DrTodd13

I have MS visual studio. I'll try running spy++ and see what happens. Todd

Yes, this is unethical. Todd

I know that most of the time I've seen the white screen that I was at a table playing and it was around the time that it was my turn to click on a card. As far as I can remember, I've never gotten the white screen at the first screen or at the main bridge club tables screen. Nor have I ever gotten the white screen while kibitzing. Todd

Hi Fred, Do you know what OS the white screen problem is appearing on. All the people that I saw say they had the problem were using XP. Maybe that could help track the problem down. Also, the weird thing about the white screen is that it doesn't just white-out the BBO frame, it whites out the entire desktop (at least for me). Also, during a white-out, some other things seem to be non-responsive but that is hard to tell since the white screen doesn't last very long. I've done my share of windows programming and this problem is different from the "application is busy and can't redraw its window" problem. If BBO was on top and it stopped refreshing then you wouldn't notice anything except that nothing in the BBO window would change. If the window isn't refreshing and you drag another window over it then you get that effect where the contents of the window that were dragged continue to appear in the BBO window. This white screen problem seems to me different from either of these symptoms. I've never seen anything like this issue with any other application. Todd

Yes, the white screen issue is not a new one. I run XP home edition and I think I started getting the white screens with version 3.9.4 onwards. I don't have card animations turned on either. I haven't noticed any pattern that might indicate why they are happening. I haven't experienced any crashes either in any of the last 3 versions. Todd

Looks like it fits the definition of a 3♣ bid here to me. Todd

Here is my wish list in no particular order. 1) Skins. One of the biggest complaints I hear from OKB people about BBO is the general layout and color scheme. Implement a skin system with the current layout as the default skin and you can alleviate some of these complaints. 2) Revamp of team game system. Trying to organize a team game is a lot of work. Don't have too much in the way of a suggestion other than "make it easier." 3) Add the ability to click on a defender's card to ask about carding agreements just like clicking on a bid asks about bidding agreements. 4) For both bidding alerts and carding questions, use more structured fields rather than free-form text and then translate those structured fields into the various supported languages. DrTodd

I'm not saying I like the idea of 2C-2S being 11-16 with 6+ but I do know I don't like the idea of wasting all these bids and all this bidding space. Personally, I've had very little problem using the guessing principle in situations like this and I haven't put all that much thought into the follow ups over the suggested 2C and 2H ambiguous bids but I don't think the difficulties would be insurmountable. Look at it this way, you are losing all the preemption you could be getting from weak distributional hands and so what if you can roll them up into 1N, you're still giving opponents all of the two level to interfere.

It seems to me that there are so many hand types that reserving relatively low level bids like 2♣-2♠ to mean just one thing is necessarily stopping you from describing other hand types. How about this, use 2♣ to show 11-16 with ♣ or ♦ and use 2♥ to show 11-16 with ♥ or ♠. This at least frees up 2♦ and/or 2♠ to show weak two-suiters.

Yes, in general, anywhere there is a list in BBO there should be a FILTER button that selects from the list based on whatever criteria are important for that list. Often for ACBL tournaments, I'd like to be able to filter for experts or world class that aren't requesting their entry fee be paid. In addition, filtering out people labelled as enemies from this list would also be nice. Todd

No system can right-side every contract. Likewise, no system can prevent your partner from messing it up.

Why limit yourself to 2 possible meanings for a bid? Take a look at Purple Twos for a system of 2-level and 3-level bids where most of the two level bids show 5+ hand types, typically: - strong single suiter in one suit - weak single suiter in a different suit - strong two suiter with one anchor suit - weak two suiter with one ancher suit - big balanced NT range Ok. It is a bit crazy but super-fun to play. It also uses 1-under transfer preempts. It does give away an extra bid to opps but in many cases partner gets to declarer and right-side the contract. Todd

One last comment As I noted earlier in the thread, I think that its a mistake to expect the opponents to provide good defenses to their own methods. I very much prefer structures based on advanced pre-disclosure... I don't mind providing suggested defenses to our systemic openings (I was on the pair playing the forcing pass system). Our suggested defenses are not overly complex and if anything they err on the side of simplicity. I'm sure they aren't the optimal defense. I don't even know what the optimal defense is given that I've never played against my own system! I also don't mind posting the system beforehand and letting people devise their own defenses. I think it is important to differentiate between problems with our style versus problems with our system. Our style as enabled by our system is to get into the auction quickly and often with limited bidding and to get to the final contract quickly. This often leaves the opponents not knowing who has the majority of the points and the degree of our fit. This approach increases the amount of times people don't compete when they should and do compete when they shouldn't. My opinion at the time was that were some problems dealing with our system itself but that our style is tougher to deal with than the system itself. Then again, I wasn't on the other side so I'd be interested in hearing their opinion. I'd have to look at the hands again but I don't remember thinking to myself during the match that confusion over our system won us anything. Todd

Several people on BBO use a program called RemoteKeys. It can partially automate some of the typing on BBO. Moreover, it is free. Todd

Even if there were 400,000 users and each user's profile took 1000 bytes, that would only be 400MB. Have you looked at the size of disks lately? 400MB is a drop in the bucket. Another thing that I think might help is to store a CRC or MD5 checksum. When you receive somebody's profile then you can store it locally along with the checksum. When you transfer the user list then just ship the checksum along with it. If the checksums agree then no reason to download the profile. Todd

Just because misclaiming may be easy does not mean that play should (ideally) continue after a claim. The rules are as they are in f2f bridge about claims for a reason. A rejected claim may give declarer information. There are several instances where there are punishments in bridge for irregularities even though the vast majority of the time those irregularities are innocent mistakes. If you give people the benefit of the doubt then it becomes much harder to punish those who would abuse the system.

Foobar and I (DrTodd) could play our forcing pass system called Dejeuner. Several people here has seen us in action and we play it every weekday so we are well practiced. Not sure you want to be using pairs that are playing a new system for the second or third time.

One note of differentiation. If your stated defense to 1♣ is, "we always bid 1♠ regardless of what we have" then I would disallow such a defense. Basically, if you've made some attempt with your other bids to do something descriptive and you therefore the 1♠ bid is defined as the absence of the other bids then that is fine.

I started 10 years ago with 16-18, quickly followed by 15-17. If you make me pick one single range then I'll pick 14-16 which requires that 3 point range jump rebid with 17-19 but I'm aggresive so I like that. I've also played 13-15 in precision context and 12-14 and 10-12 in SA-based contexts. In a SA-based context, I really think that optimal is either or 2 or 3 range system. With my current competition pd we play 12-14 non-vul and 14-16 vul. I have also added a 10-12 or 10-13 range in there when nv vs vul. With my lunch time pd, we play a restricted 9-13 in the context of a forcing pass system. It is a fun system but kind of ridiculous sometimes when you end up in a pretty hairy 21 or 22 pt 2N contract. Again though, it is aggresive and therefore fun. Todd

We should be allowed to assign any meaning to calls that we want. Most people use (1♣)-Pass as the catch all but if you want to reverse the meanings of pass and 1♠ then who are we to say that they shouldn't do it? In my experience, the distributional hands will bid here so if you don't bid then you must have a balanced hand. This puts partner in a good position to name the denomination if his RHO doubles your 1♠ bid. Poor precision players getting their bidding space stolen from them...boo hoo. They are trying to use their bidding space efficiently and I'll fight like hell to stop them.

Anybody have any thoughts on why it seems to be necessary to average 5 IMPs a board to win these 12 board ACBL IMP tourneys? DrTodd

For me, it is becoming increasing fruitful to ignore the opponent's bidding, at least on BBO. A week or so ago I opened 1N in second suit (non-vul versus vul) and my LHO overcalled 2♣ natural with 2434 and 7 HCP!!! Needless to say, I took a couple of losing finesses in utter amazement. Todd

The problem is that many times it is legal to psyche something but illegal to have an agreement to regularly bid that way. At least this is the case in the ACBL. Heck, in the ACBL it is even illegal to psyche certain bids. Don't get me started. Todd

LOL. I used to use logic like we have 21, LHO opened and RHO has already shown 7 so LHO must have the rest of the points to have an opening. This logic used to work but it doesn't work anymore. LHO is a 3rd seat opener. Have you seen what people are bidding on these days? Yesterday, I opened a 2nd seat 1N (15-17) non-vul vs vul and my LHO overcalled 2C with 2434 and 7 HCP (and no they weren't playing DONT...2C was "natural")!!!!! Anyway, that ends my daily rant on the increasing meaninglessness (i.e., stupidity) of bidding on BBO.

Fred, Can we get filtering at the partnership desk based on skill level and payment preference? Todd