McBruce

The "spirit of BBO?" Is there something I missed reading? I expect one objective of BBO is to allow anyone to play online bridge in as many ways as possible without charging a fee. I do not expect that one objective of BBO would be to belittle the tournaments that annoy you by putting them on a separate sub-menu. In fact, once again I must suspect that you simply want these tournaments to be harder to find so they will have more trouble attracting players. It all sounds like this is BBO's Roe v. Wade. An angry mob wants the authorities to crack down on tournaments that bar kibitzing. TDs like me say "where do you get off telling me what to do with my tournament?" The authorities refuse to budge, so the pro-kibitzer life mob reacts with public criticism of pro-choice TDs, a public campaign against the practice that emerges every few weeks in these forums, and now we're up to an attempt to hide the no-kibs tourneys in a sub-menu because it's so annoying to be told that you can't always get what you want. Where will it all end?

Good post by paulhar, confirms my experience with pars computed by Jack's double-dummy engine. For awhile I listed the 'Jack Par' scores (pun intended) during my tourneys when all tables finished the board. Players for the most part enjoyed it. I imagine the same could be done with Deep Finesse, or any double-dummy program. Players might enjoy seeing what can be done with perfect play. I always included a disclaimer that the Jack Par results were based on perfect double-dummy play and your mileage may vary. The trouble with a par contest is that it really is virtually impossible to create a perfect deal where mistakes will always cost. Another thing Jack can do is play the deals, single-dummy, against itself many times, using a wide variety of systems and thinking times. You can generate a set of results for any hand and hold a different type of par contest where your score is matchpointed against the scores acheived by the computer. For example, on the board above, when played 25 times by Jack, nine computer pairs made 450 and seventeen made 480. A chart could be constructed from this: N-S -440 or better: 100% N-S -450: 86% N-S -460 or -470: 68% N-S -480: 34% N-S -490 or worse: 0% It would be like the old Epson Pairs games. To do this on BBO we'd need a mechanism to input the deals and the pre-played results (a special type of .lin file?) The advantage is that the movie would be able to display immediate results, even in an unclocked game. One disadvantage might be that some sets would favour N-S over E-W by random chance -- quite often the normal result scores very low or very high.

Let me say here again, even after taking the brunt of the heat for defending my decision to disallow kibitzers on the other thread, that I would change my tune IN A FLASH if I had the option to delay the broadcast for kibitzers for five or ten minutes. I would even move from unclocked to clocked, something I also have avoided, in order to welcome kibitzers back. Is a five or ten minute delay acceptable to those who enjoy kibitzing?

Since it sadly appears that there is software out there that replaces Windows core fonts, and that Microsoft no longer makes them freely available online: With the next major rewrite of BBO, perhaps something to be considered would be a special BBO font, which could have the following advantages: --the font would be installed when a user installed BBO but would reside deep within the BBO folder so that tampering with C:\Windows\Fonts could not lose it. --rarely used special characters replaced with suit symbols and perhaps other useful things such as "NT" or "10" as a single character. --Font metrics so that the client program could ensure that long chat lines would be broken at the right place. It might be a good idea to have BBO Times, BBO Verdana and BBO Ariel.

The next step is to find the software that performed the change and let them know that replacing the system.ttf font is actually quite a nuisance. In my case it was a demo of a football management sim.

Take this deal: [hv=d=n&v=n&n=s8642hk84d53ct854&w=st73hj632dkqt2ca2&e=saqhaqt7dj98ckq76&s=skj95h95da764cj93]399|300|Scoring: MP[/hv] Double dummy analysis by the computer program Jack reveals that: In notrump, East can make 11 tricks. In spades, East or West can make 8 tricks. In hearts, East can make 12 tricks. In diamonds, East can make 11 tricks. In clubs, East can make 11 tricks. The Par score for this deal is 980 to E-W but few will get to this poor slam. A more difficult thing to do is to find deals where the par score is acheived if everyone makes reasonable decisions, and a less than optimum decision usually leads to a sub-par result. This would be an interesting game!

inquiry wrote: However, what I think Ron meant was that he (Ron) quoting and addressing McBruce thought calling him "McBruce" sounded "awfully rude and formal". In otherwords, when i address "the_hog", i say "ron". i think what Ron wanted to do was address "mcbruce" by his first name, so as not to sound so "formal". I accept that I misinterpreted "PS whats your first name? McBruce sounds awfully rude and formal." as a critique of my screen name. I spend enough time on BBO that a mouse hover over my screen name there will reveal me as Bruce McIntyre. I've had the nickname McBruce for almost 20 years, so clearly I don't see it as rude and formal. We have nicknames of all sorts on these forums and few posters feel uncomfortable using them. If you want my real name, ask nicely and I'll be happy to tell you. But at the end of a critical post in which The_Hog wrote "I will categorically refuse to play in any tournament that bars kibbitzers, and I encourage people who post here to do the same," how surprising is it that I missed the meaning? How difficult would it have been to rephrase to "McBruce, I'd like to address you less formally -- your screen name seems too formal to me," instead of dragging in the loaded word 'rude'? I must say that, as with the last time this came up, I am tired of the bickering and pointless repetitive arguing. The thread started with a complaint that three of four tournaments running at 6:50 AM Pacific time on July 8, disallowed kibitzing. As I write one of two does so. This will not change, it is an option that belongs to the individual TDs. BBO does not include the automatic right to kibitz; you do not have the right to demand that a TD run his game your way. A poll will not give you that right no matter how slim a minority I am in. If you want to see more kibitzer-allowed tournaments, I really do think you will have more success by banding together and making sure kibitzer tournaments are run. Grumbling about the no-kibs events doesn't solve anything. Vowing not to play in them is your right. Trying to encourage others not to is sour grapes. The Laws of Duplicate Bridge (76A) say that a spectator should only look at one of the concealed hands during the bidding and play. One might make the argument that kibitzing all hands during a tournament on BBO is contrary to the Laws. In several other threads, I have argued my side of the case. I ban kibitzers for the first two-thirds of my unclocked tourneys, to make cheating more difficult. I open it up for the last third to allow those who have played to watch others who are not as fast. I believe if I get 1% of the cheaters to stop cheating in my tournaments by barring kibitzers, it is a victory for the players who play in them, worth the regrettable nuisance to honest kibitzers. Most of the arguments against banning kibitzers boil down to the view that it isn't a solution, since they can cheat in so many other ways. As I wrote several months ago in the first thread: "Hey, what the hell good are screens? If Meckwell want to cheat there are a million ways they can do so even with screens, right? So let's burn all the screens, they're useless in combating cheating and they're a real nuisance." Same argument, same fallacy is my opinion. You have every right to yours.

But on the empty spaces front, there are other suits we know about. Spades have split 3-5, since RHO opened 1♠ and LHO has three. At decision time I have seen two hearts from RHO and one only from LHO. We've also had a club trick that both followed to, leaving RHO with five empty spaces and LHO with eight! So Empty Spaces and Crane's rule (which is mathematically dubious but you would risk a scene if you ignored it and were wrong with Crane as partner!) both say play for the drop; Zia's Rule (which may not strictly apply here) says finesse. An old Bridge Encyclopedia lists something called Blackwood's Theory of Distribution: Easley Blackwood's suggestion is to look at the shortest suit held by the declaring side. If declarer and dummy have fewer than four cards, or four cards divided 3-1 or 4-0, finesse; else, play for the drop. Here our shortest suit is diamonds, divided 3-1, so we finesse. Any more suggestions? :) {edit} I think I may have the opening lead wrong since it leaves me with egg on my face if West holds the A♠, leaving few opening bids possible for East without the Q♥... :(

This happened to me after I downloaded a software program that diabolically replaced the Windows Symbol.ttf with its own version. This is the most likely cause. Find symbol.ttf and check its size, it should be about 67.8 KB. If not, you need to find the original (on your install CD) and put it back in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder.

I've been asked to be "more realistic" so here goes: If you want to see more tourneys that allow kibitzers, it seems to me that there are two ways to accomplish this: 1. Complain in the forums about TDs who bar kibitzers. Ridicule them when they try to justify their stance on the issue. Criticize their online nicknames! Vow not to compete in tournaments where nobody can watch you. Perhaps we could have organized protests in the lobby, complete with messages letting everyone know which are the Machiavellian TDs that won't let you see the results as they happen. 2. Ask Uday to let you, and those who agree with you about kibitzers, run tournaments and run them, as many as you can handle, whether this is three a day or one a month. If you are right and we kibitzer barring TDs are so wrong, your tournaments will attract dozens of tables while ours will dwindle to nothing. If you want to change MY mind, #2 is the way to go. The more I see of #1, the more I like my choice.

I've argued this before in other threads, and I seem to be an odd sort of bridge player because watching others in real time doesn't excite me as much as actually playing in real time. So, with respect to those who feel differently... No TD who bars kibitzers will argue that it stops all cheating. What it does do is it makes it harder to cheat. Those of us who bar kibitzers think that players who choose to play in our tournaments deserve that cheating not be as simple as connecting with your desktop and laptop at once and watching yourself double-dummy. Of course there are other ways to drop singleton honours offside and bid to miracle slams. But the other ways are harder. It's not unreasonable to take a small action against something that is wrong (like online cheating) even if your action will not completely prevent it. People participate in protest rallies all the time with a very low chance of actually changing anything. What would the Olympics be like if officials decided that 'we can't keep pace with performance-enhancing drugs, so to hell with it, let them use whatever they want?' You cannot criticize those who bar kibitzers because doing so doesn't stop cheating completely. That's not why we do it. We do it because it reduces cheating. BTW, any pro worth the money he is paid will happily go through 12 or 15 boards in less than half the time it took to actually play them and find a client's errors. Not only that, it will probably benefit the client more to read such a report than it will to have the pro kibitz and let the client know after each hand what could have been done better. "I won't play without my kibitzer" is to me extremely suspicious and I would start checking that player's results.

♠ x ♥ K J 9 x x x ♦ x ♣ x x x x x Everything is unfavourable: --you are vulnerable (opponents are too) --you are the Director, filling in to complete a 5-table Howell --this is your third time directing a real live game --your partner is the principal club owner (your boss) --opponents are one of the city's best married pairs --after RHO's 1♠ opener, you have taken your life (and perhaps your job!) into your hands by bidding 3♥! The full auction: RHO: 1♠ McB: 3♥ (weak, brash and asking for trouble) LHO: 3♠ Pard: 4♥ (just what I need to hear) RHO: Pass McB: Pass LHO: 4♠ (of course) Pard: 5♣! Whatever can this be? I figured it was probably lead-directing should the opponents bid 5♠ over 5♥. So, of course... RHO: Pass ... when RHO passed, I thought perhaps there is a chance that partner has both red suits here, and against 5♠ when I lead a club to his ace, or perhaps for him to ruff, our best bet is to go A♦, diamond ruff. So, with this possibility in mind, I decided to try... McB: 5♦!! LHO: Pass The result was not quite what I expected: Pard: 6♦!!! RHO: Pass McB: 6♥ (in record time) I expected a double card from one of the opponents (who had made sure to save as many as they had in case we haggled over which suit to play interminably) but to my amazement it never came, for this was partner's hand: [hv=d=e&v=b&n=sxxxxha9xdakxcakj&s=sxhkjtxxxdxcxxxxx]133|200|Scoring: XIMP A♠ led vs 6♥[/hv] I ruffed the spade continuation and led the J♥, LHO following low smoothly. I won dummy's A♥, ruffed a third spade in hand, led a club to the ace, and played a small trump from dummy. RHO played low smoothly and I had to guess what to do. I had a choice between Zia's Rule ("if they don't cover, they don't have it") and Barry Crane's Rule ("the queen lies over the jack in the majors, under the jack in the minors"). I decided to follow the Crane rule for no particular reason other than any of the sixteen other players might call the Director at any moment and this would at least get it over quickly. LHO discarded a diamond. When I finessed the J♣ I lost to the queen...of trumps. Clubs being 4-1, I had no choice but to go down two on a hand Zia's Rule would have made. The most surprising thing about this hand is that I still have a job! :(

As far as I am aware, the only thing that could possibly apply here is the Rule of Coincidence. There is no Law compelling you to double based on what partner has shown. The most you can be hit with under the RoC is an adjustment in the number of tricks if the opponents have made a play that is based on your bidding. Look for the Rule of Coincidence on a search engine and you'll find something on point here. However, the RoC is specifically not meant to apply to any but the clearest of situation where one partner has psyched, or made a non-system call, and the other partner has distorted his values to compensate. In this case, as other posters have pointed out, the auction itself tells you that there is a good chance that partner has psyched.

The usual movement for 8 tables is a Mitchell byestand and relay (seven rounds, 28 boards). For 7.5 tables, an 8-table full Howell is 15 rounds, so you need a 3/4 Howell in which everyone doesn't play everyone. But this two-board sitout is preferable to the four board sitout in a byestand-relay 8-table movement with a phantom pair. Some may prefer this 3/4 Howell to the Mitchell, but most N-S club players prefer not to have to move. Howell's for very large numbers of tables exist and you can always print a guide to where to go for each pair from ACBLScore.

My nominee for the worst bridge convention is still unbridled Gerber, and I made my point in 2001 in r.g.b. thus: Several pairs in the suburban clubs around here have combined this one with another beaut: not only do they play GerberUberAlles (4C is ALWAYS Gerber), but the 4C bid initiates what they call "Roman Keycard Rolling Gerber." This means that they are not satisified with the extra space Gerber affords, they need even more! So when the initial response is received, the next bid up asks for kings. Unless it is the trump suit. If this is the case, as far as I have been able to determine, opinion is split. In this auction: Opener: 1H Responder: 3C (Bergen reversed, this is the limit raise and 3D is the four card single raise. Don't ask me why.) Opener: 4C (RKCRG--that is, Roman Keycard Rolling Gerber) Responder: 4D (Zero or three, or perhaps one or four. Probably one or four: they've reversed Bergen; they probably reversed this too.) This is the Moment of Uncertainty. Some people play Option One to ask for kings: Opener Wishing To Sign Off (turns over convention card and places cards face down on table): 4H. Opener Requesting A King Count (looks at ceiling for five seconds): 4H. Option Two recognizes the problem with Option One: when you bid 4H, partner may be looking the other way! In Option Two, to ask for kings you bid the next suit up, 4S in this case. (To sign off you still flip your convention card and put your cards down before bidding 4H, for improved clarity.) The best defense against this convention is in three parts: a> Identify it on the opponent's convention card as you arrive at the table and admire it with a few comments about how nice it must be to learn about aces and sometimes even kings without going past game. (Don't go too far and speculate that one could get to a grand knowing how many eights partner held--that would be a bit too sarcastic and your devious plan might actually be figured out.) b> Continue by noting the checkmark in the DOPI box, and make some comment such as "that must save space too--do you play it over doubles as well?" If they don't, teach them. c> As soon as you hear 4C from RHO (or a response to LHO's 4C, assuming partner doesn't know the defense), focus your eyes on your own cards and forget the vulnerability and the auction thus far. If you have a seven card suit or a good six card suit, bid it. If you have a balanced hand of zero HCP or more, double. If you are unbalanced but have no suitable suit to bid, bid your shortest suit. Trust me; it works. :P

xx1943, your English is far better than my German. :) In fact, it is far better than the English of many people who claim it as their first language!

13 tricks are always the result. If BBO allowed for procedural penalties I would adjust to 4S+3 and give N-S a quarter-board penalty, but without that I think best is to approximate the effect by awarding A-+. Perhaps this is not a good precedent to set, but we need to be able to give PPs. Please Uday? :unsure:

Psychic Call is defined in the Laws as 'A deliberate and gross misstatement of honor strength or suit length.' However, the Laws do not forbid such bids at all, except in one case: when they are made with such frequency that they become a de facto partnership understanding. Some of the so-called psyches mentioned in this thread are not psyches at all. The original one, a 1♥ opening on a singleton, certainly was. Responding 1NT to 1♦ while holding four bad hearts certainly is not. My number one concern as a TD in situations where the opponents claim damage due to a psyche is to take control of the situation. Too often the aggreived side is flailing about with snide comments and the accused side is responding in kind, like a football match where a player is trying to convince the referee to award a penalty kick on a dubious foul. You have to be a Jack "just the facts, ma'am" Webb type and prevent this from happening, threatening the players with penalties if neccesary. Nobody can make the right ruling if all four players are constantly gabbing. Here are the things to think about. 1. Were the opponents truly damaged by the bid they are complaining about? Damage must be clear and obvious to get to question 2: 2. If there was damage, was the bid a true psyche (must be deliberate and must be far from the normal expectation for the bid, not 'slightly off')? Is there evidence that is was a mistaken bid? If so, no redress. 3. Is there evidence that the bid might be a partnership understanding? If so, now you may award an adjusted score if the damage is serious enough to warrant it. In the vast majority of cases you will find that the opponents are overreacting and you must be firm in letting them know that psyches are legal, while excessive complaining about them is not. Some time ago in a club team game, I opened 2♠ in first seat and partner bid 2NT, asking for a feature. I had the K♣ AND the K♥ to go with my six spades to the QJT, so I had to think fast. Finally I settled on the solution that I would bid 3♦! This anti-feature bid (on a small doubleton) would likely get us to the right spot: --if partner bid 3NT over 3♦, I could assume we were missing a diamond stopper and I would correct to 4♠. --if partner bid 3♠ over 3♦, I could assume he thought we were missing a club or heart stopper and I would correct to 3NT. (You may object that there are flaws with my reasoning. Good--it means my 'psyche' was not risk-free.) Partner bid 3NT and I corrected to 4♠. LHO, who had over 2,000 MP, asked the meaning of our auction. Partner told him that 3♦ promised the ace or king of diamonds. Finally he decided to lead the A♦. All followed and he switched to a club. I was able to pitch a diamond and made an overtrick for 1 IMP (and as it turned out, no difference in Victory Points). LHO, who had held the ace and king of diamonds, went ballistic, calling me a cheater in a loud enough tone to carry the whole room. I called for the Director.

To make a long story short (and add a long one of my own): The player claimed all the rest missing the ace of trumps and defended this by saying his opponents do this all the time. I imagine Mirjam_3 adjusted to the correct number of tricks without trouble; the question is what to do about the player who made the deliberate overclaim. Sadly, the answer is that nothing we can currently do will help. You can do nothing and the player will continue to overclaim. Or you can ban him from your tournaments and the player will continue to overclaim in someone else's tournaments. Or you can report him and he will claim he made a mistake and apologize and continue overclaiming. People do these things because they improve their score by doing so. Until we Directors can start handing out penalties to convince players that some tactics are going to cost them IMPs, they will continue to do so. In my tournaments I have a rating system and I adjust people's scores if they are slow or if they misbehave. I got a complaint about a player's unkind comments a few days ago and went to the table unannounced. I talked to the victim (who was the dummy) in private as the jerk completed the hand and began discussing his atrocious bidding to his RHO, claiming that he had to bid this way because of his current partner. I eventually received reports from two people that this player had at a previous table used the word 'stupid.' Eventually this happened (I've replaced the name, of course): thejerk: what else would you bid if you had my cards rho? rho: 1!D thejerk: 18 points..1 D??? rho: yes...sayc (thejerk had opened 1NT in first seat with a balanced and unflawed 18 and played it there) thejerk: my partner had perfect hand to transdfer to minor (his partner had 2-2-4-5 and 5 HCP) lho: minor transfer or suppose to be six thejerk: myP is someone who passes 4NT .. last ahnd .. lol .. he would pass 1D also McBruce: that comment will cost you 3 IMPs thej McBruce: there is no excuse for making such public comments rho: 1NT 15-17 anyway McBruce: one more like that and I will replace you thejerk: whichcomment are you talkingabout? rho: 18 bid 1NT will make difference, maybe win or loss, not avg McBruce: criticizing partner's play of the hand is not allowed here McBruce: or bidding The most amazing thing happened: several kibitzers sent me messages of support: STRONG support. ->thejerk: I have two people telling me you used the word stupid. This is unacceptable behavior and you are lucky to be penalized ... ->thejerk: only 3 IMPs. Plus, your comments about partner passing your 1NT bid betray you as clearly a non-expert. thejerk: he does not know my hand .. lol .. so what you are saying holds no water .. lol .. he has to listen to my bid and make ... thejerk: th eproper bid .. lol (Note the use of 'lol' as though he is always a genial, laughing sort. I bet he used lol in the message where he called partner stupid.) thejerk: I bid 1NT .. he has to go by my bid ... ->thejerk: with a five count and 2-2-4-5 pass is correct over 1NT. thejerk: lol .. you notice we made 3NT?? ->thejerk: that's because you made the wrong bid to start with thejerk: oh ..so what would you bid .. ->thejerk: 1D like any sayc player thejerk: my P does not play sayc ..or he would not pass 4NT .. was my view The jerk kept arguing with me long after the tourney was over, despite the fact that (and this must have been a real shock to him) he had not finished in the top 100 with his inexhausitble supply of brilliancies, so the 3 IMP penalty was meaningless. But it must have really angered him, because he would not stop yapping! Finally I agreed to look at the board on which his partner had passed Blackwood. The jerk had a 16 count, 2-2-4-5 with AK Ax and five more points in the minors. No standard 1NT for our hero, he opened 1C. Partner bid 1S and he rebid 3NT, showing a 19 count at least. Partner held 6-5-1-1 and tried 4H. Back came 4NT. Does this seem like Blackwood to you? It seems quite possible to me that it is a signoff. This was all just too much. ->thejerk: which board was it? ->thejerk: never mind, I've got it. You rebid a sign-off 3NT with about 4-5 points less than you need, and partner with 6-5 in the ... ->thejerk: majors tries 4!H so now 4NT is Blackwood? Tell me another one. People who do well in this tournament use normal bids ... ->thejerk: and take their gifts when they come, instead of trying to mastermind every hand and grumbling in public chat when ... ->thejerk: partner cannot work out impossible bidding. thejerk (Lobby): Ihave no idea what you are trying to say .. does not make sense to me .. the fact is I made 6 NT on that contract .. lol thejerk (Lobby): and I doing well in this tournament is not my aim in life .. And the punch line: thejerk (Lobby): and stupid is a word used in the best of circles in the real world ..it is no tan iinsult because it refered to the bid ... thejerk (Lobby): and not to the person.. and even if it did refer to a person it is not a curse .. tell me if you know anyone in real ... thejerk (Lobby): life who considers stupid as a word tht should not be used in public in decent conversation I had no answer for this. It all seemed just too stupid for words. :rolleyes:

What are the opponents complaining about here? This is the relevant question, and you haven't provided us with enough of the details for us to answer properly. If the opponents are claiming damage because they expect 10 points for this bid, I am giving them a serious warning unless this damage is crystal clear, which seems very unlikely at favourable vulnerability. West is only three pips short of a ten count (J♦ instead of the ten, J♣ instead of the nine) and has a six card suit. This Director call is probably meant to intimidate. People who call the Director on nitpickery such as this need object lessons in the form of procedural or disciplinary penalties. However, if the opponents are claiming that E-W have an agreement that 2♣ can be lighter than 10 HCP, they may have a case. If East has about 15-16 HCP and stopped short of game, I'd be wondering why. This would be a case for the Rule of Coincidence, and N-S might be due an adjusted score if they misdefended based on misreading the strength of the declarer's hand.

Could we have a "feedback mechanism" such that Directors could rate players who make nuisances of themselves then? There are as many nuisance players who call often (and repeatedly) without good reason as there are Directors making random rulings. I could tell you some stories... :D

The Director is completely wrong here, and is making a serious error in judgment. If 3♠ is an improper bid by the tourney conditions, then E-W are the offending side and N-S are the non-offenders. There is no Lawful or earthly reason for N-S to be handed average minus for doing nothing wrong. I fail to see how 3♠ can be improper. It may not be a sound call, but it is certainly legal. Maybe if the partnership agreement is highly unusual (it shows a hand with five pairs and seven outside spots!? :D ) it may be deemed illegal because only a computer could understand it, but it certainly seems like a natural bid based on what followed. Is it possible that East misclicked 3♠ for 2♠ and alerted the Director privately, and the Director decided that instead of 5♥ down one, probably about 10% for N-S, E-W should get 50% less for causing the problem and N-S should get 30% more for being innocent? Of course, this is not a Laws-approved decision by the Director. Even if 3♠ is for some very strange reason outlawed, the correct ruling is to first attempt to work out a likely result, and if this is impossible, assign A+-, not A--.

One of my favorite local partners is an elderly gentleman from Iran (left before the revolution and often talks about the old days...) who will probably never die: he is in his eighties and still walks more in a day than I do in a week, at a speed even I, about 35 cm (14 inches) taller, would find hard to match. The bridge quality is fading but nothing ruffles him and he is a joy to play with for the entertainment value alone. Once we were defending a slam and he somehow carefully neglected to release his last trump until declarer's fifth attempt to extract it. Declarer had miscounted trumps and had decided that he would need a squeeze. Imagine his surprise when my partner won the squeeze trick and proceeded to cash four more winners! I called the Director once the play ended and somehow managed to describe what had happened without bursting into laughter. The Director asked the opponents if they agreed. They did. "OK," said the Director. "Transfer five tricks from the defense to the declaring side and score it up." At this point my partner interrupted: "Excuse me. FIVE tricks? At the club where I play I only have to give one or two!" :(

Taking this topic in a new tangential direction.... Is it not true that the ACBL GCC has two main purposes? 1. To define what conventions and partnership agreements can and cannot be played in general ACBL events. 2. To set out a procedure for alerting/announcing that maximizes opponents' ability to get needed information while minimizing unauthorized information through public disclosure of agreements. Isn't this the dual purpose of the GCC? It serves to maximize the limited full disclosure in the most common type of duplicate game, where you play only two or three boards against each pair. In such an environment, one cannot provide full disclosure, like an extended team match where the more unusual conventions can be provided to the opponents in advance and defences can be set. Nobody would play if they were going to receive three pages of notes on each of 8-13 opponents each session. If you agree with that, consider the following: Every time someone asks for a bid to be explained in an ACBL (or other NCBO) offline game, there is a potential for unauthorized information. I'm just learning Precision, and I know full well I have faced situations where I received UI from my partner's explanation. In online bridge, there is NEVER a reason for this to happen. We alert and explain our own bids in private to the opponents. Partner sees nothing. The GCC is still useful for setting the boundaries of which types of conventions can be used and which cannot. But, except for differences in language and literacy, online bridge completely eliminates the need for any type of complicated system of alerts and explanations (such as the GCC). All that is needed is some simple definition of which bids are self-alertable: All CONVENTIONAL bids (those which convey more information than a beginner would assume only from the level and denomination) and UNUSUAL calls (calls which are natural but which show very different types of hands from those which a beginner would assume) must be alerted. Any call which might be assumed by a beginner to show a much different strength and/or shape than the partnership agreement specifics should be alerted and explained in the alert text area as soon as possible. By beginner I mean someone who has learned to play by going through Fred's LTPB program; who bids what he has and knows virtually nothing about conventional calls. If you like you can add something about notrump ranges, but nobody has yet been able to explain to me why this is such a brilliant idea yet (don't people bother to read convention cards anymore?). So argue all you want about the limitations of the GCC. I myself don't think any director should say "that convention is not allowed" and hold up play to do so. It seems to me a better approach would be to say "This may not be GCC-legal but I will have to look it up. Please play the deal and I will adjust the score if it appears to me that it is not GCC-legal." Once again (noting from the original thread that the opponents in this case, as happens far, far too often, "made rude comments" about the pair that was using what they thought was an illegal convention) I plead with BBO to work on an implementation of Laws 90 and 91, at least for sanctioned tournaments. Law 90 gives the Director the power to assess procedural penalties for those who refuse to make some effort to conform to normal procedures, even when the opponents are not damaged. Law 91 allows the TD to suspend (TDs can do this) or assess disciplinary points to a contestant for a serious violation of behavior (this part we cannot). It would be as simple as sending a message to the TD once the tournament ends: Assess procedural penalties to anyone? Yes [ ] No [ x ] [OK] The TD could change this to yes and deduct points from a pair's, a team's, or (in an indy) an individual's score. No need to publicize these penalties in any way (except by adding the results from myhands and comparing them to the adjusted results posted). Without this rule, BBO has no effective way of promoting the ACBL's Zero Tolerance for Unacceptable Behavior policy, which is a basic requirement to become a recognized one, two, or three star club in the ACBL. But my main point here is that we have absolutely no need of anything as complicated as the ACBL Alerting system online. We have virtually effortless Full Disclosure, and once people understand this (and if it costs them a small penalty they will make an effort), it will be better than the current confusion over what needs to be alerted, what needs to be announced, and the apparent unlimited, unregulated and risk-free pot-shots one can recieve from the opponents when, right or wrong, they think you are playing an illegal convention and are more concerned with getting their good score without playing bridge than actually trying to get a good score by earning it.

It seems to me that West's pass of the 5♦ call is very strong evidence that either he knew that 2NT was unusual (therefore an alert seems to be called for), OR, he thought that partner's 2NT was stong and balanced and bid a quantitative or Blackwood 4NT. Perhaps you can make a case that this is one where the auction itself tells West that pass is likely to be best over 5♦. If it is a Blackwood call, they are off two aces and another bid may be disastrous. If quantitative, unless there is an agreement about what 5♦ means, it looks to me plausible that this is a sign-off attempt by East. Anyhow, I am not seeing the problem here. 4♥ can go down three on a spade lead and even bad defense beats it a trick. E-W have turned +500 or +800 into a chance at -100 if N-S get all their tricks against 5♦. E-W may be given a procedural penalty for failing to alert 2NT if unusual is their agreement, but I don't think N-S was damaged. Perhaps the best bid as South after 2♥ - 2NT - ? might be 3♠! This will likely get doubled, but when you retreat to 4♥ and they bid 5♦ it will get a spade lead from partner. Dummy's void will lead you to the best defense after that. A heart lead into AK opposite void is what's called 'rub of the green,' meaning unlucky, not damage. The 3♠ bid works whether the 2NT call is natural or unusual, not that the latter should enter anyone's mind. :ph34r: