GreenMan

Indeed, and I think this is why this game is so addictive for many of us: We can see that if we'd JUST put a little more thought into this or that hand we'd have done better, so we come right back and try again. And that's true no matter what level you're playing at.

You seem to be implying that the military could easily have helped and chose not to. What is your evidence for this?

The Benghazi "consulate" was actually a CIA operation with some State Department cover. The State Department's report on its own response is here (PDF). I'm not sure what the CIA has said publicly about its role, but you didn't ask about that so I don't feel obligated. :P As for the military, SecDef Leon Panetta testified: The 'winger yellers and shouters have had to keep changing their story about what did or didn't happen because they keep being wrong.

Those were both answered long ago.

"The best play badly, and the rest are awful." --Hamman One way to think about what Justin says is the old saw that experts don't win by making brilliant bids and plays so much as by not screwing up the not-too-difficult hands.* The time I played in the JEC match, I think I tossed about the number of IMPs we lost by just in not thinking clearly on a couple of hands, one where I misbid, one where I misplayed. Someone who plays more regularly would have been more thoughtful on those hands and might have won the match. (I made lots of other mistakes, but those hands bug me most because they were well within my abilities.) *Or you might say, "An expert is someone who recognizes his mistakes as soon as he's made them. A world-class player sees more of his mistakes before he makes them."

Wouldn't you multiply by 2, because there are two colors? What you have there is the number of hands from any specific two suits (or any defined half of the deck) divided by the total number of hands, which accounts for one color, but we want to account for both. Or am I confused?

One night at the club one hand (spots approximate) was ♠AQJT953 ♥ ♦ ♣AK8764 One friend of mine opened 1♠, heard a 4♣ splinter, and shot straight to the ice-cold 7♠. Another time I had a 3=0=0=10 hand. That's the oddest one I've held.

That thread makes quite clear that appeals committees exist in countries other than the U.S. It may be crystal clear to you what "these appeals committees" refers to, but it seems quite ambiguous to me. Is he referring to any sort of appeals committee, or to some specific sort? You seem to be asserting that your interpretation of that phrase constitutes "face value" that the rest of us should understand exactly as you do, but I disagree.

A previous commenter was trying to figure out what Lauria might have meant by some specific wording, as if he had said those exact words in English. Since it's not clear to me that this stilted translation was done by someone who "is able to converse fluently" in English, I believed and continue to believe that we should not assume that it is entirely faithful to the original.

Some of the original bid-boxes ( :P ) had "D" on the Double card instead of "X", and some clubs for a while had both kinds of boxes at different tables, and occasionally the different cards would get intermingled. I heard of an incident where a player was upset because her box only contained D cards, and she needed an X card, because they played that one was takeout and the other was penalty.

Good luck, all! I'll try to tune in once my afternoon commitment is over.

I predict 28 partscores. :rolleyes:

Translation is a specific skill that does not come automatically with being bilingual. Some of the English in the translation was stilted enough to make it clear she doesn't perform textual translation on a regular basis.

"Sir, you have two choices: You can quiet down and go back to your proper seat, or you can leave. If you don't want to choose, I'll choose for you."

Don't let's forget that the interview was conducted in Italian and translated by someone who is probably bilingual but not a professional translator, so we shouldn't read too much into the specific wording in the English version, esp. re appeals committees.

This is true, but at that point at least we probably hadn't been devoting full resources to the game, at least not efficiently. By essentially forcing ourselves to be extra attentive on defense, we effectively directed more cognitive resources to important parts of the game, so our results improved. (Switching to a strong-club system just for the heck of it did the same in the bidding.)

Interesting; a while back when my partner and I, neither of us much experienced at the time, decided to switch to UDCA, our defense immediately improved, not because the new signals were that much more efficient, but because we were focusing a lot better because of paying attention to each card. I suspect switching count but not attitude, as you suggest, would be more problematic.

That sort of unconscious body language isn't what we're talking about. If you explained the ethical implications to the club players you mention, I believe that most of them would make an effort to control their movements, at least until force of habit reasserted itself. That's qualitatively different from deliberately passing information to partner, which is what we're talking about here, and which CAN be regulated (and is).

I have no idea about the rest, but: I think it makes a significant difference; the more you know about what partner is likely to have in any given situation, the better you'll do overall, and understanding each other's style is a big part of that.

The "preventing declarer's irregularity" approach might work in other situations too! If a defender leads a spade, then obviously I can say "Spade led, partner" to prevent declarer from revoking. This is fun! :rolleyes:

Declarer is expected to deduce who won the previous trick for himself, not get help from his partner who's supposed to STFU. He only gets help if he's manifestly about to do something illegal. Reminding him at every trick saves him some mental energy that he's supposed to be using himself. Put another way: Remembering which hand is on lead, and planning the play accordingly, is part of the game. If you misremember which hand you're in, then you waste some energy planning a possibly useless line of play. It's YOUR job to avoid doing that. If your partner reminds you all the time, then you never waste that energy, and you play more efficiently. Remembering the play is up to YOU and your partner should NOT allowed to help gratuitously. I don't believe that allowing that sort of help on every trick just because someone MIGHT figure out how to take advantage of another sort of UI or MIGHT commit some irregularity later on is sensible. In fact I think it's downright mad.

I also don't buy the argument that declarer detaching a card when the lead is in dummy or saying "Play ..." when the lead is in hand is committing an irregularity. He may be making a mistake, but nothing unlawful has happened yet.

I believe this is entirely wrong. If dummy always tells declarer etc., he is participating in the play by reminding partner about how the previous play has gone. I can't think of any interpretation of the laws that endorses this.

If you only want replies that meet your own standards, go find a website you can control and post there. Or ask better questions.

Ergo, the fact that partner might actually have an opening hand (e.g. 10 --> 14 when the 13th card is an ace) is unauthorized for you.