jandrew

Let me assure you that within a few days you will have no problem identifying the number and value of your cards without a second thought.

It is my understanding that a player can make any bid s/he likes irrespective of whether it is in accordance with the partnership agreement. Even if that deviant bid does not qualify as a psych. Correct me if I am wrong. If the bid is alerted, or if the opps ask for an explanation, the correct alert or explanation should be in accordance with the partnership agreement about the bid made, despite that explanation being at odds with the actual hand. For example: if I bid a strong NT with only 11 points - I would still explain it as 15-17 balanced. For example: if I bid 2♥ in response to partner's opening 1NT with a void in spades - I would still explain the bid as a transfer to spades (with expectation of a 5+ spade holding). I might be daft for making these bids, I might get a deservedly bad score, or I might keep opps out of a high-scoring contract. BUT - such a deviant bid is not illegal (given that partner is as much in the dark as the opps) and the alert of the agreed partnership meaning is not against the rules nor illegal. If I am wrong in some particular situations or bids - please tell me. If I am always wrong - please quote the law which I am breaking,

Neither smerriman nor the OP disclose which country they are in, so it is difficult to assess the geographical effect. But I can say that I am NEVER disconnected here in England using a modern connection to a fibre line.

Well I find that phrase offensive and I do not use it widely, in fact today (above) is the first time that I can remember using it to underline a point. In particular, when a TD is trying to move the game forward to the benefit of all players, such offensiveness is unacceptable and should result in immediate expulsion. And, the heading to this post - "FAO Diana -Idiotic Directors" - shows a disrespect and disregard for the TDs which indicates a player who is automatically offensive.

I don't know which tourney you were playing in - but most allow 6 or 7 minutes to play a hand. You had taken one minute (over 16% of the total available time) for ONE bid --- FFS. Your ptr and opps can't tell that you are thinking. After one minute it looks like you are stuck and a TD call is absolutely the right thing to do. Nor can the TD tell that you are not stuck and your answer - "Ffs i'm thinking" - should have resulted in you being ejected from the game.

AFAIK: A private message is always accompanied by a beep. If a player is half-a-sleep then a private message should do the job. If the players is really asleep - leave the poor soul alone. Public and messages to the table need to be silent - else everybody would soon turn off their sound.

Video chat on BBO is integrated into the user screen and is as good as anything that I have seen on Zoom or Teams.

What advertising is this? All my concentration is on the bidding and the play so I I rarely see any adverts. Judging by the very small number of complaints (out of 1,000s of players) I am not alone - just one of a large majority. BBO has to pay it's way and I am very happy to play for free :) .

Tournaments run by BBO, NABC and virtual clubs (those tournaments which you usually pay to enter) will automatically adjust unfinished boards where there are fewer than about 5 cards to play.

The five compatibility stars are (I think) for compatibility with yourself. So no surprises there :rolleyes:

We have just upgraded the BBO system to reunite the Casual area with the rest of BBO. What does this mean? When clicking on the Casual button you will no longer land on a different server. ----Snip------ (from the BBO Blog) Does this mean: That you will see the same list of friends, whichever 'area' you are in? That, if you are in the 'Casual Area', you will now be called into a tournament for which you have previously registered?

BBO archives the hand records after precisely three months and there is no apparent way for players to access those archives. It is right that BBO should preserve those archives for an extended period in case they are required to help with research - for example : computer play or cheating allegations. I would certainly not support the right of any single player to delete the hand records.

I did read your post thoroughly. Either : The invitee has the additional task of agreeing/consenting, or The inviter has to invite and the invitee has to accept (ie no change from current requirements). Where is the saving?

You save the inviter from having to invite. But the invitee has the additional task of agreeing/consenting to be paired automatically. Where is the saving? I like being arcane if it gives me the right not to be partnered by the system with somebody who I don't want to be partnered with. I might make poor choices but they are MY choices.

Can we amend that link to see the last month (or longer period)? Can we amend that link to see a different week further back in the archive? The 'h' parameter obviously = hostname. What does the 'm' parameter identify? Are there any other interesting parameters?

Thanks. That will save some confusion.

This tournament is run in the UK. All players are resident in the UK. Most players use the Acol bidding system and wouldn't understand SAYC if it glowed in the dark. Very few players, if any, will have a convention card. Is this message really a good idea? I have never thought of the USA being a "nanny state". How can I circumvent it?

The what ? where ?

I host and run five "paid for" tournaments each week. One, and only one, has this unexpected chat to tourney as soon as the tourney starts. It appears to come from me (as host and the only TD present). It says "Your convention card will default to SAYC if it is not set to something else". Every player in the tourney gets it. Where is this chat message coming from? (Certainly not from me.) It appears on only one of the tourneys which I run - and on every occasion that I run it. Please help. (I should say that I copy the tourney from week to week. So if it is some error in the set-up, then that error will also be copied forward.)

Those of us who are disabled and use a pre-prepared set of messages intended only for the table, lobby or tournament, etc. ... would find a prefix of a keyboard shortcut very helpful to properly direct the message, without first having to use a mouse to select the target and/or the chat area. (ChatAssistant by RogerPf had a facility to direct a message, for the original windows version.)

I am beginning to feel left out. OK - I have fibre to the premises with Virgin Media always clocking-in at in excess of 110Mbps download, BUT I am never ever disconnected. Sometimes I use a hardwired desktop; other times I use a laptop on WiFi but I can't do anything which causes me to lose the signal and get unexpectedly disconnected. What am I doing wrong?

I agree, I like that I can see more on the page without having to scroll as much. Some of the windows (eg list of tables, or tables still playing, under the Director tab) are a little large - a smaller font and less leading (line spacing) would make life easier. Just one personal comment - my old eyes have difficulty with the tab fonts. Grey really is a pain, especially with thin fonts, most of the fonts are black - why not on the tabs. Nevertheless, a great improvement. Well done.

I did consider that but wasn't sure whether an invisible player who did not show up on the "online" list would, nevertheless, show up as online on the "offline" list. In any event I doubted (to the point of rejection) that of 51 Blue/Grey friends who were playing in a tournament 36 would have bothered to logon as invisible leaving only 15 as visible.

Worked for me just now.

I do what I do free because I want to, I take pleasure from doing it and it fills my time. It might bring more customers to BBO (and I would be happy about that) but I certainly don't do it for that reason. I can't quite decide whether I am offended by the suggestion that I work for free for BBO. I might do if asked but I would want quite a bit more - I do not come cheap. I certainly do not agree that BBO has badly working software. I have several ideas for improvement, but it works well enough. 100s of thousands of players can't all be wrong - especially when the pay and come again - like you do. I do not feel associated in any way with the quality of the software - why should I.