olegru

You mean that indictments will be used in order to blackmail Manafort and squeeze him to give a testimony what investigators would like to have? Very effective method, I agree. ... I recently took free online course about wrongful convictions in USA. I was shocked to find out how effective is USA criminal system in convicting and punishing people for a crime ... unrelated if alleged crime was actually committed by the accused person or not. One of the leading cause of that miscarriage of justice is: ... I, honestly, would prefer no so effective, but less error prone methods.

Absence of word "collusion" is not a problem :) Problem is absence of any evidence of links (at least in that document) between: 1. activity of MANAFORT and GATES and Russia 2. activity of MANAFORT and GATES and Trump Yanukovych was pro-Russian (like probably every criminal-in-power in the world) but seems like he worked with lobbyists to solve his own problem, not Putin's problem. Also activities were running from 2008 to 2014. If USA government was influenced by uncovered illegal schema, Trump has nothing to do with it.

Thanks for your link. Interesting document. Seems like 2 lobbyists done some job for Ukrainian Government (pro-Russian Ukraine Government 2010 - 2014) without disclosing it in USA and without paying taxes. Crime for sure. The only problem ... there is Russian collusion?

Thanks Barry. Will make a try.

Thanks for answer Steven. As far as I understand, I currently cannot upload and use modified fd convention card. Will search for bidedit.exe when/if BBO change that policy.

Not sure if it is correct forum to ask or if question is already answered somewhere. I used prepared full disclosure WJ2005 convention card and noticed that we play one convention differently from what described there. Is there are any possibility for me to create and use own customized copy of general full disclosure convention card, or I need to create in from scratch?

Hi Barry. Sorry, I don't like to repeat, but I feel like both my points were missed. I will start from second part it is easy. 2. In order to speak up about possibly unfair adjustment I need to know about the adjustment. If adjustment done before tournament completed I will get notification. But if director adjust the board AFTER tournament FINISHED and never let me know that any of my boards are under consideration, there is a chance that my application already closed and I will not see the notification. It is a big difference between assigning results for unfinished board and changing actual result. If director decided to punish players by assigning their worse results he need at very least let them know why they were punished. I firmly believe that if result was changed after tournament completed director must send message (chat or PM) to affected players and give them a reason. It is not about the result of the game, it is about the respect to customer. PS Look at my second link and explain me why result of the board was adjusted. I sincerely have no idea. *** 1. Thanks, I am aware about procedure of automated adjustment of unfinished boards. My point was more subtle - fair adjustment is not always fair. Look at my first example. Down one is absolutely fair result, no people in right mind would complain to director saying that assign that result would be unfair - to achieve different result opponents should make a serious mistake. But, as a matter of fact, 50% of defenders who was in exactly the same position made that mistake. My proposition was to limit automated assigned by robots by cases there both sides are in approximately in equal fault for being late. If one side is in clear fault no results should be assigned automatically by robots - director should be informed that being late is fault of that side and assign result manually taking into account that all doubted should be treated in favour of their opponents. There to draw the line? I proposed 9 or more minutes taken by one side should put them in fault position. I am sure it is not hard to check time and notify director about existing of the fault position automatically. Unfortunately assignment in such cases cannot be done automatically and it put additional workload to directors, so I have no problem if my proposition would be rejected.

I guess I typed too many words and my point was masked by them. My post was not about individual adjustments. I have no problem to discuss adjustments with directors (of cause only in cases if I am aware about adjustment). What I want to discuss is policy of adjustment. I believe ACBL directors should be instructed to do the following: 1. Before make an adjustment almost talk with both sides. 2. After adjustment made send chat or private message with reasons for his decision to all affected players. Especially important in case if director by any reason failed to communicate with one of the side before make and adjustment. 3. Making adjustment in case of late boards take into account which side is in a fault for being late. Information who is in fault should be collected automatically (objectively) and NOT based on complains from players. I guess it would require some job from programmers to provide this information in easily visible fashion.

How often do you bid a contract that cannot be made against the best defense? For me it happens very often. Fortunately for me, the best defense is not that common in ACBL speedballs, so majority of impossible contracts are ends up successfully. This is maybe not a good bridge, but it is life. If a player has an opportunity to make a mistake, sometimes he/she will make it. Problem, however, that in speedballs players sometimes does not have an opportunity to mistake. All what they need is just to play slow and let time for a round to expired before critical decision made. (I am not saying that they do it by purpose, but result is the same.) It does not feel right when opponents take the lion’s share of the time for a round and after time expired rewarded by double-dummy defense. Just for illustration, look at this traveler: http://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/hands.php?traveller=9670-1500426000-39779031&username=olegru We got in bad 3NT contract that booked to go down after ♥K lead. Opponents played slowly and time for the round expired after move 3. Declarer had only 8 top tricks, ♥ is open and after taking ♠Ace defenders could take 5 tricks. Easy to assign the result? Let us make a closer look at the traveler. There were 6 other tables ending up in the same 3NT contract. Five of them got the same ♥King lead. What were the results? Down one on the two tables, made on one table, made with overtrick on one table and made with 3 overtricks on one table. Last result seems caused by misclick, let’s disregard it. Two other cases demonstrates the possible scenario - declarer collecting all his clubs and West, thinking he is under the pressure discards heart. Therefore, in a real game my chance to succeed would be 50%, but I was denied that chance. And I was denied by chance to get a good score by slow play of opponents, who benefited from an adjustment. I believe those kind of double-dummy adjustments are correct only if both sides are in more or less equal fault for being late. What I am asking is to check who is in fault for being late before the adjustment. I guess it can be done automatically. If one side took, let say, 9 minutes out of 15, they could be highlighted on the screen for directors to make an adjustment. If nobody highlighted directors assign score as usual. If one pair is highlighted – directors must treat all doubts in favor of their opponents. 2. Sorry, this is completely unrelated to the first part rant. When I looked my archive to provide the previous link I accidently noticed what one of the board I played day before was adjusted to ave-/ave+. http://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/hands.php?traveller=4351-1500339600-38306316&username=olegru I guess I left club before adjustment was made, so I was not aware about it. I would expect director try to communicate with us, make us aware what there is a problem with board and he/she is going to look at it. Nothing. Ok, maybe opponents complained about the board after we left, and director could not talk to us. But in that case I would expect director at least send us message “board 11 was adjusted by such and such reason.” Nothing. I accidently found that my result was adjusted and have no ideas why. I called partner to check if he knows something. He also does not have any information and director never communicated with him. I asked partner if he alerted his opening. Answer – “Yes”, alerted before make a bid and typed explanation after the bid. I don’t care about particular adjustment, but situation when one pair has absolutely no information why result was adjusted looks unacceptable. Thinking about it, I am sure that director was aware about problem in that board way before we left the club, but did not bother to inform us. My believe based on the fact that declarer took ridiculously long time to play board in question, that caused us to skip the last board. I am guessing slow declarer play was caused by the fact she was busy talking with director. It would be only possible explanation why the board 12, skipped due to slow play of opponents, was adjust to ave for us and ave+ for them.

Is it possible to include at least one GIB in competition? Or at least at this practice one? Very curious: 1. How would robot perform compare to humans? 2. How big difference will be between robots, depending on the sets of board they got?

If you look at traveler you can see 2 big groups of people. http://www.bridgebase.com/myhands/hands.php?traveller=643-1499654521-26543321&username=olegru One group noticed the ridiculous meaning of 5♥ bid decided to stay out and gave opponents 420. 44% score. Another group ignored the explanation and got to 6th level, that was a good sacrifice for half of people (300 and 79%) and not so good for another half. That lose/lose choice is a clear bug and should be fixed.

This is plain stupid. link http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&lin=pn|olegru,~~M1121,~~M1119,~~M1120|st%7C%7Cmd%7C3S6H6QD569QAC379QK%2CS58JH29TJD23KC58A%2CS249H34578KAD48JC%2C%7Crh%7C%7Cah%7CBoard%201%7Csv%7Co%7Cmb%7C4H%7Can%7CPreempt%20--%207%2B%20%21H%3B%2011-%20HCP%3B%203%2B%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7C4S%7Can%7C6%2B%20%21S%3B%2016-19%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7C5H%7Can%7C1%2B%20%21H%3B%2021%2B%20HCP%3B%2022%2B%20total%20points%7Cmb%7Cd%7Can%7C10%2B%20HCP%20%7Cmb%7C6C%7Can%7CCue%20bid%20--%207%2B%20%21H%3B%201%2B%20%21S%3B%2011-%20HCP%3B%20%21CA%3B%20no%20%21SA%3B%2013%2B%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%20%7Cmb%7Cd%7Can%7C2%2B%20%21C%3B%206%2B%20%21S%3B%2016-19%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7C6H%7Can%7C1%2B%20%21H%3B%2021%2B%20HCP%3B%2022%2B%20total%20points%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cd%7Can%7C2%2B%20%21C%3B%206%2B%20%21S%3B%2016-19%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CHQ%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CS7%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CS8%7C CHO open 4♥, RHO bids 4♠ Now 5♥ bid from human Robot interpret as 21+ points and continues bidding after double from LHO.

The first things first - if anybody will find inappropriate that I am commenting their game without their permissions - my sincere apologies. *** Looking on results of 1/64 of forum challenge game, one can see 5 upsets - players who had 7 or more seeding points from older forum tournaments lost their first match of the first round. We all know word "upset" is a big scratch, forum challenges seeding points are almost completely meaningless and reflects only older participation and a bit of luck. It is especially true for each of those matches, when “top seeded” players lost to opponents who are new on forum challenges. Abilities of each of new player are much higher than 0 seeding points they got. Nevertheless, I found it interesting to take a closer look at these matches. Unfortunately, I did not managed to do all I was planned - protocols of some challenges became unavailable in BBO archive before I studied them. So, I can share only comments for two matches. Match between zzmey and Driver733 was very close. Igor (Driver733) won the first set by 29 IMPs. Majority of them he took by being more optimistic. Here are two the most interesting boards from the set: 1. Red against green human player holds: ♠ K8xxxx ♥ - ♦ K9xxxx ♣ K LHO open 3♥, Partner bid 3♠ and RHO bid 4♥. Both humans choose Blackwood. Pass from RHO and partner bids 6♦, explained as odd number of keycards with ♦ void. Double from RHO. What now? Driver733 bid 7♠, which was claimer. His opponent limited himself by small slam. 2. All vul, humans hold: ♠ QJ10742 ♥ Q10 ♦ Q97 ♣ 72 Robot partner open 1NT. One player transferred to 2♠ and stayed there, second transferred to 4♠. There were 3 possible losers from the top and ♦ depends on finesse. Finesse was working, so game was on. On the second set Vladimir (zzmey) took 8 IMPs back. Once again, the biggest swing was due to a bold decision on the distributional hand.   3. Red against green humans hold: ♠ 10862 ♥ QJ108652 ♦ Q5 ♣ - LHO pass, partner open 1♣, RHO interfered 1♦. One player simply jumped to 4♥ that became a final contract. Second player decided to take it slowly and bid 1♥. 2♣ (invitation on the agreed ♦) from LHO, natural 3♣ from partner and 3♦ from RHO. Another decision time. If player did not think his cards was good enough to bid game on the previous round, I don’t think bids from second round made them better. Human competed 3♥ and gave up after opponents bid 4♦. CHO hold ♥Kx and void in ♦ so 4♥ was a makeable contract (as well as 5♦ on the EW line). Zzmiy won 46 IMPs on the 3rd set and took a noticeable lead on the match. I found the board 9 from that set to be the most interesting board of the match. North dealer, EW vulnerable. ............♠J753 ............♥K975 ............♦8 ............♣Q964 ♠Q9............................♠A8 ♥6.............................♥Q10432 ♦AQ103.......................♦KJ964 ♣AK10743........................♣8 ............♠K10642 ............♥AJ8 ............♦752 ............♣J5 Both humans decided to pass with South hand on the third sit green against red, but Driver733 bid 1♠ on the next round (after 1♣ from the left and 1♥ from the right). North used the opportunity to preempt with 3♠ and opponents stayed in the 3NT from East hand. Seems like game could be easily set, but not after the natural spade lead, that gave declarer 9th trick. Actually, CHO managed to present declarer with 3 more tricks. Zzmiy did not participate in bidding, leaving robot opponents to themselves and they end up in the 6♦. On the first glance contract looks good, but … only on the first glance. I believe it required some luck on trumps or clubs and I cannot see how to make it with current distribution. (I did not check it with computer). Before the last set zzmiy was ahead on 25 imps, but it appears not be enough. There were two style-related swings very similar to one described above, but both went to another direction. On the board 12, Vladimir let opponents to bid without intervention and they reach 6♠ (making 13 tricks). Igor decided to fight in the bidding, and scared opponents out of easy slam. Another similar swing from the board 15. Red against green, humans in the first sit hold ♠ J6762 ♥ AQ43 ♦ AQJ4 ♣ - Both opened 1♠ and saw: pass-pass–1NT. Igor made the second bid – 2♦ and end up as a declarer in vulnerable 2♠ contract… with 14 combined points, 5-2 trump fit, missing Ace, King, Queen and 10 of trumps. Contract should go down, but defense by robots was not the best, to say the least. Vladimir passed and soon found himself on the lead against 3NT. Partner hold magical ♦10x, so the 4th best ♦ lead would set the game, but who could find it? Declarer took the ♠ lead, played 3 top ♣ and, as soon as human discarded his forth diamond, contract became unbeatable. Very close match. 2. We match between stoppiello and hanoi5 was even closer. The first big swing on the first set happened in the board 5. Humans hold ♠Q2 ♥KJ7 ♦Q732 ♣A752 Robot partner open 1♣. One human choose inverted minor 2♣ bid, another – invitation 2NT. One, who bid 2NT, became declarer in 3NT and made 12 tricks, after catching the singleton ♣K outside. One, who preferred inverted minor bid, end up in 6♣ contract. Diamond to the ace, diamond ruff. No luck in this life. The second big swing happened in the board 9. Both humans played the same 5♦* contract. To win it player needs to play suit AKJx – 10xx with no losers. Hanoi made a finesse; John tried to catch the Queen second. Statistics won. The next board was a biggest swing of the match. All vulnerable. Humans hold: ♠K876542 ♥Q ♦Q ♣J1032 RHO open 1♥. John bid 1♠ and opponents end up in 6♦. 12 tricks from the top, 13th on the working finesse. Hanoi bid 4♠ and East Robot with 16 points and 3=1=8=1 distribution made a takeout double (!). West Robot with 2=7=0=4 distribution and 11 points asked for Aces (!) and bid 6♥. The club lead would set a slam, but human naturally lead singleton diamond and slam became easy makeable. Well, easy makeable by a human, not by robot. The line chosen by robot declarer was hard to swallow. Down one. After 14 boards Hanoi was ahead by 52 imp. Then stoppiello started come back. There were several other interesting boards in the first and second part of that match, but I was not fast enough to write them down before protocols became unavailable. Here is the biggest swing from the part 3 All vul. Bot humans hold: ♠942 ♥Q52 ♦1096 ♣K953 and need to decide if they have a bid after partner open 1♠. Hanoi passed and played there; John replied 1NT and soon found himself in the spade game. Both took 10 tricks. Before the last set started, Hanoi was ahead, but already not so much, only 16 imps. They gone pretty fast. Stoppiello took the lead after the board 8 of the set. Humans hold: ♠AKJxxxx ♥x ♦xxx ♣xx Robot partner opened 1♥ and jumped to 2NT after 1♠ bid from human. What now? One human jumped to 4♠, another leaped all the way to 6♠. On both tables West lead ♣Q, finessing King, and defense took the first two tricks. 6NT from the North hand would be unbeatable. With 2 board to play stoppiello was 12 imps ahead. Then, on preliminary boards, happened something that I cannot regard other than misclick that cost him 12 IMPs. Funny, after 63 boards and many adventures score was exactly equal. On the last board, non-vul against vul humans hold, ♠xxxxx ♥xxx ♦xx ♣Axx Robot partner open 1♦. Hanoi bid 1♠ and passed 2♣ rebid from partner. Stoppiello passed; LHO bid 1♥, partner - 2♣, that became a final contract too. The same contract, but the very small difference in bidding became critical. LHO on both tables lead top spade. Against Hanoi it continued second top spade and declarer managed to finish down only one; but against John LHO switched to known partners suit. It was enough to set contract down 2. Exciting match.

Olegru / Hrothgar, part 2 18:2 http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:25658651.5b9a.11e7.be39.0cc47a39aeb4-1498610326&u=olegru

Olegru / Hrothgar, part 1 31:8 http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:56605623.5adc.11e7.be39.0cc47a39aeb4-1498528804&u=olegru

I am not certified director, so I may be wrong. According the definitions: "An opening suit bid or response is considered natural if in a minor it shows three or more cards in that suit and in a major it shows four or more cards in that suit." For best of my knowledge ACBL has no authority to regulate natural bids, so mentioned agreement cannot be illegal.

Very well may be. I am not particularly good in reading other people mind and can only guess Trumps reason to tweet that, but I will not be very surprised if reason is the same.

It is funny thing about GIB. It always assumes that human religiously follows the system and tries its best to punish human for any deviation; but, in the same time, GIB feels free to perform any system deviations if it finds them appropriate. I wrote “It is funny thing about GIB”? Thinking about it, some of my partners are exactly the same. GIB, at least, keeps his mouth shot.

Several years ago, somebody asked Putin why he never participated in debates with opposition. He said that debates with opposition just waste of time, these guys are not interested in the trues but are driven to denial by their anti-government ideology and political belief systems. Why did I suddenly recall that old story?

I just called him to remind and he confirmed that challenge already accepted.

Several times got the similar problem :( Gib shows two suited hand, pretending to give you the choice. You are happy to agree the second suit, but never mind, robot insists on his first suit unrelated to it quality.

The "Find member" changes looks like a great improvement. Thanks.

BBO Forum Knockouts stile games have much more common with real bridge compare to national indi. At very least we are competing by playing same boards :)

http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&lin=pn|olegru,~~M32149,~~M32147,~~M32148|st%7C%7Cmd%7C2S367HJQKDKC56JQKA%2CSQKAH6TD46TJQC47T%2CS28TJH3457AD7C238%2C%7Crh%7C%7Cah%7CBoard%2012%7Csv%7Cn%7Cmb%7C1D%7Can%7CMinor%20suit%20opening%20--%203%2B%20%21D%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C3D%7Can%7CWeak%20--%205%2B%20%21D%3B%203-%20%21H%3B%203-%20%21S%3B%209-%20HCP%3B%205%2B%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7C3N%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C4C%7Can%7C4%2B%20%21C%3B%2016-%20total%20points%20%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7C5C%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cmb%7Cp%7Cpc%7CH2%7Cpc%7CHK%7Cpc%7CH6%7Cpc%7CH3%7Cpc%7CCA%7Cpc%7CC4%7Cpc%7CC2%7Cpc%7CC9%7Cpc%7CCK%7Cpc%7CC7%7Cpc%7CC3%7Cpc%7CD3%7Cpc%7CCQ%7Cpc%7CCT%7Cpc%7CC8%7Cpc%7CS4%7Cpc%7CCJ%7Cpc%7CD4%7Cpc%7CD7%7Cpc%7CD8%7Cpc%7CC6%7Cpc%7CD6%7Cpc%7CS2%7Cpc%7CD9%7Cpc%7CC5%7Cpc%7CHT%7Cpc%7CS8%7Cpc%7CD5%7Cpc%7CHQ%7Cpc%7CDQ%7Cpc%7CH4%7Cpc%7CH8%7Cpc%7CHJ%7Cpc%7CDJ%7Cpc%7CHA%7Cpc%7CH9%7Cpc%7CH7%7Cpc%7CS5%7Cpc%7CDK%7Cpc%7CDT%7Cpc%7CH5%7Cpc%7CS9%7Cpc%7CS3%7Cpc%7CSA%7Cpc%7CSJ%7Cpc%7CDA%7Cpc%7CS6%7Cpc%7CSQ%7Cpc%7CSK%7Cpc%7CST%7Cpc%7CD2%7Cpc%7CS7%7C Explanation of robot's 4♣ bid is one of the greatest I ever seen. :) (Sorry, not sure how to increase the size of diagram)

I am in.