DrTodd13

This is a red herring in my view, but it does raise an interesting question. I don't know anything about international law but I know a bit about contract law in the UK (excluding Scotland that has some peculiarities of its own). For there to be a contract there must be (in addition to other qualifying conditions) the payment of consideration. Some of the "pay" tourneys *might* bring about a contractual relationship under UK law, but if they did then the maximum remedy for its breach would be a return of the entry fee. The free tourneys would be wholly outside of any of the remedies of contract law, and when you join a tourney you simply take pot luck as regards how you are treated. But even if it fell within the jurisdiction of UK law AND was a pay tourney that qualified as a contract under UK law the refund of the entry fee would hardly restore equity for the damage caused by blackening someone's name in public. That would constitute a tort of libel (or possibly slander), for which the system of remedies is entirely separate from those developed in common law under contract. I was referring to contract in a more general sense. I wasn't saying that kicking someone from your tournament is a breach of a legal contract with the associated liability. I was using the term contract only with respect to the ethics of not abiding by your own conditiions of contest. Todd

The conditions of contest are a contract between host and player. They should say what is permitted and what is disallowed. In the absence of the former, the assumption is that the codified laws of bridge apply. In my view, so long as a player is obeying the rules of the tourney as specified in the conditions of contest, the host has no right to kick him. If hosts want to retain such a right then they must specify it in the conditions of contest with something like "I reserve the right to kick anyone for any reason." Hosts can't expect people to know what they intend when they write the conditions of contest. All they can do is read what is written and in the absence of specific definitions then the predominant usage of the term should apply. For example, if a host says "highly unusual methods are disallowed" then we have at least two reasons to believe that this refers to the official definition of HUM by the WBF. First, the host has used words exactly matching something defined in the laws of bridge. Second, using those words in a generic sense (instead of the WBF definition) will surely lead to mayhem because something that is weird for one pair or country won't be for another. If a host wants to ban more than the WBF definition of HUM then he needs to create an expanded generic definition or outlaw conventions by name. If you intend to ban something and you let some other weird method slip through the cracks then that is your fault and a host should be sanctioned for kicking people mid-tourney who have followed his rules. The host needs to learn from this lesson and rectify his definition to ban what he wants to ban. IMHO, the biggest fault of man is his desire to lord himself over others and this can be seen from the numerous TD hosts who have quickly become tyrannical and dictatorial.

Please let me know the name of this director so I can avoid them if I'm already not doing so!!! Todd

Again, there is the conflict between those who play for fun and those who play more seriously. Those who play for fun don't want to have to learn to defend against a bunch of new systems and conventions. I don't blame them for this. Conversely, there are those who take it more seriously and enjoy system experimentation and believe that this is a fundamental part of the game. Right now, there is conflict between the two groups because the former are successfully imposing their views on the latter or it might be fair to say that the ACBL is doing it for them to maximize their revenues. Why do we have to be at odds like this? On large on-line ventures and at bigger tournaments there is certainly enough interest to have no-holds barred events in parallel with restricted events. If such a scheme were to develop then I'm sure the ACBL would adequately describe what was legal in each event. We already have that sort of environment on BBO but what is lacking is the general ability on the part of many TDs to say what is allowed and what is disallowed. That is why I say we need some TD education. It is not an effort to force TD's to allow things they don't want to allow. It is just a way to make sure that people know what to expect when they join a tourney. Todd

Cool. Thanks Uday and Fred! They actually listen to people and make improvements. It is so refreshing.

You think all the TDs read this forum? I highly doubt it. We need to come up with an independent BBO director's quiz that would test a variety of things like what a HUM is, what UI is and how to deal with it, etc. Directors could take this quiz as often as they wanted and their latest score would be posted on a website for everyone to see. Make it a stamp of approval like UL is on the bottom of appliances. Todd

Why not just a brief message in the chat window about who logged in. What is annoying is having to click the bubble away. Also, what is also annoying is I have a new sound I added for private chat messages so that I can hear when someone sends me a message when I'm AFK. However, that sound is the same one used for when a friend logs in. So, I can't tell if I really got a private chat or if a friend just logged in.

Yeah, happy birthday Ben!

Todd - presumably you never go to the cinema, because they employ "ageist" pricing strategies such discounts for students, children and Oaps. Presumably family discounts are homophobic, asexualphobic and infertilephobic? Presumably you don't have any car insurance because they charge more for men, what a terribly sexist thing to do! Nope, I never go to the cinema. I have to have car insurance because that is mandated by law. I don't even have a problem with different car insurance premiums because statistically men have more accidents. I don't blame these places that charge different rates because I believe in freedom and they can discriminate however they want. However, I have the power to discriminate as well and I use it to boycott people who employ such policies.

Yes, indeed, who is John Galt? Not the people who came up with this idea for sure. While the host may want to maximize profits, they should realize that people may get upset for being charged more just because they have more money. They may end up only having people from the poor countries play and anybody from a rich country shouldl boycott due to the injustice. What is next? Different races being charged different prices and how do you plan on determing who is from what country? If you implement this then everyone will change their country to Ghana or something.

In principle, two-way (weak/intermediate or strong) pass or 1C systems ought to prevent the rampant destructive interference that is a knee jerk reaction to precision systems. However, from my experience, even though the weak/intermediate option is more likely than the strong option, the opps still think you're trying to pull something over on them. They ignore the weak option and treat it as a precisionish opening and respond in their old time ways. To me, those overcalls you get when you play precision are just annoying and in many cases bad-spirited and though they should be prevented in a two-way system where theoretically opps should bid constructively (since they could have game) they never do so the two-way system is as annoying as playing precision. Todd

Whenever I play forcing pass against someone, I have suggested defenses available and I let them discuss the first time it comes up how they want to defend against it. Like hrothgar says, people get so set in their ways that they think that the cue-bid of the suit actually bid is forcing rather than the implied suit. This is just a failure to think and to be stuck in a bridge rut. However, this rut is no reason to disallow such systems. People will quickly learn how to defend correctly against transfer oriented systems. After all, nobody plays 1N-2H! (transfer)-(2S) as natural. People have learned this is non-sensical. People will learn to adapt to other methods as well. Todd

I for one would boycott any tournament using such a pricing scheme. I reject "social welfare" as an end worth striving towards.

To a certain degree, I've started giving the opponents a chance to bid when I know that the hand belongs to my side. All they are doing is giving me information for when I am declaring the hand. Same thing against forcing pass. Right now, opps do not know when to interfere nor how to interfere. Sometimes they make these little step interferences that actually end up giving us room in a sequence of relays. Todd

Anybody have a good set of notes for Carrotti? Todd

Essentially, fert bids are preempts that tell you nothing about that person's hand, steal room from the opponents, and make them use defensive methods rather than their regular methods. Well, BOO-HOO! Banning something because it is hard to defend against is against the spirit of the game. Todd

Uday, A couple of issues. During login time, what percentage of the time is devoted to: 1) table state 2) tourney state 3) team game state 4) lobby state If #4 is a big percentage then is there anyway you could do this part lazily after the GUI is already up and running? You could see people's names but wouldn't be able to mouse and see their profile until the lobby (player) state was downloaded. Another alternative is to cache profiles locally on the client along with a checksum and to only transmit the checksum at login time and the client could send specific update requests for users that they have never seen before or whose checksum differs from what is cached. Todd

At non-vul, I'm pretty sure you can always improve MOSCITO by moving some of the bids lower by a step and moving the really awful hands into a fert bid, thus turning MOSCITO into a forcing pass system. This will approximately double the amount of bids you have to exchange information on the hands where you are likely to need to do so. And if you want to talk about making it hard on your opponents, when every system in play is based on the premise that opponents pass = weak then you get a real advantage when they have to shift into their much less precise overcall sequences. Essentially, the fert is just a low level preempt that steals bidding space from the opponents. Use it wisely and you will rarely get hammered. Todd

I second (or third or fourth) the opinion that if nothing is said then there are no restrictions. One problem is that we've got tournament hosts who say things like "WBF rules enforced" and they think this means that forcing pass sytems and brown stickers are prohibited. The WBF does determine the conditions of contests for the tourneys it runs and some of these ban brown sticker and forcing pass in certain circumstances. However, nothing about the basic laws of bridge or the WBF ban such things in every circumstance. Those of us who do play such systems and conventions should be proactive about disclosure and provide suggested defenses so that people are more likely to accept such things into the mainstream in the future. One note on controlled psyches. This is just a fancy way of saying that you have a convention that a certain bid has two meanings: one orthodox and another a completely different (usually weaker) meaning with subsequent bids that allow differentiation. I'll say it again, the ACBL had to ban controlled psyches because if the people had just said that that was their convention then the existing ACBL rules would have said such a convention was illegal.

I'm not sure I'd want to see tourney results compared against par but it would be interesting for every hand that is played to determine and show the par result. Todd

Feliz compleanos mi amigo! Todd

I would think this double would request an unusual lead and since the usual lead would be a spade after the 3S bid I think this is requesting a non-spade lead. Todd

Maybe it is too basic but attitude and count signals are carding conventions and those are among the last things that I would give up. If you want something a bit more complex then trump suit preference is also underrated. On the bidding side, "2N never natural in competition" is one of the most useful if less frequently used conventions.

I agree with Ben with the proviso that "you can't possiby win" means literally there is no line of play in which you can lose this trick. If there is any line, even a completely ridiculous line, that results in declarer losing that trick then he has lost it by mis-claiming.

Who said anything about "server" resources? If this was done correctly, the video and audio would be de-centralized. If one of the players had broadband then their machine could be used as a central point but it is not really necessary for any machine to be a central point. The problem is that 4 (even small) videos and voice would overwhelm dial-up connections. Drop the video and use still pictures and it is doable. If you want audio, you can do that already with Yahoo Messenger. Personally, I think there are enough other improvements necessary before sugar like audio and video. Todd