Dwingo

This was in a recent BBO tournament. Playing 2/1 you, West hear your partner opens 1♦ and your RHO passes. You hold the following hand and what is your best response here. I want to hear what experts think about bidding here. I'll let you know what I bid and the full hand after I hear some responses. [hv=d=e&v=e&s=s2h76d10643cakq965]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv]

can anyone tell me the meaning of Rdbl in this sequence? (all NV, imp scoring) pass - 1♥ - 2NT* - Dbl Rdbl * = unusual

If you say you fell from grace, it is big clue for some spectacular unblocking. Unblock ♥A & ♥K under the ♣K & ♣Q and take the ♦ hook when you get an entry to the dummy If they shift to ♥ after cashing only the top 2 clubs, then you have tempo to establish the spade entry to dummy to take the ♦ finnesse

This suggestion is coming up for the 3rd time in the forum. I know I raised it and then lucky_dom also suggested . Yes, kibitzers will appreciate this feature if they are following their favourite stars in a tournament See uday's reply to my post in another thread ( link below) and it doesn't seem its going to come soon. But it eventually coming & that's great news. It is surely in their Radar Screen. http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/~bridge2/...?showtopic=2799

Dom, If I understand your post correctly, it is the same question that I asked in another thread under BBO Support forums. See thread below and uday's answer to my question. http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/~bridge2/...?showtopic=2799

Can someone help in explaining how the scoring is done in this event. I dont understand the negative Matchpoints. You can use the example below for explanation. I have taken this from the cavendish website.

Partner is surely having support for either ♦ or ♣. Looks like asking for aces. With this bidding, I don't think pd has doubleton spade. Atmost a singleton. And very good chances of a ♠ void. Good chance for 6♣ or 6♦ to make. The distribution is too skewed to defend this hand. I am on lead on a 5♠X contract and I dont fancy my chance of getting to my partners hand , even for a single ♥ ruff. Just respond to Ace asking - 5NT to show 2 aces ( playing D0P1). I am buying this contract.

Dividing a team match into sections is the same as creating multiple Team match with lesser Number of boards. Finish one team match, say 8 boards, go to the chat Room and discuss (load deals from your hard disk for reference) and after you finish discussions create another Team match ( change Opps if you like) of 8 boards. This should have the same impact as what you desire to do.

I wonder if the right to kibitz is the same as the right to bring your kibitzers along when you play a tourney

I once entered as sub, a SuperSpeedball tourney (5 minute per deal) with 1 deal per round and it was a total disaster. Out of the 6 rounds that I played, 5 of them had to be adjusted. I wonder if we should be pushing the boundaries of how fast we can play online bridge. 7 minute per deal is probably the optimal time. If we really want to finish tourneys fast, then No. of deals per round should be increased so that there is a possibility of catchup within the same round, if one deal is delayed. There will be less need for adjustments. like 6.5 min X 2 deals per round, 6 min X 3 deals per round, 5.5 min X 4 deals per round

Since this is a Directors Forum, I am not voting. But will let you know how I feel about it. UNDESIRABLES is a very broad term. I hope you TD's will be able to differentiate between petty offenses and serious offenses like cheating. I am all for sharing of lists of cheaters between TD's from a practical standpoint, but I am like Ben from the moral standpoint. TD's who conduct a Tournament once a week, will not have the resources and the frequency/cheating patterns in their tourneys to nab these culprits. So I am for sharing these cheat lists among TD's. TD's also mark players as UNDESIRABLES for minor offenses like bailing out of tourneys for poor results, not alerting, making life difficult for TD's with repeated calls to tables, etc . I am not for sharing of these lists among TD's. Probably add more definition to the player's selectable profile. I wouldn't mind removing Host, Invisible, Champion in the list as this is not selectable by the user in anycase. These can be replcaed by UNDESIRABLE ( players with whom you would not like to partner because of previous bad experience, different from ENEMY, software should not block chat from Undesirables), ACQUAINTANCES ( players with whom you played once, who neither is in the Friends or Undesirables category), SUSPECTED CHEATS ( Maybe this should be selectable only if you have the TD status)

This is in 3.6.7 When I am kibitzing a Pair tournament and when I have right clicked on a player and checked the box, Follow this player X during this tournament, the scores that I see for myself as a kibitzer is not the same as the player that I am following. Lets say I am kibitzing a specific player "X" on Table 9 on deal 1, Round 1 and I see the score for the Player "X". Round 2, deal 2, Player "X" is on say Table 3 and I am taken automatically to Table 3, since I am following this player. But when I click on Movie, the score that I see for Deal 1, is that of the players who have played Deal 1 on Table 3 and not of player "X" Is this a bug or is it the way it is supposed to be? I was thinking as the option to follow a specific player in a tournament has be enabled, it should be possible to see the same Movie screen with same scores as the player "X" that I am following.

Go to BBO Online folder in your C drive. You will find a folder called "hands". In this folder you will find another folder "your user ID". Open this folder and you will find all the lin files of the deals played by you ( for this to happen, you should have checked "Log deals when playing" in your user profile.) You will be able to differentiate between deals played in a tournament and deals played in the Main Bridge Club. Tournament files start with Tournament XXX YY-DD-MM. Open the file that you want to e-mail with your comments. The file will open with the Bridge Movie Viewer. You will see a Printer icon. Press that button and you will get a message "Export to text file?". Click on Yes. Now go back to your BridgeBaseOnline folder on C drive. You will find a text file called "Match". All the deals that you exported will be there in this file. You can use this text file to add/modify/edit text and send it by e-mail.

There are a whole lot of good players and STARS playing in the Main Bridge Club, where kibitzers are freely allowed. Please feel free to kibitz here. It is not as though BBO is putting a blanket ban on kibitzing. Going after a TD who bans kibitzers in his tourneys and rallying support not to play in his tourney, is likely to split this Forum into 2 distinct groups. Lets put this in perspective 1. McBruce , using his TD rights and his circle of influence, is trying to curb/minimise the cheating aspect in his tourney. Nothing wrong with that. Atleast he is taking a positive step to make it difficult for the cheats. 2. There are more than enough tournaments where "Kibitzers are allowed". "Kibitzers not allowed " tournaments are in a minority currently. 3. As with other things, TD's should be given the option of choosing "Kibitzers not allowed". The flexible options in the various tournaments makes BBO a great site. I am quoting fritz. This is all the more reason to ban kibitzers in unclocked tournaments. Why should the poor cheat made to work so hard in the current hand that he is playing and analysing a hand that he is going to play. The kibitzer can make it easy for the cheat by doing the analysis on Deep finesse and e-mail the results to his slow playing cheating friend.

This post is slowly shifting from a Kibitzing thread to a Cheating thread 1. People from a spcific country cheat more than others 2. Kibitzers are generally there to assist Cheaters Stereotyping a group of people like this in a Public Forum is a not the way to go. Having said that, most people here seem to agree that online cheating can never be eliminated completely and the the majority of members should not be deprived the right to kibitz because of a few cheats In the main bridge club, the host can bar kibitzers and the players decide in which environment they want to play. In tournaments, this choice is not available to the player to debar kibitzers. I have seen a few tournaments in which "Kibitzers are not allowed". But the majority of the tourneys still allow kibitzers. If those tourneys where " Kibitzers are not allowed" have a facility where the dummy cannot see anyother hand ( not even partner's hand like in ftf bridge), then atleast you have made it harder for the cheats. This selection by the TD should be visible to players before they sign up for the tourney. The cheats seeing this might not sign up for such tourneys making it a pleasurable experience for the others in the tourney. I am not recommending all tourneys to be like this. The choice should be available to TD. Once a week, I wouldn't mind playing in a tourney like this. Another related feature I would like to see 1. When someone registers as sub in a tourney, he/she should be automatically be barred for kibitzing the same tourney & using the same logic, If he/she has been kibitzing a tourney, then they lose the right to register as a sub for the tourney.

I have read all the posts and was truly amazed at the support you two have in BBO. I still have no clue as to what all this was about. Before I could get a feel, some posts were editted. I am glad both the parties have reconciled. ( Who was the other party anyway?) I would be grateful if a neutral party to the whole issue can summarise, what was at stake here. Please do not take names ( offcourse we know one party) and I don't need the juicy details. I was totally lost reading all these posts. If you feel those details will stir the pot again, then please refrain.

On a similar topic , I have made some suggestions on the Topic "Deleting players from sublist" in the Forum "Suggestions for software". I am quoting from that post

I have observed this happening to me sometimes. I get disconnected (not intentionally ) from my ISP and by the time I get back ( usually in less than 2 minutes), I am already substituted from the tourney. This may be due to the 2 reasons. 1) My partnership is usually an online pick up partner, whom I don't know, and he may not wait for me to return. He is probably assuming that I am bailing out. 2) The efficient subbing software programme makes it easier for Directors and players to make a substitution in no time. Now my question is. I am not a finisher in this tourney even though I have returned. Am I counted as a bailer?

Pro lower case. Prettier still if those underscores (_) can be removed

Most of the time, I am playing with 1st time partnership in tournaments, self proclaimed experts. I don't want to prolong the agony if the partnership is not going to work out. Better to go on to the next tourney and experiment with another partner. I like Survivor only for this reason. However I somehow don't like when there is a big cut ( like 35% ) at the end of 2nd round. I prefer if the cuts are applicable half way through and if the cut is in the region of 10% to 20%. This atleast give you hope ( assuming you are playing with your favourite partner) if the 1st round is a disaster and give you scope to escape the cut by doing well in the subsequent rounds.

Yes, this is a good workaround for the time being. It works

You can ask the HOST of your table to reserve the seat for you. If you are the host and plan to leave the table for a short while for the purpose of registering in a tourney, send a chat request to the table that you will be away for a short while and request the future host to reserve your seat for you. Most players would oblige.

I may be wrong here, but any uncontrolled group messaging system, will encourage spam. There is a lot of merit in chatting to all of your friends in one shot, but only in a situation, where I have accepted being a friend for another person. Similar to adding a friend in Yahoo messaging system. There should be explicit reciprocal agreement. I don't want to see messages from someone who thinks that he/she is my friend and I don't think the same way. Messaging to all people from your country does not appeal to me. It is a matter of changing your flag and sending unwanted political statements to all people from a specific country. Now we are entering unpleasant ground.

Let's say we catch these online cheaters and ban them here. What prevents them from coming back again with a new ID? The time and effort required to nab these guys and ban them is going to be too much for the BBO police, and before you know, they will back again with another ID. I appreciate that BBO is a free service for us and it cuts both ways. It doesn't hurt the cheaters in anyway. No money lost. No reputation lost. No real ID is known. You ban these guys and the next days these guys will be back again wearing new clothes. Let BBO management concentrate on make this real good software more robust and hopefully one day this menace will be curbed technically ( am I dreaming?) An environment where the cheaters lose something when they get caught is some sort of paid subscription services, and all those who are paranoid about cheating can play here, knowing that cheaters in this environment will be eventually caught and made to lose their subscription. As for tournamaments, Blind Individuals may be an answer. As for the free main Bridge club, no answer as yet.

After a 2H - 4H auction, Opener does not have a bid. So 4S here is puzzling. As a responder, I can think of only one thing. That my partner is up to some mischief, most like psycyed with short hearts and long spades and trying to find a better spot. I will pass. I am just using common sense, not any implied partnership understanding