Wayne_LV

The statistics for balanced hands has been moved to: https://sites.google.com/site/samagreements/home/bidding-balanced-hands Wayne

I did the analysis you suggested on strong NT type hands that we usually open with 1 or a minor. We are averaging about +1 IMP per board on those type hands and +2.5 IMP per board on the Weak NT opener. The actual stats and links to the hands can be found at: https://sites.google.com/site/bboprofile/home/statistics Thanks for the suggestion.

I did look at a lot of those boards, but did not recap the results. From a cursory point of view, it appears that we are winning those type hands more often than not. We will generally get back to a 1NT part score, if that is the PAR via a 1NT rebid. And playing Checkback Stayman, we don't often miss the 3-5 major fits. But ...... a very good suggestion, I will identify that type of hand with a code in my data basee and do a similar recap. Unfortunately the opening bid is not shown in BBO MyHands, so each and every board must be reviewed and coded for such an analysis. Wayne

Partner and I have been playing Weak NT (12-14) for sometime now. I just finished a recap of our hands for the previous month along with statistics on our 1NT openers. The results are posted at: https://sites.google.com/site/bboprofile/home .. under the sidebar selection "Statistics" We are well pleased with the results we are getting with this bid. Our 1NT openers are rarely doubled for penalty, but we are well prepared for that eventuality playing Moscow Escapes. I think every serious partnership should consider the Weak NT, but there are some adjustments to be made if you intend to play weak NT with 2/1.

I do most of the text creation and editing in MS Word and then cut and paste into the Google Site editor. The Google Site editor has some real quirks. The pips are extended ASCII characters ALT-3 = ♥ ALT-4 = ♦ ALT-5 = ♣ ALT-6 = ♠ The pips can then be set to a color attribute same as any other text.

The suit symbols are part of the extended ASCII Character set. Mozilla and other browers don't always properly support these characters. Try running our website under MS Internet Explorer.

I am in process of converting our system notes from a Word Doc format to a website using google sites. It is a bloody lot of work, but hopefully it will pay off. I am experimenting with using BBO's hand editor to create hands that test partner's ability to effectively use conventions come come up very rarely. In the process of creating quiz hands for her, I am forced to review those bidding sequences, so we both benefit. I am not sure how long the tinyURL links are active. Anyone know? https://sites.google.com/site/bboprofile/home Check it out for what it is worth, all feedback appreciated Wayne

Whenever an undo is cancelled by the requestor, it appears that one of the opps has refused the request for Undo. Most times when this occurs the request was due to a misclick on Undo when another option, such as Conv Card EW or NS was the intended action. Other times the requestor just changed their mind. It is impossible to differentiate between a rejected undo and one the requestor cancelled. If the dispostion of the Undo was stated as "Undo Cancelled by Requestor" instead of "Undo Denied" if would save a lot of chat and/or possible hard feelings. Wayne

I don't think a rating system that is accurate and fair is possible given the number of variables in the game of bridge. I do think, however, that bridge knowledge is at least an indicator of performance at the table. What if a standardized test(s) were developed that could be taken online and scored automatically? Such a test could cover the basic bidding of various common systems ..... in my opinion to be rated an expert, a player should have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Standard American, SAYC, Acol, 2/1, and Precision. Such a test should also include a section on play of the hand including basic leads, defensive signals and carding, how to play basic card combinations, etc. Also the test should cover the more common conventions. Rating would then be based on overall score acheived on the test. The test should be available to be taken online and players should be allowed to retake it as often as they wish.

Using Google Chrome, which is a superior web browser to MS IExplorer, the zoom feature does not work. Pressing Ctrl ++ and Ctrl -- does nothing. The screen can be zoomed using the menu choices in Chrome, but no vertical or horizontal scroll bars appear and navigation of the screen is impossible. The status bar in Iexplorer has a zoom icon and this works well with BBO Flash. I have tried downloading the Adobe Flash plugin for Chrome and it still does not work. Anyone have any suggestions how to get the zoom function in Chrome to work with Flash ? Thanks, Wayne

I think there's a good reason why 'rules' like this turn into flame-bait on BBF. While rules help newer players, there is a point in one's development where you must discard such rules and actually think and play bridge. For instance, here are four hands that qualify for this Rule of 17: x, Axx, AKQxxxx, Kx xx, AQx, QJxxx, KQJ void, AQxx, QJxxx, AKJx Axxx, void, AKQxxxx, xx and I doubt that any of these are automatic 4♠ calls. 2N is fine as a Feature ask (with a maximum), but it is much, much more than an exploration for 3N. Guess I failed to fully explain the application of the rule of 17. First off, you must have a fit for partner's suit, which means at least 2 cards. That rules out 2 of your examples right away. xx, AQx, QJxxx, KQJ I would not hesitate to bid 4 on this holding. Yes, with 4 losers outside the trump suit, it could conceivably go down, but life nor bridge is a sure thing. Axxx, void, AKQxxxx, xx This hand is a bit strong for an automatic jump to game, with only 2 losers outside the trump suit and holding the trump ace, slam is very possible. Rather than jumping straight to game, slam exploration is called for. BTW, using Kay-Silodore point count, this hand has a dummy value of 19 and would rate a count of 23 for the rule of 17. My personal guideline is to consider slam on any hand that values 20 or more per the rule of 17. I have used the rule of 17 for quite sometime now and it has failed me less than 5% of the time. I employ a number of "rules", which I prefer to call guidelines: Rule of: 7, 8, 9, 11, 15, 17, and 500 No, I don't use rule of 20 but instead open any 12 total pt hand with 2 def tricks. Maybe rules are for beginners, but guidelines definitely have their place for all but the highest levels of players.

♠Q5 ♥AQT54 ♦K54 ♣AQ2 Forget Ogust. Rule of 17: Partner opens 2♠ HCP + number of trumps >= 17, bid game in partner's suit. 17 hcp + 2 = 19 ....... respond 4♠ 2N is better used as feature ask for those hands where you contemplate a NT game

In all fairness to the good people that run BBO: The freqency of animated ads has seemed to decrease, or maybe I am getting immune to them.

I don't! Click on Options (on toolbar) , then "At a table" Tab, then uncheck "Animate messages" and the last trick message does not flash.

I don't mind static ads that I can read when I am dummy. But the animated ads at the table drive me BUGGY. I cannot concentrate on playing a hand with an ad flashing in my face. I have been on BBO almost since day 1 and love the site, but if this feature (animated and flashing ads) is a permenant thing, I will have to look seriously at OKBridge. This very thing (flashing ads) is what drove me away from MS Zone to BBO in the first place. I love BBO, but it is a bridge site and if I cannot play bridge on BBO then it ceases to be of value to me. Does anyone else feel the same as me? Wayne

The orignal objective of duplicate bridge was to provide a comparison of how you and your partner bid and played a specific hand as compared to a group of players of similar skill levels and experience. The greater the size of the field, the more accuate the score reflects your actual performance. The larger the field the less effect bazare results have on individual scores at other tables. What if boards were selected from major ACBL tournaments that were played by a large number of tables, say 50 or 100. And those results entered into a data base. Then as the hands are played on BBO, the results are compared, not to the BBO field, but to the field of the ACBL tournament. Then it would be as if you had played the board in that ACBL event, not on BBO. There has to be plenty of sectional and regional tournaments that could be used as a source of boards and results. I think it would be impossible for anyone to pick out a particular set of boards and "know" the actual results from the real event. For that matter, boards from different events could be mixed to make up "sets". I realize that this would entail a substantial amount of data entry work. I, for one, would be willing to pay a reasonable premium to play boards in a special room where this method of scoring were employed.

How does one go about transfering points from one name to another? Or is this privilige reserved for only the Ace? Wayne

Has anyone played or played against Chilli? http://chillibidding.org/fundamentals.htm On the surface, it appears to effective and the author of the above website claims to have success with it in tournaments. Curious if anyone has taken a serious look at Chilli and has opionions as to whether it is worth an attempt to learn. One seemingly attractive aspect of Chilli is there are few rules to memorize. Wayne

>I don't think that the ACBL has the internal competancies to bite off anything that ambitious. There's always the chance that the French might. (They have a much more standardized approach towards bidding) Maybe SEF would suffice till something better comes along? I have not been able to find a website that defines SEF. Does one exist? Wayne

I agree completely with your assessment of SAYC. But any standard, within reason, is better than no standard. Maybe the WBF should step up to bat and create a committee of top players to design, document, and promote an International Standard System. IMHO the WBF would outrank the ACBL and represent the world, not just our often-narrow-minded country. What would be in it for those that would work long and hard to develop such a standard? Just think of the book royalties and the tutoring fees. But until such time as this dream becomes a reality, I have no choice .. for my own little bridge world ... but to adopt SAYC as defined by the ACBL and attempt to play it to the letter, hopeing to find others that will attempt to do the same. Wayne

I have been bruised and confused over what is the real SAYC for years. There is SAYC Basic, SAYC Full, BBO Basic, and a seemingly endless number of variations. On the ACBL website is a document that defines SAYC ... no variations, no choices. http://web2.acbl.org/documentlibrary/play/...gle%20pages.pdf The orginal purpose of SAYC was to have a standard system that 2 strangers could play with NO discussion. SAYC with 14 variations does not provide such a system. However this ACBL document defines such a system. Seems to me this has to be the bible for SAYC and all other variations are SAYC based systems but NOT SAYC. I am in process of creating a BBO FD convention card that follows this document faithfully. My intent is to post this convention card and expect anyone that professes to play SAYC to follow it. However I have hit one snag. The document explicitly says that J2N is part of SAYC. Jacoby 2NT is used on hands with 4+ trumps, 13+ pts, and no singleton or void. Hands with 4 trumps and 13+ points containing a singleton or void can be shown with a splinter bid. My question is this: Does the inclusion of J2N in SAYC imply that splinters are emloyed over major opening bids? Nothing in the document states that splinter bids are part of SAYC. If splinters are not used over major openings and Jacoby 2NT cannot be used with a singleton or void, then there is a hole in the system. Are splinters over majors part of SAYC or not? Assuming this and any other snags are resolved, I would appreciate any volunteers that would go over the FD Conv card for SAYC and check it for completeness and accuracy. Some of it is quite comlex, such as the trap pass used in conjunction with Negative Doubles and the rule of 9. I also think it would be great if BBO added some Yellow-Card Only tournaments to its ACBL schedule. You are Chinese, I am French. Neither of us speak English or any other language in common. We would like a game of online bridge. All we should have to do is put SAYC on our profile, sit and play and never miss a bid. That has never been my experience so far. I would love to see that change. Wayne :ph34r:

With one more day to go I have played over 1500 boards on BBO in the month of February. Some of them I even played well. I would like to extend my appreciation to Fred, Uday, Sherrie, and all that make BBO such a great place to play. At the ACBL tournament rate of 8 1/3 cents per board, I would owe BBO $125. I think I have spent 3 or 4 BBO$ this month. $125 may not sound like a lot of money but it would be a major hit to my meager retirement budget. Thanks, especially to Fred, and his comittment to keep BBO a free site. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Wayne

The Hyashi Runout does allow you to play 1NT redoubled. 1NT-x-p-p-xx(forced)-p-? Pass holding a hand that should allow partner to make 1NT holding a 12 count. 9+ hcp or a source of tricks. With game going hands, you can always bid again if ops takeout the redouble.

Knock wood -- I have an FD Conv card completed for use of weak 12-14 NT opening. I call the system ASAP (As Simple As Practical) It is definitely not simple and probably not practical The basic approach is Standard American with the following Conventions: Brozel over ops NT (direct and passout seats) Gambling 3NT Jacoby and Texas Transfers Weak Jump Shift Stolen Bid Doubles Michael's and Unusual 2NT Jacoby 2NT Negative Double -> 2S RKCB 0314 Splinters over Majors Help Suit Game Try Lebensohl after x of Wk 2 Hyashi Runout Mini-Roman 2D Thanks everyone for your excellent input. Some I took at face value and used as suggested, others I am using on a trial basis, some things I am reserving judgement on while I try other approaches (but may try other suggested approaches at a later time). Next comes hours at a Partnership Practice table with a couple of my better partners and a pair of GIBs. Then a trial run in some Main Club games. If it all works out then will give it a go in some ACBL tournaments. This, of course, assumes my partners and I retain what little sanity we have left LOL. Wayne

http://www.fernside.com/bridge/weaknt.html The above website explains Hiyashi (Hyashi) Runout. This website also presents other aspects of the weak (12-14) NT I am exploring for possible inclusion in the bidding system I use with one of my partners. After reading the relies to this thread, I now see that a full "systems on" approach after a 1NT rebid is not logical. After 1c opener / 1 diamond response (which may contain a 4 card major) such an approach is applicable. However if partner responds in a major to the minor suit opening, most of the suit showing bids become meaningless or just plain wrong. So I am in process of redefining those illogical bids to more applicable meanings or "undefining" them if there is no use for the bid. For example, rebids of the responded major can be used as invitational, showing extra values and/or extra length depending on the level of rebid. Rebids of the opened minor can show length in that suit and limit the length of the responded major. Lots of possiblilites.