pilowsky

What's the rule of 19? I'm not joking - I don't use it. I learned Bridge from youtube the internet and Books. The guy at one of the Clubs I went to stole lessons from Richard Pavlicek's website and removed RP's name from them. Then he shamelessly made multiple copies of them and called them 'free lessons with Mike' then he read them out verbatim (as if from a teleprompter) interrupting himself now and then to say "I don't agree with that". I left that Club and will not be going back. I call that plagiarism. I learn constantly from my partners, Nige1 Jeff Tang, Rob Barrington, cyberyeti and many others here and elsewhere. GIB is a critical learning tool. Don't tell me about Bridge Teachers. Bridge Teachers tell me to "shut up and listen" (the guy at the club), or they say "what do you want to know". or - my all-time favourite - "you should look up the Dunning-Kruger effect." By and large, Bridge teachers are superb players with almost no chops as educators. It's not their fault - someone makes a lot of money selling Bridge teacher certificates. I'm sure that in some jurisdictions, you need actual qualifications to set up as a Bridge teacher. Not in others. Being an Australian academic, I artlessly assumed that people would actually want to help each other. Imagine how unprepared I was for Bridgeworld where you're expected to pay for the air that you breathe: and then get criticised if you inhale it incorrectly.

go to casual and start your own table "start a table" when you do you will be offered a variety of settings. You can exclude new members and set a minimum completion rate you can also change a few other things that will fix your problem.

What is your evidence that "cheating is not common"? People seem capable of 'stealing' anything. The smaller the stakes, the meaner they get and the more pathetic the rationalisations become. I was tired. I was bored I don't know what came over me I was sad My child wanted me to do it My mother is dying of cancer I had an argument with my dog etc etc etc Of course, people cheat. The internet just makes it possible in new ways. If you want a good laugh google James Randi

I stopped playing Chess for two reasons. paedophiles and girls didn't play chess. That does not mean that the rating system is a bad thing. I didn't play Bridge when I was a child so I don't know if Bridge has the same problem with paedophiles that chess had when I was young.

That's really hitting the nail on the head. From some points of view, opening with 10HCP is a psych. Alternatively, failing to bid spades with a strong hand and whopping spade suit is a psych whereas doubling to show points is just a reasonable overcall - to a beginner (ie me). There are still people out there that would not dream of opening on less than 13HCP. I bet the vast majority of Bridge-players do not know what the KR is. Or what the commonest card shape is. In medical negligence cases, the quality of a practitioners work is held to the standard expected of someone with their level of skill. Not that of an expert, or the any particular desired outcome. Yet another good reason to have a quality rating system in Bridge.

Spencer Davis died today, so this one's for Lamford and the other leek lovers. Davis was 81 and was carried away by pneumonia. Musicians, like Bridge-players, have rules and scores. They also have a Bridge in their songs, and Spencer Davis had one on his guitar.

I don't want to seem obtuse, but I don't really see how this is a psych. South opens 1H "I have 5+♥ and 11-21 hcp; 11-22 TP" - almost! West doubles: this is something of a psych. for this bid West should have no more than 4♠ and less than 2♥ with >7HCP. North doesn't know what's going on so (maybe) cue bids West to show HCP. Who knows what's going on at this stage? East, amazingly all things considered actually has 4 ♠. This is a miracle really. What is needed at this table is a psychoanalyst and a hot cup of tea. When I was doing my training in psychiatry, I used to write '𝚿' on the cover of my psych notes as a shorthand. My father always wondered why psychics needed to put signs up advertising their fairs - surely everyone would just know when they were going to be on and where. A 'psych' is a psychiatrist, to psych- is to do something that creates a (usually false) idea in someone else's mind. Psyche is a Goddess - and a very friendly one at that.

There is just one computer program. Just compare the traveller results. Whenever the same bid is passed out the same lead is made and the program plays it exactly the same way. This could never happen with humans. Even the simulation pauses are of similar duration. Turing would be proud. Asimov is Fiction Androids don't dream of anything - even electric sheep. Sorry.

You're right. I don't know for sure.. Let's put it this way. If guessing is on a scale of 0-100, where certainty is 0 and 100 is absolute bloody lunacy, then saying "that's my guess" is probably being a bit mild. Perhaps I should say "that's my stab in the dark". How's that? The 0-100 method was taught to me by a Japanese post-doc. Apparently, that's how they get taught English in Japan. So you can give my estimate a 25% on the Miyawaki scale of inverse likelihood (guesswork). Or, to put it another way, no, I wouldn't put much store in what I say either.

Discard a Club from dummy, South is end played. if South ruffs contract makes with diamond finesse. If not 9 of hearts is top. That's my guess.

hrothgar just crawled out of the primordial slime and sat down to watch television. Then he climbed off the sofa to write the first number that popped into his head. Like me, he doesn't work for BBO, but unlike me, he's sometimes very annoying. I used to play Chess which also had a rigorous rating system. It was so rigorous that when I played against someone in the club I knew that at the end of the month my rating would be compared with Gary Kasparov and Bobby Fischer. Bridge is useless. It's just a collection of coffee shops arguing with each other about laws and rulings. Regional authorities sell them masterpoints wholesale which we compete for and they supply them to us retail. Since lockdown, we have to provide our own coffee. I just checked your ranking on BBO. you have 0.02 bbo points so your ranking is still 0. you can check anyone ranking and masterpoints by following this link: https://www.bridgeba...oints/index.php

I hesitate to put my 2 cents worth in, but I would definitely agree with the 1NT opening. After the 3♥ bid though it would probably depend on the time of day. In the mornings I'm usually a bit more alert, and would reevaluate my hand upwards. After all, you have a 9 card Heart fit and 18+ total points. You don't need much to make, although, if some of the cards are switched around then everything goes horribly wrong and it's a completely different story. In the evenings, I get a bit tired and if the North robot says drop, then I drop. so now I only play those tourneys in the morning - well, mainly .

Apologies, it is West - I edited it after you noted that earlier. I was one of the 'suckers and losers' that passed as South. At two other tables, NS opened allowing the EW pair to reveal their majors and get to a making 2H contract. Which just goes to show that silence is not always golden because we got -ve IMPs.

Disclaimer - I don't work for BBO, I'm not a Director but I do understand where you're coming from. OK, clearly you are pretty upset about something that has happened recently. It should be noted that much the same unpleasant behaviour that you find in the club also exists on all of the various virtual hosting platforms (of which BBO is just one). People give unauthorised information (coffee-housing/out-right cheating etc) in the club as well as online. Online they 'think' they are being more 'sophisticated' because it's harder to see. Sometimes, people are slow because they are 90 years old with a slow internet connection and have multiple sclerosis. Sometimes people are slow because they live in Namibia and there is what is euphemistically known as 'load-shedding' - not something you see in the club unless someone had a sandwich that disagreed with them. In any event, long hesitations online don't mean as much as they mean in the club. There is no emotion that can be read into them. Even the computer program pauses. It does not mean that the East hand has the King of diamonds. If you are talking about a SPECIFIC virtual club, then this forum may not be the right place to discuss your problem. BBO is a wholesaler. Clubs buy space on the platform and show the Directors (contractors) how to use it. BBO assumes no liability, as far as I know, so your complaints fall into a void. There is no world governing body of Bridge, only a collection of regional bodies - each one has its own madcap rules. In the USA you drive on the wrong side of the road and don't speak English, It's not my fault. But there are still 52 cards in the deck, so usually, we can all manage to play Bridge together.

The percentage of hands that contain 10HCP is 9.4%, but it isn't common for everyone to get exactly 10. To make matters worse, the colours were also distributed in a particularly dreary way. Edit: apologies - West is the Dealer. Here's the hand: [hv=pc=n&s=s64ha82dq76cat965&w=sj72hkqt63da95c43&n=skq53h94dj832ckj7&e=sat98hj75dkt4cq82]399|300[/hv] The result

And sometimes it doubles for penalties without even realising it. - for 78%

Also, it isn't true. GB is fine with penalty doubles. Unfortunately, it's usually you that's the victim, but not always. North robot doubles West robot for penalties. I double the West robot for penalties and North leaves it. The robots are pretty fair about sticking to their system. The results aren't always optimal because the robots don't care about the talent pool they're in. They always assume they're playing at a particular standard. If you'll excuse the anthropomorphisation. btw apparently since 'robot' is derived from the Czech word Robota meaning slave, and the online community (according to a message I received from Mozilla yesterday) says that we should not use words like master/slave anymore, perhaps we should stick to GIB. Anyway, GIB is perfectly happy to double appropriately and inappropriately, for penalties and for other reasons.

I have some spare Aces that I can lend you for an afternoon.

Oh, I get it 3♣ walk into a bar... you must be joking.

Your secrets are safe with me .

Ah, thank you, always wondered why I had so much trouble passing at school.

Well, turns out GIB on Prime doesn't defend quite as well as you might expect - or I was having a purple patch. 4HW-3 was a pretty good result, but luemmel managed to hit West for 4HxW-3 - there's always someone..., and agfallon found and made 5D, but they had help from gd50. Others weren't so lucky. The modal result for 3NT was 3NT-3. The only reason I didn't bid diamonds was that I thought I was too light - I know - sounds unadventurous for me. Here's the solution According to double-dummy, GIB bid to the right place, but the score was terrible - "the operation was a success, but the patient died"

I was always attracted to Lebensohl principally because the name sounded like some romantic German Opera. I imagined the Queen of the night singing Unfortunately, it's taken until tonight for the robots to teach it to me. Did I get it right, or did they get it wrong? Here's the hand (from a practice table in the prime area IMP's scoring): [hv=pc=n&s=s874h64dkqt92ca92&n=st6haq5daj54ckqj3&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=p1n2d(cappelletti%20majors)2n(Lebensohl%20-%20forces%203C)p3c3s4d(diamonds)4h(3%2B%20hearts)ppp]266|200[/hv] and before you peek - what do think EW have for their bids?

Looks like we're on the same page there then!

You ask an interesting question. What is good governance is a problem that has really been taxing me lately. I think that if we are to have a government it should be there to manage (meaning care for people) and administer (meaning look after rules and regulations). But this is a relatively easy task when everything is running smoothly. In medicine, there is a saying that in anaesthetics, things go wrong in seconds, in surgery things go wrong in minutes but for physicians they can wait for a few days. What COVID and the Bushfires and climate change show are that one in hundred-year events only happen once in a hundred years, but there are hundreds of them! Surely it would be a good idea if government whatever type it was, had some sort of system in place to prepare for them along the lines of the National Transportation Safety Bureau? But no (he said wearily), instead, conservative governments say we'll let the market do it. My biggest gripe about so-called leaders is when they say haplessly: "well it's a 1/100 year event who would have thunk it" - do nothing and nothing happens. Bridge is the same. If you only play for the common events you never get better. To get back to your original question. To be a satisfactory democracy, there should be: an independent electoral commissionpreferential votingcompulsory votinguniversal suffrage Australia has all of these, the USA seems to have none - the USA IMO is a failed state - more akin to the lord of the flies or a primary School playground than a functional democracy. The UK (I am a dual citizen) is not much better. It has voluntary voting and a first past the post system. Together this is easy to cause a rigging of the ballot. Perhaps that's enough for now. PS, Australia does have like the USA what Keating calls undemocratic swill - the Senate. At least the Brits fixed that. Also Brenda Hale is a Bridge Player so there's that too.