jeffford76

If you spent the time to implement defensive objections, you would just allow objections, not show hands, so I'm not sure why you are mentioning showing partners each other's hands. I also think that accepting a bum concession isn't about honesty, but rather about not carefully working out that you still have a trick to lose when an opponent says you don't. For what it's worth, rubber bridge laws also allow one defender to object to the other's concession (Law 71C).

This is a place where the BBO implementation doesn't follow bridge law. You are supposed to be able to object. Law 68B21: "...if a defender attempts to concede one or more tricks and his partner immediately objects, no concession has occurred."

Been around too many conversations that started "You have a reasonable 13 count so you open a 14-16 NT" to not treat it as weak.

Maybe you can't, but I play different defenses against these ranges. I am happy all ranges are announced.

I play a 12-14 1NT with a 2NT response showing exactly 5 hearts, invitational (which I know is idiosyncratic). I also play 3H/3S as natural to play, which isn't listed either.

The ACBL Laws Commission addressed this issue in November 2013 (I think because of an email I sent to rulings@acbl.org earlier that year). Here's the relevant quote from http://www.acbl.org/assets/documents/about/laws-commision-minutes/13-3-Laws-Commission-Minutes.pdf So in the ACBL, at least, this is settled.

Clearly you have to find a new partner.

If you can run 13 rounds in 3 hours, your pace of play is much faster than around here. We put 15 minutes on the clock for 2-board rounds and occasionally add a minute or two if a large part of the room is behind. And I agree on the web. It's been a few years now since I've played in a club game that didn't have everyone playing the same boards, except for missing boards via sitouts. I don't want to go back!

How do you figure? There are no places where ACBL regulations differentiate the minimum allowable opening bids by seat. So if you agree to open light in all seats, it's not a psyche to do so. And if you are using Drury to avoid getting too high on sub-minimal third seat openers you likely have an illegal agreement on your openings there.

Or they could just fix every problem with GIB. :)

We once had a case at the local club where a husband ruled in favor of his wife on a completely obvious UI case from a non-alerted Drury bid (after doing all of the appropriate consultation). The offending side wanted an appeal, and suggested that to make things even his wife should be on the committee.

It's not unreasonable. I like to play it as the old-fashioned cue bid, basically any hand that would be sick if partner passed the takeout double.

A large swath of the West Coast allows any defense to 1NT, even in otherwise GCC events. So you might want a choice for "I was already playing this."

I think that you sometimes have trouble differentiating between disagreement and personal animosity. I also disagreed strongly enough with your approach in a few past cases to approach another BBO moderator and was told essentially the same thing as Vampyr, that it was your forum, and that they weren't going to make any changes. I previously suggested in the forum that it would be better with more than one active moderator. No one is going to get all the decisions right, but a larger group will do better on more of them. I would like to suggest again, not that you step down, but that you consider sharing the moderation duty with some other active posters. I also think that lamford's Secretary Bird threads have in fact helped people out. Perhaps they weren't the same inexperienced directors you cared the most about helping, but that doesn't mean that the threads weren't useful. Most of the issues I have seen have been from people who don't like them complaining about them, not from the people who were actively engaging with the problems he presented.

The fact that the discussion has drifted somewhat from its original intention is not too surprising on an internet group. The fact that many people have engaged on this topic suggests that it is useful to have it. Having one place to ask questions, and a different place to conduct discussions seems like the right way to do this. Of course some of the times the questions asked will actually be exposing difficult points of law. But it's easy enough to direct those to the more discussion-oriented group. I hope the BBO Forums staff will decide on how best to incorporate Laws discussions on their forums today, not feel beholden to what these discussions were "supposed to be like".

It looks like there are multiple copies of the convention charts on the ACBL webpage currently, each with its own problems. I'll try to follow up on getting this fixed. There should be a new version on May 1 incorporating the recent changes, so hopefully that will be an impetus to fix the problems.

I don't know if it's still the case in the ACBL, but I was in an exact tie in a District NAP qualifier a few years ago, and rather than break it we split the monetary prize. It was with friends so we had actually already agreed to split it even if there was a tiebreak.

Perhaps it is time to add another moderator to this group? As David seems to have left us we have one person making all of the decisions. I have found online fora to work much better with a diverse cast of moderators. I don't know if any of them want the job, but I can think of several regular posters that would be good additions.

I watched the whole series, and found the finale so poor that I turned it off after fifteen minutes (after confirming with my wife that she felt the same way). I think this is the least satisfying "reveal" I've ever seen on tv.

Yes, it is allowed. Basically all constructive response are allowed with an exception for non-game-forcing relay systems. Kaplan Inversion is not a relay system.

I don't think this is required - the laws only have "unexpected alerts" as generating UI.

I don't think conference record is a meaningful measure when the teams have such different conference schedules. Of the 8 conference games each played, only 4 were against the same opponents.

While in general I think it's a good idea to consider "What would you have done if partner had correctly alerted/explained, and then took the action they took?" there are cases where there are no hands consistent with that except outright psyches. I think I am allowed to assume in those situations that partner (or I) forgot the method rather than being required to play partner to have done something completely bizarre on purpose.

Why? Even if Missouri beats them, Alabama played better throughout the year against a better schedule. That's what the playoffs are supposed to select for, not just the result of one head-to-head matchup. See also Baylor/TCU.

Actually he has Alabama at 82% to win the game, but also 64% to get in even if they lose the game. Bookmakers are giving odds similar to the 82% number.