JanM

It's a mistake to refer to the ACBL defenses as "permitted" - they're approved and a pair playing multi has done what it is required to do if it gives those defenses to its opponents, but they are definitely not the only defenses that may be used. Most serious competitors have their own defense to multi, which they are allowed to look at during the auction. The ACBL defenses are really very minimal.

Yes, of course. The response in the longer Major as a way to get to the minor is only in the fairly rare situations where responder wants to sign off in a minor. It's used mainly to free up 3m for good hands with a long Major, but does have the side advantage that if by chance opener has responder's longer Major we can play there. On the majority of hands, we bid as high as we're willing to get in our shorter/worse Major.

No, the 2M response to 2♦ may be a weak hand with a minor.

Just to muddy the waters further, my preferred response to multi includes using the 2M responses to sign off in 3m. We respond 2 of our longer Major with a long minor (more often clubs, but sometimes diamonds if we prefer to get to the 3 level). Over 2♥ opener bids 2♠ with spades and responder's 3m shows a desire to play there (2NT is Ogust as after a natural 2♠ opening). Over 2♠ opener bids 2NT with hearts and a minimum and 3♣ with hearts and a maximum. Responder can then either bid 3m to play or pass 3♣ to play there or bid the appropriate number of hearts. If opener happens to have responder's longer Major, we play there, which works out fine. Of course we alert 2M and explain that it is Pass or Correct and may include a sign off in a minor, but the 2M...3m auction often confuses the opponents. Before someone asks, we use the freed up 3m bids to show real length in a Major - 3♣ shows hearts, 3♦ shows spades; opener then shows how many cards s/he has in the Major responder has shown - since we open Multi with pretty random hands, sometimes the other Major is where we belong.

I agree about the scores against Bye in a Round Robin where eventually everyone is going to get a bye. We enter those scores only so the order of the teams will be approximately right before everyone has had their bye. One year in the USBC, I was entering scores in the online bracket sheet and for some reason we had listed the Bye match - I thought I was being amusing as I entered Bye winning each segment (planning of course to have the team against which Bye was playing "pull it out" in the final segment) until one of the players on the team that had the bye complained - he didn't find it funny that he was losing to Bye :P

I agree with Nick (except the final sentence which I have deleted from the quote). When I am an operator, I don't have time to do analysis and therefore try to limit my comments to what is going on in the room. Having said that, I think there are a few operators who are capable of quick, accurate and insightful analysis and particularly if there aren't very many commentators, their contributions are useful.

Not that it's particularly relevant to this thread, but multi is allowed at the US Team Trials and at ACBL MidChart events with rounds of 6 boards or longer. Written defenses against Multi are now allowed at WBF events also (or at least were last year).

The USBC will be the last US event in which Berkowitz-Cohen are playing together. It is the final event in the "cycle" that started with the 2008 Spingold. Some of us are hoping that the final Berkowitz-Cohen event will be the Bermuda Bowl this fall :).

I believe that the rule about hesitations when there are screens is that the person on the same side of the screen where the hesitation occurred is allowed to call the Director, but only after the hand is over. So if the player on the hesitator's side of the screen knew the rules, he did the right thing by waiting until the hand was over to call. And accepting the director call here but criticizing you for calling before the hand was over is consistent with the rules. For what it's worth (not much I suspect), the directors asked me about the hand at the tournament and I also said I would lead a club. I agree with Fred that if the opening leader was aware of the hesitation and led a heart that would be a very bad thing to do.

In the Cavendish top 5 thread, Fred commented: My understanding from casual discussions after the event is that most of the score corrections were because the score had been entered improperly in the Bridgemate. On one round, where Chip was EW, all three scores were backward. I kidded him about doing a bad job of checking and approving the scores entered by the North player, and he said that the North player had not asked him to approve the scores. He also said that was the normal situation - North or South just entered and approved the scores. Other people said the same. This led me to wonder whether something similar happens where Bridgemates are used more commonly, or whether players eventually get in the habit of asking their opponent to approve the score, and if so, does that reduce the number of incorrect entries? Or do the players entering the scores do a better job when they are more familiar with the hardware?

It is confirmed that each player will have to be monitored. If the monitor isn't a director at a recognized club, the arrangements will have to be approved by the USBF Junior Committee. The monitor's responsibility will be to confirm that the player did not use a cell phone and did not have any Instant Messaging or Email programs running on his or her computer. Hopefully, the Conditions of Contest will be more precise than this, and may include a requirement that no program other than BBO is running on the player's computer.

Because that is too late an event. The DC Trials are July 22-24, the Istanbul Championship is Aug. 15-23 As a side note if the 2009 World youth championship is in August of 2009 when is the 2010/11 youth events and when are the trials? Is there enough time? Should these DC trials be for 2010/11; perhaps not, just a suggestion. The DC Trials are for 2010. We do not yet know where and when the 2010 World Junior Championships will be held.

Because that is too late an event. The DC Trials are July 22-24, the Istanbul Championship is Aug. 15-23

An expert committee (two from USBF, one we hope who is familiar with reviewing BBO hands for unethical conduct) will review all of the bidding and play (not by kibitzing, which is very slow, but by going over the records). One of the provisions of the Conditions of Contest will be that if there is anything the least bit "suspicious" (better word?) that pair will be eliminated. No kibitzers will be allowed and each player will have to be monitored, either at a club if possible or somewhere else. About matchpoints - IMPs across the field (even with top & bottom out, and we have no idea whether there will be enough pairs to do this) is VERY random, especially with a field of players of very wide ability. Matchpoints does a better job in a short pair event. And, sorry, but it is the same game. I won a relatively long (64 board) match last weekend by 1 IMP. Do you think the play of the hand in partscores was irrelevant? I don't. BBO supports running a Mitchell, although not, unfortunately, a Howell. Unless there is time to implement a complete Round Robin (Howell) Mitchell is what we'll be using.

At this time, there is no proposal to fund a US player who wants to play on a Transnational team or pair.

I've just posted a "Sneak Preview" of the USBF plans for Trials to select two Junior teams for the Youth Championship in Turkey this summer. Briefly: Trials will be on BBO on May 16 & 17. Two sessions on Saturday, one or Sunday. Trials will be for pairs - must be born in 1984 or later. Scored at Matchpoints. Top 6 pairs will be selected, subject to review & approval by USBF. We all know this isn't ideal, but there isn't much time.

I agree that most people will opt for the simple "Double shows the suit bid, cue bid is takeout" but I agree with Robert that the most useful thing to use the extra step for is Michaels. We play that DBL is takeout of the suit shown and cue bid is Michaels, although I suppose you could do the reverse if it felt more natural to you.

Please be sure also to thank the Vugraph operators, who give up the opportunity to play in order to bring us all the "show." Forum regular Adam Kaplan (MtVesuvius) cheerfully rearranged his Midnight team so that he could stay and do the fourth quarter of the finals. Shannon Cappelletti stayed up later than I wanted to to do the same, and there were many other bridge players, both local and from out of town who spent 4 or 8 hours a day sitting at a computer entering bids and plays for very little monetary reward. And while you're at it, thanks are also due to ACBL, which is now providing that little monetary reward, as well as dealing with all of the logistics needed to put on a Vugraph broadcast.

The answer is never. This is one of the walls I have stopped banging my head against :P This has been discussed? In spite of HanP's sarcasm, I think it makes sense for the Spingold semifinalists to get a middle berth into the Swiss. Is there a similar event during the summer schedule too? I don't see a correlation between the GNTs and the LM pairs however. Exactly, the Spingold/Swiss idea makes perfect sense, the GNT/LM pairs idea does not, at least not to me. At least in theory the GNT is a "major" event. In practice, not so much anymore since the USITT was changed to the new open format. I don't know how many ITT seeding points it carries now. The GNT does not give PPs for the Open Trials. It does for the Women's Trials (but you have to have at least 4 women on the GNT team, and no one has earned any Women's PPs from the GNT to the best of my knowledge). Nor does the GNT give any Vanderbilt/Spingold seeding points (why not, she asks, to which I'm sure everyone says - because even you can finish second in the GNT). As to whether dropping in has been discussed - yes, for years. Mainly GNT into LMP, but to some extent other events. It's a mindset issue - many ACBL Board members just don't think you should get to play in an event unless you started in it. And in fairness (even though I think drop ins should be allowed), it would be difficult to determine where to draw the line. In the summer, there's a final weekend Swiss. If the Spingold ends on Sunday (as it usually does) what about the losing semi-finalists - shouldn't they be entitled to drop into the Swiss? It would be tough to argue that making the Spingold semi's isn't a lot harder than qualifying for the final day of the Swiss.

I'm in the camp that believes the fault is with the Conditions of Contest drafters if it is advantageous for one team to dump to another. And I note (a little unhappily) that it is that position that gives us the first day of the NABC KOs (Vanderbilt, Spingold, Wagar, Seniors) where many teams get byes and the day is used to eliminate 7 or 8 or even fewer teams. We do that so that it will be in each team's best interest on the first day to win each match it plays. In the USBF events, the last 3-4 matches of a Round Robin are played with no score comparison, to reduce the possibility that a team would know they had qualified and that by dumping against some other team they could increase the chance that a good team would fail to qualify. I'm the one who has to respond to complaints that scores from those matches don't appear on the internet until all of the matches are over, but I don't think anyone else suffers, and it does decrease the possibility of "sportsmanlike dumping." A few years ago, I was in the unenviable position in the Women's Trials of playing the last match in a 4 team Round Robin with 2 to advance when it was mathematically impossible for my team to advance. We won that match, but I can imagine situations where we would not have played our best. Since I'm also involved in drafting the Conditions of Contest for that event, this won't happen to anyone in the future - we now use a double elimination KO when we have 4 teams, 2 of whom will advance. In Shanghai, Italy lost a late (maybe the last?) Round Robin match to South Africa, which allowed South Africa to qualify for the Quarterfinals. Italy then chose South Africa as its Quarterfinal opponent. We all know what happened next.

The answer is never. This is one of the walls I have stopped banging my head against :(

I agree about Bridge Master, and with Fred's new "hand viewer" it ought to be doable on the iPhone (says the completely non-technical person :)). I think that we'll soon be able to watch Vugraph on our phones and that will be a great addition also.

I've posted the bye information on the usbf website (click on "Open Trials" under the Main Menu). But for those who don't want to click a few more times - Nickell has a semi-final bye, Welland has a Quarterfinal bye, Katz, Diamond & Strul have Round of 16 byes. This leaves only 7 spaces for Round Robin players in the Round of 16 and means the event may go one day longer than had been planned. As soon as entries close (April 10th) and the Technical Committee has figured out the Round Robin format, we'll post a schedule.

The reason there aren't screens in the Round of 32 is because of playing space - screens take a lot more space. Screens start today, with the Round of 16. Different boards are played in each match until the semi-finals. That's for security reasons. Starting today, I believe all of the boards will be pre-duplicated, but each match will have a different set. Yesterday we had duplicated boards for the Vugraph match because you have to do that to have the boards available to be shown. The rest of the tables shuffled and dealt. I believe that ACBL is planning on a serious test of electronic scoring devices (Bridgemates and Bridgepads) in Washington, but at the moment they're not using them, so can't have running scores. It isn't completely trivial to post the scores online in real time even with the Bridgemates - for the Trials, where we used Bridgemates last year and will this, a human being has to make sure the Bridgemate results make sense and then push a button to upload to the website - I know that it is possible to have the computer automatically upload for a "normal" kind of movement (in the Trials one we have KO matches all of them are on BBO so we don't use Bridgemates any more). I wish that the quarter by quarter scores were posted on the ACBL results page - it would save me the effort of having to get them and then type them in in order to report in the Vugraph theatre, and I recognize that isn't as good as having a website where they're posted. Hopefully by Washington we'll have them posted somewhere online.

Correct. And some of us agree that using an entire day to eliminate 7 teams is silly, but it appears that the majority like it. This, on the other hand, is not correct. Foreign pairs are assigned seeding points for the Vanderbilt & Spingold based on their results in International events - those points decay in the same way as do regular seeding points (by 10% a year) and are (presumably) replaced by earned points. I'm not sure how long Brink & Drijver have been playing in US events, but I don't think it's long enough for all of their assigned points to have gone away. Ramondt & Westra may have been playing here long enough not to have any "foreigner" points remaining. The other pair has relatively few seeding points. Seeding is based on the average of the team, and the fields keep getting deeper and deeper. Also, the teams are "tossed" in groups, so 28 was in the 25-28 group.