nickf

Hi I've been fortunate to work in the bridge industry for the past 20 years. In the past few days, I've reached out to a bunch of connections who have offered a whole bunch of free downloads to help you fill in the hours and days during this uncertain and unsettling time. You can find the whole grab bag of goodies here. At the moment, we have: two digital bridge books from Master Point Press a lesson from Marty Bergen a magazine from Australian Bridge a newsletter with hands to play and quizzes from Vu-Bridge a bridge crossword a series of tips from Eddie Kantar a series of Hands of the Week to play Please feel free to share these with your friends, family and favourite bridge partners. Nick F Sydney

Pop into the NABC this week and ask one of the booksellers there, perhaps? nickf sydney

I was right. Again. nickf sydney

To the best of my knowledge, Fantunes was [and is] not designed by either Fantoni or Nunes. nickf sydney

I think you are not removed if you make a comment in the chat bar. nickf sydney

Statue of Liberty play isn't it? The italians were fond of it about 10 years ago. nickf Sydney

I've tried this gadget - I was sent a sample by the manufacturer. It's OK, certainly requires a fair degree of hand-eye co-ordination to use quickly and efficiently but its not a good substitute for a proper dealing machine for a club. It might be 10% of the price but a dealing machine is way more than 10 times a better investment. nickf sydney

Hi, we're arriving in CA for a couple of weeks on Saturday and it's been a while. Perhaps some locals can give we visitors some advice. I have no objection tipping service staff but have no idea what are the current norms for say: o taxi drivers o wait staff o bellhops And while I have your attention, can any locals please give some advice for things to do (family of 4, incl 2x teenagers) in LA, SF, SD and the coast road between LA+SF. We have some basic ideas but the guide books rarely take you off the tourist trail. More interested in good food, interesting neighbourhoods, activities a tourist wouldn't really know or think about etc etc. thanks in advance. nickf sydney

Matchpoints unfavourable RHO deals and passes. You hold: [hv=pc=n&e=sakq2hjdajt8cakq5]133|100[/hv] You open 2C, partner responds 2D (say any hand without a clear cut positive). What now? nickf sydney

[hv=pc=n&n=s97653hq76d74c762&e=s8hkj985dk82ckj98&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1h1s2d2s3d3s4h4sppdppp]266|200[/hv] Matchpoints, all vulnerable. Your are East - your system is 4 card suits, Majors before minors, weak NT Your defensive agreements are a primarily reverse count based defense, with attitude and suit preference secondary. Partner leads a trump, declarer wins and plays a second high trump from hand. What card do you play at Trick 2 and why? nickf sydney

I think the only change in the past five years is an option NOT to display the first board when you load the table. What this means is if the operator opens the table before all four players are seated, it was possible that a player wandering to his seat may catch a glance on the operators screen of the first board to be played. Now, in the data loading process you can nominate First Board blank and you have to REDEAL the first board once the players are seated and have pulled the cards for the first board. Unlike other aspects of BBO, the VuGraph setup and and operations hasnt required much development. nickf sydney

Blame Steve Jobs, not BBO. The workaround, which works fine for me, is to use the iSwifter app. nickf sydney

They will almost certainly come from Damiani's family business (how convenient). Heard nothing yet. nickf sydney

I think the cards will have an embedded chip and players will be asked to play them in such a way that they are electronically read perhaps from a reader above - I think similar technology to how a car tag is read when you drive through toll gates. Presumably it's trivial to convert this data to a .lin file that BBO or other online services can broadcast. nickf sydney

I don't think a one word description like "2/1" or "Precision" or "Acol" is much use. Commentators like Al Hollander do their research and find system cards online for participants, where they exist. But he's an exception. Ideally you want organisers to upload systems cards to the interwebs before the event. Some events do so, but not a lot. nickf sydney

I was sent a sample by the manufacturer earlier this year. After a bit of a hassle with the software I got the unit working. It's Ok. Requires a fair amount of hand eye coordination to deal a hand quickly. I certainly wouldnt buy one on behalf of a club as a substitute for a dealing machine. Bite the bullet and buy a Duplimate. If you just want to deal a set of hands for the occasional home game, then a HandyDup is I suppose better than dealing by hand from a hand record. nickf sydney

I've been a VG operator for years. I'm not sure how long but I recall my first ID was vugraph13 so it was a long time ago. I just volunteered to broadcast the final of one of our major events. Now I am the ABF VuGraph Co-ordinator. Easily the most difficult aspect is keeping up with the play in the mid to end game because this is when the players play fastest. I recruit and train a lot of operators and this is always the main stumbling block for them. To that end, I think the best operators are experienced bridge players (and experienced BBO players) - because an experienced bridge player will often know what card will be played next (in a trick) and often what the lead to the next trick is likely to be. It's these split seconds of advantage that can be the difference between getting all the cards right and a "sorry I lost the play" comment. Not that that's the end of the world either. You need the BBO experience in order to be familiar with the software. It's also imperative that you get claims right. If you claim the wrong number of tricks, it's easily rectified, but then you lose the auction and the card play and that buggars up the archived .lin file that is created at the end of the match. There are work arounds to restoring this data and I can send instructions to anyone who is interested. Operating can be tiring too - at the World Juniors in 2005, we had 20 board matches, but sufficient operators to give everone a 5 min break every now and again. You need to be seated comfortably too, in order to get a good view of the table (an elevated position is best, like on a bar stool). But the best advice I can give you is PRACTICE and I know Roland will echo this last bit - READ THE MANUAL. nickf sydney

yes but when you re-set to factory settings you undo the jailbreak. nickf sydney

that's the problem... what would you have done with Kxxxxx, Qx, QJx, xx ? nickf sydney

Teams, unfavourable. LHO deals and passes, and pd opens 1♥, RHO bids 3♣ and you hold AKxx, Kx, AK43, xxx so you double and pd rebids 3♦, pass to you. Now what? nickf sydney

I dont think the Wimbledon scoreboards can cope with 100-100. Kinda like a Y2K thing. nickf sydney

Well off the top of my head: 1) When Greg Cornelson scored four tries against the All Blacks in 1978. 2) Perhaps the under-arm bowling "incident" of 1981. Tsk - I hate sore losers. nickf sydney

c'mon. It's not even in the top 2. nickf sydney

I agree - that would be ideal - but it just isnt going to happen in our lifetimes. Writing a FD card is a time consuming exercise and tournament organisers have far more important things to do. The best we can hope is they post copies of the cards online. nickf sydney

I've run Pairs events in Australia and they dont lend themselves as well as Teams to being a good show on BBO. The obvious flaw is the lack of an immediate comparative score, or in the case of Swiss Pairs, a datum. But dont that stop you - by all means I think you should run the broadcast if you think you will be showcasing good bridge in your city or country. nickf sydney