Markku

Hi, I was happy in May when got possibility to use Howell movements to run small tournaments. After half an year experience now I am not so happy at all. Bbo howells are not balanced movements. Think pairs table 6NS and 5EW in 11 table howell contest / 24boards. Each board they have advance when another play well, So if you have star player pair as 5EW and you sit as 6NS you get extra points because stars give a zero to their opponents in every board. If you sit 6NS and this star pair sits at table 7 as NS, you loose systematically in every board because they are better than you, not much of course. But this is terrible. Your moves are 6NS -7NS -8NS -9NS -10NS -11NS -11EW- 10EW -9EW-8EW-7EW-6EW, it should be 6NS- 7NS -8NS -9EW -10NS -11EW -11NS -10EW -9NS -8EW -7EW -6EW , like it goes in endless howell. This looks easy and important bug to fix. Hope it happens soon. Markku

Frustrated to hands, which are far from normal: Just after joking that last trump finesse in daylong tournament succeeded in January, I went to play free daylong tournament; Spade finesse Q offside, heart K offside, diamond K10x offside and of course clubs KQ both offside, all these in my first and last hand too. Maybe someone thinks this is funny, I dont, Sorry! So enjoy yourselves!

After reporting a cheating case I have thought, how cheating could be reduced. At main bridge club tables there is an option to allow kibs if they ask for permission. As most cheating cases are based on another monitor & nick. I suggest that in tournaments and teams there were the same option. TD lets kibs in on same bases as players,with many possible restrictions like friends, club members, lists etc or just giving permission if asked. If all kibs were players we know, cheating would be much harder as it would require co'operation with too pleyers. I guess this might be a huge improvement in an endless war against cheating.

After 3 flat boards 1. Wladow tried to balance 1nt with X, bad luck 2. opps missed luckily a good slam. 3. In favorable zones with x K10xx Jx K98xxx after opps 3NT 4C doesnt always cost 1100. 4. In next board 5D bid was not worse than 4D from south. 5. In last one maybe dble of 4S was meant to penalties and if south takes out maybe 4NT is better choice than 5C Not so obvious _deliberately_ imp throwing bidding, bad luck and too hard trying, I think.

As a TD I was specing at a table a pair who as NS used new CC . Then on next round same CC was on the table as it obviously should have dissappeared with the previous NS pair. Maybe a bug somewhere?