of the reasons why many Bridge teachers are not good at teaching and many Bridge writers are bad at writing. Even when they are excellent at playing. Pran's explanation falls well short of an explanation that a high-school educated 16-year-old could understand. I don't understand it. terms such as 'may probably' and 'must judge' are imprecise and meaningless. So, to put the question another way. A player rocks up to the table and tells me he has 14HCP or less with 5+ spades and then turns out to have a butt-load more, should I be annoyed?

So, can I ask then if we can compare it say to opening 1NT with 14 HCP and a roughly balanced hand or 18 HCP when your system says 15-17 using 2/1 or similar? How is that different? This seems to be very much more of a deviation. What are the 'other facts' that you feel that you need to enhance your decision-making process?

What?

The Ramones were famous because like me, not only could they not sing well, but they also couldn't play well. Here's the Blitzkrieg Bop. I started practising tonight and got up to board 7. After surreptitiously seducing East to bid 4♥, my colleague the North robot slides out the ♦J and West covers with the ♦Q, and I slip out the ♦K. What must West do to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat? [hv=pc=n&s=sq432hqt2dk3ck642&w=sk9hk8754d872caq8&n=sat87hj3djt64ct97&e=sj65ha96daq95cj53&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=p1hp1ndp2s4hppp]399|300[/hv] Here's what happened when I played it. I'd be grateful for expert comment, I think I found the answer on page 351 of The Rodwell Files.

My apologies, I assumed that since their card said they were playing Precision and any hand any unbalanced shape with >16HCP would be opened 1♣, that this was a sort of 'impossible spade'.

So, speaking of what constitutes a psych, I was playing in the local (online) Club yesterday when two players ambled up and sat down then casually announced that they played Precision. Interesting I thought, recalibrating my mind towards what a 1♣ might look like, when East opens 1♠. Here's what East had for that call.[hv=pc=n&e=sakqj6hqjt8dat72c&d=n&v=e&b=9&a=p1s2cpp3hp3s4c4sppp]133|200[/hv] After the call of 3♥ I was pretty sure that East was eliding the truth and that his partner had caught on with the 3♠ bid. All the same, is this a psych? In their system, 1♠ promises no more than 14 HCP. K&R rates this monster at over 20.

You are quite right on this latter point. The dosing regimen is key. The head of the Jenner lab was very cautious. Fortunately, scientists tend not to speculate as wildly as Sydney Powell or Rudy. Except perhaps at grant time... Nonetheless, he did point out that because of the current resurgence of cases in the UK a better answer is likely to come fairly quickly.

The 60-70 is false. They are claiming 90% with the other dosing regime. The media have confused the press release by stating 60-90%. It's either 60-70% or it's ~90% we don't know yet. The efficacy of the other vaccines in practice depends on the reliability of the cold chain logistics and a lot of other factors. Vaccination in and out of the confines of a clinical trial are two different things.

I stopped using the word 'intelligent' decades ago. It's a construct developed by Alfred Binet to sort high school students into streams. I read his book when I was 15. It was in the school library. It was pointless then and it's pointless now. But Bridge players love IQ tests because Bridge players love keeping score. Chess players are the same. I've never met a brilliant social worker that cared less. A person has a personality, most parents will report that they can 'see' that personality at birth and that it rarely changes. The serious quiet child stays that way. The happy cuddly child remains the same. Competencies, on the other hand, can be acquired. The environment and genetics can enhance or detract from a persons ability to acquire competencies which may be in different areas. I think this is why the States best Chess player when I was young was a taxi driver and the Professors could never beat him. People can achieve remarkable things in one area but be incapable of achievement in another. Yet another good reason why racism is pointless and we should all care for each other.

I guess if four friends wanted to they could set up zoom/skype etc, but really, what's the point! For decades Bridge players have been pfaffing about working out how to play behind screens. Now it becomes a reality and they want to see each other again. Makes no sense at all.

I just played this hand after I set up a teaching table - bidding a slightly optimistic 1NT, East then decides to bid 2♥ Hearts and a minor with a 2740 shape. Now technically, East does have hearts and a minor, but what happened to 2♣ "I have a suit"? Here's what happened - It's the second time in the past week or so. This time for 3♦-3 Also, I thought I was getting advanced robots - I led the ♥A and they should only go -1. Interesting hand though: South, but not North, has 3NT. But the best result is 4Hx-1 for EW! [hv=pc=n&s=s84ha9dkt872cak43&w=sak653hjdq93cj987&n=sqt72hk85d6cqt652&e=sj9hqt76432daj54c&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=pp1npp2h(H%20%26mnr%204%2B%20hrts%203-%20spds%20etc)p2np3dp(too%20happy%20to%20dbl)pp]399|300[/hv]

From here perhaps? https://www.bridgebase.com/tourneyhistory/

Apparently so https://news.bridgebase.com/2020/11/23/bbo-upgraded-version-5-6-15-is-here/?v3b=web&v3v=5.6.14

The most important part of the Oxford announcement is that the USA vaccines are both only useful in highly urbanised 1st world areas. I suspect it unlikely that they will get to vaccinate even a third of the US population. That might be an exaggeration, but since a third of the eligible population did not vote and a third voted for Trump, and the vaccine has to be maintained at -ridiculous temperatures, The chances of rolling it out seem worrying in the real world. Surveys in the USA suggest that many people don't want it even if offered. The Oxford vaccine OTOH was designed to be stored at regular fridge temperatures. I heard the head of the Jenner lab. saying that they wanted to be sure that it could be distributed to all areas of the world. Not just in rich areas. Seriously, what is the point of making a vaccine that only works on a tiny proportion of the population? It's like saying "I'm going to wipe out polio, but only in Texas, and then only if they really want it because we don't want to infringe their civil whatsis". The chap from the Jenner lab (Hill I think) explained that giving the half dose first followed by a boost with a full dose gave 90% efficacy but they were waiting for the US results and more data from the UK - which tragically is coming fast. This variability of the 'priming effect' of immunogens on antibody production doesn't surprise me, we often had to fiddle with the way we gave the immunogens to get a good antibody. The reasons are long and beyond the scope of this Forum. It will be great news if we do get more for less.

Many people have difficulty understanding what constitutes racism. These two videos may help. If you want more, google Yad Vashem. The American civil war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZfcc21c6Uo Nazi Perspectives on History When Trump (and his followers) say 'the democrats" in the way that they do, and say "shifty Schiff" or "crazy Nancy" and talk of the Wuhan 'flu, or when they describe a woman as "a real looker", what they are doing is removing the humanness, the soul, the thing that makes them a part of "us". Once this is achieved, it is a simple thing to say, "Why, these 'things' are no more than cattle, or laboratory animals". You see, the central mistake that many people make when they ask the question What is racism? is that they think that racists dislike or hate the 'other'. This is not the case. Hitler did not 'hate' the Jew, the plantation owner felt nothing toward the Black. In the case of the Jew they were vermin to be cleaned up so as to make the world a better place: nothing personal at all. In the case of the plantation owner, the Black was just the same as cattle. When you watch the first video you will witness actual testimony to that effect. The world lives with the consequences of this inhumanity. Hollywood sanitises it. Simply being surprised to see something unusual is not racism, it's normal; failing to appreciate that a human is a human, is racism.

I want to report a crime | https://tinyurl.com/y4jmcnv9 | 12.8 IMPs Someone stole 12 IMPs, which would have been fine, but it wasn't me.

Delicately diverging into DOPI for a moment, A divertissement from the practice table. Is this really how DOPI works? GIB deploys 0314. https://tinyurl.com/y48m3uc9 Needless to say, I plonked down my unsupported Ace. Oddly, I could have led away from it and East still goes down! How about that... Holy double trouble Batman - the Ace of Clubs strikes again. One board later. The robots must be drowsy or demented. https://tinyurl.com/yyf6tmsj

One of the greatest Chess Grandmasters of all time was Jose Capablanca. He wrote that: "In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else. For whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and opening must be studied in relation to the end game." When I learned to play Chess there was an equal focus on the endgame as well as the opening. Why bother knowing how to start if you don't know how to finish? It's a truism that I've often remembered. I don't know if the same is true when teaching young Bridge players, because I came to the game sideways. From what I've seen most of the focus is on Bidding and then on signalling, and then on card-play. Endings comes last. In the last week, two hands came up that I always get wrong. And so does almost everyone else. Here's the first one. East led the ♠5 and I went down 2. most of the field also fell. but Susangwiz made it! [hv=pc=n&s=sk83hkj73da53cq72&w=sqjt97h654djct653&n=sa64hat82dq97ck84&e=s52hq9dkt8642caj9&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=p1cp1hp2hp4hppp]399|300[/hv] The second one came up in yesterday's Forum challenge! It must be interesting because I scored 64% and went down 2 when it should make 4H= Here's the hand. And the hash I made of it. and East led the ♦5... [hv=pc=n&s=sa7h9832daj6caj84&w=st98hkqt5dkt82ct2&n=sj4haj764d43cq976&e=skq6532hdq975ck53&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=1sd2s3h3s4hppp]399|300[/hv] Edit - looks like 11 people made it although the robots irresponsibly gave somebody a top board with 3NT+1.

Was? nummers van de spellen bringt kummer und schand!