cicus

Also, in FD the text font changed and is different in size from the suit symbols.

My regular partner and I have a rather detailed convention card in FD format. Whenever we play, I upload this file. It usually works all right although there have been problems because most of the opponents are unfamiliar with it. But that is not the point here. We play a variable range for our 1NT opening. Basically, 10-12 nonvulnerable, 15-17 otherwise. Yesterday I opened 1NT nonvul 2nd seat, which was passed out. Before play started it turned out that the opponents thought my 1NT was 15-17. As I put my mouse over my 1NT, FD clearly showed 10-12, which is the correct range. Now this happened already before. All players, including my partner, saw 15-17 when I saw 10-12. Our FD has 4 entries for 1NT. One for vul (15-17), one for nonvul 1st/2nd seat (10-12), one for nonvul 3rd seat (10-14) and one for nonvul 4th seat (15-17). I use the latest beta 4.6.0. I don't know what the others use but probably the last public release.

Yesterday I was playing in a 8-board individual tournament. I looked at my movie several times and found it strange how I could possibly lose 1.4 IMP's on a board when they went for 1700 against nothing. Then after board 6 I found myself out of the tournament, at the place where tournaments are listed. I tried to find my tournament but it was not there, so I exited BBO after a couple of minutes. In order to find my boards I visited the myhands site and I found that instead of seeing the normal menu captions I can see only W0021, W0022, etc. This is the situation right now. Gábor Szots

I have found the hand in the archive. I misinformed you previously, I had only 9 HCP. Here is the link: http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/fetch...php?id=37790898

The other day playing in an IMP tournament I had this incident. After 1C-pass-1D my (regular) partner came in with 2S. As it turned out later, he alerted his call as being "weak". Actually he had a nice 11-count 6-4 hand. The opponents made a foolish penalty double and misdefended as well, so we took 10 tricks. FYI, I had a 11-count with a spade void but a well-fitting hand otherwise. We were asked by our opponents if we call this hand weak. My partner answered that no, but it is weak according to our agreement. Nevertheless the director was summoned and, presumably, told about the infraction. As I could see no conversation, it must have been in private chat. Without asking a question, he adjusted the board as average- for us. The 15 IMP's we lost this way would have been enough to win the tournament. Somehow I feel that not only the ruling but also the procedure let something to be desired. But I'm not a TD and BBO has its own specialities, so I may be mistaken. Some guidance here wooul be appreciated. Gábor

I wrote the above in the belief that disconnections and leaving the table automatically for tournaments can be distinguished from leaving the table deliberately. If not, of course I understand that my proposal is worthless. Gábor

Although notorious bailers and booters may be punished by being banned for a certain time, those remaining at the table still suffer. And the culprit goes on to another table where he repeats his crime. Here is my suggestion: If someone leaves the table in the middle of a hand, and he is the first to leave (because I would not punish those who leave an incomplete table), log him off automatically, and don't let him log in again for an hour. I think the difference between bailing and logging off can be detected (since the bailer remains logged in). In the case of booters maybe banning from hosting a table for a certain time would be enough, but if repeated, the above procedure may be applied. These are my raw ideas just thought out during shaving... what is your opinion?

As far as I know, booting is also prohibited. However, your suggestion to make a note in these player's profile may help. I simply won't allow them to sit down. Unfortunately, in most cases, someone else is the host.

What version of BBO are you using? Do you have BBO set so that NSEW symbols appear at the left of the each of the 4 respective seats? Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com I am using the newest 4.5.5. Settings are that the player to bid or play has a blinking NESW letter, at the other seats only the names are shown. I am just kibitzing at migry's table and everything is all right here. I think the problem is only for those who are EW.

As I was playing IMPs I noticed that the display of running scores was incorrect. I was east-west and my score appeared under "they" while theirs under "we".

I find this situation insoluble. Only today it happened twice. Even a regular commentator on Vu-Graph did this to me! During play one (even two!) players left my table in the middle of a hand. I waited but no one came for a long time. I did not dare to leave from fear I would be banned for bailing. But it is rather unpleasant waiting for opponents just because others don't have this fear in their heart and are unpolite. At the moment I can't see how this can be solved. Even if I won't be banned for just one occassion, it may happen several times a day. Gábor

Your suggestion has proved fruitful in the following way: (1) I copied my setting file (BBO_cicus.ini) from another computer to this one. (2) I renamed it to BBO_Default_Settings.ini. (3) I logged in. That is, I tried to, but I got the usual error message that the connection with BBO had been lost. Now I cancelled the login procedure. (4) I opened a lin file from my computer and it was opened using the settings I borrowed from the other computer. Thank you very much. Hereby I wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and all the BBO people. Gábor Oh no, life is not that beautiful! :-( If I don't follow the login procedure, only want to open a file, then my setting are forgotten. At least we tried...

Your suggestion has proved fruitful in the following way: (1) I copied my setting file (BBO_cicus.ini) from another computer to this one. (2) I renamed it to BBO_Default_Settings.ini. (3) I logged in. That is, I tried to, but I got the usual error message that the connection with BBO had been lost. Now I cancelled the login procedure. (4) I opened a lin file from my computer and it was opened using the settings I borrowed from the other computer. Thank you very much. Hereby I wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and all the BBO people. Gábor

Curiously, there is a settings file with my login name in the profiles folder (BBO_cicus.ini). However, as Fred told us, BBO does not knnow who I am if I don't log in, and that is exactly what I can't do. This situation is rather unpleasant because I have to change settings all the time I load a new hand (not only after loading a new file). Well, I can understand it has low priority on the to-do list.

The problem is that I can't log in from this machine because the required port is not enabled and I don't have the administratory right to change this. Gábor

This one has been around for some time. Sometimes I use BBO for viewing lin files on a machine that has no internet connection (that is, the required port is not enabled). During this I can change settings (e.g. colour of the table, speed of the cards played). However, when I exit the program, these changes are forgotten, I have to set thhem the nnext time I use the software. Can anyone help why is this and how can it be cured? Thanks in advance. Gábor

If I play with uploaded new CC, hand records don't include automatic explanations. This may make impossible to understand later what certain bids meant. Is this going to be changed?

Thanks. I simply forgot they were probably using the standard version.

Yesterday we played a team match and I was eager to see how the new CC works. I uploaded it and BBO announced that it was in use. However, when asked, the opponents claimed they saw nothing, and we had to follow the old procedure of clicking on bids and writing explanations. I myself did see an explanation winndow popping up when making a bid but I suppose the intention is to make explanationns simple for the opponents. Now how should it work exacly? Gábor

I may not understand the use of FD CC's correctly. I guess I have to keep my CC in the folder for my CC's, right? Now I may use it for automatic explanations by selecting the USE button. But what if my partner does the same and uploads (or whatever it does) a different CC?

In another topic I described that my login process took 2 minutes. Fred advised to delete a file named 'db' from my BBO directory. He assured me this would not cause any adverse effects. This worked like wonders, login takes about 15 seconds now from pressing enter until the news window appears and all tables are loaded. So far, so good. But a question remains: if this file can be deleted without pain and its only impact on my system is that login times increase unbearably, then what is it for? I inspected the contents of this file: it includes user profiles, information on clubs etc. And its size is growing all the time. When I deleted it it was almost 18 MB big, now it is around 1.5 MB. Gábor

I am unwilling to believe this too. In the meantime Fred was so kind as to try to track down my problem. We are in the middle of this procedure now. I don't know for how long this keeps happening. My wife says there were no such big delays when we began with BBO (that was around the middle of last year). But she is not sure either. As far as I can recall we had normal login times at the beginning. Then a BBO update came out saying it should solve the slow connection times for those having dial-up connections (we have ADSL). Interestingly, from then on login times have been slower for us. I don't remember when I first observed the strange behaviour that is currently on. It goes like this: 1. The first login is extremely slow, it takes about 2 minutes (during this time the usual blue box is displayed). Recently it even results in a message that connection has been lost, please log in again. 2. Subsequent logins are fast, almost immediate. The BBO start screen builds up in only a few seconds. 3. Now comes the surprise: exiting BBO and waiting for about 2 hours (I have not yet determined the time exactly), login takes 2 minutes again. But only once, subsequent logins are again immediate. I feel that all this has basically nothing to do with your recent upgrades of the software. It must be something with my PC or with my ISP. I only published my observations here in the hope someone has already had this kind of experience and can give me a clue. I emphasize I don't expect the BBO staff to waste their time on this. I can use BBO all right without any problems after I have logged in. Gabor Szots (cicus on BBO)

If bidedit comes only together with BBO, I can get new versions of bidedit only by upgrading the whole BBO program. That is exactly what I would like to avoid until my connection problem is present. A solution may be that after upgrading BBO I reinstall an old BBO version. Gábor

I would still like to have a separate download for FD, e.g. in the form of a zip file which contains only bidedit.exe. Here is why: since I have been upgrading BBO with the new versions that include FD, login times have increased so much that I get a 'connection lost, please login again' message before I could even log in! I would like to revert to the public version of BBO (4.4.2 or so) while still having the possibility to edit my CC with FD. BTW, login times have been extremely long on my computer anyway. It takes almost 2 minutes (!!) to login even with the latest public release of BBO. I don't understand this, can it be some firewall problem? I don't use any additional firewall program only the Windows XP built-in firewall. Some suggestions here would be appreciated. Gábor

I enjoy constructing my CC with FD and by now I have a quite comprehensive CC at my disposal. Now I would like to make it visible for the opponents so that I don't have to alert and write long explanations. Is that possible, and how to do it? And how do I check that my opononts do see the explanations? Yes, they will complain if they don't... Gábor