Trysalot

Here are mine. Inquiry Uday Fred Jacki Rain

I guess someone needs to tell your mom you need more homework assignments to fill your spare time. :P It was nice seeing you at the Houston Regional and then the Spring NABC. I'll be hoping to see your name in the Bridge Bulletin for events at the Summer NABC.

I would bid 3 hearts. In balance seat I am not promising good texture. So despite the ugliness of the suit I would bid it rather than pass 2 spades.

Anybody who wants to see a good photo of Greg should click on the first link at the end of Hamdi Karluk's post.

Thank you so much, Hamdi Karluk, for sharing these stories of Greg which are from the time before I knew him. It wasn't until spring of 2004 that I finally got a computer with internet capability and began playing online bridge at E-Bridge and later also BBO. Greg was the E-Bridge TD who directed the first ACBL tournament I played there and was very patient in answering the questions I sent him by chat every time I got confused about how to do things like alert and claim or access the score record of the previous rounds. After that we chatted often online and developed our friendship. About a year later we got tired of typing so much and exchanged telephone numbers. LOL FYI and everybody else's who read this thread, instead of trying to read them to Marilyn by phone, I am going to copy the messages to a text file and mail them to her next week so Greg's family can enjoy them.

This piece has been written generally for the ACBL players on BBO and anyone else who knew "Ahab" here and specifically for the more than 200 people on his friends list to whom I am sending bbomail telling them my sad news and directing them here. I'm sorry to tell you that Greg Parker, great virtual friend and mentor to me and many others here (and a favorite real life phone chat friend of mine) died in his sleep in the wee hours of last Sunday morning, December 7, 2008, due to apparent heart failure. In retrospect it seems very fitting that a Viet Nam veteran died on the day our country was honoring our armed forces who lost their lives, were wounded, or survived intact the attack on Pearl Harbor to fight the many battles of World War II. Greg was an ACBL TD here before his health issues began overwhelming him last spring, but I've forgotten his number. (ACBL-13?, ACBL-16?) As a player here, he was known as Ahab. On the defunct E-Bridge site, he was TD Ahab and player Z1eagle. His death at age 63 has taken him from us far too soon. The facts of his life that I am sharing here were given to me by the special lady in his life with whom I have had several telephone conversations in the past couple of days. She is not a bridge player, so that stuff is from me. Greg was born on March 5, 1945, spent his childhood in Quincy, Washington, lived there and in other Washington cities as a young adult, and was a resident of Spokane, Washington the last few decades of his life. He served in the U.S. Navy 1964-1968 on a ship stationed off the coast of Viet Nam and periods of time performing assignments on shore. He told me he was exposed to Agent Orange which he and some of his doctors blamed for his later health problems but were not able to prove to the U.S. government because the records show him attached to the ship without any mention of land duty. When he returned home, he entered college and discovered the game of bridge there. Our online bridge friend was a man for all seasons who had multiple and very varied careers during his lifetime that few here knew anything about. He was a brilliant student, which led to him being a brilliant bridge player, earning a Master's degree in Economics and needing only to research and write his doctorate thesis to receive his Ph.D.when he left school to earn a living to support a family. At various times in his life, he drove race cars, played professional backgammon, owned and operated a convenience store more than once, and was an automobile salesman. But duplicate bridge was his passion; he honed his skills, became a world class player, and from sometime in the 1970s until the mid-1990s when his health problems began, he was a bridge pro traveling the tournament circuits with his clients. When Greg was scheduled last July to have part of his right arm amputated to stop an antibiotic resistant infection from spreading further, he had me access his account and send a message to all of the several hundred people on his friends list. Very few knew before I told those who specifically asked for more information that his last months here as a TD this always cheerful man was on dialysis three times a week due to kidney failure caused by his diabetes and that his eyesight was becoming increasingly blurry despite having had surgery on both of them. The eye surgeries were what made him stop TD'ing and, when he eventually came back, it was as a player only, and that stopped after the amputation in July until very recently he came on occasionally for short periods. Nor did more than the few who also chatted voice with him and a couple I told know that over time he had lost so much lower body strength that he was in a wheelchair weeks before the amputation and that before then he was no longer able to tolerate a full four hour session of dialysis and periodically had to be hospitalized to rid his body of the toxins gradually on a continual low level dialysis over several days. After the amputation he could not live independently with part-time home health care and was discharged to a local veterans facility as his new permanent home. So, while his death was a shock to me as I'm sure it is for you, I guess I should have expected it because I know that kidney failure and other medical issues combined with high dosages of pain medications puts a lot of stress on other organs, especially the heart. At the time he died, he had not turned on the computer for over a week because of pain in his good arm from the strain of moving his wheelchair with it, but he was expecting to soon have a power wheelchair assigned to him. So we both believed that he would soon be back to regularly doing email and playing online bridge regularly with the assist of the voice recognition software gift sent to him by a friend here and magnfiying glasses he planned to get to improve his blurry vision. To the end, Greg maintained a positive attitude about playing the hand dealt him. He kept telling me that he was going to live the rest of his life to the fullest and for him that now meant getting to spend most of his waking hours playing bridge with his friends here. No matter how bad he felt, whenever he was online as a player the past eight or nine months, Greg strove to give his partner as good a game as possible. Many partners didn't know he was ill, most of those who did had no idea of the seriousness of his medical issues. But the few who knew were aware that Greg was playing with a 110% effort and admired him for it. So I hope his courage in dealing with adversity, his cheerful attitude, and his high ethical standards as a bridge player and formerly as a TD will be remembered as much as his expertise in playing the game. Greg was cremated on December 11, 2008. His ashes will be scattered by the family next spring or summer in a peaceful meadow near Spokane that he loved to visit. He is survived by (1) Marilyn Davis, his "significant other" of 18 years, whose friendship began in childhood and was renewed decades later after each was married to and divorced from another, (2) his ex-wife, Iva Parker, (3) his brother and sister-in-law, Brian and Sandy Parker, and their sons, (4) his son and daughter-in-law, Paul and Suzanne Parker, and the several step-grandchildren she gave him by marrying Paul, (5) his daughter, Elisa Parker, and (6) various aunts, uncles, and cousins. Sympathy cards or notes may be sent to Marilyn Davis 704 South Ash Street, Spokane, WA 99204 who will share them with the family as soon as possible. She will be monitoring Greg's cell phone until the end of December when it will be disconnected. Voicemail messages will be passed on to his family and calls will be returned by Marilyn but not always immediately because she is an R.N. and works crazy hours. That number is 509-954-1827 (and still has Greg's voice saying to leave a message), and she asks that you give yours slowly and clearly as she has already been unable to return a few calls because the number could not be heard completely. I last spoke with Greg the Thursday night before he died. He was in good spirits but tired from an incomplete dialysis session. I know of two other players who had phone chats with him on Friday morning, probably there are others who spoke with him during his last few days, and of course none of us had any idea that we were talking with him for the last time. I am very glad I ended mine by telling him as I so often did how much I enjoyed his friendship and cared about him although we never met face to face. Rest in peace, Greg. You will not be forgotten by us whose lives you touched.

No we don't yet have a game where the human always plays as declarer for his/her side. But I enjoy watching Gib as declarer and sometimes am amazed at plays I would never try that result in our side making the contract. LOL

Oh, WOW! I posted in here BEFORE going online to play bridge. Just found out I don't have to choose between $5 MBT and ACBL tourney after all because now the new MBT will be on the half hour as well as the hour. That's terrific! I can play a $5.00 MBT and get out of it in time for the next Speedball. Thank you. Thank you. :D And, yes, I noticed the entry limit has been raised to 49. What fun! :lol:

Thank you so much, Fred, for this information. I will definitely be playing in both the $5.00 and the $1.00 MBTs along with playing money bridge tables and ACBL tourneys. All I have to do now is figure out which ACBL tourneys I want to give up in order to play the $5.00 MBTs which start at the same time as the Speedballs. I was doing pretty well at maneuvering the cafeteria line to taste everything every evening and now you've not only added another item to the menu but you're making me choose between it and something else. I just LOVE having to make these decisions. FUN! It's what BBO is all about. THANK YOU.

I agree the word "unfair" was not the correct one to use but I was unable at the time to come up with anything better to use. How about this? People (including me) who budget a certain amount a day to lose in money bridge tournaments would probably find it more attractive to play the $5.00 an entry games if they have a chance to recoup even $1.00 or $2.00 for a lower level placement such as 5th or 6th and win a little less if lucky enough to be 1st Place or 2nd Place. :) Thanks, Fred, for saying the prize scheme will be looked at soon and may be structured like the $1.00 tourneys are now.

Well I just played the new $5.00 MBT twice and won't be playing it much unless BBO management changes the spread of the prizes the way it did recently in the $1.00 MBTs. Of course in that one the entry limit was expanded to (I think) 40 players and the number of placements in a game depends on the total entry where this new game is limited to 15 players. But it seems to me not fair to so heavily weight 1st place prize money in the $5.00 MBT and have only 4 placements with the 15 player limit when the entry cost is that expensive. If it gets changed to spread the prize money to just under 50% of the field, i.e. take it to 5th and 6th placements, then I will play it more often than I am planning to do right now.

I remember her -- and you -- well from E-Bridge. Both of you have been amazing players -- she for her ability to play bridge well at an advanced age and you for your ability to play bridge better than many on the bad days when you were full of strong medications back then. Sympathy on your loss and hoping that you will soon find a compatible partner on BBO who will become an important person in your life as she was for so many years. Since I don't know if they read Forums, I will send BBO chat to the former E-Bridge TDs who are here on BBO suggesting they come here to read your announcement. (I was Pagehoutex on E-Bridge)

Happy Birthday, Fred, and congratulations again on the exciting moment this past weekend that there were over 15,000 players online at BBO at the same time. I join JLall in curiosity about you not being here in Houston this week for the Lone Star Regional as I was looking forward to seeing you and thanking you in person for the excellence of BBO as a playing site and home base for a large portion of the virtual bridge world. Since I can't do that, please consider yourself heartily thanked here.

P.S. Nothing was said as to whether this was a pairs game or an individual. If an individual I would assume sayc and bid one of the choices offered by the earlier posters.

The first thing I would do is look at the posted convention card to see if the pair was playing 2/1 and P is making a game forcing bid. From reading the brief information given, I am assuming the 1 spade bid was made in first seat. So, in my opinion, as to what's wrong with 1 spade, that is not an opening hand by any stretch of my imagination. Maybe the rest of you open hands like that in first seat but I never do. Therefore, if I was to see the posted card is 2/1 and can't see bidding this piece of cheese to game, I would not rebid my 5 card spade suit nor would I raise the diamond bid or bid 2NT in fear that P is going to continue bidding with a 13 pointer until we reach a game. I would rather risk the anger of P or the assumption I know nothing about the 2/1 system (LOL) and the resulting bad score if P has more than a minimum opening hand. Therefore my bid over 2 diamonds would be pass. (Running, ducking, and doing whatever I can to avoid your negative replies to my solution.)

I am not having any problems. Have you tried logging on the website as a new user, selecting a user name other than teasipper and a new password, and then downloading the software? If that works and you can access the games and other menus, then write to rain@bridgebase.com for help in either restoring the teasipper name in place of the new one or, if you like the new one, transferring to it any BBO bucks or Money Bridge accounts to the new name along with your masterpoints earned online. If you choose to keep the new name, you can put on your profile "formerly teasipper" for people to recognize you at tables, and you can write a short text message advising of your name change to paste into bbomail messages to everyone on your friends list. Alternatively, before trying that, email Rain Lan about the problem and see what she suggests. If she's not the one to help you, she will refer you to the right technical person to work with you to resolve the issues. I'm only suggesting a new user download as an experiment because it seems to me that would immediately make it clear whether the problem is something gone awry in your computer that needs techical help locally to resolve. To save you some time as I don't know how long it will be until you or anyone from BBO sees this post or whether my suggestion is a good one, I am copying this message into an email to Rain Lan and copying Fred Gitelman to let them know you need help. I hope it won't be too long before you can satisfy your craving to play online bridge again.

What a nice surprise! I didn't realize you were playing and teaching here on BBO after WW E-Bridge went down. Someone had told me you were on a different site. Good luck with the classes! (the E-Bridge player known as pagehoutex)

I am an ACBL Silver Life Master which I became when I achieved the level of 1,000 masterpoints. Right now I have 1,300+ masterpoints. I am ranked as 252 out of 2,144 members in our ACBL Unit. On BBO I rank myself as "Advanced". What has amazed me several times is to be partnered with an "Expert" as a pickup from the partnership desk and wonder why I am seeing various basic bridge errors in bidding the conventions being played, defending, and/or declaring and, worst of all, the partner ignoring the agreements on the card we selected to play such as deliberately modifying or compromising them without any discussion until I respond based on the conventional responses and go down in the unmakeable contract only to be criticized by the partner for bidding what I did when the partner instead of having, for example, the two 5 card suits called for by the convention, has 4 of one and 5 of the other and less than the hcp points necessary to bid over 1NT when we are vul against non-vul. LOL Several times the expert's profile showed a real name and, in those instances, I went to the ACBL web site and checked the masterpoint holding. If I didn't get several matches for that name or, if I did but the person's profile indicated a city or state and that gave me a single match, I had to assume I had the right person. Each time I felt the record I was seeing was the person with whom I had played, I found the person had many less masterpoints than I did. One had less than the 300 masterpoints required for the Life Master title. Yet they all self-evaluated as experts which I would not then nor would I now dare to call myself.

When I play SAYC online with a pickup partner, many of whom don't use the inside of the convention card bids, if I don't see Jacoby 2nt in the notes on the front page, then I ask before the game starts if 1 major 2nt is Jacoby raise or if instead it means 11-12 and promises 2 in the suit in case opener has a 6 card major or I ask if P is using the bids and responses on the inside of the convention card and go by that answer. I have avoided many disasters by asking one of those questions.

First I would like to compliment JLall on the excellence of his post starting this thread. No, Justin, I do not think anything you said was mean-spirited. To the contrary, I think you bent over backwards trying to express your thoughts in a non-threatening, non-argumentative way and that you succeeded. Helmut and Jan certainly did a good job raising you to have good bridge table manners as well as a commanding presence and that has carried over into your writing most of the time. Second I would like to say I agree 100% with the posts about people over-estimating their ability in expressing their self-ranking. I am a Silver Life Master with 1300+ masterpoints and would not consider calling myself an expert. In fact sometimes I think I am over-rating myself to say I am an advanced player. LOL. So it really gripes me when I pick up a partner whose profile says "advanced" and the person bids or plays very badly and I find out in private "getting acquainted" chat between rounds that the person is going to a regional tournament that weekend and hopes to pick up the last of her gold points to finish the life master title (300 masterpoints). That happened to me a few weeks ago. I might have asked that person if the classification had been intermediate, I often invite intermediates to play, but I certainly wouldn't have been surprised at the results that didn't live up to my expectations at the start of the game. And the same goes for the postings in the forums about hands, bidding systems, etc., just as JLall and others have said, where beginners and intermediates are proven wrong in what they are posting and keep insisting they are right. It detracts from the discussion of the topic of the thread and often wanders off in other directions. I often read those forums to LEARN from the experts posting their opinions but rarely do I participate in the discussions because I don't feel that I have much to contribute. Those experts are already saying what I would say and saying it much better than I could say it. (Compliments and thanks to all of you who take the time to write those posts!) So I have to agree that there should be some way to limit the advanced/expert area's posts to advanced and expert players. Perhaps BBO could make that or those areas open to posting by players holding ACBL titles of a certain level (maybe ACBL gold life master and higher and the equivalents in WBF or individual countries having bridge titles of their own) and all of lower title status players could access those forums on a read-only basis. We should all be able to read these discussions to learn how experts approach bidding and playing problems but I don't think we should all be able to post in there. Respectfully submitted,

:P Thanks BBO for the quick response to my suggestion. I enjoyed seeing the log-on announcement tonight with links to three of the topics under discussion. :) Sure do hope a lot of people are clicking those links. If you can tell how many newcomers visit in the next few days, please share the info with us.

Same here with those partners with whom I play systems on over all interference and stolen bid X. I would X as stayman. And, of course, :P I assumed one of those partners when I answered this poll.

Same here. If I played 2 diamonds shows weak majors, I would open 2 diamonds, but I don't play that and dislike the idea of playing that.

I think the thing to do would be for BBO to put in a news item to appear at different times a day several times a week the way the announcements do about Robot Race and Money Bridge Tournaments giving prizes for the top scorers of 100 hands in a given month. The message would be a brief description of Forums populated by 5,000+ of the BBO users and an invitation to click the link to log on as a guest and hopefully enjoy it and sign up. The link would go to a special guest log-on that has on that screen a simple description of how to get started exploring and another welcome and invitation to join. Just my 2 cents worth.

A friend of mine forwarded this email to me the night after Paul Soloway died. It is an email letter from his wife. I in turn left in only the identity of the original senders to those who passed it on to many others and, because I don't like showing addresses to people from different groups in my directory who don't know each other, I sent it to one of my alternate email addresses and blind copied a bunch of bridge players. For posting it here I am just giving the letter itself which did not include an email address for sympathy notes. Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 7:07 PM Subject: Fw: Fw: SAD NEWS - Paul Soloway passes on ----- Original Message ----- From: bj To: ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; _______; ________; ----- Original Message ----- From: APJ To: Undisclosed-Recipient:; Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 2:01 PM Subject: SAD NEWS - Paul Soloway passes on You may already be aware of this, but the letter is very touching and very real. I received this from a friend, who received it from a friend . and so I take part in sharing this news, however sad, with my bridge friends. ____________________________________ Paul passed away last night. I was hoping when I got up this morning, the last 48 days would be just a nightmare. That Paul and I could get back to packing for Shanghai. I mean, it had to be a nightmare didn't it? Unfortunately no. Paul is really gone. Yesterday, a CAT scan of his head showed massive irreversible brain damage. It was the result of the two cardiac arrests he sustained on Saturday The mind of the Paul Soloway we loved and who loved us, was probably gone then. He never felt a thing. Three separate doctors reviewed the films. I also discussed the situation with Paul's cousin, Mark, who is a surgeon. All agreed the situation was hopeless. I immediately contacted Paul's sister. We put the telephone next to Paul's ear so she could say good bye. (Some doctors believe the patient can hear all the way until the end.) Paul's absolute favorite nurse, Karen, and I dressed him in his favorite sloppy blue sweats. I had the catheters and tubes removed that he hated but had tolerated for so long. Then I got him a grape popsicle -- his last and favorite fluid source before his swallowing problems developed. I took him into my arms and told him about a new antibiotic that was going to beat the infections. All Paul had to do was relax, go to sleep and let us do our work. When he woke up, all the pain would be gone and he would still have time to recover for the Reissinger. Paul went very peaceably but not without a fight. His heart kept beating and his blood pressure stayed up for a few minutes more than we expected. He never took another breath when we removed him from the ventilator. He never stressed. I just kept reminding him to relax and that I loved him and he had nothing to worry about because Karen his favorite nurse and I were there. Paul left his mortal pains behind and moved on at 7:28 pm. He looked just like he was sleeping at the bridge table ... with his mouth slightly open and eyes half shut. It was as if he was resting between hands. I need to see what he specified in his will. Paul definitely opposed a memorial service. I don't think he precluded a "celebration of life." Paul has requested cremation. A good friend of ours sent me the following quotation. I have no idea if it is accurate but it certainly fits the situation: "It is important to remember his deeds, for in the future, those who were not privileged to know him will doubt such a man every existed. (Einstein's comments on the death of Gandhi) I feel so lost right now. Like my best friend is moving on and we aren't going to be best friends any more. My best friend who was so honest and strong, so loyal to his friends, never a gossip, a sportsman at all costs, a fierce competitor, the ultimate team player yet in so many ways an innocent in the world around him. I'll have more details later. We may have a memorial service for him in San Francisco. I'm sure he would want donations to the NW Kidney Center in lieu of flowers. I'll have the address later. Thanks to everyone for caring about this remarkable human being. Pam