nikos59

Hi all One of the biggest (or the biggest) swing in the European Championships that just ended in Warsaw, was at Round 10: Board 4 - Dealer West - Both vul. [hv=n=sak8haj10dkq5c5432&w=sj10963hk975da1097c&e=s7h8642dj84ckqj87&s=sq542hq3d632ca1096]399|300|[/hv] This is a normal 3NT by NS and it was the case in most tables (a couple of Easts doubled for a club lead and when this was redoubled the price tag was 1400). However, in the match between Bulgaria and Finland, the Bulgarian EW in the Closed Room (Aronov-Stefanov) bought the hand at 2Hxx (redoubled). Double-dummy analysis shows that EW can only make 6 tricks but after the 10 of hearts lead the results show that West made *ten* tricks, scoring a whopping 1640!! Does anyone know what exactly happened? TIA Nikos Sarantakos

The Vugraph Project team is proudly announcing yet another major offering from the past, the Italy v North America match from the 1959 Bermuda Bowl. You can find all the deals of the match at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1959/1959-bb.html Kudos for this offering goes to Patrick Flynn who did all the work and also offers the "interactive" pf-format of lin files. If you have previously downloaded the first segments from our page, you may want to download them again, because some minor errors have now been corrected. Nikos Sarantakos

Oops! I was a victim of my computer's cache! Thank you, all bulletins are there. ns

The World Junior Championship is already well into its way, but when I look the WBF site, at http://www.worldbridge.org/tourn/Bangkok.06/Bulletins.htm I am informed that "The Daily Bulletins will be posted here in various formats during the Championships" Moreover, there is no indication whatsoever about the Webpage of the championships. On the other hand, the hand records and scorecards are there. Am I missing something? TIA

Personally, I strongly prefer to have one whole match than two half-matches. This is always my preference, but all the more in a national trials, like the one you are going to transmit. NS

Moreover, the (edited, i.e. without commentary) .lin files from Bangkok are to be found at the Vugraph project pages, at: http://sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/2006/2006-wytc.html All nine matches transmitted so far are there. I uploaded them only yesterday because I was away, and I will be absent next weekend(ish) too, but I will try to keep the site reasonably updated. I also just added another big match from the past, the 1962 match between Great Britain and North America for the Bermuda Bowl, http://sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1962/usgb.html as usual an excellent piece of work of Denis OKane. n.

Well, playing for money with/against GIB is great fun, as we all know -see what happened today: [hv=d=n&v=n&n=sk9hakq103dakj85c3&w=s8753h9872d107ckq10&e=sqj102hj5d932cj984&s=sa64h64dq64ca7652]399|300|Scoring: Total Points[/hv] The auction was interesting: West North East South (me) (GIB) (GIB) (human) 2C pass 2NT 3C 3H 4H dbl pass pass 4NT dbl pass 5D dbl redbl pass 5H dbl redbl pass 6C dbl pass pass 6D dbl pass pass 6H dbl all pass When I heard the 2NT positive reply to 2C, out of desperation I bid 3C; this showed 25+ per GIB, which partly explains the comedy that ensued. Still, the slam is cold; even seven is easy. However, GIB went down. It won the queen of spades lead, cashed the ace of trump, crossed to the queen of diamonds and finessed in trumps, the 10 losing to the jack. Back came a spade, won by South. GIB ruffed the third spade with the ace and cashed the queen of trumps, so it went down one. Is it the best line of play? n.

Hi, Fred A word of caution here: back when Matt Ginsberg was active in GIB development there was a mailing list with a few very keen participants (some of them are BBO members) and as you would expect there was a flood of allegedly strange GIB calls. Matt had devoted a lot of time and energy to these strange bids but, as far as I remember, there was no discernible progress in most cases. There is always the danger that when you fix something here, you unfix something else elsewhere. I am no expert in the matter, but it seems to me that when the sample of deals is very small then GIB is more likely to do something weird. There are also some "patented" idiosyncracies of GIB, like transferring into a four-card suit that seem to work not bad. On the other hand, the single most frustrating habit of GIB is imho to think that pard holds the world when pard is protecting, in auctions like 1H-pass-4H-? When you bid now 4S with QJxxxx and an opening bid, GIB will think you have a GF hand and propel you to slam. Anyway, good luck Nikos

The Vugraph Project team is proudly announcing yet another major offering from the past, the Italy v North America match from the 1962 Bermuda Bowl. You can find most of the deals of the match at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1962/1962-bb.html Unfortunately, the hand records are not 100% complete. To save space, the official book has omitted several (not that many) flat boards. On the other hand, they had a good reason to save space: Great Britain was also playing and these matches are featured too, so we may well offer them in the future. Kudos for this offering goes (again!) to our Denis O'Kane who did all the work and also offers the "interactive" pf-format of lin files. Nikos Sarantakos

I would focus on the main challenge: how to cover adequately (and more than adequately) the two premier events that coincide. Perhaps there will be need to have more than 8 tables at a time. This is one challenge for BBO. I very much appreciate Jan's attitude and I think that this year's USBF will be an excellent spectacle. As to the European Championships, we have already had very extensive coverage, so the standard is already set quite high! ns

The results of the session are released, yes, and the hands as well, but nothing more; not even frequencies at least for the moment (note that any local Polish or Scandinavian tourney usually has full frequency data), and obviously no Vugraph data. No, the quality of record keeping in this Cavendish is amazingly poor. ns

Last year, we were able to capture nearly all the data from Cavendish, with a little (or a lot of) help from the operators and some volunteer work. For example: www.sarantakos.com\bridge\vugraph\2005\2005-cav.html This was (more or less) also the case in 2004. This year, I guess I won't even bother to include Cavendish in the Vugraph project site. Nikos

The Vugraph Project team is proudly announcing yet another major offering from the past, the 1979 Bermuda Bowl final. You can find all 96 deals of the final between USA and Italy, at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1979/1979-bb.html It was an exciting match. The Italians had a gigantic carryover of 37 imps but the Americans outscored them, so they entered the last segment leading by no less than 55 imps. The expected Italian comeback came, but it fell short by a mere 5 imps. It was also the first time a sponsor, Malcolm Brachman, won a world title. There were many excellent deals in this match -now you can replay them yourself in more than one way. Kudos for this offering goes (again!) to Denis O'Kane who did all the work and also offers several alternative formats (pbn, dup files, pf files). What are pf files, you may ask. It is a very interesting new twist. Using the so-called pf command, these lin files allow the user to depart at any time from the line of play followed at the table, to play out the hand all by himself and explore alternative lines of play. However, once you have departed from the original line, you cannot reliably revert to it unless you go back at Trick 1. We eagerly await feedback concerning this new feature: is it desirable, is it worth the extra work, does it have any hidden drawbacks? Nikos Sarantakos www.sarantakos.com/bridge.html

Hi all In my bridge pages I maintain an anthology of wise or witty comments by Edgar Kaplan gleaned from tournament reports in the Bridge World. (These are not the same as those culled from comments made by EK while serving as a Vugraph commentator; generally, those oral remarks are wittier, written ones are perhaps deeper). As my TBW collection grows, I am adding material to the anthology. Now I have added a lot of material from the years 1977-1979 to the pre-1980 section and also some material from 1981-2 to the "1980 to 1984" section. Please look at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/kapnuggets.htm As always, there is more bridge stuff at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge.html and obviously the Vugraph project at http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph.html Nikos

Well, to be frank the 1971 final is not on the top of the waiting list. But if you or some other BBO member would like to enter the hands, I can provide you with scans of the pages from the official book of the event. Nikos Sarantakos

The Vugraph Project team is proudly announcing yet another major offering from the past, the 1975 Bermuda Bowl final. You can find all 96 deals of the final between USA and Italy, at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1975/1975-bb.html For those of you who just came, this was the last victory of the legendary Blue Team. It was also the scene of the foot-tapping controversy which resulted in an official reprimand against the third Italian pair. It was an exciting match, featuring perhaps the biggest comeback of the Bermuda Bowl history: after board 51, the Italians were 78 imps behind; in the end (Board 96) they won by 25! The grand slam by Belladonna, at board 92, where Eddie Kantar failed to false-card holding K-10 of trumps in front of bare A-Q in the dummy is arguably one of the most famous deals of all time. But there were many other excellent deals in this match -now you can replay them yourself. Kudos for this offering goes (again!) to our Denis O'Kane who did all the work and also offers several alternative formats (pbn, dup files). Nikos Sarantakos www.sarantakos.com

What is partner to do over your double (if the other oppo. passes)? Just relay?

Is the Hilton management aware of the fact that several thousand prospective customers will be angry against Hilton if they miss a premier Vugraph?

I am happy to announce that the site is up and running again. What seems to have happened is that someone screwed it up when the domain name was to be renewed. Nikos

Hi Claus, Thank you for the interest. I agree that option No 1 is best. Nikos

The Vugraph Project team is proudly announcing yet another major offering from the past, the 1983 Bermuda Bowl final. You can find all 176 deals of the final between USA I and Italy, at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1983/1983-bb.html For those of you who just came, this was the swan song of the Blue Team, the last time Belladonna and Garozzo played in a world championship in the same team. The US team contained Hamman-Wolff, Becker-Rubin and Sontag-Weichsel. There was a young man in the Italian team, a certain Lorenzo Lauria. It was a very close match, all down the wire; in the penultimate board, the two Italian stars... ah, you had better see for yourselves! Kudos for this offering goes (again!) to Denis O'Kane who did all the work and also offers several alternative formats (pbn, dup files). Nikos Sarantakos

Yes, but these pages are extra-large. n.

I admit I had in mind a two-table coverage, but I am almost persuaded by mrdct's suggestion. What others say? It also occurs to me that the Virtual Vugraph will proceed in a much faster pace than real Vugraph, between segments as well. ns

Hi all The 1991 Bermuda Bowl in Yokohama was probably the first major bridge tournament that was "covered" via Internet; if you do a Usenet search you will find some reports in rec.games.bridge from an Icelander who was living in Tokyo. Now we are proud to announce that the first segments of the 1991 BB final are available in .lin format at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1991/1991-bb.html This project is a direct outcome of a previous call that I had posted in this forum, asking for volunteers to digitize old bridge matches. The first to volunteer (although not the only one) was our Gerben Dirksen, who chose to "do" 1991 because of the unusual methods employed by the players. Kudos to Gerben who has done an excellent job so far and I trust that he will keep on! (For the moment, three segments are available). If you plan to volunteer for another event, please hurry -after next Thursday, my bridge books, my scanner and myself will not be in the same place for a while, so I won't be able to send you scanned pages! Nikos

Hi all In this hand from Estoril, Fantoni and Nunes got carried away: [hv=d=e&v=e&n=sa987hkjdj86542c9&w=s532h106da10c1087643&e=sqj4ha843dq7ckq52&s=sk106hq9752dk93caj]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] The bidding went: W N (Fantoni) E S (Nunes) 1C 1H 3C dbl pass 3D pass 4C pass 4H pass 4S pass 5C pass 6D all pass This was not a success; down two after a club lead. Mind you, they actually gained on the board (other room at 2nt-3) but since they are world champions we are a bit more demanding towards them, hence I wonder what went wrong. I don't know well their system, but when one has to make a bid, like South here over the double of 3C, what is the "nothing to say" bid? It seems to me that 3D was interpreted by North as showing four cards, so the game (at least) seems a good bet. Hence 4C. Then 4H is trying to apply the brakes but is interpreted as a cuebid, not a place to play. If 3H is the "nothing to say" bid, then North passes and perhaps this contract makes. Or perhaps South should not have overcalled in the first place if any strong noise by North has to end in game (or slam). How do you end at 3D or 4D? TIA Nikos