BunnyGo

It's not that simple. For example. Say I know that I can claim a hand with all the remaining tricks (or all but one of the remaining tricks with no reasonable play for that trick). I can play lightning fast, but the opponents will be thinking hard and taking time to not make a mistake. Should I be billed for this time, should they? Who's to say? It may actually slow the game down...

Ah, that's true...I forgot we have a toilet with two levers which must save some water too.

So I got my first water bill here in Israel. The way it works here is that up to approximately 2000 liters per person per month you pay one rate, and above that you pay a much steeper rate (not completely rationed, but a huge penalty for going over). I only just found out what the ration was with the bill and compared it to the average US urban per capita usage (farming of course needs more water both in the US and Israel). According to wikipedia, the average US urban per capita usage was over 10,000 liters per capita per month. Where does all that water go? Here are the (very) few changes we've made in our lives which kept us well below this quota: 1) Showers are short. We spend a minute or so getting wet, turn the water off and soap up, turn the water on and rinse off. Every so often we allow ourselves a more luxurious shower, but definitely not daily. 2) Washing dishes we are careful to use what we need and not needlessly let the water run. We don't have a dishwasher, which would use less water on average than doing the dishes by hand (at least with the newer machines). Besides that, I can't think of anything in particular that's different in our lives here than in Michigan (where water was plentiful). While we don't have a yard or garden here, our friends who do manage to stay within the quota as well. Do people in the US Southwest or Southeast (which I believe are having major droughts) do anything like this? Do they really use 10,000 liters a month per person in non-agricultural water usage?

There were apparently 6 people on the ballot (although many of them had suspended their campaign by the election). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Republican_primary,_2008 Amusingly, only the people who were on the ballot 4 years ago and are running this year are on the ballot. Seems like the other candidates didn't have the know-how/infrastructure to do it.

It's more than that Antrax, pitching the important suit *forces* partner to pitch the other. If he knows that you are definitely not guarding clubs, then he just has to hope you are guarding diamonds.

You're not interested in the 4-4 heart fit?

pass.

Yeah...nothing was working.

Partner would have bid 1♥ the first time with that hand. 2♥ should show a stronger hand.

I was even wimpier and passed figuring that my hand could easily be dead as dummy and force partner to play out of his hand the whole contract. I felt pretty bad about chickening out like that, but thought it was a reasonable matchpoint decision since he wasn't so strong to bid 2D or 3H and my hand has only been getting worse.

You've agreed to play this system (thanks Gerben!) with your partner at a club game (matchpoints). You hold: AKQxxxx, 9xxx, void, Kx The auction so far: 1D*-1H** 1S*** 1D = 13+ pts, 4+ D, unbalanced (5+ diamonds unless 4441), forcing 1H = 0+ pts, 4+ S, forcing 1S = 13-20 pts, 4+ H, at most 3 spades Your agreed follow-ups: 2C,D,H = transfer 2S = artificial GF asks for club stopper 2N = invite no fit 3C = 5-5 in the blacks GF We've also agreed to play kickback, but most everything else as followups has been undiscussed...feel free to suggest what you'd do at the table (expecting partner to be on the same page) and/or what you'd do with preferred agreements. In particular, should 4D or 5D be splinter/voidwood. Even if they are, would you bid them after transferring to 2H? Thanks!

You hold: QJ, J94, K7542, 864 All white in first seat, matchpoints. The auction: P-(1D)-X-(P) 1N(agree?)-(P)-2H-(P) ??? Now what? (X and bid is stronger for us, 1H directly is bounded at about 17 pts) Thanks!

Kim Jong-Il <ptui>

But the strange thing is, I think the robot will *always* assume that it picks up the diamond finesse (since it's double dummy). So it's choices are: 1) AQ of hearts, get X tricks 2) Heart finesse loses, get X tricks 3) Heart finesse wins, get X+1 tricks

and?....

I think west was trying to not get endplayed either (with the Q of hearts), but I have no actual idea. Especially as neither one was actually endplayed on the lie of the cards.

Welcome to the forums (and back to bridge!) I wouldn't study SAYC in any detailed sense (I don't think anybody actually plays that...I know that I don't even know it). A lot of people play a "natural" system with 5 card majors, 15-17 NT, and either game forcing or forcing 1 round two over one bids (e.g. 1S-2D). They call that system SAYC or 2/1 (if 2 over 1 bids are game forcing). Most people play transfers of some kind over NT openings. If you're confused whether your partner means a bid as artificial, most people don't mind if you ask, especially with a pickup partner. Also, people play a few different forms of blackwood ace asks, so you may want to check with your partner when it comes up. Besides that, most things (for some definition of "most") are just natural. Have fun!

This is particularly strange considering GIB has been known to not repeat a finesse when it *does* need it.

Yeah, I didn't understand the club duck...That seemed to be the "misere" bridge play.

As does Israel. Except for the word "periodic".

Just to note a couple things onoway: 1) Regarding your first post (you've since elaborated a bit, but still without citations of any kind) It does sound quite a bit conspitorial with you just spouting the standard larouche bull that gets more attention every election cycle, and no evidence that you are actually quoting anyone or any source that has at most 1 screw loose). 2) While all fiat currencies not currently in use have failed at some point (by definition) so have all (so called) non-fiat currencies. This includes gold. Examples include recent and past, but are in both directions (in Rome for example, gold became so rare that there was hyper-deflation and the economy collapsed simply because they were not using a fiat currency, and everything was based on availability of gold, which China had limited. In Egypt the economy collapsed simply because one very wealthy king threw so much gold in the streets there was hyper inflation. In modern times we are not so silly as to think that the economy should be based around one antiquated aspect of what we produce). The point is that even gold is a fiat currency, just one we have less control over. As the Spanish empire learned (or didn't as it fell) you can't eat gold...it's only worth what you can sell it for, hence is fiat. 3) The Jews already are the new world order. I suggest you read "Protocols" and get up to speed on what all of us have been up to. 4) After reading your follow up post, it sounds like a con. The whole thing. They may be making money on some investments (water and housing are certainly necessary resources to sell in the future), but the idea of sending them money to "join" I'd wager dollars to donuts is a con.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/science/speed-of-light-lingers-in-face-of-mit-media-lab-camera.html?hpw Pretty cool videos. I'd also be interested in their idea to see around corners.

If it's anything like what they did on Southpark...you don't want to know. But let's not try to scare off Pirate...I'd miss the bigoted rants about people who don't speak English, ironically written in really bad English if he didn't post here occasionally.

Worse, there've been many documented deaths of infants too young to get vaccinations who would normally be covered by "herd immunity" but are not when the vaccination rate drops too low.