pilowsky

Here's a suggestion to combine Bridge, commerce, competition and writing. One of the cheapest and most popular tournaments in BBO world is the MP Daylong number 1. It attracts >1000 players every day. At $0.39 for eight boards with the chance of winning more than ten masterpoints, this is very tempting. Another quite popular thing is reading and writing on the BBO Forum. Can we combine all these things? Here's a solution; offer an award for the best piece of writing on the Forum about playing in the MP Daylong No.1. The nature of the prize could be as small as some "free" games - just like in the days of pinball machines: free game for a high score. Who decides? The readers. We can use the existing upvote mechanism on the Forum. Who are the final arbitrators? BBO. Rules: You can only count posts about games that are played in the Daylong MP1 that week. Posts only count once. Upvotes for comments do not count towards the winner. e.g. "that's not funny" or, "you misspeled misspelled". Any other rules actual management thinks worthwhile. Benefits: BBO gets more moneyThe Forum gets livelier with more Beginners and intermediates chatting about their mistakes.People can make new friends and learn more about GIB and how BBO works. Drawbacks: Players give money to BBO.People spend more time writing reading and playing Bridge.

Your Teacher might end up with elbow problems if they keep it up... 10ist elbow is very troublesome.

There are some people in Australia that use the term F**kwit as part of normal conversation. After Australia won the America's Cup Bob Hawke the Prime Minister remarked: "Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum". I was once ticked off as unfriendly for not calling someone a "Bastard". "Bloody" is a normal part of Australian discourse, but in some areas, the slightest curse word will cause offence and accusations of sexism and bullying. Context is everything - I agree. Still, when I go to a Bridge centre and some bozo that I've never met before doesn't like the cut of my gib and takes umbrage about my bidding and/or card play, then I don't think he's entitled to call me a f**kwit. No, I think people that do that are useless d**kheads - and that's putting it mildly. I mean, we may not be there to F@@k spiders, but J%%%%s C^^^%ST, wtf. My response is not to launch into a string of invective, childish abuse or physical assault, that would be pathetic. I use humour, I dissimulate, and if that doesn't work I just walk away. Does that answer your question? Does that clear things up?

T option/alt 0054 if they are having trouble finding it on the character set table

Yep, this seems to be what happens to me. Not sure if its a coincidence but it may have happened around the time when the Daylongs were being changed.

Seriously? When did you stop beating your wife?

Like this one (in practice with robots ) https://tinyurl.com/yxghmbbr Lot's of fun!

Well, I used to play with a Trump supporter. When I told him how somebody once said to me that I was a f**kwit he asked me: "were you?" - That was a short-lived partnership. Book him Danno!

A little while ago one of the programmers complained that people were being rude. Yet I have posted at least three genuine bug reports and don't get the courtesy of an acknowledgement. Obviously, the bug has nothing to do with the length of the folder name. It also has nothing to do with 'm' because the default folder is 'my favorite hands'. Misspelled 'favorite' because of Theodore Roosevelt! Perhaps now that BBO is in French hands it could be renamed 'meilleures mains'. On a lighter note, have you read Mitchell Waldrop's account of the development of the PC 'The Dream Machine' where he describes the original 'bug', 404, and all the other great things that made computing what it is today. Also, logging in and out is not necessary. Just click on another folder and then back to your new folder, you will find that your files are there. Come to think of it, it may just be that the server was very slow and preoccupied at the time - it's hard to tell because we never get a reply to our queries in this part of the Bermuda triangle of the Forum. I suppose we can just chat amongst ourselves...

Well, that explains a lot! Thanks. I'll get back to work.

I just created a bunch of hands similar to yours to try out on the teaching table. Here's a typical one that I now always open 2♠ at this vulnerability IRL and especially against robots. The teaching table GIB misplays it. It's hard to say on a teaching table because there's nothing to compare it with, but it seems to work well.

I just tried unsuccessfully to load a .lin file into folders in the deal archive that I had labelled either 'muiderberg64' or 'mu064' both times the upload failed multiple times. I could not get the properly formatted .lin files to load. When I made a folder called '064' I had no problem. I do have other folders that begin with the letter 'm'. The only reason I mention it now is because when I learned Fortran in 1976 it took weeks to debug a subroutine that I wrote because I named it 'meanx' - In Fortran this meant it could only return integers because anything beginning 'ijklmn' had to be an integer. It's a silly thing to remember but there it is. Anyway, problem solved for me but could be frustrating for others. Edit: After closing and reopening BBO (as suggested in PaulG's youtube video) I found that the deals had loaded. This is the first time this has happened to me. Normally, the deals are present and I only need to click onto another folder then back to the new folder. So, this is certainly idiosyncratic.

Thanks, guys, It was the last thing at night so I was pretty tired! I figured 3NT was possible (ish) because after the weak 2♥ I thought I had a good idea of where the cards were. Wests 3♣ bid was also a bit strange. Stepping through it again, when I reach the position shyams shows I can play the ♦A and if East discards the ♠9 my 6 is good. If not then the ♣10 is still fine. Looks like my brain just turned to soup straight afterwards.

In "Searching for Bobby Fischer" Josh Waitzkin's father describes the moment that he gave up chess. It happened when my son said mate in 5 and even when he explained it I still couldn't understand it. I bid 3NT and went down 2 - The Portuguese expert noted - well bid badly played. I finally came up with what looks like a winning line but I'm still not sure I understand what happened. Here's the deal. West leads ♥5 make 9 tricks [hv=pc=n&s=sq72haq96dj53cj76&w=sj3h5dkq874ck9843&n=sak65h74dat96cqt5&e=st984hkjt832d2ca2&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1d2hp3cpp3nppp]399|300[/hv] The bidding is what happened at the table where the ♦Q was led and I turned it into mush. Here's what I think may be an OK line.

I like 54xy weak preempts because the frequency of 5431 (13.1%) and 5422 (10.6%) + 5440 (1.2%) is so much more common than 6xyz hands (~13% total). Giving you a much greater range of opportunity to be annoying. They are also popular with the robots over 1NT openings and excellent value when RHO opens 2C or 1C precision. I find this particularly so as an intermediate vs stronger players because it gives me a chance to get in the way of their delicate auctions.

Muiderberg two's?

So long as it's under control and you're seeing your doctor regularly.

Hi, welcome to the forum .lin files contain data that BBO needs to produce a deal. Each file contains the South West and East hands in that order and the board number. You can make them and save them in various ways including by hand in any text editor manually, or on playbridge.com here's one for 'board 1' You can see that it has 'board 8' at the end. If you save this into a file called - for example test.lin and then try importing it, it should work. qx|o8|md|2SAQJ9HDKT972CKJ87,S86HAKJT843D84CT2,ST432H962DAJ3CAQ3|rh||ah|Board 8|sv|0|pg|| If not go to account first and then deal archive and add a folder and rename it test then import the newly created test file. Good luck.

I was dealt this hand in an ACBL tournament, where I bid it perfectly and played it preposterously. Here is the traveller. For -10.29 I managed 7S-4, gazinta bid it the same way and played it perfectly. Working out where I went wrong was the easy part. My problem is three-fold and is not a Bridge problem. First, the ACBL uses advanced robots. I know that doesn't mean they are always right - sometimes they give me gifts. But they will always do the same thing in the same thing in response to the same bidding. It's just a computer program. So, when I took the hand to the Prime 'club' which is advertised as giving me advanced robots at all times, I expected to be able to replicate the bidding. Not so. Second problem. Before I could get to the first problem I had saved the hand into a folder that I keep in my deal archive titled 'hands I failed to make'. I did this at the time of playing the hand by using the export - save deal as - etc. Then later, when I tried to open the deal on a teaching table in the prime 'club' I get the following error message 'uploaded deal rejected'. Undeterred I checked some of my other failures - they upload fine. I change the filename. Still no good. So I export the deal into a new window where it looks fine, then I snip out the relevant part of the hand and insert it into a bit of lin file code in a text editor (qx|o8|md|2SAQJ9HDKT972CKJ87,S86HAKJT843D84CT2,ST432H962DAJ3CAQ3|rh||ah|Board 8|sv|0|pg||), Save it with a new file name.lin, and re-import it. Hallelujah. Now it works. Third problem. The advanced robots on prime do not bid the same way as the advanced robots in the ACBL. Specifically, they do not raise the 3H preempt. This is, therefore, a different computer program. Here is the movie where I stuff it up. Here is gazinta's movie with the correct line. There were 16 players in between us with better results than me: obviously. Fwiw here's what happens if I let the robots on Prime bid and play it they reach 5S-1 https://tinyurl.com/y6rbb3ew So, to summarise. I'm paying for advanced GIB in Prime, can I please have it. I would like to know that the program that I'm using in one part of BBO world is the same as in every other part. As far as BBO sells it there are only two types of Program. There seems to be a problem with the file save/upload mechanism. I have a workaround, but it's a bit tedious. I don't care if GIB doesn't make the contract - sort of a relief really. This problem with not being able to load hands onto the teaching table is not a one-off. It has happened to me at least three times now. It must be a bug. Please explain why the Prime robots are not the advanced robots that were advertised to me.

I agree, these are the forehead slappers that I don't lose any sleep over - it''s only Bridge - no-ones dying. I think I've only met two Grandmasters. I once played Max Euwe in a Simul (so did my father) and Eugene Torres. He didn't do well in the tournament because as Laimons Mangalis said in the Sunday Mail of "late night courting and carousing": I think she may have been in my class at school but I'm not sure. .

Like I said, before the rest of them arrive and start shouting at each other. .

Well yes, I put it in the stupid box when I know either as I'm doing it or immediately afterwards. I call it the 'Verloc effect' after the character in Joseph Conrad's book who could see his wife's carving knife approaching, had formed a plan to stop it, was about to put it into action, but by then the knife was deep in his chest.

How about a Forum team? You could show them how it's done . October 10-11: BBO Rainbow Teams Tournament

If you are using a Chrome browser, there is an extension called Bridge solver which is free - just google it. Whenever you have a tab open that contains a .lin file or a BBO hand it recognises it and converts it into a PBN file. Or just click the spade symbol provided and it will open a new tab with the solution. This means that in addition to seeing the solution after a game for your hand, you can also see all possible solutions straight away. I think it uses the same Bo Haglund method that BBO uses. Here is the link. You can read the details here. https://mirgo2.co.uk/bridgesolver/

Like I said, which is why I prefer the challenge format. Both the 'Just Declare' and 'Classic' formats seem to remove too much of the 'game' from the game. To then aggregate everything into tiny groups just makes it a lottery. Good players will consistently come out on top in the long run, but the randomness injected by the format is too great. This why I prefer the Challenge format. I don't know if it's possible to implement, but how about setting the daylongs so that each person has 5-10 minutes to play each board, but they can start the board whenever they want in the 24-hour cycle. Cheating seems to be a minimal problem in the Challenge formats that run at the moment. Algorithms exist to detect people that use the exact same line of play - real cheating is very hard. What would it look like? Does BBO have any evidence that the implementation of this approach successfully prevented any cheating at all?