nikos59

What was the bidding sequence that led to 3NT? North opens 1D and South replies 3D, then North 3NT Or, 1D-2C, 2NT-3NT Or, 1D-2NT, 3NT

I have been collecting bridge curiosities for a long time, so it is always exciting when I find one when playing at the table. [hv=d=s&v=n&n=sq43haq3dt9753ckq&w=skjt5h8754dk4c953&e=sa92hkjt9d86cjt72&s=s876h62daqj2ca864]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] West North East South - - - Pass Pass 1♦ Pass 1NT Pass Pass Dbl Pass Pass Pass SJ SQ SA S6 S9 S7 S5 S3 S2 S8 ST S4 SK H3 D6 D2 H4 HA H9 H2 CK C2 C4 C3 CQ C7 C6 C5 D3 D8 DJ DK H5 HQ HK H6 etc. This happened yesterday. I was East and reopened 1NT, then I realized that the standard meaning of my double was penalties (an initial penalty pass of 1D). At least, this is how (I think) it is played in France. By the way, how do you play a reopening double over 1NT? Anyway, pard was no French, but he passed the double. As you see, the hand is a genuine curiosity, because with 24 hcp NS cannot make 1NT -that is, against optimal defence. We did not defend optimally, but declarer erred when he discarded dummy's low heart on the fourth spade, so he went down 2. The more frequent contract was 3NT and this was allowed three times to make (by North) on a heart lead and heart continuation after the king of diamonds is taken.

Neither can I, Denis, when I type www.br...com, but I can access bookmarked pages like http://online.bridgebase.com/vugraph/schedule.php Nikos

Probably you have an earlier version of NetBridgeVu. I am saying this because at my office computer where I haven't updated the program for ages, I recently observed exactly the same behaviour. At my home computer, which is reasonably updated because I play in BBO, no such behaviour exists. nikos

I have read the one he wrote with David Bird, I guess it is the second of your list, Bridge with Imagination. Very well written and with several original topics and/or angles. Also, the deals come from Nordic sources hence you probably haven't seen them elsewhere. Moreover, although Helgemo has lost a couple of world championship finals, he doesn't accuse his opponents of cheating.

Yes, taking into account the level of competition, this is probably the worst fiasco in BBO Vugraph history; (if the records of some seaside festival are mangled, no big harm is done; but of the US championships???)

Hi Denis Apparently the 1st and 2nd segment of the Round of 16 were transmitted as a single file (30 boards). I was watching, hence I have it but I also see that there is a file of 71K under "... 1st session" in the archive page of BBO. This one may well be corrupted and need manual editing. I guess that the culprit here are the Japanese characters of the Tokio Vugraph which for some reason spilled over (commentary always spills over, it seems). In the Vugraph page there is an entry for 2005 Vanderbilt SF ... which in reality is the 3rd segment of R16, match Simson v Lynch. The score is approximately the same as the one in Usbf site. The 4th segment seems to be lost forever, though -unless a gentle member of the BBO community has it on his/her hard disk and is willing to send it to me at sarant-at-pt-dot-lu. For my part, I have almost ready the Vugraphs of the previous events (African Zonal, Zone 7, Tokio) and I am going to upload them some time today -or tonight. Nikos PS If you have 4th seg. or R-16, please send!

One things or two: 1) Kehela was coach or something of the sort of the US team. He was summoned to watch the signals and he testified that he couldn't detect any pattern. 2) There are scores of hands from Buenos Aires where even you and I would fare better than R-S if we knew how many hearts pard held. 2a) NV against V you hold J8 K7543 KQ87 98 RHO opens 1C. Surely you will overcall, despite the ratty suit, if you know that pard holds five, no? However, holding this hand, Reese passed. Shapiro indeed held five hearts. Reese's counterpart, Attaguile, overcalled 1H. 2b) Game all, 3rd to speak A74 J9 KJ10 K10763 You open 1C and pard replies 1H. And now, instead of the normal 1NT rebid, you pass! Preposterous -but perhaps you know pard has five or six cards in the suit? Actually, Reese held this hand in Buenos Aires, he passed 1H... and Shapiro held four hearts and duly went 2 down in the 4-2 fit. Some foreknowledge! Nikos

Why not? In any case, a pilot phase will show if the result is unbearable cacophony or a useful and interesting alternative. n

Note also that Sami Kehela, coach of the US team in Buenos Aires, who was an eye-witness of the alleged signs, testified in the British hearing that he did not discern any pattern. More significantly, the alleged cheaters failed to obtain any advantage in the hands where they allegedly cheated. Really remarkable, no?

The automatic logging is definitely not working for the Cavendish. I was able to record semi-manually all the 1st session but I missed the first three rounds of the 2nd session (humans have to sleep sometimes). All the results so far are at: http://sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/2005/2005-cav.html and the page will be updated (hopefully) with the rest of the 2nd session and the 3rd session, but I cannot guarantee anything for the 4th session. What I am doing is: while watching the Vugraph, I exit after each round is over, and then I store the lin file somewhere. I also write down the players' names and then I open the lin file with notepad and add them in the pn line. Then I upload it. If you want to help, you can send me files from the 4th session along with names. But please no "Hamman-Zia v Bocchi-Duboin" because we want to know who was S, N etc. Better to start from South and proceed klockwise, e.g: Hamman, Duboin, Zia, Bocchi. After all, I guess the auto-logging would work if the operator had one single (big) file for each session, with board nos 1 to 27 (then someone would have to add players' names and possibly to split the file into nine smaller files), OR, if the operator would close the table after each round was over. I am not sure about the above, some advance experimentation is in order. Nikos

Hi all A friend of mine who is organizing tourneys would like to use predealt hands in some of her tourneys but she does not know how to do it. Neither do I, but I am sure that some of you already do it. Any clues? Thanks in advance Nikos

This weekend marks the first birthday of the Vugraph project. What had started one year ago as an attempt to conserve the transmissions of tournaments via BBO has grown into a big project covering more than 10 years and some 130 events (I roughly calculated some 25000 hands but I may be wrong by 20% or so). Obviously the lion's share of the contents belongs to 2004 and 2005; still, the single best covered event is for the moment (and will be at least for a while) a tournament played long before BBO, namely the 1992 Olympiad (Salsomaggiore, Italy). Its knock-out stages were slightly smaller than the Istanbul Olympiad but it had a gigantic round-robin of 29 rounds and was covered at six tables per round! Together with my colleagues, whose precious help I would like to emphasize once more, we'll try to keep following current events as they are played and also adding events of the past. For instance, today we added a lot of 1998 events. Look at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/newer.html Nikos Sarantakos

There are still a couple of problems with Vugraph and they occurred again last weekend. First of all, automatic logging is still working erratically (from my point of view). Sometimes results are logged, sometimes files are being overwritten. This seems to be more frequent when there is simultaneous coverage of two matches with one table covered per match. For instance, from the Swedish trials semifinal, no intact file survives in the automatically logged page. (I was watching so I managed to salvage 3 out of 4 files and the files are at my page, but I will not be always there...) There was overwriting also in the finals, 2nd segment, but this was a glitch -something that cannot be excluded. Then the software is still not adequate for pairs events, as evidenced by the Hungarian pairs transmitted on Sunday. This time I was watching and manually writing the names, and also the Hungarian Federation had ample material at their page, so I was able to add the names afterwards and also the MP score (http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/2005/2005-hungpairs.html) but this will not always be the case. Obviously, these are but trifles compared to the excellent job done by the Vugraph guys!

Well, I think that "imposing minimum standards" goes a bit too far. I very much prefer to have 10 Vugraphs without minimum standards than 5 with them. Moreover, I think that having to plod through convention cards is not going to be popular with commentators: they might ask for a raise :-) n

Hi all I tried to use the Movie facility to create a lin file. It is quite intuitive and it surprised me happily when the fourth hand was entered automatically (not all programs are smart enough). But after the bidding was completed, I only wanted to enter Trick 1 (or perhaps just the opening lead) and then enter the result of the board. But I could not find a way to do this. Must I play out the whole 13 tricks? Obviously not. Then, another question: I had specified "2 tables, IMPs" but when I entered the hands for Board 1 at Table 1 these were not replicated to Table 2. Is there any way to do this or shall I enter them manually for a second time? TIA Nikos

I can't really add much to the erudite comments here, but if you want to collect opinions then please note that I hate the idea of splitting BBO, especially along geographical lines. The only split I can stomach is the one suggested by Luis, i.e. Vugraph vs Playing. I also don't need the huge list of 6000 players, only friends-stars and vacant tables.

Well, I am afraid I am not impartial concerning Vugraph, but I would not think that more Vugraph would be too much of a good thing. In other words, I would vote strongly against any idea of restricting transmissions. In my opinion, if BBO decides to transmit the Ruritanian Open Teams Championship, tourneys are not going to lose any customers; only Vugraph aficionados will watch, plus a lot of Ruritanians, many of them newcomers to BBO -who might even become tourney customers in due course. On the other hand, big events may affect the participation in tourneys, but big events would be transmitted regardless (I hope).

Roland, Please don't get me wrong (you probably don't, but this is a safety play) -what I wrote was not at all an indictment of your work which is magnificent, merely an appeal to BBO members to help me fill in the missing data. I appreciate immensely your efforts. Nikos

Hi all The Vanderbilt is not played in Euro-friendly hours, so I have had to rely to the "raw logs" of BBO which I then tidy up to excise commentary(*) thanks to a program given to me by an esteemed Vugraph project member. The snag is that always something is getting lost in the raw logs, i.e. some files are perhaps overwritten; for instance, I am almost sure that Segment 1 of Match 2 (Kamil-Eisenberg) of Quarterfinals was transmitted because I caught a glimpse of it (then I had to leave) but there is no trace in the logs. Also, the files that do exist seem to have too many "missing data" in several boards; I initially thought that the "non-broadcast" room was missing but it seems the pattern is different and it is too early here for me to try and analyze the pattern :) Anyway, the address is (and will be): http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/2...2005-vandy.html I will need is your help because I will not be able to follow the event myself. For instance, you can send me any missing files, such as the QF segment mentioned above. TIA Nikos Sarantakos (*) Why I excise commentary? First of all, commentary makes files heavier, sometimes close to 200K and even in this age of superfast connections there are some dialup users out there. Moreover, commentary is sometimes irrelevant to the match being played! For instance, the 3rd segment of Match2 of Vandy Quarterfinals contains commentary of the French Junior Trials (in French) and a recent Moscow tournament (in Russian and English)!

3H but not very strong feelings against 2H

Much better now! Nikos

Good interface, but, in my opinion: * The reset option should bring back the current date, not the last valid date queried; it's not likely that I'll use this date again in the same session * The 1-week restriction seems absurd to me * If I just want to see how well I fared last Saturday, the new system is not practical at all; I have to enter a lot of info (starting - closing date / time) with some probability of error, while with the old system I could just click once. If I take the results of one week I don't get the totals/averages for Saturday, or any given day. All in all, and sorry to say, although visually the new screen is slightly nicer, I fail to perceive any advantages over the old interface; no, I very much prefer the old interface.

I have never played in ACBL tournaments and I don't have any plans to do so, but since Fred asked it seems to me that if you accept undos then you have to introduce a host of rules as to their use, in order to prevent abuse. This is fine by me, because if the bridge lawyers have their hands full where I do not play, then they won't bother me where I play. On the other hand it seems to me absurd to ban undos in ACBL tourneys when f2f bridge actually allows the equivalent of the undos. Unless I am horribly wrong, it is not an infraction if I say "2S... sorry 2H" under the same breath or, using bidding boxes, you can take the 2S card, start placing at the table and then say "sorry, 2H". The ACBL has even accepted an Undo by a champion after the board was over, when she just used an expletive. So, there is but one solution, poor Fred & Uday. Implement a button that would prompt the player to validate his call/play/choice, then ban undos. But please, do this only in the ACBL tourneys (they already are playing a different species of bridge).

Now the QF2 segment is complete and in general all the early matches of the NEC Cup are there except for Match 1 (only closed room). As I am writing this, the 3rd (and last) segment of the final is being played and I discover that the 2nd segment of the final in the BBO archive page is empty hence I need someone to send me this, please. Nikos