Sigi_BC84

I was not talking about one specific program, but on the news channel that was a part of the FoxTel package that is offered in Australia (if I'm remembering correctly this was also called FoxNews). Probably the naming and all is different in the US, so please take it with a grain of salt. Having said that, it was in the late of 2001 when I was watching a lot of FoxTel, and of course the coverage was even more emotional in those times. I agree with those who want to keep politics out of this forum. Maybe I should not have mentioned FoxNews to begin with. BTW I generally despise TV news formats who care to address the audience's emotions and employ sensationalism. There are many other examples of this and certainly quite a few instances on the German TV networks as well. --Sigi

I don't watch a lot of TV but I find Fox News rivetting if only for the lunacy of its presenters. It's a bit like a car wreck. You know you shouldnt slow down to rubber neck but invariably you cant help yourself. nickf sydney I know what you mean and I'm feeling similarly about it. Actually it wasn't the presenters who upset me but the audacious flag waving attitude displayed in any show I happened to see on that channel (BTW my FoxNews experiences are from my time in Sydney, Oz :-). --Sigi

Seriously Ken, I'm going through the entire forum collecting your stories one day. Priceless :-). --Sigi

I didn't like Earl's suggestion either, because the system he described is already fairly artificial. However, it seems like you don't know EHAA, which is really easy (almost 100% natural), the only disadvantages for teaching beginners being that it's harder to find a good major fit (no 5-card majors) and that it's different from Standard. In that case, teaching EHAA seems like a great idea to me. The switch to proper Acol should be rather easy after that. Of course Richard is right when he once more emphasises Minibridge. That is really useful for the first few session, especially if you have coded cards so you can set up a few easy deals quickly to get them started. --Sigi

Snooker! Runner Ups: Ballroom Dancing (to practice and to watch) Socker (sometimes) Tennis (sometimes) --Sigi

I also think EHAA is very good for beginners because it's really simple. However, as Gerben said when he mentioned the Forcing Notrump system, it is too far from Standard. It's probably best to teach a watered down version of Standard because chances are they wanna practice on the Internet and then they need to know Standard. Starting with EHAA and then changing to Standard? Possible, but I don't want having them to unlearn something after five or so sessions -- better to start with 5 card majors straight away. --Sigi

FoxNews

...unless there is a Vugraph broadcast going on, I suppose ;-)

OIC. I don't get why F should be useful at all (probably it making no sense is why people hate it ;-), and G hasn't come up in my (admittedly young) bridge career (low frequency probably being the reason why people hate it, don't see any other actually). I don't get why Roland mentions it in this context (apart from feeling like bashing some hated conventions of course, which is always a good reason to do so ;-). Nobody will be so insane as to propose playing F (?) and playing G probably won't lose you (m)any IMPs... --Sigi

This is interesting because I know for sure that they don't service online poker sites. Now one can argue about which game involves more skill (Hold'em or Bridge) but in my eyes when dealing random hands and paying out the score in $$ and throwing GIB into the equation Bridge becomes quite comparable to poker (regarding the luck/skill ratio). Well, good for you that PayPal's lawyers disagree. --Sigi P.S.: To the people knowing both games well: What do you think? Does Poker require more luck than Money Bridge?

What is "F&G"? --Sigi

What system did you teach to these beginners? I assume it's not any standard system so maybe you can give the opening structure and which conventions you've taught. I'm also interested in the general teaching approach you've taken. We will get a few junior beginners soon and we are planning to give them a crash course to get them into the normal tourney as quickly as possible (keeping the Minibridge short and cutting the Forum-D crap). Any experience and advice highly appreciated. --Sigi

NB Paypal refuses to service online gambling sites. I'm quite sure this would also apply to BBO Money Bridge. --Sigi

There was EXTENSIVE discussion of these issues 12 monthes ago or so. I recommend reviewing the topic... Fair enough. The profile is still too small... (I will review the topic although I don't see any issues there, actually.) --Sigi

If you care about hard science fiction: Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling and Eclipse by John Shirley. --Sigi

I also want (a lot) more space in the profile. The email line should go, hardly anybody uses it and you can ask people for their email address if you want to contact them. This absolutely does not have to appear on the profile. Most people use the email line for something else, like giving their lead preferences or location information. Regarding login times: I have broadband so what do I care ;-). Seriously, why is the entire plethora of profiles downloaded to the local machine on login? Just defer that until the user is actually displaying a given profile. Cache the profile data on the BBO server and deliver it to clients on demand (as opposed to on login). You can deliver data critical to filtering (country, level, etc.) on login, but these are a bunch of numbers which fly across the wire in no time. A good profile IMHO would look like: Name: Systems: Carding: this should be structured, so users would check/select items on a list, free-form text should be optional Conventions: Remarks: ... with a lot more space than at present for Conventions and Remarks (one could add scroll bars as to keep the profile window small, but the window could be a bit larger than at the moment as well). --Sigi

I'd really love to have a combination of the English rules 1-3 with WBF rule 3. This would make a lot more sense that what we have at the moment in Germany. The German bridge authorities apparently tried to adapt the WBF regulations and failed due to incredible sloppiness (that's my impression when comparing the two). I think it makes a lot of sense having to alert lead-directing non-doubles, as these are usually missed by the opps if they are not prepared to ask for them (or know about them anyway). --Sigi

In my association nothing above 3NT is to be alerted, except if it's an unusual opening bid. So you'd have to alert 4♣ Namyats but not 4♣ splinter response. I don't think this is very sensible either, but there are not many jumps into the 4 level anyway in first round, and most of the time they are splinters and oppos can always ask. So I don't think it hurts that much that you cannot alert these calls. --Sigi

I disagree; "constructive" can be very well applied to opening bids, if these are made in the intention of starting an auction that allows your own side to reach the best spot (as opposed to preemptive openers which are mainly made to deprive the opponents of that possibility). Example: ♠AKQJxx♥xx♦x♣xxxx Depending on your style you could open this constructively (1♠) or preemptively (2♠) in a standard system. Maybe a better disposition for the bids under discussion is needed. "No Agreement" certainly misses the point and unfortunately it is being chosen for the lack of a better alternative. Also, many people don't bother correctly specifying the final outcome of the auction (the "♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ NT Def" bit). This could also be regarded as non-information you are required to ignore. It would be best if one could turn off unused parts of FD so that nothing at all would be shown. I also think that the system is not flexible enough for specifying what you hold after artificial bids (e.g. if 2♦ is showing a weak two in a major, you have to specify that in the text and you have to specify something like 0-7♦s as well, even though that's quite irrelevant and maybe not even true because nobody will open a multi with 6=0=7=0). --Sigi

I'd be interested to hear some more. --Sigi

I can only hope that this applies to the US version, which supposedly sucks. Get the original (from England) it's simply impossible not to like it. --Sigi He doesn't like the style of filming of the american. Is it different than the British? I have not dared yet to watch the US version. The British version is so brilliant that I'll probably get quite angry while watching somebody else's miserable attempt to jump the bandwagon. The "style of filming" and quite everything about that show is very different from the mainstream. If that's what Adam hates the show is probably just not the right thing for him. I suggest you watch it while he's playing golf (or whatever he enjoys doing ;-). NB the show has become a huge mainstream success in Great Britain, so don't assume something totally off-beat being on the verge of the unwatchable here. --Sigi

As you don't understand the point of so many things... The point is actually quite simple: The BBO program loads the images off the harddisk as seperate files before displaying them. This is opposed to hardcode them into the program itself or encode them in some way, which would be quite silly (and useless) but at least prevent clueless users from trying to change anything globally by replacing the graphics locally. Now, as a matter of fact, this allows you to exchange the actual data on your harddisk, which will lead to the BBO program displaying different graphics. Not that hard to understand after all. What I don't understand is why you expect that changing the graphics on your harddisk (possibly all of them, quite an amount of data mind you) should lead to uploading the pictures to everybody else who might or might not want to display your profile. One explanation is that you constantly assume that your own expectations and ideas of reality are to be imposed on each and everyone else... --Sigi

So I assume you want us to include void showing responses to KCB as well then, or should responder just raise to seven with a void if opener bids 6m? I'm quite sure I would not want to risk that in a serious teams event. In my opinion the best treatment is kickback, when 4m+1 will be KCB. That way both partners have the ability to ask (I expect responder to be in a much better position to ask in most cases). --Sigi

That goes without saying (as for any advanced feature). --Sigi

I can only hope that this applies to the US version, which supposedly sucks. Get the original (from England) it's simply impossible not to like it. --Sigi