mghatiya

You are right. I am able to get LIN file now. I was referring to the actual "myhand=M-3192794530-1580644538" format page. That page doesn't have an option of exporting to LIN. But yes, the "myhands" page does have a way to download LIN file.

But from the link format I mentioned in my first post we don't have any option to export either to LIN file or any other, isn't it?

Hi, I know that when we export hands from BBO we get a URL that has the hand record in URL itself and hence the hand record is permanent. That is very good feature. However, when we go to a hand from a tournament history, then the URLs we get there are of different structure. They are like http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?bbo=y&myhand=M-3192794530-1580644538 . Such URLs are don't work after some time. Can we do something to get permanent URLs in these cases too? Thanks, Mukesh

Ah well. Thanks so much. It is very hard to figure that out. Don't know why the click on white area and the blue area be behaving differently. Something for designers to consider I suppose.

Earlier there was an option where one could click on a person's name, see which table they are playing on, who all are there and then join it. In the new version, that option is gone. I can only see what table they are playing on, but can't see players on it and can't join the table either. It was really useful, to be able to login and join star players' or friends' tables to watch them. Wonder why it was removed and if there is a plan to reinstate it.

Hi All, I wanted to understand if there is a bridge law/guideline which mandates usage of bidding boxes. We are having a debate whether we should be mandating bidding boxes in our local club events or not. People have their different opinions. I wanted to understand if some guideline has been put around it. I have seen this: https://www.acbl.org/tournaments_page/charts-rules-and-regulations/bidding-box-regulations/ This is helpful, and it seems from this that bidding boxes are not mandatory except for NABC events. I couldn't understand what is I/N event. Also, not sure if this is just applicable for ACBL/NABC or it is a guideline for all official Bridge events. Please guide. Thanks, Mukesh

Hi All, I am keen to understand if there is a clear guideline on what should be the time allotted to play per board. From whatever I have read, it appears 7 minutes are allotted per board if only one board is in play per round. As the number of boards increases, the time per board reaches about 6.5 minutes. However, other than this guideline I couldn't get anything which states how does the time per board change on the basis of whether the game is being played with bidding boxes or not, being played with screens or not, whether it is a team event or pairs event, whether it is a knock out stage game or a league event game etc. Does the time allotted per board change on these things or it remains same? I did quite a bit of searching here and there but couldn't find anything. But intuitively I do feel that time allotted per board should change on the basis of some of these things. Please guide. Thanks, Mukesh

Thanks Barmar. Yes, having hand details in URL is a neat thing. I assume tinyurl URLs also would be permanent? Or should we rather use some other url shortener if we want to store URLs for long term personal usage?

Thanks for looking into it. I also have a few things to check e.g. this one: http://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=1210-1537633200&u=mghatiya Would look forward to the resolution. Btw, I have faced this problem in past too. Couple of months back I was trying to retrieve a hand that I had encountered a few months ago, but it was simply not showing up. The "No data found" was coming. How long do we hold hands for? Also, I assume hands urls are independent of storage and would work even if the hand record is deleted from the system. I have been storing links on that assumption. Please let me know if that is correct.

Thanks folks for the suggestions. I've a list of books to catch up with, now :) (Not that, that list was small earlier) As of now my first priority is to come to a basic set of understanding which is complete and clear (if not the best and most modern). That way we avoid the mishaps due to confusion. Then I'd get on to improving those to cater to different scenarios in better way. For this first step, I guess the suggested books should be good stepping stone. @Jogs: I agree that keeping up with latest in bidding world is probably not done best by books as things develop fast. What are the resources would you suggest to do that? Should that be material for a different thread?

Hello All, I am looking for a book/guide on all types of doubles. I know there are books on "takeout doubles", "negative doubles" etc. But the problem is doubles come in so many flavours in competitive auctions (especially after couple of rounds of bids), many a times it becomes confusing as to whether this double is penalty oriented or a takeout one or value showing or lead directional or responsive or balancing and so on. So I am looking for some material which can put forward some guiding principles around identifying which doubles are what. Please share if you know of such materials. Thanks, Mukesh

Thanks folks for the replies. Looks helpful on first glance. Will look through deeper and get back if these work.

[sorry, I couldn't find any existing thread on this. If they are there, please point them to me] I am working on building bidding notes with my partner and am wondering on what should be the best way to structure it. I don't want it to be limited to just uncontested auctions as is to be seen in notes most of the times. I also want to include details like "responses to overcalls", "when do we balance", "how do we manage when opps do takeout doubles", "Defense to multi" etc. It would be good to see some examples to take inspiration from. Are some of the notes of experts public? In best case, I could probably directly use the structure and replace the notes with our flavour wherever we have different understandings. Please let me know if you know of such notes. Thanks, Mukesh

Link given in the first post is no longer working? In fact the domain also doesn't seem to open. Has it been moved somewhere?

I remember reading somewhere that 4-4 fits are better than 5-4 fits to decide the trump, as 5 carder can be utilised to throw a loser. I used that principle and bid accordingly in this hand and landed in 4S contract. http://tinyurl.com/owa66nw Apparently 4H was cold while 4S requires specific play. Did I remember the principle wrong? Or was it just exception? Also, what do you think is right play after ♦K lead and switch to small ♣? Opponents have remained silent throughout the bidding.

Thanks all. Problem is that I have seen different directors telling me different things. I don't think there are any well documented local regulations. So ultimately mere players like me are left to do the guessing.

Thanks all for the replies. This happened in Bangalore, India. And I am not stranger/foreigner in this field. Thanks for pointing the difference between law and regulation. I think I should read that up a bit. To share the context: A good majority of people in our locale do play transfer. A minority percentage don't. So far in the plays I have seen people alerting for transfers, barring some casual scenarios where people just assume the transfer and bidder goes lazy and anyway most of the times the subsequent bid of the opener confirms whether it is transfer or not. If it is a regulation question, then I have following questions: 1) If "transfer" is a well accepted as 'norm' in my locale, is it okay to not alert it and does it demand the natural bid to be alerted? How about other well accepted bids like stayman? 2) Even if it is a regulation and not law, there has to be some guiding principle. Is the principle that "If you bid anything other than usual norm of the group, whether it is natural or not, you better alert it"? 3) Can regulations differ by locale? Shouldn't there be a universal set of regulations/principles? Surely in a sport with set international standards, one can't make local regulations to suit their needs? If it is a serious affair, standards need to be there. People can relax the standards a bit possibly, but not change (if the body is serious about international participation etc). I hope I was able to point the difference of "relaxation" and "changing". Not forcing people to alert artificial bids is "relaxation". Forcing people to alert natural bids is "changing".

Me and my partner do not play transfers. So 1NT - P - 2H is a natural call. We played the same today and were told by our opponents and director that it should be alerted. Doesn't sound right to me though. Have laws changed? Does one need to alert for such natural bids and not for the universally used conventions like transfer, stayman etc? If yes, why has it so happened? And how does one figure out what to alert and what not to in such cases?

I am not saying that 1M-4M requires alert. I am saying, in case your opponent asks you to describe HCP range of your partner in 1M-4M auction, I don't think you would have a clear answer. And I think opp should have theoretical rights to ask that question (even though it might not make much sense to some). My argument is that there are cases in Bridge where a person can speculate many possibilities of his partner's hand, and might not be able to describe his partner's hand accurately (only a single possibility), if asked. In such cases I think Bridge laws should only penalize the person if he doesn't have a clear answer to "What does his partner expects him to bid?" (e.g. Bid NT with a stopper for cue bids) Doesn't that sound right?

barmar, "Too much detail gets a complaint of ambiguity, too little risks misinformation" That is the confusion I want to clarify. What do Bridge laws say about these situations? Should one choose to give information as much as possible, or to just keep it short with descriptions like "non forcing" or "showing values" etc. ? Thanks, Mukesh

Thanks all for the responses. My main concern was exactly that why was I being punished for giving more information and more possibilities of my partner's hand. Nigel, I didn't find director being called as humiliating. I felt not right when director agreed that LHO was right and I had given ambiguous information, and hence his rights were protected. It was like jury giving a verdict of me lying. I just mentioned the "strong words" and "lecture" as to just note what all happened. I was not worried about that as much as about being proven guilty. And I am not complaining later. I put across my opinion even then, but director felt LHO was right. And as I mentioned, I have no big qualms about LHO's behavior. He is known in bridge circuit here for his frequent usage of harsh words. ddrankin, Director did try to clear up ambiguity, but I just repeated my explanation that I had given to LHO, and TD also found that explanation ambiguous, hence gave LHO his rights. Incidentally, TD and I are good friends and have had many booze sessions together, and in few of those, this argument has come up, and we both have failed convince each other all the times. :) Thanks, Mukesh

Hi, I had this ruling more than a year back, but I was not satisfied and have had numerous heated arguments on it, so I thought of posting it here to take some more opinions. I am narrating the incident as per best of my memory. My partner and I were playing basic precision system with some minor changes. Opponents were apprised of this, and were told that we would alert wherever there is any special/unnatural bid. Sitting south I opened 1♠. My LHO doubled, and my partner bid 3♠. RHO passed and I passed. LHO turns to me and asks what is the meaning of 3♠. I tried to explain it in best possible way through the words that came to my mind that time. Frankly I was little intimidated by imposing persona of LHO. I said something like "He should have 10-11 pts with min. 3 card support. He can have less points also with long spades. I am supposed to bid 4♠ if I have full 14-15 kind of hand". Maybe I could have simply summed it up as "It is a non-forcing game invitational bid", but my laconicity failed me at that moment. LHO felt it was an ambiguous explanation and called TD (after some strong lecturing to me) to protect his rights. TD after hearing the brief agreed to him and assured him that his rights are protected, and asked us to proceed. Game proceeded, he passed 3♠ and I went one down because of a mistake. At the end TD asked him if he was satisfied, and he said yes, and things moved on. My objection is that I don't think we did anything wrong. I explained whatever our understanding was. As far as him being in dark about strength of my partner's hand is concerned, in Bridge this happens quite often. Many a times we would hear auction like 1♠ - P - 4♠ . Now people will bid 4♠ with 5HCP and 6 carder ♠ or with 13hcp and 3 carder♠ too (Precision players most usually will not worry about missing slam with 13hcp). Or you would hear 1NT - P - 3NT bid by partner on the basis of long minor suit with less hcp. Now in such situations if you ask partner of the game bidder to describe partner's hand, I am sure he won't be able to pinpoint anything concrete. I understand it would be wrong if I had some information that I could utilize and not my opp. But that was not the case here. I was expected to bid 4♠ with better hand and pass with less, which I did. It was a humiliating moment. Please note that I get that our understanding was not good. We could have better system than that. Probably keeping that 3♠ as preemptive is good. One of the arguments given to us was also the same "How can you say things like that. Nobody plays like that" etc. I accept to have had a bad system. But I think ruling should not be based on how sound our system is. Would like to hear your opinions. Thanks, Mukesh

Hi, I was directed to this thread from http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/45575-getting-excused-from-tournament/page__gopid__542897#entry542897 So as I mentioned in that thread, I have a concern on the logic of removing a pair who has been doing well, but due to the flaky connection one of them is unavailable only for the moment when the round is changing. I think it is very unfair. Survivor movement does have reds and subs when the round is going on. Then why the weird treatment when a person is not present at the time of round change? We all know there are plenty of frequent disconnections. If we start penalizing a pair like this for something which is not in their control, I am sure it would be a great step towards reducing Bridge popularity. I understand from the above mentioned point that this happens only when the number of pairs becomes odd, and hence to avoid half table. But I think if you call it survivor, you should remove the pair with second least score. Unless of course you meant survivor in the sense of "the one who survived internet disconnections" :) And btw when we are at it, I think the cutting off the bottom pairs should happen after at least two boards. Removing after just one bad board which very often can happen due to bad luck, sounds very cruel. All in good spirit please :) Thanks, Mukesh

My concern was not whether the director was correct or not. My concern was about the flaw that I sense in the logic of elimination. Anyway, thanks for the link. I'll post my query there. Thanks, Mukesh

So today I got excused from a survivor tournament. Not a rare site for me :) but the thing is we were doing well. Averaging above 60% !! That left me totally flummoxed. I located the host of the tournament and asked him what caused this. He suggested it could be because of my partner being red. Now I find that very unfair. Just because my partner was red for few seconds at the time of round change, we shouldn't get thrown out. The software can very well seat us to the appropriate table and we can seek sub if required. Its not that survivor tournaments don't have reds and subs at all. Would the top management agree? :) Thanks, Mukesh