DrTodd13

The video is lame lame lame. It's like trying to sell refrigerators to eskimos. If a kid ever does go there and watch the video, they are more likely than not to be repulsed by it and never ever try bridge even if they might try it had they never seen the video. The reason is they think that if they try it they will be surrounded by people who evidently think that this video is cool. This just shows how out-of-touch ACBL marketing is. I think something much more straight forward and sober that simply says "Bridge has gotten a bum rap. If you enjoy strategic games like Magic: The Gathering or chess then bridge is for you." Include some testimonials from the young people that are playing the game and you may attract that portion of the youth that are inclined to games of this type anyway. You're simply not going to attract the majority of youth that are slaves to our vapish culture.

They won't know what you are doing if you encrypt it. Moreover, they can't disambiguate legitimate uses of ssh from illegitimate uses of ssh tunnels.

Yes.

What do you mean by "standard?" If by that you mean are the bids in that system standardized within the context of those who play the system then I would tend to believe that forcing pass systems are more standardized than any of the popular systems. Maybe that is a function of the fact that they aren't popular and therefore you don't have a lot of cooks spoiling the broth, i.e. tinkering with the system. My partner and I already have a semi-automated alert system for some common sequences although we don't go very deep in the tree. Those who play FP systems are likely to be more proactive about disclosure so in a sense they need "Full Disclosure" less than others. IMO, the FP players (and relayers to a lesser extent) already feel alienated enough so it is not surprising to us that "Full Disclosure" doesn't suit our needs. I understand that it was made with the majority in mind but any system that isn't bound by some specific sponsoring organization's baggage should really be neutral w.r.t. systems, as the laws of duplicate bridge themselves are agnostic.

I doubt many will pay to play against GIB on BBO. There are numerous free double-dummy solvers that could be used on the server side without the expense of a GIB license.

If a sequence comes up at the table that you haven't provided an explanation for in FD, it would be nice if BBO would bring up the FD window for that sequence and allow you to enter the information at that time and then save it. In this way, you could build up the system over time rather than doing it all at once. I too share hrothgar's concern about relay systems. It isn't easy at all.

Thanks everyone! B)

Hmmm. Unfortunately, HTTHost is Windows-only software so I don't know what you could do to facilitate HTTPort except to install a Windows machine with HTTHost on it. If you went that route then I believe you can restrict HTTHost to only forward packets to BBO servers rather than the general Internet. To facilitate the ssh solution, you could create an account for every BBO user on one of your Linux boxes (with very restricted permissions of course). Basically all you could do would be to solve the need for a machine outside the user's firewall. The client side tends to be the more difficult side anyway in terms of configuration. It is so difficult that it is probably beyond the abilities of most BBO users. It is totally possible to integrate most of the difficult points into the client where the user would just have to configure whether they wanted to use a proxy, which type to use, and the address of the proxy.

P2P is just a buzzword. When you have a situation where the parties in a TCP connection are fundamentally assymetric in their function then one is usually called the server and one called the client. "Client-server" is basically the opposite of P2P and BBO would fit into this client-server paradigm. Things like Napster were actually a mix of client-server and P2P. It was client-server to find out who had a particular file you wanted but from then on it was P2P because you talked to another "client" (client-to-client = P2P) directly. So, for the task you want, don't confuse yourself with P2P or not because that is really irrelevant. You just need to be concerned with TCP. There are two ways I've gotten what you want to do to work. One is using HTTPort and the other is using SSH. The following is a brief flavor on both. I don't provide enough information here to actually get it working I think but I give you enough to show you how hard it is. Ask for more info if this doesn't scare you off. 1. HTTPort - Look up HTTPort on google and download the software to the machine behind the firewall (hitherto known as the client). Start HTTport and add a mapping for local port 9999 to remote host bbo.bridgebase.com and remote port 9999. Specify your proxy server's address and then go to BBO's directory and edit the file bbover.ini. Change the BBO server name to "localhost" (without quotes) and change the server IP address to 127.0.0.1 (leave the port alone at 9999). Click the "start" button on HTTPort and then run BBO. When run in this way, you will be using a public HTTHost server that will relay your requests to BBO. The problem is that there aren't many of these servers and they are very overloaded so your connection to BBO will be dog-slow if it works at all. The solution to this is to download HTTHost onto another machine that you own that is on the internet but outside the firewall that you are trying to evade (call this machine PSERVER). Then go to HTTPort and specify PSERVER as your own personal relay server. Sounds easy but it is pretty tricky. If you are using XP then you'll have to open a hole in the Windows firewall to allow HTTHost traffic to enter your machine. If you are using broadband on PSERVER then you may have to provide a NAT entry on your broadband router so that incoming HTTHost traffic goes to the right computer. This method has been very flaky for me and I don't recommend it although it is the easier method for computer novices, although easier in this case is still pretty difficult. 2. SSH tunnel. This is the method that I currently use. Start by installing cygwin (google it) with ssh support on both client and PSERVER. Open up TCP port 22 on your broadband router and XP firewall. Open up a cygwin command prompt on PSERVER and run sshd. You may have to mess with configuring accounts recognized by ssh first. Then on the client, download "connect.c" from the internet through google and compile it (gcc -o connect connect.c), which of course will require you to install gcc on the client. Now, on the client you can setup an ssh tunnel from the client to PSERVER with the following: ssh -2 -x -o "ProxyCommand ./connect.exe -H <your HTTP proxy:port> <PSERVER's IP address> 22" -L 9999:bbo.bridgebase.com:9999 <your username@PSERVER's IP address> This gets more complicated if you have a broadband NAT in which case you would specify <your username@your machine's internal/private network address>? Need I go on?

I remember about 10 or 15 years ago before I knew how to play bridge that there was a woman on PBS who had a bridge show. The woman was about 187 years old, had wrinkles deeper than the grand canyon and kept talking about how wonderful, fascinating and lovely certain bridge hands were. I don't remember too much about bidding discussions but I can't imagine they were very up-to-date. As much as we would all like to maintain the game so that we have something to do 20 or 40 years from now, the decline is inevitable. You can't change human nature. Most people are lazy. Most people don't like to think unless necessary and even when they think they are thinking it is at a very shallow level. For the masses, how do you compete with the brain-dead insta-entertainment that is TV and team sports? I don't think you can. I think you just have to target your promotions to the small percentage of people who actually like using their minds. Maybe somehow arrange to have free bridge lesson coupons placed in the materials of many other complicated occupations.

I have some experience in this area. If you give me more information I may be able to help you. In almost every case, you'll need access to a machine outside your firewall that can relay internet requests for you. What kind of proxy do you have? Is it just an HTTP proxy or do you also have a SOCKS proxy? Either one will work with the technique that I currently use. I assume you are talking about a Windows machine for the client and for the outside relay machine? I ended up using cygwin for both ends but I was already using cygwin for other things so it was no big deal. I know of other techniques which should work but I haven't had much luck with them. Just so you know, this process is likely to be pretty difficult.

What is the cause of the initiation of this booting policy? Are people really capriciously kicking people for no reason? It is a private site and you can set whatever rules you like but I think a table host should have wide latitude to have the type of table he likes. Why should someone have to be stuck at a miserable table just because somebody they don't know sits down and then starts causing trouble. Just one day last week I had to kick several people because they saw the table note which requested "experts+" and so they changed their skill level to world class then joined the table and then they play like crap and I look at their stats and it now says novice. Also had to kick some people for open accusations of misconduct. Personally, I'd rather see an automated reputation system tried (ala E-Bay) before we go down the road to an authoritarian solution.

If you make a bid enough such that when the situation occurs again the thought pops into your partners head that you might have done it again then you have an agreement and it is no longer a psyche. Your agreement now becomes, e.g., "partner bids 1♠ around 20% of the time and 2♥ otherwise." If you don't alert this, you are failing to inform your opponents of a special agreement. If having such a multi-meaning bid is outlawed by the sponsoring organization then you can't get around this regulation by claiming it is a psyche. I'd go so far as to say that position of most sponsoring organizations is inconsistent in this regard. In some circumstances, they'll bust you for this behavior for something that is unique to your system. However, take the 1♥-(X) scenario. It is "common knowledge" that many experts will "psyche" 1♠ here, at least some of the time, when they really have a ♥ raise (or perhaps on other types of hands). This is so common that it is really an implicit agreement amongst experts and not a psyche but at least the ACBL doesn't require an alert here because people are somehow supposed to know that this is a "frequently psyched" position. Yet another example of sacrificing consistency of rules in order not to upset the apple cart.

If you as a player feel that you are better able to cope with complicated auctions than your opponents then I don't see why you wouldn't want to try to create complicated auctions. It is not necessarily a sign of weakness in some other area that you try to do this. It may only be that you're using everything that you can to your advantage. I think the situation is exaggerated a bit too for you have to retain some constructive to your agreements or you'll never reach the right contract if the opps don't fall all over themselves getting in your way. So, hand type will be resolved somehow and this will provide a mechanism for competition.

The goal is not to find out what constitutes "truth". It is to define the rules of a game such that the enjoyment level of the participants is maximized. Like you, I don't trust large groups of people (American or otherwise) to come to sensible conclusions on matters of "fact", but this is not about a matter of fact - it is about what people want. People want whatever it is they want, regardless of whether or not someone else considers it "intelligent" to want that. About the 95% number, I just made it up of course. I have no idea what the number really is. What if 95% is accurate? Are you really advocating making the game less enjoyable for that big a majority in order to satisfy the desires of a small minority of players? What if the number was 99%? What if only 1 bridge player in the whole world wanted the rules to be a certain way? I think that at some point you have to admit that it is right to cater to the masses (especially if you want people to continue to play the game). The majority is always unstoppable. Rules and constitutions cannot stop them because they can simply ignore the rules or change the constitution. Who can prevent it since they are the majority? Truth, right and wrong do exist but they are not defined by the majority. They are largely irrelevant because the majority will define their own false "truth." I personally find the viewpoint that society or a game should be modified for the maximum enjoyment of the most people to be highly offensive. I'd rather have a set of unchanging consistent rules even if I didn't like some of the consequences than a situation in which everyone is fighting to get their own agendas codified in the laws. I guess this opinion comes from being perpetually abnormal and always being in the minority. I might offer though that the initial developers of the rules were closer to the pure "right and wrong" versus "what rules would make people happy." If we took a vote on 40A, do we believe that most people would vote to retain the right to psyche when most people themselves never ever psyche and only get upset when people do it against them?

Hi Fred, Thanks for all the effort in putting this tool together. I can understand that you didn't put it together for the benefit of forcing pass players so it doesn't suprise me that I can't figure out how to show our strong opening pass. Any ideas? thanks, Todd

Dejeuner has several bids that are un-anchored. Gergen's defense to dejeuner has even more bids that are un-anchored. This level of uncertainty is fine with me but it certainly does add an element of randomness to the game. If every initial bid and initial overcall could show multiple hands types, I wonder if even the most liberal among us would enjoy such a scenario. In principle, I wonder what the optimum amount of randomness is for sifting out the best players and for the enjoyment of the players themselves.

Those who like to play weird systems like to watch weird systems. Those who don't like to play weird systems don't like to watch them. So, speak for yourself. I would be more likely to watch if somebody was using a HUM. Admittedly, it would be better to have somebody that knew what the bids meant and could tell us but if the scope of commentator were expanded to any of the number of systems fanatics around then you'd always have somebody available to help with commentary.

I guess the doc I sent Free is out-of-date. My partner didn't like some of the changes I made so we regressed to the following changes. 1♠ = 9-13, 5+♦, no 4cM unless 5-4-4-0 2♣ = 9-13, 5+♣, no 4cM unless 5-4-4-0, <5♦ 2♥ and 2♠ are weak twos I still think the changes I made are better though so if you want to play the system I suggest you play it as it is written. In any case, WE NEED SOME OPPS! So many people who just sit down overrate themselves and completely fall apart when the tinest weird thing happens at the table. We want good opps, so we challenge everyone on the face of the earth to come beat us!

For all those who likes things a little bit different, I welcome you to come play against or just kibitz the dejeuner forcing pass system in action. Foobar and I (DrTodd) will be playing it on weekdays during our lunch hour from 12-1 PST (GMT -8). We're always on the lookout for opponents who will actually stick around for the entire hour since we like to maximize the number of hands. Contact me if you and your partner would like to challenge us. Hope to see you there. Todd

"Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do." -- Bertrand Russell

May I suggest, click on a bid once perhaps twice, if you get no response call the TD. jb Doesn't work if there isn't a TD.

I'll keep repeating it until it gets done. (Same thing happened to me a couple weeks back. I clicked on a bid and opp hit escape. I clicked on bid again, and opp hit escape again. This went on for about 30 iterations.) I personally think that to stop this behavior and (largely) eliminate the language barrier, we need to pop up a box where someone can describe length/shortness in each suit, a range of points, bal/unbal/unknown, and maybe a couple other things. When someone clicks on your bid then this box pops up and you should not be able to get rid of it by hitting escape. The only way to get rid of it would be to complete each section. Only then would an "OK" button appear that you could click. BBO enforces most of the rules of bridge and I think it should enforce this one as well. In real life, you can't just sit there and refuse to explain your bids. Refusing to explain should be something that the BBO software prohibits.

Yesterday, somebody told me that there was an incident in Reno several years ago where a rather large man was upset with his partner so he got up, went over, and farted in his partner's face. I suggest we be very serious about zero tolerance for farting.

1m-1♥-1N. Partner will know whether that can contain 4♠ or not. The opps don't know whether it does or does not. Therefore, according to your rule this should be alerted. Do you agree? I thought there was a time when we all agreed that style was not alertable and style is nothing more than agreements that don't rise to the level of "unexpected." Some people do play that pass in your example denies 3 card support. Both that position and the position that it does not deny 3 card support are both agreements so maybe you can convince me more but I'm not buying into this inference vs. understanding thing. To me, partner makes inferences based on our understandings.