ThomasRush

As a suggestion, mark the VACB BBO names of the clubs you play in as "follow" or "friend" in their profile. That will have them show up as a darker blue when you're scrolling through a list of tournaments, and make identification easier.

Maybe not quite that simple -- 1. Make sure you're all on the HTML version of Bridgebase (that is, go to bridgebase.com and DO NOT use either the old Windows program, nor the old Flash version). 2. Make sure all of your group is on the "casual" side of BBO -- you get there by clicking on "casual" in the "Play or Watch Bridge" section of the main BBO screen. 3. Click on one of the players you want to kibitz. The upper right of their profile should have a blue "Join" button, and their profile should show the four people seated and playing at the table they are watching. If they are at a table and you don't see a "Join" button, then either a) They're in a tournament that doesn't allow joining, or, b) The table owner set up the table so it doesn't allow kibitzers... so get them to change it.

Copy the "less important" messages to the bottom of your list, in the order you want them to be. Then delete the out-of-order duplicates (the original messages). Problem solved, and pretty easily. How to do that? On a Windows system, you can select the "edit" button, then Control-A to select the text, Control-C to copy it, go to the new blank message line, hit Control-V to paste it, then the 'Add' button.

I am fairly certain that they are essentially random. The qualifiers on that are: 1. The field is stratified -- that is they put together a ranked list of all registered pairs, and rank them by ACBL points (or perhaps BBO points in non-ACBL tournaments). 2. A roughly equal number of A, B, and C pairs are put into each section and each direction. This sometimes fails; I looked at a recent tournament I played in and saw that some sections had 9 B and 4 C pairs, some were 10 and 4 or 5, and one section was 11 and 6). 3. The assignment of seats in a section seems to be random; at least, I know I've played against two top-tier pro pairs in a row. In a 15-table section with 10 B and 5 C pairs and an even distribution, you'd normally expect to play an A pair, a B pair, and a C pair before you played a second pair of any particular strat. 4. In physical tournaments, There are one or two tables in each section and direction reserved for top pros, other tables (usually odds) that will tend to have "A" players, and the rest of the tables are typically going to be B and C players (taking into consideration whatever flighting or stratification is going on). There doesn't seem to be that kind of rigidity in the BBO Speedball games. So -- who you play against in your section will be pretty much luck. Much of the above is based on observation fueled by experience, not insider knowledge. I'd welcome ACBL or BBO corrections to my surmises above. Oh -- what I am almost certain does NOT happen is: - You don't get matched with a pair with an equivalent record in that event (if you are having a 60% game, they don't look for a pair with a 60% score for you to play against next round - If you have a certain number of Masterpoints, BBO does not look for a pair with an equivalent rank for you to play next round. Once the tournament starts, the movement has been set.

Wow. 50 before allowing upvotes seems like a high bar. I have a BBO login I don't use much anymore -- SelfGovern. That one apparently has enough posts to be able to upvote. Is there a way to give me the OK for both of my 'names'? T.

For some reason, I can't upvote posts on the BBO Forums. I get a popup with the message, "Action failed: You have reached your quota of positive votes for the day" and it doesn't matter if this is the first time I've tried to upvote in a day; I can never upvote the first time. Unlike "once is never enough", it's "once is too many". Is there something I can do to fix this? Is there something BBO can do to fix this? I like upvoting good answers. Thomas.

I suspect that the matchpoints are calculated the standard way (one point for each pair you beat, half a point for each pair you tie), and then converted to a percentage (divide your score by top on a board (top is one less than the number of pairs being compared) to get the percentage). You will find that your score in face-to-face ACBL tournaments is shown in both matchpoints and percentage on ACBL live.

You are seeing only the obvious. There is much beneath the surface in bridge, if you open your eyes to implications. You're replying to a post where someone suggests something new to you. Do not dismiss it, thinking that the poster made a mistake. His or her post is extremely relevant to the Meckwell discussion. If you agree that a Meckwell double shows shape and a certain minimum strength, it frees 4th hand to convert the double to penalty when she knows that she and her partner hold 21 or more of the 40 points in the deck. Which do you think is more lucrative over time: A) Bidding willy-nilly over 1NT with no agreements on point count, often going down your way, or, B) disciplined Meckwell doubles that allow partner to convert to penalty where instead of a +110 or more frequent -50, you get +200 or +300? In addition, after 1N - X - P - P ... think of the pressure you're putting on opener! Perhaps your defense isn't up to converting the double so this style won't work for you. Or perhaps you and your partner cannot bring yourselves to adopt a more disciplined Meckwell double -- then don't. But others will use it quite effectively.