GreenMan

I certainly would. They need 3.6 IMPs/board over the last 31 boards as I type this. EDIT: 3.2 and change in 30. Still more than I'd care to try, though there's an argument for playing one more set now just to see.

I apologize for my partnership's flakeout. I didn't realize I was logged in as "invisible" so they couldn't see me. Also my partner is moving to his first "real job" (just graduated) in a few days, and I should have realized how distracted he is and texted him before the game. :( My bad. Thanks to sylviafay and francine21 for stepping up. :) Go team!

Yes, and there are many reasons why some things get reported and others don't; I mentioned a couple. If you're interested, the seminal work on this topic is Deciding What's News by Herbert Gans. Media sociology and journalism studies are rich fields of inquiry, and I couldn't do them justice here.

They may take notice or they may not. In an ideal world everyone at the table will be paying attention to what's going on, but that's not always the case in real life. IMNSHO we would do best to require actual attention-calling such as saying "Hey!" or waving and pointing to constitute drawing attention to an irregularity. Otherwise we may have a long list of gestures, grimaces, and long sighs that some would say constitute calling attention.

Speaking of U.S. news media, which is what I know most about: Journalists love a scandal and always have. They have more reporting tools available these days e.g. databases and public-information laws. The "watchdog function" is baked into many journalists' DNA. However, those norms and practices are not the only influence on news gatherers: for instance, their bosses tend to be businessmen who don't like rocking too many boats. And if you cover a subject such as national politics long enough you start to get cozy with the people you see every day and tend toward less oppositional reporting. Those and other factors influence which and how much scandal and "scandal" you see in the press; it's not a simple equation.

I can play with my partner Anant, BBO name rathia. He is in the USBF Junior Mentoring Program and a fine player.

"Doing something unusual" and "Calling attention" are different things. Sometimes the first also accomplishes the second, but not always, and we shouldn't assume the second from the first.

Did we ever determine whether that means "on this deal" or "in the session"? Because one might argue (and this being BBF, someone surely will :P ) that getting partner's attention on this deal may encourage him to "play bridge" the rest of the way, resulting in a higher score overall.

OK I've apparently done something quite clueless and don't realize it. Can you fill me in? I'm totally not at my best tonight (not that I ever am).

Sorry, I never can keep those two straight in my head. Fixed. Thanks.

I don't know how big a factor this would be, since I'm an outsider, but if Kranyak were to add Fleisher-Kamil then the rest of Fleisher's team, Zia-Martel and Rosenberg-Willenken, would be without a sponsor for the Transnationals. That seems as if it would rub a lot of people the wrong way. EDIT: Fixed a brain-o.

Indeed. This is a good example of a time when you have to make the call that misdescribes your hand the least. There are lots of others. Also an example of how your own pre-empt can force the opps to make choices they'd rather not have to.

No disagreement here, though I'm less sanguine about Kranyak's chances of winning either spot, because they're playing four-handed. They're young and can probably handle the strain better than any other team, but it's still a serious hurdle (one that I'd be happy to see them clear).

I believe "a tantrum" is equivalent for this purpose to "the match" so the original word does apply.

Oh, that's cool. I don't have time to watch/listen right now, but I love that it's available. Thanks!

I read somewhere (Cohen or Bergen, I think) that "session" in a pairs event means the complete movement of 26 boards or whatever, but in e.g. a Swiss it may mean an individual match for some purposes.

♦J.

I couldn't see any reason not to take the double hook either, but that's pretty mundane analysis even for me. So I peeked at the hand record and reverse-engineered a line of thought that would lead to the winning play. (Much easier when you know the outcome!) I'll be interested to see if it's anything like how a better player would approach it at the table.

:) I should have said "gratuitous", don't know why I didn't. That's the idea I had in mind, anyway.

Agreeing to Terms of Service is a routine part of signing up for online services. Why not? If nothing else, it shortens the arguments when someone does need to be booted: "You can't make me leave." "You agreed to the ToS and then violated it, so, yes we can."

I suspect that if we actually scrapped it, then many, many pro/client pairs (or good player/less-good player pairs) would adopt the practice of the better player asking many detailed questions about the opps' auction just to be sure partner knows everything the pro knows but couldn't work out himself. Improper? Why, they actually got rid of the Law that forbade it! It's perfectly legal now! That's not a game I want to play. 20G1 is needed.

Does going from bridge table decorum to big-city crime rates in under 10 posts qualify as a record? Seems pretty swift even for this bunch.

The 1980s called, they want their stereotypes back.

I wouldn't bother. This sounds like a classic case of availability bias -- the big hands that are hard to bid stand out in memory, in comparison with the common routine hands that pass quickly into the fog, so they "seem" to be happening a lot. And they stand out in large part because the OP's system doesn't handle them well -- which is why this thread got started.

Yes, it does; you've described the Reagan Administration to a T.