Old York

With 8 raw losers, East has no reason to force West obviously took the view that there were wasted values in clubs, and chose to pass. West has not guaranteed a 5 card suit on this auction, could be 4441 Perhaps 2♠ (4SF) might be better than 3♥ ? On a good day 4♥ will make, on a bad day it goes down This is not a systemic flaw, just a bad example of good judgement Tony

Hi cardsharp Perhaps you are assuming that I dislike FD cards. I do not. The correct usage of FD cards is a substantial improvement on manually imputting alerts. Many players open 2♦ and alert as "multi" which is inadequate I recently played in a tournament where opener made a reverse bid, which I clicked on, and was given an inadequate explanation. It later transpired that this regular, advanced partnership had deliberately concealed their partnership agreement that a reverse did not show extra strength or distribution. This could never have happened if they were using FD I do, however, strongly believe that the automatic displays of FD on BBO is not 100% legal. The only legitimate reason for using FD is to disclose to opponents the full meaning of your bids:- Automatically display explanations:- 4/ Of bids your opponents have made 5/ Of bids made when you are kibitzing ..any other use must be highly unethical at any competitive table Tony (so sorry if this is veering off-topic)

Thx Blackshoe So... When you click [CONV.] > Options... Automatically display expanations:- 1/ Of bids you might make 2/ Of bids you have made 3/ Of bids your partner has made ....are all these options unlawful under WBF rules? see also http://www.bridgebase.com/help/3/common/te....html?fdoptions If so (and I strongly suspect it is so), then all these options should be removed as a matter of urgency, and (perhaps) only allowed in partnership bidding rooms or teaching tables Tony

The expectation that you should use a convention card only occurs in ACBL Tournies. This expectation refers to the old-fashioned cc, and not to FD (Full Disclosure) and only if not using Sayc. If using Sayc, then the cc is filled in automatically Needless to say, the old fashioned card only gives scant information on opening bids and carding methods, and would not have helped at all in the situation reported by op. As far as I am aware, online TDs never ask that FD be used, except for unusual methods (Prec, WJ, etc). It is foolish for any TD to expect a novice pair to fill in an FD system card. If this pair have failed to correctly explain a bid etc, then TD should have taken other action and explained why. Full Disclosure cards are being mis-used by many regular partnerships because they use them as mnemonic aids + alerts are visible to BOTH members of the partnership. I would appreciate if someone could supply the exact WBF laws being broken by this mis-use. If BBO intended that all alerts could be seen by all players, then alerts which are manually imputted would also be visible? Tony

It may be prudent to avoid matchpoint scoring until such time as you understand the tactics involved. It is very easy to receive a zero score and have no understanding of why this happened. Stick with Imps for now, it is probably much closer to the game you have learnt to play At Imp scoring, your only concern is to guarantee the contract, overticks are of secondary importance, so safety plays etc. are important At Matchpoint scoring, your only concern is to win as many tricks as possible, provided that you are not in an abnormal contract Tony

Maybe we have different alerting rules in England. If it is your partnership agreement that the double shows "opening values", then this must be alerted here My main concern is to responses to the double. If you devalue your take-out doubles then your partner must deliberately underbid to compensate. This will mean that you are forced to bid twice with a normal hand, just to prove that you were not ridiculously light. This will inevitably lead to bad results. If you are determined to enter the bidding on moderate hands, then we need a new set of responses to these doubles Doubles against Acol players should be fully up to strength, an opening bid here is natural and often conceals extra strength because we open 1NT with 12-14hcp hands, so suit openings often conceal a strong balanced hand. Doubles against Sayc players can be lighter because most 1♣ openings show a weak balanced hand Tony

So long as you mark your profiles as "beginner" and display "basic sayc" on your profiles, you should be welcome in most tournaments You should alert any special agreements you have made with your partner, including carding methods. If you have any problems with irate opponents, do not attempt to argue or explain, just call the tournament director I would suggest that you ignore this td's request to fill out a convention card until such time as you realy need to. If you use bbo convention cards then you should untick the option to display explanations of bids your partner has made. I strongly believe that this should be the default setting. You should never be able to see your partner's alerts Tony

Hi Shinty In most tournaments, the director announces "English only, no chat during bidding/play" If you are later damaged by oppo failure to alert/explain in English, then I believe that you should ask for adjustment. In very difficult circumstances, I have used tournament chat if any player can translate....or entered the phrase in Google. You would be amazed how helpful people can be if you ask for help .... unless they are from Yorkshire. rofl Tony B)

Maybe the moral here should be "dont push your luck"? Tony :D p.s What actually happened at the table? and what score did you receive? I think that we were all looking for the banana skin. hehe

Has anyone ever worked out the odds of ♠J dropping in 3 rounds in this situation? I would think it would be quite high. The standard lead from ♦AQT9 is the Ten, but many would be afraid of giving away an overtrick at matchpoints, and choose a safer lead. Just think yourself very unlucky and move on to the next hand, East's play was illogical and fooled everyone. You would not duck ♦Ace if you were wide open in Clubs, and even so, East should switch to a LOW club if he expected West to have ♣Ax :( Tony

It makes no difference whether it is Imp or MP, overtricks simply do not matter in this situation Playing matchpoints, your sole objective is to make as many tricks as possible but only if you can see that you are in the same contract as the rest of the field. If you are in an unusual contract then you should always play safe. It would be easy to construct a hand where your oppo are making 3♠ and this is likely to be the par contract. Making 3♦ already beats par, so overtricks are meaningless. You cannot score more than 100% on this hand. If the red suits misbehave and oppo defend unerringly, you could end up with 8 tricks, so why risk an excellent score for an overtrick? Why was this posted in Beginner and Intermediate Discussion, if your intent was to provoke an advanced discussion about pointless overtricks? Tony ps. I am almost certain that the original post showed Imp scoring - maybe I was wrong but it makes no difference

I dont see any problem with this hand. You are in a good contract so any plus score or even -100 should be ok. You should not need to worry about overtricks. You have 3 losers, maybe 4 losers, so should play naturally. Win Club Ace and exit with a club, intending to ruff Clubs in Dummy, oppo will probably try to draw trumps, but you still survive because they can probably make a Spade partscore. (or am I missing something?) If you duck the lead, then they draw dummy's trumps (they might be 3-1) Tony

It is my belief that BBO Sentry Robots keep a record of runners. A long time ago I had serious problems with my connection and crashed 5 times at the same table, the crashes only lasted a few seconds and I was immediately returned. This was a social game in Acol Club and not a Tournament or Team Game. My connex to Internet was perfect, only my connex to bbo was affected. Nevertheless, I was automatically given a 1 week ban by bbo. It was annoying but understandable. I hope all runners are also banned Tony

Of course I would alert. I would Alert the partnership agreement. If that happened to be "6-10 6-card suit" then opponents are entitled to exactly the same information as my partner. If I fool oppo by opening very weak, I am also fooling my partner, so no real harm is done. ...... but if my partnership agreement is to open very light, then I would alert that too

maybe I am just tooooo English. lol Seriously tho, I try not to read my partner's mind in situations like this. If partner chooses to open 2♣ it is safer to assume that he has his bid. :) Tony

This is the most common problem that occurs on BBO Expert players have private agreements which they are incredibly reluctant to disclose. This could never happen in f2f tournaments, because you can examine their convention cards p.s. Sorry, it was second seat.... I never said that it was a bad bid, in fact it was an excellent and brave bid which I applaud, I simply questioned the legality of the bid/alert in a general way (sorry if this was misunderstood)

Many thanks for the input I will never again swim in this shark infested pool oppo did NOT alert range 2♠ IS part of the Multi-system It was a FIRST SEAT bid Defenders have a RIGHT to certain EXPECTATIONS if a bid is not alerted correctly Sheesh, a guy cannot ask a simple question on this forum !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

because Multi 2♦ shows a weak two in an undisclosed major, many players use 2♠ and 2♥ to show specific types of weak hands. This is down to partnership agreement (and is a Multi add-on), but many established pairs fail to alert the range. So, the general consensus is that oppo failed to alert correctly?

Is this unauthorized information, which you should avoid using? You should not include partnership style as part of your system? I like the auction 2♣-3♣ 3♠-4♠ 4NT? but I am old fashioned Tony

In a friendly team game, an oppo opened 2♠ with this :- ♠QT762 ♥7 ♦T9765 ♣J8 alerted as 5+♠ 5+m weak Is this a psyche or not? Just how weak is weak? Is it not unlawful to psyche any artificial bid? If a weak 2 is expected to show 6-11 hcp, then this bid must be a Gross Deviation? Is there a web-link that gives rules/guidelines for Multi players? This is a genuine question (not just sour grapes) Tony

Important Tournament Messages could benefit from being in a different colour, but general chat should not. Many tournaments include social chat, many players find this distracting. If the chat was in Scarlet, Lime Green or Shocking Pink then perhaps not such a great idea. The best way to make important messages stand out from the crowd is to surround them with playing card symbols, and make them short and to the point. In an emergency you could use capital letters. ♦♦ Multi is Stricty Forbidded ♦♦ Maybe BBO could add a red exclamation mark symbol? Tony ♥

Last night I booted a player for opening 7NT with a garbage hand, and have since reported the offending person to abuse@bbo The problem was that I booted the wrong player ;) Unknown to me, a co-td had already booted the offending player, so when I was called to the table and examined the hand, I had no way of knowing what had already happened. We do not get messages of other TD's substitutions, and when examining the hand shows the current player and not the offending player it is impossible to avoid catastrophy. The Myhands record does not show the offending player if that player is booted I always adjust the board to Ave== BEFORE booting. Does this help? Tony (Duke of York)

The old fashioned requirement for any game-forcing opening bid was 5QT in any unbalanced hand : (AK, AQ. KQ, Kx) etc According to Culbertson, the original hand contains 5QT because of the singleton This has been drastically diluted by modern players, sometimes it works and sometimes it don't. It is not the job of TD to judge (unless a psyche [gross distortion]) Tony

As a tournament host you do not have any right to decide what a player's re-double means, unless it is an obvious sabotage bid. I have never before heard the phrase you used, and frankly, I would be offended if I saw it as the Tournament Name. Also, bridge IS a gambling game, especially if you play rubber at $1 per point :) Perhaps a 3 year ban is draconian, but there may have been many complaints. Tony

Hi I think that partner has used 4SF simply to show a 5 card spade suit, asking for support. You have an ugly decision to make, but the most honest rebid is 2 Hearts. On a bad day, (I have many) I might try 3NT This hand is going to play badly in any denomination unless partner has a great deal of undisclosed strength, so leave the decision to him/her Tony