olegru

I am often get disconnected if playing from IPAD. If I am not touching screen for a couple of minutes (beenig a dummy) BBO get disconnected. I guess it can be changed somewhere in IPAD settings, just to lazy to look for.

Thanks for replies. My original message definitely was not well put and well thought (new year eve). Thanks Frances, for point out on how to make 13 tricks, I believe it make questions even more interesting. At first. I put meta agreement “small promise honor” in the message just to make it shorter. In a real life declarer got a good description: no coded tens, all standard stuff except we are not playing quantitative leads and lead top small card deny interest to suit leaded, 10 usually promise 9. After request was clarified that lead small guaranties at least one of 3 top honors. Believe me description was nice and long and I say whatever I thought I know, but (unfortunately) my answer did not include possibility of internal sequence. (Mainly because I sincere did not expect my partner could lead ten from K109x. We are not playing now often enough and some of agreements are moot. My partner thought he could (not should), and we did not have anything in CC to prove one way over another.) Second. I am completely aware that director should not answer immediately. My question is when he should answer. I was under impression that it is a director responsibility to make sure both sides get informed about the ruling. (Meaning: if before session ends director still was not yet able to make his ruling he should ask both sides to wait for ruling.) Procedure when team was not informed about ruling because nobody asked them to wait after completion of the session and they left before ruling made does not feel right for me. Third. By effect on another tables I meant following. A team in competition would wait for final standing. Director will be able to give them ruling made after session end and before score completed. They will be able to present their point of view and appeal if don’t agree with ruling. The rule ”audiatur et altera pars” will be followed. As it happened our team was far below to have a chance to qualify and we left as soon as we saw the results (5-7 minutes after session completed). I guess at that point our opponents remind director about the call and he made his ruling after listening only one side with second side unable to present their view and appeal. Losing team is not really interested in this ruling anymore but giving one sided ruling with nobody to apeal is dungerous because it could affect other teams standing. Fourth. I understand theory how adjustment should be made, but could you look at the actual board and give your opinion for this particular case? Declarer knows that H is divided 4-4, both opponents in passed hands and West has at least 5 diamonds. Note: it is ACBL land and Board-and-Match tournament.

ACBL, BAM [hv=pc=n&s=sqj93h6dq92ckt632&w=sk2hkt94da8765cj4&n=sat64haq85d4caq85&e=s875hj732dkjt3c97]399|300[/hv] South declarer in 4 ♠ During the bidding West shown exactly 4 cards in ♥ a d at least 5 in ♦ Lead 10♥ I (east) asked by declarer what is our leads agreement and explained that we are using attitude leads - small promise honer. Declare played Ace, ruffed 3 ♥ in his hand and end up with 12 tricks. Well done. Not good enough decided declarer and called the director because my explanation did not fit with partner's lead. Director asked us about agreements. The main agreement is "small promise honer" as I said. Partner lead 10 because of internal secuence K109x, that is permited by our agreements. My fault, I so much get used to our specific understanding that forgot about this standard exception. By the way, should player really give all possible holdings if he asked or just say tha main idea? Anyway, after discovering our agreements director did not talk about that board anymore and just walked away to think. There is not to much to think for my opinion. Even if finness is taken number of tricks stays the same - 12. At least I see no way to take 13 tricks with finess or without. But nobody asked me about it. There were 3 more round until the end of game and director never come up to any members of our team to say there is adjustment. We did not qualify for final and left in 10 minutes after tournament completed. Nobody informed us about adjustment, gave opportunity to argue or apeal. I discovered adjustment the next day after final completed. There is absolutly no diference for my team. But what if that 0.5 of points made some difference for other teams standing? Now questions: 1. If director called to the table when he supposed to make a decition to adjust result or not? If director could pospond the decicion after all games end does he suppose to inform affected team that change is possible and ask them to wait or it players responsobility to get informed? 2. Does player affected have rights to provide his point of view to director, or he supposed simply answer on questions asked by director and let him figure out the rest (and apeal director' decicion if not agree). 3. How much should be probability of the winning action to adjust to it. (Lets pretend finess actually could give the 13th trick to declarer. Even after the full explanation it is way under 50% (declarer knows ♥ is 4 -4 and K109x is the only holding for West to have the King. Taking loosing finess declarer immediatly loosing 2 tricks. should director adjust to 13 tricks in that teorethical case?)

Recall one. NAOP, final B. First day. Several years ago. Red against green. My partner open 1 ♠, stop card, 3 ♦ from RHO, stop card, 4 ♠ from me. 3 minutes hesitation and 5 ♦ from LHO. Tank for 3 minutes and 5 ♠ from partner. Two fast passes and 6 ♦ bid after another 3 minutes hesitation from the left. Central hand opponent again took couple of minutes and bid 6 spades. Fast pass, fast pass, very slow double from LHO and very slow redouble from CHO. Very fast pass, very fast pass, very slow pass. Extremely slow declarer play and defence resulted down two. Big fat zero for us. And well deserved ¼ board penalty for both pairs for slow play. As a result we got minus 8 matchpoints for playing this board. We did not make the second day by 2 matchpoints. (If you are wandering why bidding was so strange - 3 diamond bid from RHO was joke and mine 4 spades jump was not from everybodys book too.)

http://www.acbl.org/nabc/2012/03/bulletins/db4.pdf President-elect

We once receive the 1/6 of a board penalty during the NY Regional for not having 2 identical completed convention card even with 2 of them on the table. One was printed out earlier, second was hand filled right before game started. To speed it up, I used +,◊,↓ and ↑ instead of C, D, H and S. Director ruled our CC are not identical. I don't remember exact detail of directors call, but as far as I remember, low level pro, playing with client against us, got 0 because of his bad decision and was trying to save the board by calling director. Director did not give anything to him, but slightly punished us. It was my first Regional ACBL tournament after I moved to US. At that time I was very impressed to see how strongly CC policy enforced in ACBL land. How naïve I was…

Is it your guess or you actually asked opponents about meaning of 2d? I am very surprised because 2♦ is the most common bid bid in this situation. It is request for raptpor bidder to bid his 4 cards major.

Of cause he should. And probably he did. But Ace of ♦ gave a lot more information to reconsider situation. And if all players take 2-3 seconds over every card and exery call then that would be about 2.5 minutes per board. Simple math gives us that average time to make every decision in normal 15 minutes for two boards time limit is 7.5 seconds per play. And (for my experience) people usually dont think every card. There are 2-4 situatins to pause: - After seeing dummy to imagine distribution and make plans; - After unexpected card played to review possible distribution; - One or two critical moments to choose between plans. I would expect standard timing for a play of hands to be something like: first trick - 10 plus minus 3 seconds second trick- 10 plus minus 3 seconds 3rd........ - 5 .............second 4th........ - 3 .............second 5th........ - 2 .............second 6.......... - 10 ............second 7.......... - 3 .............second 8.......... - 2 .............second 9.......... - 3 .............second 10......... - 1 .............second 11......... - 1 .............second 12......... - 1 .............second 13......... - 0 .............second Complain about 1 or 2 extra seconds taking during the first 3 tricks caused declarer to misplaced high cards sounds absolutely ridiculous for me. The only exception is hesitation with singleton, but it is not the case here. It could be much trickier with complain about hesitation during the "second critical moment" (trick 6 in my example)that may alarm hesitators partner but it is different discussion.

I don't think time of West's play in trick 1 could be usefully used by East in that board. Ace of ♦ by declarer was a telling (and probably not very expected) card and East should reconsider hie thoughts about full distribution at this point.

10-12 seconds sounds like the normal time to play card in the second trick; and I would certainly not able to differentiate 12 seconds and 13.5. By the way, after declarer played ♦Ace, as East I would stop to count distribution and probably will take more than 12 seconds too.

Karma

I guess it is a main point. We main purpose of ACBL policy is to make grandmas happy for expencies of younger people. Probably it is not too surprising to have label "Bridge is for old people" after all.

I would not start to play in such a boring game... Really, are you telling I had to learn by heart that 50 pages book before I will be able to start to play? Pfui. Lord of warcraft is much more fun. I did enough homework in my school. I started to play completely different way. At first I did not even know that such thing as a bidding system exist. I was told that my partner and I can bid any way we want, but if we would like to have a good results it is better to discuss meaning of our bids. Also we were told very important rule - if my partner and me do have any agreements about certain bid - we had to disclose our agreements. We start to discuss something, but our methods were not playable at all, we were always getting in situation we did not think about. I realize that creating bidding system is a big task. And only then somebody taught me about “good boys” who already developed several bidding systems. We can just take one of them as a basis to cover majority of situation and modify system by our needs. You see the difference? I started to play right away. I liked the game, but I realize I need to do some job in order to be able to win. A started to do that job. I realize that job is much harder than I thought. And only now I got a bidding system to help. It is easy question. Chess and Poker rules you quoted are inseparable part of the game. It is what you were giving originally. Rook moves only horizontally or vertically...you could make a castle only if king did not move ... ace beats jack at the same suit ... you can play trump only if you have no cards in the suit leaded and so on. If you change any of that rules it will be different game. System restrictions are not part of the game. At least it is not inseparable part of the game. And they don’t look fair too. Why that Stayman guy could agree with his partner that his 2 clubs bid asking to bid 2 diamonds if he has no 4 cards majors, and I can’t agree with my partner that my 1 ♠ bid asking him to bid 2 clubs if does not have Ace of spades? Let kids do their mistakes, they will learn, but if you will try to put knowledge in their heads they will resist.

It depends primary of age of that beginners. Old and wise people know thay need to learn how to walk before start run and jump. Youngsters looking for shortcuts that allow to start winning right now and creating own systesm and conventions looks like a good idea for them. This is just a natural way to grow up.

Nothing to be proud for me (63.5% sitting EW) Board 4, I passed as East after North open 1 spades, and passed again after 1NT from South. 300 for us. My favorite board 15 - 6NT. 6h in board 26 was good too. Unfortunatly my declarer play in one more slam (board 19) was not up to task. By the way I really like Cohen's sence of humor in the bucklet commentaries.

Back to bridge, I definitely already shared story on my favourite trick in these forums. Sorry for repetition. It was many years ago at the Moscow bridge club. My partner and me were pretty much beginners. In unfavorite vulnerability I hold something like: s. xx h. QJ1065 d. 5 c. Qxxxx LHO open 1 club (polish) – weak NT or strong hand; and Partner bid 2 diamonds promising 2-unspecified 5 cards suits with at least one major and 5-11 points. After slow pass from RHO it was not difficult to imagine down how much we will go doubled vulnerable with expected spades-diamonds two-suiter in partner’s hand and I passed. Another very slow pass from LHO and RHO lead 4 of diamond. I put my treasures on the table and played trump singleton before partner said anything. LHO gave 2 of diamonds on this trick. Partner looked stunned. She looked at dummy, played cards, her cards. She was trying to say something but literally lost her voice. In a couple of minutes and glass of water she called TD and seriously asked if it is a bridge tournament. Getting confirmation she spreader her cards conceding all tricks except the first one. She had something like: s. Jx h. Kxxxxx d. - c. Jxxxx Minus 700 was a top for us.

My favourite win so far was not in bridge … and technically it was not a win. Long ago I was a schoolboy more or less seriously playing chess. In one tournament I had to play against a girl. Our game was scheduled for March, 8 - Women day. It did not feel right for me to beat the girl in her holiday (and being an idiot I cannot even imagine another result of our game) and instead of concentration on a chess game I thought what I should do. Finally I offered draw. But by the time I make up my mind, my position on the chess board was so bad that the only correct think I could do was to resign. Girl smiled and says if I want to make her a gift the best thing I can do is to play the game until the end. As you wish. That time I was a better player and while mine position was very bad she did not manage to win until the end of the day. We were supposed to make at least 40 moves for 2 hours for each player and if game is not finished yet it can be postponed for another day. Another day, another 5 hours and game was not done yet. And, by that time, I already had small chances to make a draw. Her teacher came to me and told what he is going to show her how to win the position and the best I can do is to resign right now to save time and energy. I reply that I would like to but I can’t – gave promise to play until the end. Another day, another 3.5 hours, finally she made a mistake and I got a winning position. The girl was very sad and I immediately offer draw and she accepted. That was not the end of the story. In two years I played against the same girl again in interschool competition. By that time I already didn’t study chess anymore but she did and became a better player than me. Our game was longest game in the competition. (Postponing was not an options at that tournament). In the beginning she overplayed me, but then I found some very good moves and already she had to work hard to save the game. Another draw. Another year passed. I don’t think I played a single chess game for that year but still had to play for a school team. She played for her school too. By that time she became a much better player compare to me. I made first move. She looked at me and said: “I know it will be another draw. Let’s save time.” I accepted. I did not see that girl anymore, but I once saw her name in women chess grandmaster competition.

BTW, are "subminimum" Flannery openings" legal in midchart?

Let see. EW had no agreement about meaning of 2NT after multy. East alerted and explained according their agreement (no agreement). He stupidly tried to be helpful and added something else (it might be both minors). It provided to West UI that 3 ♣ might not be Stayman. I don’t think pass is LA for West. 3 ♥, probably, is, but I see no difference it made. It is too much for me to decide EW could get in a different contract and number of tricks is the same if West will get clubs right. By the way, I hate explanation given by South on his 2h bid. It should be “pass or correct,” not “relay”. NS made whatever possible to confuse opponents and after it did not work “NS became VERY unhappy” and tried to get it from director.

Open: Italy Monaco Russia Netherlands Germany Poland Women: England Sweden France Israel Netherlands Poland Senior: Poland Italy England Netherlands Bulgaria Sweden

any 10 people? Or people with similar level of game understanding? I mean it can not be easy for director to find 10 people of level "I haven't the slightest clue what I'm doing" and poll them.

ACBL speedball. Director summoned with complain about slow play. Director came, noticed slow play, and rushed the slow player. The slow player speed up a little but became very slow again after director left the table. Director summoned the second time and watched the slow play. Then last board of the round been skipped and average assigned. I don't really care about result for responsible for the slow game pair. But what about innocent pair? If, say, pair with no fault had the average result in the tournament ~77%, what result in the skept board should be adjusted to them 50% or 77%?

Are there any dogs with ACBL masterpoints yet? ;)

I cannot see what can be discussed in the 1st board. Sorry, but 2♥ bid from North simply ridiculous. His thoughts about meaning of 4NT bid are in a good match with quality of his previous bidding ;) The second board is more interesting one. Meaning of 5♥ bid, I guess depends on partnership agreement. For my partnership it is trump quality asking. For us (I hope) future bidding would be easy: 4♣ from South, agreeing ♥, showing the ♣ control and asking North to show his nearest control. Now 4♥ from North deny the ♦ control and South have to pass it out.