DrTodd13

I have posted Excel and PDF versions of the tournament brackets on my web page at http://www.geocities.com/drtodd13/bridge.html. Enjoy! Todd

There is an application called "RemoteKeys" that I am currently starting to use to automate alert messages. You can even assign alerts to particular keystrokes so you don't have to click on another window to send the right alert. RemoteKeys is freeware so you can avoid the expense of OKscript. Todd

There is a "conditions of contest" button you can click on and there is plenty of room there for lots of text. If directors are going to use this (and I think they should) then the tourney description box should make clear the conditions of contest have been posted. I've been very happy so far that most tournaments don't seem to place any restrictions on methods. All that is expected is that full explanations be given and all unusual bids alerted. I'd also like to thank most players who run into our forcing pass system and by and large don't complain. Most of the time they still get to the right contract. Occasionally, the preemptive effect of a 1H fert causes them problems but that is the goal of preemption.

I have no problem with someone running a tourney and placing any system restrictions they want. They just need to tell people before hand and not after the tourney has already started. There is a button on the tourney window for conditions of contest and system restrictions should be placed there with a note in the tourney description to say to see conditions of contest. Or...maybe a change to BBO to automatically show the conditions of contest when a pair registers. This would give them a chance to bow out if they choose not to live with the conditions.

To all tournament hosts, Thank you for hosting tournaments but please one favor! Put the conditions of contest in the tournament advertisement or provide a link to the conditions of contest in said advertisement. Please do not wait until people are bidding the first board and then spring conditions of contest, specifically system restrictions, on them. Played in a tournament last night where 3 bids into the first hand director informed the tournament that anything not allowed in North American tournaments was verboten. Unfortunately, the only two systems partner and I wanted to play were both not allowed in North American tournaments! Todd

Bids that can show a variety of hand types are not "encryption" as that term is used with respect to encrypted signals. I did a little bit of thinking and despite the rules of full disclosure, encrypted bidding is also possible! In a spiral scan, partners can know how the A and K of a suit are divided even though the opponents do not know and aren't entitled to that information, the partners could make subsequent bids provisional on whether responder has -,AK,A, or K of a certain suit (responder's longest?). The encrypted meaning would probably be resolved when dummy is seen though. I have no problem with encrypted signals either. If defender's are smart enough to figure out an encryption key then they should get the benefit of that intelligence. Often times though, defenders would have to retain certain cards in order to not reveal the encryption key to declarer. These cards are almost by definition not very worthwhile and so will often have to be pitched at some point. So, again, people smart enough to use encryption get some transitory benefit.

How about this? Whenever you alert a bid, a box will pop up with a list of your previous alerts (maybe you can say what system you are playing so your moscito alerts don't get mixed with your 2/1 alerts). You can simply click on a previous alert to use it again or type a new alert which will then be saved. You could even heuristically match the bid with the alert so that the potential alerts are ordered in decreasing order of likeliness. Also, I think we should associate names with the alert text (or the alert info if a more complex alert box is used as has been described in other threads). I could name an alert like "Tresboof 1N" which would map to 9-13, unbal, 5+D, no 4 card major, 2+ controls. It would be much easier to find a proper alert based on a name rather than having to parse each alert itself.

The most ridiculous thing about the Meckstroth 2C Ekrens situation was that 2D (or 2H I can't remember which one) Ekrens was allowed in the event because the defensive database had a defense against that bid. However, solely because 2C was used rather than 2D (thus making defense theoretically easier) it was disallowed. Moreover, a subsequent "official" defense to 2C Ekrens was vetoed even though a defense to 2D Ekrens was on the books. I disagree with official defensive databases because there are being used to stop conventions from proliferating by refusing to accept an official defense. This is in exact opposition to their initial purpose of allowing new conventions but making sure adequate defense was available. If you are going to have a defense database then you must mandate that the people on that committee draft a defense to all submitted conventions in a timely manner. As it is, the creation of the defense is a burden to the convention creator and the committee can always say "not good enough." It always confuses me that people who take up an intellectually difficult game that requires serious study suddenly argue for the right to not to have to think anymore. Confronting a new method, pairs should be given a chance to discuss a defense. Start from the base of a meta-defense and modify as appropriate. If the convention becomes popular enough then defenses tailored to it will emerge and people should adopt them. I'm not convinced that memorization should be required. Allowing a pair to check their notes when opponents spring something on them I think is fair. You shouldn't be able to check your notes in an uncontested auction though.

I think that superiority in the theoretical sense must include the difficulty that opponents have in dealing with the convention. For example, many good results with Ekrens stems from opponents unfamiliarity although even if you have a good defense it is hard to compete against the preemptiveness of Ekrens. So, the difficulty can include inherent difficulty and infamiliarity difficulty. I think it is hard to disentangle these two. After all, the test of superiority should be at the table and not on computer (which isn't phased by table pressure). How do we rate a forcing pass system whose FERT bid is 1H? Playing such a system, in only about 1 out of 4 cases do the opponents get an auction they are used to. Is getting the opponents out of their normal methods a legitimate goal of a system/convention? If the answer is no then explain how this differs from preemption? At first glance I agreed with Fred and Dragon that using something solely for unfamiliarity would be wrong...but I don't know where to draw the line in the sand. Moreover, this is just a theoretical exercise...what would we do with methods we agreed were played only for unfamiliarity? I hate to define what is allowed based on what is currently popular because that leads to stagnation. On the other hand, ACBL has probably already outlawed everything that would go in that category and more so it probably doesn't matter.

If some people are interested in a certain category of player and Fred wants to add support for that then I say go ahead. However, maybe there should be a button to select which categories in which you are interested. I may not want to see who the addicted players are but would like to see the star players. I think it could also be interesting to see an average of the person's performance in tourneys, e.g., this person averaged a top 10% finish after playing 57 tournaments.

I don't know where these people have been playing weak/strong club systems but against your average club player or on-line player I've found those people tend to ignore the weak option and bid destructively. Even though the weak option is more common, it reminds them of precision and so they adopt their normal precision defense even though it is silly. It might be much better in countries outside the US. I've never run into anyone playing a weak/strong club system and so people don't know they need to bid constructively over them.

As far as I know, Wilkosz is brown sticker and is therefore allowed in any WBF events where brown sticker is allowed. I'm sure it is common in Poland and people know how to defend against it. If people want to fragment and start a club where certain conventions are banned then that is fine. My only gripe is when people don't alert things that are clearly artificial and likely not to be known by opponents. With on-line bridge, proper alerting methods are so much easier. Can't we just have a standard to alert all artificial bids? How hard is it to hit the alert button and type stayman?

If I am fooled by a well planned psyche then bravo to the opponents. If they psyche a strong opening on me and it tricks me then I applaud them. IMHO, the rules about not psyching conventional openings is total BS. So long as the hand and the situation calls for a psyche then I don't care how frequently the opps do it. If they are behind in a match, then I expect them to try to create swings. There should be an art to psyching. What I totally disagree with are random bids. We were playing a forcing pass system on BBO one time and this guy accused us of psyching on every bid even though we explained every bid fully. So, he decided he would psyche on EVERY hand. Key lesson...random bridge is not enjoyable. Psyching frequently just to see what happens or disturb the field because your session is in the toilet already is bad. I don't think this type of psyching is frequent and it isn't a problem but if it does occur it should be punished.

Too bad everybody assumes SAYC even in a thread about a MOSCITO match. How about this...modified Tresboof with symmetric relays. P (14+) - 1C (11+ GF) 1D(relay) - 1S (bal) 1N(relay) - 2D (4+ spades) 2H(relay) - 3C (5332) 3D(relay) - 3N (5 controls) 4C(relay) - 4H (SA/K, HAK or !HAK) 4S(relay) - 4N (DAK or !DAK) 6C

Does BBO have an alerting standard? If they do, it isn't widely publicized. I don't think that there is something particularly bad about Polish players when it comes to alerting. It just happens that more of their bids are alertable (and the alerts are longer, etc.) and there is therefore more room for alerting problems. We shouldn't define "acceptable" down to some non-zero amount of misalerting. (For example, the amount of misalerting by the average SAYC player.) The solution is not to be tolerant of misalerting because even with a lack of damage the non-offending side feels like they are being cheated. The solutions are 1) a clear alert policy, 2) BBO mechanisms to make alerting easier, 3) social pressure for proper alerting, and 4) some kind of punishment for failing to properly disclose. Nothing says we can't be more restrictive than WBF at least initially to get across the point that we are serious. #4 would only apply to tourneys because you can just leave a table where alerts aren't properly given. I thought it might be interesting to have an Ebay style feedback mechanism where people could be rated by others on friendliness, conformance to alert rules, etc. I would personally fear such a system though because people could use it to punish me for playing strange systems rather than for failing to properly disclose. While I'm ranting, yet again....BBO tourney...I ask opponents "what is your carding please?" No response...I ask again "carding?" Both opponents send me "????". Somehow they figure out what I am asking for but respond with a sentence or two of incomprehensible broken English. Can we not assign names to carding methods and just use the name? I don't even care if we change udca to verzog...maybe it would be best to have a bridge language that doesn't derive from any other language. That way we would all understand each other.

Hi Claus, What did I say to deserve being called "completely wrong?" I said I wasn't able to play a system given a half page description of that system. I don't know many people that could do that and even fewer that would enjoy it. In my younger days when I had more time I was a system fanatic and I'm not the worst bridge player on the planet so I don't think it is fair to be called completely wrong. I am not opposed to learning and playing SUSPENSOR or something like that with you. I didn't see your message that you sent to me or I would have responded. People are often away from their keyboards or have their computers crash. If you don't like the relays in Tresboof that is fine so please send me SUSPENSOR once it is translated. Todd

If someone wants to run a tournament where full disclosure isn't mandatory then by all means they should be able to do so. I won't be playing in that tournament mind you because random bid meanings and carding is not a game I enjoy. However, without a statement to this effect, we have to assume that play is governed by the existing rules of bridge. At a minimum, there has to be some way for people to describe what their bids mean in a language neutral way that everyone can understand. We all hate complex alert systems that are out of control but we need to know what is alertable and what isn't. I love how changes are so frequently incorporated into BBO and that's why I'm trying to make helpful suggestions within this process to help solve this problem. One other thing I thought of, there needs to be a way for declarer to click on a defender's card during the play to ask for the meaning of that card. Just like you can click on a bid to ask for the meaning of that bid. I don't think what I was suggesting I'd call draconian. Maybe it is and I'm out of touch. What other recourse is there for people who consistently fail to obey the rules of full disclosure?

I was eager to learn a forcing pass system and one of the only reasons I learned Tresboof was that it had a reasonably complete set of system notes. I have some files describing the opening bids for lambda, regress, etc. but you can't sit down and play based on that level of understanding. If it were up to me, I'd legalize FP and if people started to get bad results against it then they would learn how to defend against it. If FP turns out to be superior but little old ladies won't stray from natural bidding then the LOLs will just have to lose. I know clubs don't want to lose membership so I think that there needs to be a dumbed down social section (with reduced masterpoint awards) and an anything goes section.

I play revolving discards. More options to signal. Less chance of not having an appropriate card. Can also signal apathy in some cases.

Open Letter to the Administrators of BBO and Tournaments --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [move]STOP THE INSANITY![/move] Some of the trial tournaments I've attended have been great experiences but at least a couple have left me angry and frustrated. The issue at the heart of my frustration is the principle of full disclosure. Many times in tournaments I encounter people from different countries that don't speak English and that do not have a convention card filled out. They don't even know that I'm asking about their carding and even if they try to best to describe their carding in English it is often incomprehensible. Even worse, there is sporadic use of the ALERT system. On numerous occasions, an auction doesn't make sense and you inquire as to what the sequence means only to find out that neither opponent has been alerting and that all of their bids have been alertable. By this point, you've already missed the opportunity to make a lead directing double, etc. The most frustrating part though is calling director and not getting relief. I realize that the official rules of bridge state that penalties not be assessed unless harm has occurred but the number of incidents is too large and the number of directors too small to determine harm. I'd like to suggest the following changes to tournaments and improvements to BBO in general. 1. Pairs must file a convention card at the time of tournament registration in order to be registered. 2. This convention card must be completely filled out and accurately reflect their methods. (There are at least two standard cards people could include.) 3. Very clear ALERTing rules be listed in the conditions of contest, at registration time and at the beginning of the tournament. 4. Pairs failing to follow these rules in a flagrant way (e.g., not alerting forcing pass, wilkosz, multi) even once MUST be penalized even if no harm occurred to the opponents. 5. Pairs that fail to alert and cause damage to opponents must result in a score adjustment. The benefit of doubt goes to the non-offending side. 6. Pairs that habitually fail to alert in less flagrant ways MUST be penalized. 7. If continued warnings are disregarded, then tournement participation should be disallowed. Things to help this process of BBO. -------------------------------------------- 8. The space to type alerts is too tiny!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why restrict to like a dozen characters. Make it unlimited and make the window bigger as necessary. 9. If you really want to help people, make the alerting process somewhat automated. For example, store the alert description as part of the convention card. If first seat a person opens 1C, look up 1C on the CC and see if there is an alert explanation associated with it and if so open a window and ask the user to confirm that this alert should be issued. This process should work for all opening bids (assuming they aren't preceeded by a forcing pass). 10. Devise a system for describing hand types that is language neutral. The first step could be for people to type in text using this hand description language. A subsequent step could be to pop up a window that allows restrictions to be placed on the # of points, # of cards in each suit, etc. Using this latter approach one could provide internationalization by converting these restrictions to text in the viewers language. Todd

I play pretty much standard Tresboof forcing pass system with a couple people on OKB and BBO. I also play a modified Tresboof with symmetric relays with my lunch time partner and we periodically play on okb and BBO. Anybody wanting to learn our system send me e-mail and we'll play on BBO. Todd

1) The theory is that weak/strong cuts down on interference, particularly on the part of opener's LHO. To what extent does this actually happen? Zero reduction in interference. People just always seem to treat it as strong and proceed to bid non-constructively. 2) How much do the weak bids mess up the accuracy of the strong bids? Lot of room on the strong side to figure out the right spot. 3) What is the net outcome on the weak bids? Is it a plus, or is it a cost to be subtracted from the advantage gained on the strong bids? It's fun to periodically play a 3-2 fit with 15 pts and the 1 level. See point #5 below. 4) What system(s) do you base your comments on? Only Tangerine and a modified GCC-legal Tangerine variant. 5) Has anyone played Tangerine? It looks like fun. Does it work? Do any world-class players currently play it? I'm sure no world class players are playing it. I played it for a while and was fun. If I was going to play a two way system now it would be a Swedish variant...latest version is Carotti? Todd