pilowsky

And of course, you can bid and play the hand first and then see how the experts did it afterwards.

Britain is a perfect country. It sent all it's bad people to Australia. A few escaped and went to America.

The first question to ask is Why do people cheat? I believe that there are several reasons. Most of these reasons relate to the incredibly small stakes involved. Bridge, for all the importance that people attach to it, and all the energy that people put into it, and all the money that people spend on it, is basically just a card game. When the game is over, win or lose, top or bottom, you don't have to go into that small room with traumatised relatives and explain why their 11-year-old son died in excruciating pain and there was nothing that could be done to save him. No, in Bridge it's just a game of cards that you play after you've done that to calm yourself. People often behave in peculiar ways for all sorts of reasons. A person might cheat simply because their opponent was annoying them. The 'annoyance' might be perceived. Online I have seen people annoyed by slowness that could easily be explained by internet speeds or disconnects. IRL for some bizarre reason people feel comfortable saying things to people that you would never imagine saying in normal social discourse to someone that you don't know or have never met. Some people are not particularly successful in anything else in life but find success at one thing early in life. They develop this single skill - whatever it is Bridge, Chess, Tennis you name it to the exclusion of everything else in their lives. One of the things that they sometimes lack is social skills, including empathy. Some of these people cannot stand the idea that they might be beaten by someone else even by luck; the rub of the green. It so offends them that they will take any measure to correct what they perceive as an injustice. What is happening is that although the stakes seem small to you and me - probably more me than you, these people have invested so much time and money that their entire sense of self-worth is now at stake. There is nothing else. They can't turn around and do something else. Bridge has failed these people. So, I see it a bit differently. Some people play bridge for recreation. Some people play bridge competitively and some people have bridge as a livelihood. Casinos - BBO is a Casino - make their money from people that pay them to use their platform. When they talk about cheating they mean people that play in a way that systematically takes money away from their platform. We can't expect BBO to do anything about cheating. The same goes for Private Bridge Clubs and Professional players. They may or may not condone or like cheating, but there is no incentive to do anything about it. The problem with criminalising behaviour in Bridge is that we have a game structure that has that behaviour embedded within it. Or at least, the perception of it. What I mean is even a flicker of an emotion or a momentary pause can lead to allegations that are unfounded, yet may be true. A tournament Director is not a mind reader. As long as Bridge exists so will cheating. We all know this, it's the same in every sport. I do not condone cheating. Not for any high moral reason, but just because it's pointless. It spoils my fun. It distracts from the harmony and purity of the game. The question really ought to be: what are we trying to achieve in the long run?

You seem to be going out of your way to deliberately misunderstand me. What exact point are you trying to make Gordon? What I said was that Tournament Directors are I the position of Caesar's wife this is a well-known legal principle. I specifically said that you were not chaeting. If you are unfamiliar with the expression, it means " (proverb) Those in positions of authority should avoid even the implication of impropriety." Do not persist in trying to call me out in this way it is childish. How do you know what other people 'think'? Is this something that you seriously believe yourself capable of? I don't know about the other people in this thread but I am not accusing you of anything.

That's what I said Gordon. It's the principle of Caesar's wife. Nobody is accusing you of wrongdoing.

I agree with everyone - except the 'idiot' comment (which was completely unnecessary). On the other hand, given that TD's hold a position of special authority in our community, perhaps their play should be held to a higher standard. If a policeman breaks the law, then who can you trust? An innocent mistake is fine, but these ought to be logged and tracked so that, for his own good, and the good of the game everyone can sleep well at night - or in my case the day - being on the other side of the world...

Exactly, IRL you can quickly explain and get on with it. Online it's faster to play it out. Just like humour, timing is everything. It isn't a cleverness competition.

No. It's called humour - feedback is that people enjoy it.

Really? Even the West robot? Shame on you.

correct - I meant double again not redouble. And yes, Mike is a great player that's exactly what I meant.

Just click on the box where the contract is. It will pop up. Click on it again and it will go away.

Redouble - showing hearts and spades. Also, partner is a great player so If he wants to play it then it would be better in his hands.

A few things, Scores are what you get at Bridge. Blood pressure is not a competitive sport - these are measurements. I didn't provide my 'pre-values' because this was intended as a bit of fun, but in fact, they were quite a bit higher. I think that I get an alerting stress effect prior to the tournament. I think that you chose well with picking the Forum challenge. For this kind of 'experiment', it's important to have 'skin in the game'. I used ACBL tourneys where I was paying and playing for masterpoints, so there was also an incentive to do well. The most important of the two numbers is the second one (diastolic). The peak systolic pressurises the arterial tree, the diastolic pressure fills the coronary arteries and the brain circulation while the heart chambers refill. Amongst other things. Obviously there is a lot more to it. It is important that your BP is kept below 130/80 above that is considered hypertensive. If you are taking any drugs for high blood pressure then you are definitely already hypertensive. HCTZ 'hydrochlorothiazide' is a member of the thiazide diuretics - it lowers pressure by reducing the amount of fluid in the body. It's a good cheap drug these drugs have been around for a long time, they are very safe, work well and are very well tolerated. A cornerstone of modern hypertension treatment is combination therapy - just like in Bridge - Doctors combine their chances. Instead of giving massive doses of one drug. Doctors give several different drugs from different classes that affect different systems. Sometimes they are mixed into one pill for convenience. As I mentioned, a common (up to 10%) side-effect of -pril drugs is cough. Not to be confused with other causes of cough. Hypertension, overweight, bad blood lipids and type 2 diabetes are a syndrome cluster called Syndrome X. It is the modern plague.

That's truly hilarious. The robots seem to have a forcing pass in their programming. I put your hand onto the teaching table in Prime and sat North. After the South robot responded 3♥ to South's 2♦ Here is the list of the options available to the North robot: Pass - 11- HCP 12- total points Forcing3 ♠ 11-HCP 5-12 total points Forcing4♣ splinterand so on Obviously, it was your fault, the pass was FORCING. you should not have passed. . Your bidding needs a lot of work.

Out of interest, on your scale of 0-100, how good a programmer would they have to be? Would you be able to tell? I'm sure BBO would like to know so that they can work out which of their programmers are up to snuff - according to the 'Bartley' scale.

If your opponent rejects your claim and you refuse to play it out then who is being impolite now? Manners don't enter into it. You are just wasting time. It's boring. No-one is dying - just play it out.

It's mainly the West robot that malfunctions. The others are pretty good, although they do take them out periodically for maintenance and put in a substitute human player. Some of the substitute human players don't know the system very well. That could be the cause of your problem. To be fair the robots have been in service for many years. It's hardly surprising that they're getting a bit tired.

I think that's important advice. But as you can see from the examples of how I play, I'm probably fairly safe for a while.

If you want to play with advanced robots join the prime area. You can bang out hands endlessly for $4.99/month (IMP's or MP's) and get a free masterpointed 12 board weekly tournament. BUT make sure you read the GIB system notes. Or you'll definitely blow your dough.

An interesting question. Here are some possibilities: You have no money.You have money but you don't want to spend it.You don't want to play bridge on pay to play.Your credit card facility is expiredYour credit card facility is maxed outYou put the wrong credit card number in.BBO doesn't want you as a customer - very unlikely - even if you're English.Your keyboard doesn't workYou forgot to turn on the computer.Something else is wrong that I haven't thought of.So what exactly is the problem?

At the end of the day, the fastest, kindest thing to do is just play it out. Sometimes people just can't see what you see. What mystifies me is why the robots can't claim when they are playing out an obviously winning/losing position. It must bore them to tears.

Certainly, it is possible that bridge is relaxing. It would be great if others could come on board and see what they find. ACE stands for angiotensin converting enzyme. It is found throughout the body but is highly concentrated in the lungs. Focus and concentration would not affect the activity of this enzyme. A common treatment for hypertension is a class of drugs called ACE-inhibitors the tradename of these drugs usually ends in -pril (eg perindopril) 10% of users get a cough because inhibition of ACE results in greater production of another compound bradykinin which causes receptors in the lungs to be activated and cause cough. This can sometimes be enough to require a change in medication. Another major class are the angiotensin receptor blockers these usually end with -artan like 'telmisartan'. These do not cause cough. They arrived on the scene later and are considered to be a better drug. Stress activates sympathetic nerves and raises blood pressure - supposedly. So does angiotensin. But, relaxing does not block the enzymes that create angiotensin from its precursor molecules. I hope that makes sense.

On the plus side, you have a friend!

It won't make any difference. History always repeats itself.

Here's the really annoying workaround - I hope someone has a better method. qx|o1|md|4SAKT6HQ2D5CA98732,S87HKJT98DAQJT2CJ,SQJ953H654DK63CQT|rh||ah|Board 2|sv|n|pg|| When you do it to the file below it looks like this: qx|o1|md|SAKHAT98D62CAJ983,ST72HJ43DQ9874CKT,S984HK6DJ53CQ7542|rh||ah|Board 2|sv|n|pg|| if you save this as 'myhand.lin' for example you will be able to import it into the bbo account. This is what the file looks like if you open it up in a new window. It's the 'genetic code' of each hand. It's a bit tedious, but if you snip out the bit with the south, west and north hands and put them into the string above, then you can import that into BBO as a.lin file. I bet there's a simpler way to do it. You have to be careful to get the board number right if you are concerned about vulnerability. https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=nt|pilowsky%20has%20sent%20you%20a%20hand.%20%20test|st%7C%7Cpn%7Cpilowsky%2C~~M40872sk%2C~~M4990cfb%2C~~M25568yz%7Cmd%7C4 (this bit starts the program) SAKHAT98D62CAJ983%2CST72HJ43DQ9874CKT%2CS984HK6DJ53CQ7542%2CSQJ653HQ752DAKTC6 - this bit specifies the hand South west and north east is added automatically it read ♠AK ♥AT etc This stuff is about the play of the hand and the bidding etc %7Csv%7Cn%7Crh%7C%7Cah%7CBoard%202%7Cmb%7C1S%7Can%7CMajor%20suit%20opening%20--%205%2B%20%21S%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7CD%7Can%7CTakeout%20double%20--%203-5%20%21C%3B%203-5%20%21D%3B%203-4%20%21H%3B%202-%20%21S%3B%2012%2B%20total%20points%7Cmb%7C2S%7Can%7CFree%20raise%20--%203%2B%20%21S%3B%206-10%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7C3C%7Can%7CFree%20bid%3B%20new%20suit%20--%204%2B%20%21C%3B%206-10%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C3S%7Can%7C2-4%20%21C%3B%202-4%20%21D%3B%202-4%20%21H%3B%202-4%20%21S%3B%2018%2B%20total%20points%3B%20at%20best%20stop%20in%20%21S%3B%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7C4C%7Can%7Crebiddable%20%21C%3B%206-10%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cmb%7CP%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CHQ%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CSQ%7C&v3b=web&v3v=5.6.10