Sigi_BC84

As mentioned in the movie thread already: The Office (original BBC version) Six Feet Under (watching it on a regular basis off DVD with a few friends, we've just made it through 3rd season tonight; it's a great show I can really recommend, but watch it from the beginning, since the story and characters develop through the series). --Sigi

Hey, I've seen that one! The later Coen movies were a lot better IMHO (esp. Fargo and The Big Lebowsky, but with Blood Simple their talent was clearly recognizable already). --Sigi

Slightly off-topic, TV shows not to miss: The Office: Best TV comedy ever (no kidding ;-). Talking about the BBC original here... Six Feet Under: To be watched starting with ep. one. Great show. --Sigi

I'll try to keep this short. First of all I second Justin on Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Michelle Gellar being gorgeous :-). Favourite Movies: The Big Lebowsky: I could watch this over and over again, for the humour and great situational comedy, characters and dialogue. Probably a hate-it-or-love-it movie. The Flight of the Phoenix: The only airplane disaster movie that is not only bearable but even really good; a great character study and thriller at the same time. No silly romance side plots or senseless violence, it keeps to the point and still works because of the great acting and directing. Edit: Uh, maybe I should point out that I'm talking about the original from the 60s, not the silly remake that has been released recently... The Abyss: Awesome science fiction story; by all means watch the director's cut. Lost in Translation: I've hardly seen any love story which was that well told, in all its subtlety. And many many more ("Fargo", "Alien(s)", "Star Wars" (the old ones) and many more, but the above four are good examples for the kinds of movies I fall in love with). --Sigi

I really saw myself speaking when reading Justin's post (except for maybe the "hard to beat" bit ;-). I gave up several games already because of addiction and being overwhelmed, sort of. On the computer, my absolute, probably never to be surpassed, favourite is Dungeon Master. If you are into computer games and don't know this one, get a week off work and give it a try. Google for "Dungeon Master" and you'll find the encyclopaedia site which has got all the info (mind you it's a really old game but there's no comparison in terms of excitement and fun, none). In real life I was totally into "Magic: The Gathering" with a bunch of friends, but gave that up because I didn't want to invest the time and money anymore. Anyway playing MTG was one of the best experiences in my life concerning games. I also like other card games such as the German "Doppelkopf" and "Skat" but Bridge is by far the most interesting of all card games. Never got the hang of Chess, too hard for me and the games are too long. Haven't tried Go seriously although people keep trying to talk me into it. Richard has mentioned "Settlers of Catan" which is a German game actually ("Die Siedler von Catan"), so no surprise I'm playing that as well (we got really competetive, setting up a small league and all; only the competitive types could bear to play with us, the others were pissed off really quickly by our attitude, those wimps... ;-) At last I can recommend "Robo Rally" which has been rereleased shortly -- it's sort of tough to find opponents since the game is too complicated for many but I guess this won't be a big problem for the audience here :-). Justin, if you care for another mindf*ck try the game "Set" in case you don't know it yet. Awesome. --Sigi

Hi, running the risk of sounding like a total croaker. The idea of realising money bridge by putting computer partners in front of people is charming, but mark my words: you'll be soon enough either drowned by complaints from frustrated players or simply having not many customers in this area GIB is a brilliant piece of work but the thought of partnering GIB to play for money scares me witless. --Sigi

Gets still easier: Make a copy of your BBO directory, change the .ini files therein and drag a shortcut for the BBO client in the copied directory somwhere... --Sigi

No offense Todd, but I don't think it's legally possible to restrain anybody from using ideas you have published unless you have a patent on these ideas. Furthermore, software ideas are not patentable everywhere (e.g. not in Europe, fortunately). --Sigi

FYI: VMWare is now giving away one of their server versions of the emulator software for free. I am running BBO inside Win XP inside VMWare and it works like a breeze. So all of you having trouble or just being unhappy with running BBO under Wine should give VMWare a try (of course it requires you to have some Windows license in order to provide a legal solution). I'm also planning to check how well BBO runs under ReactOS (a free Windows clone). If this happens to work out, BBO/VMWare/ReactOS will be a fine, completely free (as in beer) Linux solution. --Sigi

A few hours ago I was thinking about suggesting an off-topic forum here. Thanks for reacting so quickly :-). --Sigi

Prosit!

Um, actually I have checked the German regulations before posting as to not embarass myself here, and the bid is absolutely alertable (it doesn't matter what the interference bid meant, a non-forcing shift on the one or two level is always alertable). If that is actually not the case then I'd be thankful to be pointed to an official source. --Sigi

I suppose that's Todd's secret formula with which he hasn't come forward yet for a reason. However he already pointed out that he wants to weigh votes by the amount of hands you have played with the person submitting the vote. So, lets' say each board adds 0.05 to the credibility factor for a person. After having played 20 boards with that person, the credibility factor becomes 1, so if that person votes you to be a "jerk", your jerk count increases by one. If a real jerk plays one board with you, then bails out after a bidding misunderstanding while tagging you a "jerk", his cred factor will be 0.05, adding 0.05 to your jerk count. You might add additional toys like even further decreasing the factor for proven jerks on the assumption that these people give unreliable votes. In the end you can normalize the figures onto a scale from 1-10 or whatever you like. Probably Todd's system is much more sophisticated than the above. --Sigi

I don't really like "problem" hands like this one where you would hardly expect an uncontested auction in reality. Of course it's nice to see how well it would all work out with symmetric relay and slam tools and all, but outside from practicing relays I wouldn't consider such hands. That's why I think you shouldn't give such a problem without assuming interference. Go find that 5-2♦ grand slam with (2♣)-(3♣) interference from opps... --Sigi

Your only option is to modify that card then. I don't think you should play with a card that, while being similar to your system, differs in substantial points from your agreements. If you play BBO Advanced but without Bergen Raises you must edit the file and remove Bergen raises first (while adding your own agreement for these bids). Yes, this takes time but you only have to do it once for a regular partnership. And yes, I do expect somebody who is planning to use a pre-made FD card to actually inspect the entire thing before using it. If that is too difficult, it is first and foremost a shortcoming of the software (which is badly lacking a "tree" view of the system). That would be like picking another pair's similar CC for your own partnership because you don't have your own ready. I assume you wouldn't think of doing that in a f2f tournament, would you? --Sigi

As Arend has pointed out above, 3♠ does not necessarily show (serious) slam interest, but could merely be a try for 3NT (I can have solid clubs with 3-3 garbage in the reds and ♠x -- if p holds ♠AKx 3NT is the best spot). By bidding 4♣ he merely says that 3NT is not a good idea at all because he doesn't have a ♠ stopper. As a side effect this boosts South's hand into slam territory! But partner doesn't (and cannot) know this in this auction. That's why I think South should still have absolute captaincy at this point, and the reason why 4♣ as unambiguous KCB is a Bad Thing in this sequence. He's the one who is accepting/declining an invite and setting strain based on his hand. In my eyes he is simply answering a question at this point: Are you maximum and do you have 3+ hearts. Answering that question doesn't make him captain in that auction. --Sigi

As whereeagles pointed out as well, I should have bid 6♣ in any case with my hand. If you had denied ♦ control with your bid, you would have about 15-17 points in clubs and hearts, which is not possible with myself holding the ♥A and ♣KQJ. So at this point shooting 6♣ would have been the best action from my side, no doubt about that. I take the full blame for the disaster, but I didn't start this thread to go fishing for excuses but rather to get help sorting this (IMO difficult) issue out to some point. Thanks for all the helpful replies so far! --Sigi

I was wrong when quoting Fred in that way. The original topic is here: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=12157 and what Fred writes is quite close to what you've said. BTW a great article by Fred, well worth reading several times. --Sigi

In Germany non-forcing 2/1 shifts are alertable, so this would be alertable under our regulations. If your regulations say it's not alertable than it's not. Period. Alertability is not about what one deems to be "obvious" but what the regulations demand. Maybe these regulations are silly or inconsistent but that doesn't change the facts. Therefore I don't undertstand why everybody here is repeating the argument that because this is so "obvious" and "natural" you don't have to alert it. --Sigi

Opps have 11 clubs including QJ between them, so depending on how those are distributed and how aggressive opps are, you won't have much relaying on this board in real life I guess :-). --Sigi

The wording of the topic title is quite ambiguous. What I meant was: "Is it reasonable at all for the NT opener to be able to ask for keycards [later in the auction]?" --Sigi

This contradicts what Fred said in another thread that splintering absolutely surrenders captaincy (if I'm remembering correctly). I think that this is perfectly reasonable, since a splinter should be both limited within very narrow bounds and well defined with regard to distribution. Edit: that was wrong, Fred didn't say that. See below for link to original post by Fred. This is exactly what I'm feeling and it's what I was trying to communicate to partner and fellow club members in our arguments about this hand. The only agreement we had was that 4♣ asks for keycards so I should have followed that principle here, be it reasonable or not. --Sigi

I didn't bid my hand perfectly to begin with. Over the double by West, 3♣ was a super-accept (showing 3+) so ♣ were set as trumps at this point. I could have bid 3♦ over 3♣ showing 5-5 or better in the minor, but I chose to show my singleton in ♠ since opener had shown me the club fit already. I think the 4♣ bid by opener should do just about that after the ♣ super accept. As noted above, an alternative bid would have been 3♦, after which opener should probably cuebid in a major if possible (3♥ in this case), then responder can cuebid ♠ and now opener will set the better suit as trumps on the four level (raising old question again if this would be immediate KCB, but I got your point that it's a bad idea). Very nice to have that agreement in this auction, because then it's unambiguos: 4♣ was simply waiting, 4♦ would have been keycard (over 4♣ now responder can keycard with 4♦, since ♣ had been set as trumps already via super accept as mentioned). Yeah, I should have stuck with that principle in this auction instead of masterminding my way into a cuebidding sequence that never existed in the first place. This was actually never the question on this hand. Thanks a lot for your response Josh -- now everything is a lot clearer for me. Partner will be happy when reading this I guess ;-). --Sigi

I think that in this case (and similar cases) responder is quite well positioned to place the contract after gathering the necessary information from opener. I don't understand why NT opener will need to place the contract. And no, my main question was if the chain could be broken at all, which you answered yes while adding that 3♠ would be the pivot point in this case, where relays and captaincy reverses, if I understand you correctly. That argument was made by one of the players I've talked to but I don't understand why responder should be in a worse position here: Responder knows of the fit in clubs and that there are no wasted values in spades, so he should be equally able to see that the hands fit as opener does. With the added advantage that he knows more about openers strength and shape than the other way around. Additionally it costs only one step to have responder ask. My main point is the following: After the 4♣ bid we can not decide who is captain. Either responder has to answer KCB now or responder should have the choice to ask with 4♦ or start cuebidding with 4♥up. A generic agreement is needed which one applies because it can be only either one of the two. I think that generally responder should be better positioned (dismissing the balanced hand principle at this point for the reasons given above) so the agreement for the partnership should be: responder stays captain thus asks. Which agreement would you make with your partner? --Sigi

Agree with this. 1N openers are usually not captian, but neither are splinter bidders. Partner is in the best shape to evaluate and take control once the splinter is made. Assuming it was a proper Splinter, ie. limited or showing slam interest only if not much wasted in ♠: If we assume that opener shows ♠ values by bidding 3NT and denies values by bidding 4♣ in any case -- and I guess that should be common sense -- wouldn't it be better for responder to ask with a relay. Since responder knows more about opener than the other way around. This is what I based my guesswork at the table on. --Sigi