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Great quotes here: MadeOff with Billions Hedge fund explains complex money transfer: Investor explains usual business activities: Faith-best investing: To write the story took the following: Reporting by Jennifer Ablan, Edith Honan, Aarthi Sivaraman, Leah Schnurr, Dan Wilchins and Phil Wahba in New York, Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston, Steve Slater in London and Lisa Jucca in Zurich; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, John Wallace, Toni Reinhold, Gary Hill Quite the team for such a small story

The error message should be Err=D9'ed

Thanks for your comments - they are very useful in moving this discussion forward. The need for clear explanations extends beyond systems. For example here's a conversation I see repeated too often: Q. what carding do you play? A. standard, and roman first discards Q. what are roman first discards? A. odd/even Q. what does that mean? A. odd we like the suit, even we don't Now it is left at that, with never a mention that even will often be suit preference, or what subsequent discards show

You really have to learn Swahili if you want to play at these clubs

agreed, and the other point to make is to bid it smoothly - not tank, tank, tank, 2♥, but a we-have-np 2♥, while behind the poker face you are thinking "please bid a suit opponents!"

The other associated thread mentions the Gladwell book Outliers (a must read for every parent), and a key theory of the book is that opportunity matters a lot (as well as the 10K hours of practice). I know you credit Silver and his lack of a complex system as a very important developmental factor, but consider this: - You were well on your way to your 10,000 battle hours - You were now starting a partnership with one of Canada’s top players - This partnership would coach/mentor you to become better. Now what would have happened if instead of Silver, you had partnered Kokish over the same Joey years? Instead of 2 pages of system notes, you would have had 2,000 pages. However you would not have wasted much time yourself on system design, as it would have been totally inflicted on you by EOK. Instead, with plenty of time (including bridge as it related to your work), tough competition, and a great writer/analyst/coach/mentor as your partner, you would have seen your game improve immensely. To return to the theories in Outliers, maybe it was the opportunity to play with one of Canada’s top players and the investment of thousands of hours, that spurred your game on? Maybe system had little to do with it at all.

Here in Maine, we speak similarly of Canadians. Yes, I'm waiting for the next thread, "Canada's lack of slam success"

For my fonts, this is a perfect example of out-of-the-box thinking

I can see some classical music teacher talking to Elvis in the early 50s: "Once you already know how to sing, by all means tinker away if that's what you enjoy and if you really think it will help your career. But IMO it is nothing more than a distraction for developing singers to get involved in such things." And so Elvis does not "succumb to this form of distraction" and becomes the great opera singer we all love. I think older players need to recognize: - it is natural for the young to be creative - just because one is no longer creative or has channeled one's creativity elsewhere is no reason to deny it to the young - expect the young to want to be creative, encourage it or lose them to other activities; - you can still develop playing talent and judgment regardless of the system you play, if you play lots and lots against the best. That said, if you spend lots of time on system design and bidding practice, and relatively little in actual tough competition, you will be as useful as brief contestants on American Idol who worked on their singing mostly in their shower.

imo, the volunteer committee should not have the additional workload of producing minutes, tracking outstanding issues, producing draft charts etc. - the committee members are busy enough donating their limited time to looking into the complex issues at great depth - the ACBL should supply the (paid) admin support to the committee to assist the committee - this would include telling the committee which correspondence is still awaiting their reply. I do relate to the frustrations with the current setup.

For Bergen style weak twos I created a 2NT ask called August: 3♣: awful/bad (there was debate whether awful/awful should just pass 2NT) 3♦: sad/awful 3♥: bad/sad (early August had 3M taped for this) 3♠: sad/bad 3NT: not half bad Even though most partners claimed to already know August (and claimed to know the Bergen too), the learning curve on this was awfully bad and results too sad :)

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I played in an event like that yesterday. It was an ACBL-BBO speedball. The opponents had sayc convention cards, but freely used their own conventions and carding agreements without telling us. I found it more annoying than fun.

I believe you have the right approach here, but here's how I work it. If both opponents (not just one) talk during the bidding and/or play in a non-English language, I bring up Goggle translate and pick a language. Then I translate "What are they talking about?" into a random language and cut and paste that into the chat. Opp1: Vorrei che hanno fatto. Siamo spiacenti, si è così semplice Opp2: Sì, soprattutto perché gli oppositori svolto come idioti Me: Hvad er det, de siger? Opp1: Che lingua è che, mai visto prima Me: Kas tās sakot? This tends to work about 95% of the time. No need for a TD, no need to never play the tourneys again.

I'm not sure why connecting the dots was a problem here ("Huh?, OTOH etc.) - seems straightforward that 1NT as defined is not bal

What I've liked about this before is you can play non-forcing Stayman, and really non-forcing: 1NT-2♣(non-forcing Stayman);-Pass(6+♣s, no 4cM) ACBL would not consider 1NT bal, and thus is not allowed there

If you are a small country, no pros, with a lack of top-flight players, then using a method where a whole mob of these play against each other to select the best team for the 2009 worlds doesn't work, HUM or not. That is the pairs you obtain out of the results of these trials are the best pairs for playing teams that have no pros and lack top-flight players. Instead you really need to find pairs/teams that have the resources to enter team events such as last week's White House or Monte Carlo (if no invite to WH), and thus you can rely on the conditions of contests of the bulk of those types of events - if most don't allow HUM, then ban them.

Do you mean your defensive despising for just big 1♣s or even for Polish 1♣s, or even standard 1♣s?

Balanced hands less than 17 are your bread 'n butter In this system: 11-12 balanced have to pass or overbid 13-16 balanced are in a 4 point range 1NT Compare with standard: Most 11s pass 12-14 open suit, rebid 1NT 15-17 are in a 3 point 1NT Compare with Meckwell: 11-13 open 1D, rebid 1NT 14-16 are in a 3 point 1NT System has too much steak, not enough bread 'n butter: low carbs

I think this is the 3rd best system I've seen today

When asking a question of the ACBL, first frame the question with a quote from the GCC etc., and then ask it, such as:

I've been tempted to modified it so it is ACBL legal - that is 1M-2♦ is a.) GF with ♦s b.) weak raise in M with 3+♦s

From this, and Benlessard's (how bout those Leafs?) post, do you like the above or 2c=c and major 2d=d and major or 2c=c and other 2d=d and major

There is another way of looking at your example. Suppose we assume that opener will always bid the same way after 1S-1NT;-2x-2S regardless of whether or not one would bid 2S directly, or 1NT, with a flat 9 count, 3 card support and soft values - that is opener treats the 2S rebid solely as 6 to 10 with a doubleton spade. Then simulations are very useful in determining if this approach results in better or worse results for the 9count/3support/soft hand - if the results are better without opener having to change anything, then the simulations can help solve this problem.

If we accept East's double, and just focus on NS, I don't like 6♦