brianshark

I have only played Juniors BBO events a few times, mostly due to scheduling conflicts. But I'm disappointed to hear multi is not allowed. It is amusing to hear that the main justification is that poor delicate juniors aren't prepared for it while the BIL has had great success teaching and encouraging inexperienced beginners while allowing multi. Not to mention that junior does not necessarily mean inexperienced ill-prepared beginner. Many, I'm sure, are quite serious about their game, play in serious partnerships with proper systems which may include some form of multi as a core component. This policy seems misguided. But if the organisers want to aim their organisation towards the specific American-beginner-junior demographic, then that's their choice. I guess you can't cater for everyone, and choices have to be made.

I always though alcohol is inherent in the human body. Don't we produce it ourselves? I wasn't sure so I looked it up on wikipedia. It seems that it is only there as a byproduct of what bacteria do and is quickly disposed of along with the rest of the waste stuff. So it doesn't, in itself, serve a purpose to the human body in the way say Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorous, etc do. I think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol#Endogenous

I'm always amused by the various studies that say drinking red wine, or a pint of guinness now and then, etc are good for you. It's a bit like putting arsenic in your milk and saying it's good for your bones. A glass of wine a day probably is good for you overall, but a glass of grape juice (or some combination of other non-alcoholic stuff) will probably do the same job minus the toxin. Not that I have anything against drinking on moderation in general, but to call alcohol anything other than a mild toxin is fooling yourself. I've never tried pot and am mildly curious, but I hate smoking so I think I'll pass. Would not object to trying pot brownies and variations like that if I ever got the chance.

I suspect it is a seperate lethal but not-easily-transmittable virus that has killed those in Mexico who worked closely with pigs, and that the actual swine flu which is much more contageous and has appeared in other countries, is about as dangerous as normal flu strains.

I was reading through this Assault Weapon law thread with interest and all of a sudden it turned into a torture discussion. How did that happen? :) I am curious why this particular bill is so unpopular in the US. I can understand the support behind anyone having a right to bear arms, even if I disagree with it. But what demographic majority are desperate to hold onto their assault weapons?

I got 2949 on my 2nd attempt. Quite a fun little game.

Another reason: Perhaps having two teams set out to win, as opposed to two teams setting out to "not lose" (if a draw is available) makes for a more interesting spectacle for the viewing public.

You can change the colour your name turns to when it's your call, you can set up so a loud sound is played when it is your turn to call, and when you see a long list of 'play pls' on your chat window, you know it's your turn to call. WTP :)

Regarding sport in general, for me there is something very appealing about the American sporting philosophy of about doing your best to find a winner for a sporting match. I think draws can be such a cop-out result sometimes. In football matches, I hate it when teams draw and both teams go home sort of happy and the result is deemed acceptable. Someone should go home happy and someone should go home sad. I don't so much mind draws being possible but very unlikely such as in Rugby or American Football. If the teams find that narrow window of equality, then a draw is probably a reasonable result. But I dislike it when, like in soccer, one team can be quite a bit better, but not quite better enough to get that winning goal. In bridge however, I vehemently object to a 2 imp swing potentially creating a 22 VP swing - if I am understanding the American 30VP scale correctly. I have no problem with limiting 15-15 results to exactly equal imps, but if there is a small difference in teams, a small difference in imps is acceptable. I understand those two stances are quite hypocritical. :) Actually, having re-read my post, I am starting to consider whether doing away with VP scales altogether and announcing resuts of matches as either win, lose or draw is the way to go, even in swiss style competitions.

Terrorist think tanks? Uh.....I don't think so.... What do you mean by that?

I should have taken up Poker instead of bridge because there's a lot more money in it. Having said that, I'm probably well up in terms of prize money versus entry fees over the last year or two. :D

Do they want confrontation for the sake of confrontation? I always thought the campaigns of terror were a means to an end. Those ends being America keep it's nose out of muslim affairs, pulls out of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

It seems unlikely given the Obama administration would be seen as less threatening to the Muslim world than the Bush administration was. Terrorist think tanks will surely realise that a large act of violence will only swing American opinion towards Bush/Republican politics which they don't want to see.

Did they really need the buildings to collapse in order to get the public behind their retaliation? Surely a few planes flying into a couple of buildings causing a few thousand casualties would have been enough on it's own, not to mention the chance that the buildings would collapse anyway makes planting explosives a ridiculously unnecessary risk.

Never in a million years will the US or anyone attack Pakistan because Pakistan have nukes and nobody will endorse a war that could become nuclear. Well, maybe India.

I would definitely have 22 as early 20s along with 20 and 21. 28 and 29 are clearly late 20s and 24 through 26 would be mid-twenties for me. So 23 and 27 are my undecideds.

So are we saying that Cheney and co hired a bunch of Arabs to suicidally crash a few planes into the WTC, White House and Pentagon, hid explosives in the World Trade Centre buildings just in case the planes didn't do the job toppling them, detonated them on the day, all while Cheney himself personally took over NORAD and stopped them intercepting the planes in question just for the day?

1. You can't take a tougher stance on "suspicious activities" because it makes it more likely you'll wrongfully accuse innocents. In fact, it's even harder to identify cheating in junior events as compared with top class open events because of the chance of more random actions, some of which will work even if a lot of them don't. Just moniter the players and you won't even need to worry about cheating. You won't even need to ban kibs because the players are being watched so can't be on the phone to their buddy in the gallery. 2. Matchpoints is a totally different game than imps. I'm sorry but if you think the only difference between the 2 is the importance of making overtricks in MPs and the importance of making safety plays in imps, then you don't fully appreciate the difference between them. A lot of the decision making is very different. For example: In situations where you are competing for the part-score and are vulnerable, it often pays to bid 1 more in certain situations knowingly risking 500 or 800 because it's only a bottom whereas a numerically significant amount of the time, your bid will work because you make, or because they don't double you, or didn't matter because them bidding to the level they did was going to be a near top anyway. You would never dream of overcompeting in some of these situations at imps because the size of the potential imps gain would be small and the size of the potential imps loss is great. And similarly for doubling tight part-scores the opponents have bid when you are sure that if they make they get a good score anyway. And undoubtedly, you should be testing the imps decision making abilities of the trialists, not the matchpoints decision making. In my opinion: - Moniter the players but take no additional action towards cheating than you would in any other context. - Play imps. Matchpoints is ludicrous. - If you are worried about variation, pre-duplicate the boards to get a reasonable datum to remove a certain amount of the random element while mentaining the imps pairs format.

Interesting predicament Obama has found himself in. I imagine he just bowed a little because it's the natural thing to do in that situation and he wasn't thinking too much about protocol, etc. Unfortunately, despite nobody on this thread seeming to care about a bow, your country obviously does (enough to even have a protocol about this, and enough for the half that aren't in power to dream up another smear campaign). I imagine Obama and his advisors had to decide between what they have to put up with now and the stick they would have got if they admitted to knowingly disregarding long established American protocol. The whole denial thing, while it seems childish to intelligent thinkers like us BBO forumers, is probably going to be worth a lot less hassle in the long run so I wouldn't criticise them too much for their response.

It is totally reasonable to me that people who sit down for the first time to play a bit of bridge in the MBC can agree things as they come up, as long as it is restricted to basic stuff like what kind of keycard they play or what their defence to 1NT is, or whether their 1NT is weak or strong, etc. It makes for a nice game of bridge rather than stupid guesswork that would never happen in a real life game because anyone playing together would have agreed this kind of basic stuff. So to me, allowing and encouraging this makes the game more like live bridge than making them guess all the time.

3♠ for me too. I know it seems scary with a 2 count when you are vul, but you have a bit of shape, length in your RHO's suit can often be a good thing and you have a singleton in a side-suit which LHO almost surely has a few cards in.

If I have "Landy" on my profile and partner has "Capp" on his, then there is no agreement If we both have "Capp" on our profiles, then there is an agreement If only one player has "Capp" on his profile and partner has nothing on his, then it should be implied that the partnership are playing Cappelletti. to assume otherwise is illogical and against the spirit of online play I understand your point. I was always under the assumption that no matter what our profiles say, even if one or both of us have capp on our profiles, that we aren't playing cappaletti unless we have agreed to play it in chat. Perhaps I am out of touch with the latest pick-up etiquette regarding what is agreed and what isn't in the main bridge club.

I believe it is an error playing most t/o double styles to fail to double with hand 1 and 3. But hand 2 is not a t/o double playing normal style because you don't have a 3rd club. However, if you and your pard knowingly play a style where you can double with emphasis on the majors and can be short in the unbid minor, then double is ok.

I don't see any infraction at all, by anybody. What did EW say to you when they called you over? Did they just say "ooooh, misinformation - give us some matchpoints please director"? South told the opps it was probably conventional but couldn't remember what it meant. West looked at the convention card and found out what it was. East didn't bother. I'm not sure if he didn't think to look or didn't care because his bids were going to be the same no matter what. BTW, I assume East saw his pard looking at the convention card. That might have reminded him to look there if he wanted. Oh and I wouldn't give north a warning (let alone a PP) for anything. North can bid whatever way she wants, South and North conducted themselves correctly when forgetting an agreement and had a properly filled out convention card to cater for when south wasn't able to tell what the bid meant but still alerted the opps to the fact that it is conventional. I think it's very commendable. I might give EW a warning for wasting your time unless they are inexperienced or very unfamiliar with the laws.

I'm sorry but something appearing on your or your pard's profile does not, in itself, constitute an agreement implicit or otherwise, is not alertable, and certainly not in an individual. If you agreed it before the game, then that's a completely different story.