onoway

The tourneys were both set for 2 boards per round, time 7 minutes per board, (which drives some players bonkers but means a whole lot less adjusting to do). Hadn't thought about shortening the time part way through, an interesting idea but is it really needed when the tables move as soon as they are all finished anyway? I may try one of these with one board per round and see how it goes, will also try 10 % cut and see what happens.It just seems a bit silly to call it a survivor tourney if almost everyone plays the whole thing except for the couple of pairs who get cut early. Thanks for the information

Maybe start out with a butternut/apple soup for everyone...using water or apple juice instead of stock, in case your recipe calls for stock.This can mostly be made a day or two ahead and refrigerated, so not much hassle on the day. There are thousands of salads.. maybe a colorful zippy corn salad of some sort. Add a can of drained rinsed kidney or garbanzo beans and your guest has a complete protein dish.This also can be made ahead

I have been trying to figure out how the survivor tourneys function without a lot of success. I ran one and set it at 50% cut and 16 boards, thinking the cuts would go at 8 hands 12 hands 14 hands and the final. Fast. Well, no, the first cut was at 4 hands and then not another cut was made at all. So I asked BBO Help and was told the cut rate was way too high, the number of boards too low and to have an even number of tables and more of them. (??!) Ok So tried again with 20 boards and a 20% cut. After 4 hands the first cut was made and then not another until very close to the end, I think it was around board 16 out of 20. Now to be sure we had I think 15 tables (this was a couple of weeks ago, so don't remember exact fetails) and I've been trying to research it on the web with no success at all. Is there a required number of tables to run a survivor tourney and if so how many tables would that be? Why is the cut made made after 4 boards if no more cuts are going to be made for another dozen hands? Is there some secret to these things I'm missing? They seemed to be well received in spite of behaving in an unexpected fashion, but it would be nice to know what the actual set up is, to be prepared for what is actually going to happen instead of what I expect to happen.

FWIW I bought an iPad and find it's worse than any Microsoft product (so far, I'm still on XP) to try to use. The thing keeps flipping direction, bringing up screens I don't want, shoving ads at me that WON'T go away, and I can't get the full use of it unless I give Apple personal information that's none of their business. There's a 37 page agreement of small print legalese you have to agree to to use the thing at all, but not a word on what all the icons that keep intruding are supposed to be for or how to use them. I have never been so close to hurling a gadget into a ditch as often as this has seriously tempted me to do on numerous occasions. What it has turned out to be is a very expensive clock which SOMETIMES allows me to browse or check emails. I GOT it to be able to use on BBO and I apparently cannot do that unless I travel 3 hours to an Apple store for them to load it...and perhaps not then since I have declined to give them information they want, just on general principles. Blackmail is not the way I think ethical companies ought to do business. I got it because my computer is very old and I was annoyed with Microsoft for cancelling XP support and forcing people into a new version which without exception every one I knew who had got it, loathed. Also, because Apple marketting yodels about how user friendly it is, which for someone who didn't grow up with it, is absolute BS. It's enough to make a person a Luddite. I am NOT anti computer, but everything is getting to be like putting a space station cockpit in a car. I don't understand why everything gets more complicated and difficult instead of easier. Maybe for the technical stuff it gets better but it surely doesn't for the rest of us. Not all..or maybe even not a lot..of us are computer enthusiasts. I'm nearly incompetent with them but judging from the wails of dismay I get DAILY from people who cannot even navigate BBO there are a lot of people worse than me. Perhaps the stress of being forced to deal with obnoxious and intransigent inanimate objects is part of why depression is now thought to be a serious problem for 1 of every 4 people in North America.

nope :) What I do wonder though, is why all the tourneys are short. The ACBL special events were 10 boards, these ones only 10 boards...all paid for events. Trying to get more events into the time available? Do more people play if the tourney is short? Trying to appeal to a different group of players? It would be interesting to know the rationale, since there are still free tourneys available, it would seem that at least some paid events should be matching them in terms of numbers of boards.

Speaking of which I found the other day in order for Apple to allow me to use my new iPad fully, and to have any sort of protection from whatever bugs and such are out there, I have to tell them my birthday. I see no reason why they need to know that. It seems to me like buying a car and finding out after you have paid for it that unless you give the manufacturer whatever private information they wish to ask you won't be able to use reverse... the car is still usable to a point but certainly not as usable as you would reasonably have expected it to be as a new vehicle. I know I could lie but that's not the point, why should I be forced into a situation where my choices are to be forced to give information they have no reason or right to ask, to live with an overpriced and nearly useless gadget, or be dishonest?

I particularly like the response he has to people who say to him that they don't really care because they have no need for privacy, only people who have something to hide worry about it.

well done sir.

Second the suggestion for the BIL. It's a big club and lots of events and teaching sessions which often involve play at the table, you will improve faster if you take advantage of what BIL offers. It's also almost a sure thing that nobody will yell at you. "A safe place for newbies" is precisely what BIL was designed to be. There are two sections now, paid and unpaid, but even the unpaid has lots of good stuff happening.

A question came up tonight and it was hotly debated at the table. People trotted out various authorities to support their opinion and I was wondering what the consensus, if any, was on the forums. Playing 2/1, on this auction. 1♦ pass 3♠ is 3♠ a splinter? It would be helpful to hear comments on why or why not.

thank you. Is it obnoxious for people not to do all that? I'll try to remember but computers and I are uneasy companions at the best of times. It's nice of you to explain how, though.

this link might be of interest: I don't know why it isn't coming up in blue but copy/paste works www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/26/millennials-godless-politics-religous-conservatives?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2 And getting back to the spying technology etc, someone sent me this, which I found interesting.. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q8xz8xKEFvU

Is it possible to have something on here to update how the web version works - the mechanics, so to speak - for setting and running tourneys? I have a few people interested in helping to TD with the intention eventually of running them themselves and frankly I find the web version really complicated to tell people how to manage. I STILL haven't been able to figure out how to do substitutions and have to resort to the download version, although eventually I found out...mostly by clicking everything in turn until something worked..how to do everything else like adjustments. If there was a sort of instruction manual to follow so I could refer people to it it would be hugely helpful. Well, thank you Diana Eva, I found the extended section on running them a few paragraphs below the first mention of doing them. But wow is it ever complicated. It's interesting that the subs listed for the web and for the download are not the same, and the web subs are often not there or refuse the invitation...do they they register for any and all so then pick and choose which they want to join?.It takes forever if they are joining an intermediate partner.and in a tourney the other day which I was NOT running, a whole lot of subs came and went, so apparently no barrier to runners. I got four refusals in a row on web so again retreated to download and instantly got a sub who stuck. Moving from team to team in web team matches also seems extremely slow and awkward. I understand the download days are numbered and the web is the golden haired child but WHY does it have to be so COMPLICATED when the first version is so simple and easy to navigate? The web has had me close to tears from stress both times I have tried to use it and it is NOT a matter of wanting to have problems, believe me.

Well from another pov.. I won't offer to sub for the ACBL precisely because I know that when the player returns I will get booted. I am going to hang around for an hour or so and not get involved with anything else interesting on the off chance I MIGHT get to play one hand? no. And as one who sometimes runs tourneys, it is often difficult enough to get subs at all that I'm simply NOT going to boot them if and when a player returns. However, having said that, if a player asks a sub and the sub offers to let the original player sit, then fine. I'm not going to lean on them to do so though. It always astonishes me when people go into free tourneys run by volunteers and offer opinions about what those TDs MUST do or change to suit them..they can always go to the paid tourneys which are run according to their preferences, presumably, or even better, offer to host some tourneys themselves and be a shining beacon for all the rest of us.It seems very very few - if any - complainers ever do though.

I've never ended up disliking a song I've deliberately played over and over, just different and clearly inferior versions of it.:) Frequently if a different version comes on the radio I will go find the version I prefer to restore it to its proper status. Also, not sure where emotional impact fits in with what you are suggesting, music clearly can affect mood and attitude. You can have equally repeating patterns and one is soothing and the other anything but. On a radio show the other day the host pointed out that Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen broke all the rules for becoming a popular song. It doesn't have a refrain, doesn't repeat the melody and is at least 25%longer than is considered maximum. It was a favorite of many who would adamantly insist they "hated" opera.Yet it is one of the most successful pieces of the last 50 years, anyway. Why do some pieces enjoy huge popularity for a brief time and then sink into oblivion whereas other pieces survive for generations? A bit of trivia from years ago.. milk cows and chickens both dropped significantly in production when radio stations in the barns were set to play hard rock/heavy metal but increased in production when they heard classical music. No idea what specific music was used. I wonder if they would all have quit entirely if the radio was set to nonstop news...

A simple solution which never occurred to me to suggest. Thank you.

The "bingo guy" :) asked to be replaced after the first hand because he was being yelled at by his partner. When I got to the table, the remarks were ongoing so I booted the player who was breaking the zero tolerance policy of the club. Fairly straightforward cause and effect scenario. The bingo guy's second partner had no problems playing with him. A degree of self discipline, especially if tinged with a little kindness, can go a very long way toward making even a very competitive bridge table a pleasant place to spend some time. Certainly in the old HomeBase tournaments when I regularly persecuted the experts by playing, they were without exception kind to me - including inviting me to partner knowing how weak I was compared to the rest, - except with the card play, which was brutal. That's what we aspire to.

Many of us got trained early to realize that generally we wouldn't understand them anyway :) I once struggled through the barriers and got to Microsoft about an email issue way back when, and got a three page reply instructing me how to fix it which was totally incomprehensible to me and to two friends I asked for help deciphering the thing. I ended up having to abandon the account. That happens often enough and people begin to assume they won't understand so don't even bother...or at least that's my theory. Lots of computer talented people just have no concept, it seems, just how convoluted things are to us computer challenged people when they seem so simple and straightforward to them. I've often wondered why these companies don't have a cadre of non computer people to test drive programs before they loose them on a whimpering public. Or have parallel programs, one for people who want a computer that will do everything but tie your shoelaces and bring you coffee and those who just want the basics. It would be a very interesting market research project to see how many people bought - and used - which. The branding of being extremely user friendly was what got Apple its jump start to success.

I'm not making any judgements about BINGO at all, simply pointing out that apparently there is a whole lot of difference in points awarded via say the ACBL and those awarded for BINGO in what they imply about general bridge skills and knowledge outside of BINGO. And that this one person has found that the BINGO points have frequently led to grief for him in the wider BBO bridge population. Since that undoubtedly wasn't the intention, perhaps BBO ought to be aware that for some at least, there is an accidental and unfortunate side effect.

Ran into an interesting situation today. One player new to the club registered on the PD with a normal looking intermediate profile except a big black 10 on the top left hand corner.He got invited to the tourney and it was a bit of a shock to both him and his partner. I booted the partner halfway through the second hand. When I asked the new guy later in the tourney how he was getting along, he told me his new partner was very kind and patient but he realized he was in way over his head in IAC. He said that he got into trouble constantly because he got the 10 playing BINGO but everyone thought it meant he was a strong and experienced player, and he wanted to know if I could tell him how to remove it. And that he was going back to BIL. I told him to talk to BBO Help as I hadn't a clue, wished him luck and said I was sure we'd see him again in the not too distant future. But would it be possibly a Good Thing to consider making BINGO points a different colour or on the other wide of the profile or something? Just for the poor player's sake. He sounded as though he gets beat up a fair bit because of that 10. poor guy .

What Maureen said is absolutely our experience as well. Bridge players may read bridge books, but they certainly don't seem to read instructions.

This spring, the local grade 5 class put on a fund raiser $2 lunch (toony being the slang word for $2 Canadian coin) supposedly to promote literacy. The signs all over the village included the phrase "a toony for tution." To add insult to ignorance the prize for the child who sold the most tickets was the opportunity to throw a pie in the principal's face. The whole thing was distressing.

Well not that anyone cares but fwiw I want to thank Blackshoe for starting a thread that led to several healthy roars of laughter from here. It's such a treat, and not so common these days to find.

Kibbing is popular enough that it seems it might be useful to have that an easier option to access. The huge numbers of kibs at the JEC matches alone are an indication kibbing isn't limited to a few random people kibbing once in a while. Then there are all the teaching sessions .. Perhaps an option to kib could be incorporated so it doesn't matter if tables full or not? I don't know as my computer skills are feeble at best so wouldn't presume to offer what anyone "should do". I was just earnestly wishing on Sunday that it wasn't so difficult for so many people.

Today we hosted a teaching session by McPhee in IAC and I was constantly dealing with howls of anguish from people who couldn't reach us. I suspect that generally it was because they hadn't got their setting on "show all tables" as a couple of them said they could get to the club but not get in. When I eventually had to tell them to click on my name and join table they had no problem, so it wasn't that they weren't being recognized as members. I think that they were being told there were no open tables in the club and they had no idea what to do then. I know that telling them to right click on my name and join would be faster way to do it but that doesn't solve the problem for the next time or the time after that. I've also been told by several that they couldn't find the settings for show all tables. This has been an ongoing problem for a very long time, but usually the players are trying to come in on their own rather than in a clump so I can handhold and shepherd them in. Today was not fun and I know that at least one of them even appealed to a yellow to help. One person emailed me but I was busy and never got it until well after the class so she never did get in. Can something be done to make it a little easier for people? It's sometimes difficult to take the time to tell a kibber how to get around the program.