Mr. Dodgy

I open any 11-point hand in 4th seat unless really bad 11 (4-3-3-3'll make me think twice, hard), and this one is OK. Easy 3rd seat opener.

first reaction is 2♦, as marlowe, though 2♣ or even XX are reasonable by my methods.

Stayman for me, then splinter ♣s (could be viewed as exclusion, I suppose), if partner has a 4cM I like my chances of 12 tricks quite a lot, and might even just bid it straight out. 3N is OK otherwise.

too much wine...ignore me

I don't see a single ACBL tourney listed...what's going on?

Not quite the same thing, but it reminds me: I'd like to see (a 'show all boards' option?) the tournament results travellers posted as a single page, largely for the purpose of simpler copying, but it should also provide easier viewing online by eliminating mouseclicks. A further option to highlight a particular player's name could be included. Thanks,

very quick response off the top of my head... as i recall WBF regs state that doubles are 'self-alerting' - opps should be aware of the fact that doubles might mean all sorts of different things and ASK what agreements the partnership has.

Advantermediates Anonymous?

That sort of thing would see you on my blacklist fairly quickly, depending on exactly how frequently such things (and others) occurred. The first time I would make a note of the fact that you were 'stuck'. Repeatedly being 'stuck' would get you BL'd, or warned that it may do so. I would also start tracking your attendance and behavior in my tourneys a little more closely. If this reveals that you are generally a reliable and good sort, I might overlook the odd 'senior moment', or whatever it is that has caused your attention to wander. On the other hand, I might equally find in some cases that not only does someone become 'stuck' occasionally, but they have some other bad trait(s) as well. Excommunication would likely then be swift. I do not like having my tournaments disrupted unnecessarily, and will exclude persons who do so regularly if required. Please try to keep in mind the fact that your inattentiveness has left not only the 3 players at your table stranded, but may well also cause delays at other tables as well, not to mention the efforts required by the directorate, substitutes, etc.

I like teams matches, but organising them is, indeed, a little difficult. A facility akin to the tournament 'partnership desk' would be great. The 'find me a game' team match option works poorly, if at all. It is possible to set up defacto teams matches in the tournaments area of BBO - set the limit to 4 pairs (or 8 individuals), and make it just one round. Restrict it 'freinds' if you like. One detraction is that the software doesn't allow more than 9 boards in a single round. Also you can't ensure that teams-of-four will work out as you might like without some cunning, and barometer scoring won't work (although that could be regarded as a benefit)

1♥-3♠-4NT-5♣-5♦!... 5♠='The Lady In Red'

'comfortably numb' - opening on VERY light hands ("like balloons")

"Sargeant Pepper" - A Heart splinter

it's BALLroom blitz, by The Sweet. not completely innapropriate even then. Again, I take cover under the influence of those substances, as the "man in the back" said. :) too much Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, or passing the dummy to the left hand side?

it's BALLroom blitz, by The Sweet. not completely innapropriate even then.

This is tougher than I thought...not exactly what you were after but here's a few songlines containing multiple bridge references Criss-Cross'll make ya Jump Jump I left my ♥ in San Fransisco

I second QAC's motion! Or at least provide some interface whereby I (and others) can view/edit my/our notes 'file'. I've spent hours now manually scanning every player in the lobby and reducing the notes I find; still over the limit though.

so about 16 characters per player is optimal. I'll have to develop some shorthand codes fixing this is, um, a pain - I can only edit notes for players who are online...there may be long notes associated to no-longer existent players that I can never access - preventing me from seeing notes for other players. Is there any way to cull, or even completely reset my notes?

OK, this KEEPS happening to me, but further observation leads me think that the problem is something to do with the amount of notes I keep on players... I do keep quite a lot of notes in profiles - I find this to be necessary in my Directorial role. If I warn a player about a failure to alert (or whatever), I put a note in their profile. I also keep notes on which tourneys certain players have participated in, and some notes on my partners as well. I guess there is some limit to BBO's capacity for such notes, as I continue to find players who I KNOW to have been previously 'noted' without any notes. Further I have noticed that these now-noteless players have names which begin with letters towards the end of the (English) alphabet. I imagine that somewhere in BBO is a 'MrDodgyProfileNotes.txt' file (or something similar), which is an alpabetised array of names and notes, but that is limited to a certain size. Thus when I add notes to a player, some get dropped off the end. Can someone from BBO (Hi Uday & Fred) please confirm that this may be the case?

Eh, I got dealt AKAKAKAK not so long ago. purty.

Hi Jilly, WBF alert regs: http://www.worldbridge.org/departments/systems/alerts.asp I'm fairly confident you've already read that though :-) It's interesting to note If screens are not in use, do NOT alert the following: All doubles... Whether playing on BBO qualifies as 'screens are not in use', I dunno. If not then the question becomes 'is the bid conventional?' The gist seems to be that doubles are to be considered 'self-alerting' (hence do not require any alert), and thus the side which is doubled should be aware of the fact that it may have multiple meanings and ask for further information if they want clarification. The ABF alert regs also state that all doubles are 'self-alerting' - no need to alert any doubles - or redoubles! (screens or not, it seems) Such a blanket statement seems odd to me. For example I play that a double of a 1♣ opener shows less than 12 HCP, and promises 4 or more cards in both black suits. Surely that should be alerted, as should 'negative' doubles which promise the 2 unbid suits, and various other conventional doubles/redoubles. I recall reading an article a while ago (in the ABF bulletin?) which made the argument that a double should not need to be alerted if all it really shows is 'values', as I suppose most 'takeout' doubles do, or one made by a strong hand who intends to bid again regardless of partner's response...and so on. That seems reasonable to me. Well I remember thinking it well-argued at the time. On balance it would appear that doubles do not generally have to be alerted unless they are 'conventional'. Takeout would seem to bear the marks of a conventional bid - it's not natural - you don't actually want to play there - and therefore should be alerted. Unless you're not using screens, or in Australia. The problem with this example is we have no idea whether this double is takeout converted or penalty - so it's impossible to make an informed decision as to whether it should be alerted or not. In any case it's difficult to see any damage arising from the failure (um, non-failure?). Probably not a lot of help from me here I'm afraid, it's a curly question and I guess it's ultimately up to the organisers to decide upon specific CoC's for tourneys, But hopefully I've given you some food for thought?

Alert

huh?

3N - trust my partner, and agree with cherdano that if unbalanced/unsuitable for NT pard would bid a suit (short suit if playing w/MrsDodgy).

ABF regs (which are largely based on WBF) state that NT opening must be PRE-ALERTED, but I can't find anything specific yet in the WBF docs. I'll keep looking.