ThomasRush

With both of you having ACBL numbers and some recorded points you should be placed in an appropriate strat in BBO and online ACBL games. If you play in an open game, you'll still play against a significant number of "A" pairs, as will everyone (on average). If a section of 15 pairs has five A, five B, and five C pairs, each flight will be spread out (but somewhat randomly) and so you'll typically play one pair in each strat plus one random pair in a 12-board game, and on average play two pairs in each strat in an 18-board game. But... bbo doesn't seem to strictly distribute pairs by strat, so in any given game, it's going to be a bit random. AND, in these games, "A" strat is just the top third of the field, B the middle third, and C the bottom third... so if you happen to get into an event that's mostly, say, ACBL players with over 2,000 MasterPoints, the A and B flights are going to all be good players and even the C strat may be people much better than you. Oh well! Other days it will work in your favor. Also, a word of advice: don't be afraid to play against the A pairs. Watch what they do. Ask them questions after completing the boards. You won't learn much from playing against C players, and in fact I've observed that most of what newer players learn from playing against Cs is bad habits. Your bad and careless plays aren't punished, so you don't learn that they are mistakes. Then when you play against better opposition, you get creamed and think you "did everything right!" It's a trap ... If you do want to play against people more at your skill level, seek out the VACB games where they're listed as 499er or 0-299 games. You'll probably have a more enjoyable time, and have a better chance of winning ... but ... be careful not to learn the wrong lessons! As an ACBL member, you have access to all the old issues of the ACBL Bulletin. In each issue there are about seven columns targeted at newer players, and another half-dozen for intermediates. Devote some time going through back issues and discussing them with your partner. If you're not paying for lessons, this is one of the best and most effective ways to improve your game.

There's essentially no way to play both Smolen and Puppet Stayman over a 2NT opening. GIB chose Smolen, and we have but to live with it.

Hello, Sunsam. In your quest for partners, I'll encourage you to register at www.BridgeWinners.Com and use their partnership board. I think BridgeWinners gets significantly more traffic from better players than the BBO forums do.

In earlier discussions, I can't remember that any kind of "games played together" stat was used in the compatibility rating. It's really a quite crude tool, and I wouldn't put too much store in it.

There used to be such contests, referred to as "par" contests. Carefully selected hands where getting to the best contract was rewarded. You might find some reference to them on bridgewinners.com .

But then what? If you bid 4!H and partner bids 5!C or 5!D, you'll have no idea if you're on for 11 or 12 tricks. Splinters use up a tremendous amount of space. Before you use one, make sure partner can use the information, and that you know where to go next.

If you want to improve your bridge, note these precepts of advanced and expert players: 1) Don't use keycard unless you are sure that you have first- or second-round control in every suit. If you break this rule, you won't know (when missing one keycard) if you have one quick loser or two. 2) 1x - 4NT is straight 0/4, 1, 2, 3 Blackwood. If you want to ask for keycards, *set trump first*. This came up in a tournament in Gatlinburg just before Covid, and won a team match for us. 3) (a bonus, just for the heck of it) If your bidding system doesn't have a way to set trump (especially in partner's opened 5-card major(!!!)), then fix that first, and worry about blackwood and all later. 4) Blackwood (RKC, Gerber, etc.) is used by experts to *stay out of slam* when keycards are missing. It is NEVER used as a tool to get to slam. That is, the expert pair knows that they have the values and/or tricks for a slam before asking for aces. They use the ace ask as a last-minute sanity check to ensure they aren't off two key cards. Thus, in direct answer to your question "Now what?" 1. Now agree on how to set spades as trump below game 2. Now agree to not think of slam unless partner shows about an ace over a minimum opener (Rodwell's description of "serious 3NT" may help you) 3. Now agree you won't use any ace-asking bid without ensuring you or partner has 1st- or 2nd-round control of every suit (established by cue-bidding, splinter bids, etc.).

This is the longest answer to a question not asked that I've seen in a long time. Are you sure you're replying to the right original post?

I know this isn't the point of your post, but let me make a comment about the bidding. 1. West should absolutely pass at his second turn. He has no idea what his partner's shape is, and only knows that East has less than six HCP. The opponents will rescue you quite often on this sequence. Or, P happens to have three or four clubs and a singleton spade and your bidding only makes the situation worse. 2. I far prefer a balancing 1NT by South. The hand is NT distribution with clubs well-stopped. 1NT allows partner (N) to transfer to a major or bid Stayman, both of which will right-side the contract and protect the club suit on opening lead. 3. East is correct to pass at his first turn, but after the double is passed around to him, he knows that there is a club stack sitting over his partner. East has two five-card suits, one of which is likely to be better than clubs. While 1!D is a possible bid, a redouble should say, "You're in trouble in clubs, partner. Bid the first suit you're willing to play in", and West will bid 1!D (to allow E to pull to hearts if E held both majors). Had West been, say, 4315 shape, he'd bid 1!H (not 1!S) in case partner held his actual hand.

Click on the blue bar of the person's name to see their profile and who's playing at the table they are at (this works for people who are playing or kibitzing). Click on their profile image or the "Playing Tournament" text to see their profile detail without the table info.

People who quit (or even are disconnected) in the middle of a tournament place a high burden on the tournament director. It seems very reasonable to me that a director might choose to exclude players who don't have high completion rates. A 90% completion rate implies that one person in every two-and-a-half tables will disappear in the middle of the game. Running a 20-table tournament? That's eight people *gone*. A 100-table game? That's 40 people you have to find a sub for. Or, you can just sub in a robot, but plenty of people hate playing against robots -- not to mention the person who has to partner the robot (and who may then also leave because of it). Any player who leaves in the middle of a tournament lowers the quality of the event for the other players.

A couple of suggestions for you: 1. There is a partnership desk on BridgeWinners.com . You might want to post there. Lots of people who are interested in becoming better bridge players post there. You'll also find articles from world class to intermediate (and there is a separate intermediate forum for players like yourself). 2. The ACBL has "myacbl" which lets you set up partnership requests for upcoming tournaments or for club games. I don't know if it is set up for online 'regional' tournaments or not, but it may be worth a shot. Try the link https://web3.acbl.org/myacbl ; if that doesn't work, acbl.org and then look for the link to myacbl -- it should be easy to find off the main page.

Oh, good. I was worried it might be an nondes-script error.

I agree with the original request. T for ten would save space in some cases, make the display more consistent, and emphasize the fact that the ten is an honor.

You are right; the user interface could be improved in so many ways...

Don't forget to use the partnership desk on your myacbl web page. Bridgewinners.com might be another source of partners.

Heck, I'll do it for $150/hour.

The "use with partner" thing seems to be important. I have seen cases where A has to do "use with partner" entering partner's BBO name, and then B has to find that card in his list of convention cards and do a "use with partner" a, for it to "stick" with the a==b partnership.

Hi, TopCat! I know it can be frustrating when your side doesn't seem to get its share of points -- but it doesn't matter! You're playing duplicate. The game isn't "who gets the most points", or "Who plays the most contracts". No, your score comes from comparing your score to the other people who hold _the same cards_! And it's delicious! 90% of your opponents are sitting there with your cards saying, "Another bad hand" and mentally checking out. All you have to do is pay attention and defend well, and you'll get great scores -- if you stay in the game. This is a great time to practice accurate signaling, counting out the hand, and taking inferences from the auction and declarer's line of play. The other thing is to review the hands with your partner after the game. Perhaps you'll find that you were too timid -- not overcalling or preempting when the rest of the field did, or not taking into consideration the power of your fits when partner opens or overcalls. This hand review can be really helpful if you have a coach or mentor to work with you. The main thing to remember is... *some* east/west (or north/south) was going to get the best score, even if they averaged five points per hand. Why couldn't that pair be you?

The behaviour you are observing is consistent with the host standing, but not leaving the table. When a host leaves, the new host is assigned immediately.

As a suggestion, if you're going to edit a post other than for corrections like grammar or spelling that don't change the meaning, make sure it's clear the old text (if any) you're removing, and exactly what is correction and/or addition.

I've seen players say the same in the US. It's a good partner selection tool in my opinion -- in this case, Exclusion Partner Select (i.e., NOT them!).

Yes -- these are the reasons for playing transfers. In addition, if you play transfers, you can start a slam sequence at the 3-level -- very hard to do after 1N - 3!H or 1N - 3!S!

It's not an easy thing to implement, but it would be interesting if there were a "host boot statistic" for hosts just like there's a "completed tournament" percentage for payers. But seriously? How do you figure when someone boots people excessively? In the end, if you don't want to be booted for no reason, be the table host.

I encourage you to find friends, and put together set matches with them -- like inviting three people you know to your home to play bridge, instead of throwing open the front door and shouting, "Any bridge players? Come play with us!" You can develop better partnerships that way, and improve your game much faster by playing with a known partner. With known opponents, you can take the time to discuss hands afterwards, to uncover better auctions or better lines of play.