zenko

I would imagine that a "Team Match Club" in an analog way to the MBC, would be a better solution. Thank you very much for clarification. I will try that new feature for sure, will this semi-automatic team match matching have the same "I have a partner" option which now exist in "help me find a game" tab? Also, playing with your regular partner against a random hook-up pair is often like shooting fish in a barrel, so I much prefer playing team matches open only for pairs to sign up, will be there a way to screen for those?

I would imagine that a "Team Match Club" in an analog way to the MBC, would be a better solution. [quote name=Dwingo' date='While creating Team Matches on web version, Chat to Lobby is sorely missed. I understand the issues for not allowing Chat to Lobby using the Web version. As it currently stands, there are not many players who are clicking on the empty seats if a TM is formed without all 8 members. I would suggest that as soon as a TM is created with atleast 1 seat unfilled, that the system generates an Automated message to Lobby ( this way there is a control on the No. of messages that is sent to Lobby) and people who want to join the TM should be able to right click on the message and join the TM screen with the empty seats shown. This way the empty seats would be filled up pretty soon. If this can be done both for Windows users and Flash users, that would be great. The good thing about this version, the TM starts when 1 table of 4 members is seated. The 2nd table can be formed even as the 1st table is playing. However the 2nd table has to be filled within a specific period of time. I am not sure what that time is. I remember when I was in the 3rd or 4th deal, the Team Match was closed on us as we are not able to get another 4 for the 2nd table. Though I appreciate the progress made on the Team Match front in the web version, there is still scope for improvement. As a TM organiser, I still prefer to use windows version for creating Team Matches. [/quote] The semi automated facility is very good idea, but would prefer that the host retains control of who enters the Team Match, similar to asking for Permission to sit at the table in MBC. It will be a disaster, if implemented in the "Take me quickly to a Team Match" fashion, as is now being done in MBC. How can you even start a team match in web version? Under Play or Watch tab I have only Start a table option, not start a match, is it hidden somewhere else?

Agree, IMO it makes a lot of sense to play RDBL as F to at least 2NT (i.e. they will play dbled, or we will play at least 2NT). If you cant survive playing 2NT in misfit, your hand was not good enough to rdble. of course, pard can also pass and play 1C rdbled

Agree, IMO it makes a lot of sense to play RDBL as F to at least 2NT (i.e. they will play dbled, or we will play at least 2NT). If you cant survive playing 2NT in misfit, your hand was not good enough to rdble.

I am not 100% happy with Windows version, and in principle I would love to switch to Web app but Flash version just does not work for me, and judging by pool results for many others too. I admit my bias against it is mostly subjective, Flash designs for me in general look "tiny", too busy and unappealing. I am well aware that these kind of objections are very frustrating for developers, but it surely is not just because I am not used to it. At my work for years now I am using Flash apps and I still dislike the way they feel. Despite that I would be very wiling to switch to Flash if few key things in it get fixed, for example the general chat, which is either not available or I do not know how to activate it. Or maybe there is some other way to sign up for team matches, but I could not figure it out, but thats not really a good advertisement either.

Q: If you had to choose a convention, which one would you pick? Fulvio Fantoni: Gazzilli... is a convention that I think should be used by all who play natural bridge. Which is kind of ironic since Fantunes do play 2M opening showing 5M-4m (or 6M), and still use it and think it is very important

Whats wrong with Gazilli? I have yet to play a hand that would make me regret playing it.

Hmm, not so sure about it, the rule is : Except for the first discard only right-side-up or upside-down card ordering strategies are approved. The issues are: a) does that it imply that you have to choose the one either "standard" or "reverse" way to show count, or you can use both depending do you have a honor in the suit or not. Or in another words it can be looked at like you are using, in the same suit, the upside down AND the standard count, depending on the possession of a honor which may or may not be allowed. :) Furthermore, the possession, or lack of it, of a honor card can be looked at as the "code" or encryption "key" about the length of the suit led, sending a coded signal did you led from say 4-card or 5-card suit. Of course to make it "fully" encrypted the other defender should possess almost absolutely reliable "key" to the code. In this case that is not always the case, but the author this thread bragged that it is very often obvious to the other defender whats going on, probably not so much for declarer.

BTW I have hard time finding on GCC where exactly says that 1d-1h(3+hearts) is allowed, it does not really fit in any of 10 itemized examples and it says on the top: Unless specifically allowed, methods are disallowed. Is there any other document pertaining to that which if needed I can show to a director? http://web2.acbl.org/documentlibrary/play/convchart2005.pdf

Sorry I did not clarify, I was talking about mid-chart events which are widespread enough to make it worth a trouble (in my neck of woods even the unit game is mid-chart). While on that subject somebody told me recently that Kaplan inversion is now actually GCC, in which case 1H-1S can be played as 0+ spades in almost all events

seem like a good structure, but for us playing in ACBL land unfortunately it is out of bounds, since ambiguous 1H answer on 1D opening is "superchart" convention and disallowed except on Spingolds and such events. Interestingly enough ambiguous 1D response on non-strong 1C opening is allowed, as well as ambiguous 1S response on 1H opening, but 1H response on 1D opening has to show hearts (or at least a suit, not sure about that)

the "highest small card you can spare" principle seems very sound. I never quite get why, playing 3/5 the correct lead from say K432 is 3 (just like you have K43), why not 4? It is surely easer for pard to tell do you have K432 or 4x, as opposed do you have K43 or K432 (providing you are playing vs opponents capable enough to hide the 2). My question is how those small card leads jive with ACBL regulations (see below). Seems dubious at best CARDING Dual-message carding strategies are not approved except on each defender’s first discard. Except for the first discard only right-side-up or upside-down card ordering strategies are approved. Encrypted signals (the order and /or message is based on information known to the other defender but not yet to declarer) are not approved.

Of all literature Five Weeks to Winning Bridge by Alfred Sheinwold has I think the best and very detailed explanation of the prempts logic for young players, so I would suggest reading that. Among other things he advises against preempting when holding "tops", say AK65432 is much more dangerous suit to preempt with than say QJ109876 because it is more sensitive to bad brakes, and even more importantly because it can often provide too many quick tricks, useful on defense (so you are risking a phantom save) or on offense when playing in some other trump contract (so you are risking missing a better contract when partner is short in your suit and not strong enough to act over your preempt)

so how do you respond on 1D with say 6-8 points , 5 clubs, 2 diamonds and 3-3 majors?

You say" The directors DID ask me why I didn't ask about the 5. I explained that the answer about the 2 was so clear that it did not seem necessary. " Well you did not really answer their question at all. The question was NOT: "Once you got the answer about the 2, why you did not ask about the 5 too?" (i.e. thats what you answered). The question was: "Why did you decide to ask first specifically about the meaning of 2, i.e. ignore the fact that the first discard is almost certainly way more informative and important?" On that question you did not provide an answer. In 20+ years of playing bridge I do not recall anybody asking me about the meaning of the second discard unless they already knew the meaning of the first. Since you claim that you do not know the meaning of the first one, the only possible reason why would you ask about the 2 first is that you did not really notice which card he played on the trick before.

Are you are really buying that? The fact that he just now recall about their carding does not explain in any way, or make it more logical, to ask about the meaning of the second discard first. The claim that they are "complex" is immaterial and does not make the question less strange or less improper in any way.

The defender's response was despicable, thats for sure, but if I am director I would first ask the declarer the obvious question: "why did you inquiry specifically about the 2, why not about 5?", and if I do not hear something convincing (which I doubt would happen) I would let him have his bad score, adjust the score for defenders and send them all to ethics committee. If you, even after strong clues that the declarer simply missed the card, choose to award him for being verbally resourceful you are creating a moral hazard. Or to say it more bluntly, next time I miss the card I am sure I will remember this neat trick, of course I will not use it, but I know many that would if they know about it.

this story simply does not add up - they tell you about ther funky leads and 30 second later you manage to already forget all about it, then when you wake up you decide for some mysterious reason not to ask about ther discards in general (the proper way), or about the 5 (inproper but understandible) but you ask about the 2? why? there is no way that you would like to know what the 2 means and do not care about the 5, so what gives? regarding defenders, are they even obliged to say anything, cant they just give you their convention card and point you their written discarding agreements? the fact that they are"complex" is immaterial, what matter only is are they allowed and are they correctly disclossed on their convention card.

In the new version of the web client you can make your own player categories. But the elimination process is too slow I am afraid, say there are 5000 players with whom you wouldn't want to play, and you need to reduce the odds of picking an unwanted p by 80%, then you would need to mark 4000 players as enemies. I think getting some 50 friends is less laborious and also more fun than getting 4000 enemies. It is a slow method, no question about that, but I like to give them benefit of doubt, probably unwisely I start with assumption that they know what are they doing, until they prove me wrong. Luckily, usually it takes no more than few hands (or few comments) to asses that.

I am trying to get there by process of elimination, using "enemy" tag for players that I have no interest playing with or against. For me it would be very useful to have two separate "avoid" tags, one for people with no manners and the other one for those who just can't play, but I guess that's too much to ask.

You should take whatever is the hardest, I would even take defence over bidding + declarer play combined any day, in fact I would pick making the best opening lead every time over all other "perfections" combined

1) absolutely not, but unfortunately I am afraid I would probably have to file a misconduct warning vs your opponents for calling you a few choice names, if not worse. I said unfortunately because I would 100% agree with their opinion about your call. 2) 0%, matter of fact the call proves that they are NOT wired (as much as you can prove a negative). & NT depends on 3-3 diamonds, that info can not be wirfed exept by you 3) I would 100% encourage that, especially if the tables were close. On such a hand it is very likely that on many tables somebody will comment about 7N being cold, so it is quite possible that the player heard that. So if there is a pattern for that player of reaching improbable but cold slams/strange contracts, or finding strange but the only leads to beat the contract (i.e the situations that tend to be most often discussed) he will be caught having too sensitive ears.

I find to be most useful to use cue in these kind of sequences as semi-stoper ask (K, Qx, Jxx, 10xxx will do). The logic is that the pard, himself having a robust stoper will usually remember to bid NT anyway, there is no real need to prompt him to do so. Those "both pards each have iffy stoper that combined are good enough" are frequent and hard to handle without this agreement. Therefore in this situation 3H bid would primarily show values in H and no help in spades.

Well, you might not think so - it certainly has driven me away. I do not want to have anything to do with being in the situation with a relatively inexperienced partner at a table of a relatively tournament wise pair and it goes any non jump bid on my left - pass after a couple of seconds - pass on my right and I have something I want to make a noise with - because far too often I am going to hear some sort of grump from one of the other two. And I certainly don't want to pay money for the privilege of being subjected to that. The regs on UI have, in effect, become bid quickly or the opps will take advantage of you and they think the rules support them. No thank you - I want nothing to do with it. :rolleyes: On my case, and I am sure the same goes for many payers, a majority of clearly bad decision I make in competitive bidding are result of bidding too fast, sometimes (rarely) because I do not bother to think bit more, sometimes (more often) because I rushed the bid to not give up too much info to opponents, and sometimes (most often) because I am trying to protect my partner from dealing with possible UI implications. Maybe that is the way is has to be, but I do not believe it is the best interest of the game that a non-card play issue is such a big factor in a result outcome. Having said that I am very sceptical that any the problem can be solved with additional layers of regulations.

The purpose of the stop procedure isn't to stop people taking advantage of UI: it is to prevent the existence of UI. Other things being equal, every law-abiding player would prefer not to have UI, rather than to have UI and be constrained by it. Of course, that is all self evidently true, but the other things are not equal. To further reduce UI situations you really have probably only two options, either severely slow down the game (like in that "Norway" solution) or to create more defined, meaning more complex set of rules, when to use Stop, etc. Both options are pretty hard sell IMO, so my vote is to instead more detailed regulation, we should to go completely other direction, along the lines of what Andrew Robson did in his club, for example.