pdmunro

http://www.rpbridge.net/9x65.htm

Try sk|S| for see cards South sk|| for see cards all

Hi Fred, I have tried the web client more extensively. I did get used to it. One of my objections, namely, that the cards don't display well on YouTube movies, has been removed because YouTube have improved the quality of their broadcasts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ven_sD1jtvM One suggestion that I find helps my eye is to have the suits separated slightly. I found the setout that Double Dummy Solver uses, immediately appealing: http://keepcount.net/images/DDS_hand.PNG Source: Double Dummy Solver While I was fine with the web client as it is, I have gone back to using the desktop client. I guess familiar things bring comfort.

I use "BBO points" to assess a player's ability. Could we have an average as well as a "total"?

My details: Compaq CRT screen (16" diag = 13" x 9.5"; 1024 x 768 pixels, True Color, 32 bit). Fred, the cards you designed look more like the usual playing cards that one plays with each day. In particular, the use of stark red/black colors and pictures on the court cards. Surely those design features were developed by playing card companies in order to assist immediate visual recognition. An interesting quote from the book "Championship Bridge with Charles Goren" (page 11, Doubleday, NY, 1964): "Visualize, if you will, a friendly bridge game: four people are seated at different sides of a table, they all hold up small pasteboard cards, and then one lays down a hand called a dummy. Now add the technical problems involved in transmitting this action to a 17-inch screen (in various shades of gray!). Each of the viewers wants to see the dummy, and the whole point of the program hinges on seeing plainly every card that is played. Working in the studio revealed the need for a specially designed playing surface and playing cards visually better than those normally used. Here's where the U. S. Playing Card Company proved itself invaluable in investigating and creating a card just for us, the "Jumbo 88." I really don't know what we would have done without this specially processed card which has much larger pips printed on non-glare paper. Its importance was to be proven on our very first test film. We wanted to be able to look into each player's hand, to watch him in the process of selecting the card and follow his individual strategy. If our researchers revealed that no one had previously been able to do a proper job, what made us think that we could surmount the obstacles involved?" I added the bracket: (in various shades of gray!)

A couple of points: 1) I don't find the diagram mode gives me an immediate/intuitive/"sticks in my memory" count of the card. I cannot look at the diagram mode and intuitively see a 4531 hand. I think it's because the diagram mode is not "monospaced": the 10 takes up 2 character spaces, the Q is rather squat etc. 2) I tried making a YouTube video with the cards in diagram mode. The cards in the hand were fine, but the played cards were too small. Any videos you upload to YouTube lose a fair amount of resolution once YouTube converts them to Flash. http://www.keepcount.net/images/hand_diagram.PNG

********** "Results" ***************** I didn't read the instructions and, consequently, I didn't find it intiuitive as to how to find movies of the played hands. I searched the screen a few times but didn't think to click the "Results" button. For some reason, I didn't even notice it. Probaly it's because, I use the desktop version routinely and I was looking for the "Movie" button. Having read the instructions and tried clicking "Results", it is fine now. Perhaps, it would help to make it intuitive if the "Results" button flashed at the end of a hand for, say, 10 secs. ********** Size of cards ****************** Among the reasons, that I prefer the desktop, is that I find the cards easier/clearer to read. I have attached a few images and comments. 1) Comparing new web-client with the desktop version: http://www.keepcount.net/images/color_contrast.PNG To me, a) the desktop image has clear red/black cards; web-client has maroon/black cards which don't contrast as well; and b) the desktop court cards have a hint of an image that assists the eye. A couple of less important differences that are probably just "familiarity differences": c) all desktop cards have a black border - I don't find that the maroon border of the web-client assists my eye; and d) I don't know what dimensions letters and numbers should ideally have (Is it the "golden ratio") but I find the "taller" web client numbers not as easy to read at the squarer desktop numbers. 2) Have you considered having large face cards similar to these from Bridge Baron? http://www.keepcount.net/images/bridge_baron.PNG Large cards as set out by Bridge Baron. Something like the images of the played cards might work fine as images for a players hand: http://www.keepcount.net/images/large.PNG Bridge Baron's large cards are a good size for making YouTube videos.

I went to bridge lessons because my brother-in-law and my sister whipped me and my wife at bridge. I didn't know a thing about the game but that didn't worry my brother-in-law. He just likes to win. So maybe don't teach your friends anything at first. Just let them bid what they like and learn that they will need to have a system.

I use a double dummy solver to replay the hand and look at various lines of play. This one is free and reads BBO files: http://www.bridge-captain.com/downloadDD.html

A good list of French bridge terms: http://www.berks-and-bucks-cba.co.uk/Vocab.htm

a memorable 10000th post

2. ACBL General Convention Chart DISALLOWED 7. ... "and weak two bids which by partnership agreement are not within a range of 7 HCP and or do not show at least five cards in the suit." http://www.danaharborbridgecenter.org/Conv...Conventions.pdf *************************************************************************** ACBL GENERAL CONVENTION CHART DISALLOWED 7. ... "and weak two-bids which by partnership agreement are not within a range of 7 HCP and do not show at least five cards in the suit. http://www.acbl.org/assets/documents/play/...ntion-Chart.pdf

In any sport, you will have plateaus. Worse than that, I have actually found my attainments dipped down as I tried to introduce some new skill. I am sure this is normal, but you know, that once you have acquired that skill, your game will improve. I am a minimalist by nature so I am quite content to play the simplest bidding systems imaginable. So that leaves me to concentrate on playing the cards. And even there I am just trying to understand what is going on with the majority of plays. So what if I don't do squeezes - that doesn't concern me in the least. I had to give up sport because of inflamed knees. So I knew that bridge was the way to go for me. I have always liked card games. My wife learned with me, but didn't like the stress that she felt, so she gave up. I continued because I knew I was in it for the long haul. One thing I learnt from doing scientific research was that as you explore something in depth your broad understanding of related ideas also improves. So as I tried to work out some of the science of polymers, my calculus improved. Similar things can happen with bridge. There are a lot of things to learn and different aspects of the game suit differnt people. I have found that exploring the one aspect that interests me will come back to benefit my whole game. So just chew off one bit at a time. I recall my second night of bridge when I learnt the point range for 1NT and some of the follow-up bidding. I thought I will never be able to remember point ranges. Well, of course, we all do because it is no more difficult than remembering a 4 digit phone number. I recall a suggestion in a bridge book that I count winners when planning a trump suit play, and thinking that just counting losers was enough for me. Nowadays, I try to work out winners and losers not just in the play, but also in the bidding. So over the 20 years that I have playing bridge, at different times I have concentrated my efforts on different aspects of the game. Throughout, my focus has been on SAYC. At one time, I focussed on learning the basic suit patterns: 4441, 5332, 7321, etc. More recently, I restructured my bidding understanding in terms of winners and losers. This year I have been trying to improve my recall of the cards. I tried thinking in terms of different suits being in different rooms in the house. (Please don't ask me how I had the members of the Heart suit arranged in the shower. ;-)) That didn't work. But now I am trying to think of each suit in blocks: AKQJ as one block; 10 9 8 7 as another block. So rather than just saying to myself "the ♥AJ have been played", I also think "the top and bottom card of the top ♥ block have been played". In summary, for me bridge is an enjoyable pastime. To improve I concentrate on one specific thing, knowing that my results may dip while I do so. And seriously, try the Robot Duplicate Matchpoint Tournaments - I can see lots of possibilities for improving my bridge coming from playing in those.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v79UzSnbp8

Double-clicking the blue bar at the top of BBO window changes the size of the chat section.

Wouldn't it solve your problems if there was a new 8-board 30-min game starting every 10 mins or so? Note that, you wouldn't lose track of what happened in your prior games: you can easily check all details by looking at "my hands" and "my points" http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/index.php http://online.bridgebase.com/points/index.php I guess you probably know this. I knew about "my hands", but I didn't know about "my points" till I queried BBO support as to why I seemed to be stuck on a rating of "3". I now better appreciate those ratings: see http://online.bridgebase.com/points/awards.php. Congratulations to all those "6"'s I have run up against!

10 mins for 8 hands! It takes me that long to sort my cards. :-) I think RDMP's will become popular enough to have one starting every 10 mins, or so. This should cater for the speedsters.

Robot Duplicate MP has become my prefered option of all the Robot Races. It has a lot of the feel of a club night. I prefer the more thoughtful pace, plus I can look at the My Hands (Tournaments) and see what others did with the same cards. I really like it. However, I would prefer it was 30 mins. Usually there is 1 board in the 8 that requires a bit more thought. At present, I fail to finish about 1 in 4 of the RDMP's. Perhaps you could look at how many people are failing to fininish the 8 boards and see whether it is apparent that a bit more time is needed.

My simple idea of International Match Points (IMP's) is that I get 1 IMP for every 40 points that I score above the average. So if the average score across all tables is 220, with most tables in 3H making 4, but I bid and make 4H (Not Vul) then I get (420 - 220)/40 = 5 IMP's. Note that, if we are comparing our results with only one other table, then there is the simple result that, if the contracts are the same at both tables, then 1 IMP equals 1 trick . Say both South's are in 4 Hearts. He makes 10 tricks for 420. I make 11 tricks for 450. I earn (450-420)/40 = 1 IMP.

An interesting article on teaching bridge to children: Few bridge players have trained as many young people as Ed O'Reilly. In the early 1990s the Kingston, Ontario-based club owner began teaching bridge during class hours to students in elementary and middle school. His lessons became so popular - at one time he was told that more youth were learning bridge at school in Kingston than in the rest of North America combined. "I found over the years you don’t do the bridge class for the kids, you do it for the teacher! If the teacher likes the game and likes the way you present it, they take an interest and see that the kids follow up and play some bridge. .... I learned quickly I didn’t want to do bridge at outside of class time. Many teachers are coaching sports, holding music practices, or supervising help sessions, and these activities would detract from interest in bridge. Bridge is applicable to the school curriculum because it includes problem solving and math and improves social skills. .... Our success came from concentrating on introducing bridge through classroom teachers who believed in the game to be beneficial for their students. Respected teachers can sell their ideas to principals, and the principals have to support their teachers or they won’t have a very happy staff!" http://www.masteringbridge.com/article_oreilly.php

Sorry but this comment shows a complete and utter lack of understanding about probability and statistics of any kind. It is equivalent to the following argument. You and I will both pick a card from each of 100 different decks and whoever picks more aces wins. However, if sometimes you pick first and sometimes I pick first then you can get way more aces than I get, which is not fair. Do you know what "random" means? Re the use of statistics: I don't want to get too off-topic, but I have become interested in reading the ideas of W. Edwards Deming whose aim was to improve the quality of manufactured products in Japan and the USA. My paraphrase of his central thesis is that it is not really relevant to just pick a random sample of manufactured products and test their quality. What is needed is a sampling along a time line. There will always be variabilty in the manufactured product. This is completely unavoidable and needs to be recognized as such. It is due to 1001 interactions that are part of any process. What is important is that both the long-run performance and natural variabilty are determined and then monitored continuously. If it is observed, for any series of continuous time points, that the performance is consistently above or below the long-term average, management needs to recognize that special factors are at work and adopt remedies to return the process to its long-term average. What has this to do with bridge? Maybe it's relevant to Free's concerns, maybe not. But the key tenet of Deming is out there: Don't always think in terms of a simple average, there is a time component to events that we ignore at our peril. In my own case, I know I try to monitor my alertnes before I play on BBO. I sometimes do this by playing a couple of hands on Bridge Baron. I am testing whether my brain is too tired to think, or not, as tiredness is the special factor that most often prevents me from performing at my true level. In summary, I am just trying to keep my mind open to Deming's ideas. They are credited with playing a key role in the miracle that is modern Japanese manufacturing. I think they must have relevance in other fields, such as bridge and education, my key areas of interest.

If this happens, I prefer that the hands (and bidding) don't rotate. For some reason my brain gets confused if the hands rotate. If I am taking the computer's place as declarer, I prefer to now sit North (computer's seat) and declare the hand. This is how I configure Bridge Baron.

Fred, When I kibitz, I prefer to kibitz only one player. As BBO web-client doesn't have this functionality (as far as I can determine), I prefer to use the BBO desktop version.

I'm trying to put the parts of the credit crisis together for myself, so I wrote the following piece. The computer made me do it Anatomy of the credit crisis Question: What’s the cause of the financial crisis? Answer: Actually, you’re looking at it - your computer. Having had to create a couple of computer models of complex biochemical systems, I love reading about the shenanigans of the backroom computer boys. As the financial crisis lengthens, stories of its beginnings are starting to emerge. The sources below, strongly suggest that the genesis of the credit crisis lies with boys and their principle toy, “the computer” – that wonder toy that can take in a few data inputs and bounce back a simple number that says “yes/no” to a loan query. Complicit in the process, have been mathematicians, programmers and their bosses. Mathematicians for designing kooky, unstable models. Computer programmers for writing easy-to-use graphical interfaces that hide all the messy mathematics. Bosses who are delighted to have a loan decision reduced to the click of a button. The beginning of the chain of misuse is the mathematical formula that says there is a simple way of deciding, if a person will default on their loan. No need for a time-consuming comparison with others in similar financial circumstances. Far simpler is to see what odds the “betting agencies” have on such a person defaulting. The “betting agencies” are investment banks issuing credit default swaps (CDS). CDS’s are insurance policies taken out against loan defaults. Apparently, it mattered little that the CDS rates were plucked out of thin air, and operated on the “bigger fool” methodolgy, with each (re-)insurer committed to finding an even “bigger fool”. Well, perhaps, they weren’t so much foolish as greedy: re-insuring a CDS allowed a financier to say that “The next 5 years of profits are ‘locked-in’, so I want the next 5 years of bonuses now!”, while quietly thinking to themselves, “before it all goes ‘belly-up’”. Back to the mathematical models. Having “reliable” equations and parameters, computer programmers could write algorithms (computer code) that linked it all together. They designed simple graphical interfaces for the financiers to input a few pertinent (fictitious?) details from the client, while simultaneously accessing the latest CDS (fairy-land?) rates, in order to generate an “accurate” decision-number at the click of a button. Hold on. The boss really wants to grow the business. So he doesn’t want just a simple yes/no answer. He wants a yes - “but at this rate of interest” - answer. Let’s up the complexity and use all the (fictitious) info to calculate that for him, so that no client “is left behind”. There will be no failures in this somewhat-brave new world. The scent of all this easy money attracted the financial sharks. Adding the detailed story of the “slicing and dicing” of subprime assets to this story is fit only for an adults-only forum. Rest assured though that “slicing and dicing” is a truly wonderful snake-oil product, guaranteed to turn the most illiquid of property markets into a greasy slope. Finally, to make the rivers of money really flow, another computer jock is needed. Cue the quant boys who make overnight settlements of trades. Without them, the system is “constipated”. These are the guys with no fear: every night in the “repo” market, they roll over billions of one-day loans at the touch of a button. At last, everyone was happy: they all had either their loans or their bonuses. But when interest rates rose from the initial "teaser" rates, defaults increased and the first crazy circle of CDS’s became due. Then questions were asked. Who owes me money and can he pay it? To whom do I owe money and can I afford it? Fear set in. Buttons weren’t pushed. The result: financial paralysis, no-one would lend to no-one. Questions of “Who is to blame?” arise following the use of weapons of mass destruction. Is it the one who designed the weapon's components? Or the one who put it all together? Or the one who ordered it used and who clearly benefits the most? Or is it the system? And crucially: Can the system be fixed? While the financial markets have started to jerkily move again of late, I remain nervous. Computers are here to stay and will continue to be used as instruments to both enlighten and bedevil us. It is just so easy to conceal illusions and falsehoods in the computer’s inner workings. Who has the time, energy, or capability to unravel the deceit? I am sure that, even as I write this, someone is coding the seeds of yet another financial disaster. Sources 1. Michael Osinski “My Manhattan Project: How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street” http://nymag.com/news/business/55687/ Comment: very readable 2. Felix Salmon “The formula that killed Wall Street” http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/1...currentPage=all Comment: scary 3. Thomas Tan, “Why Wall St. Needed Credit Default Swaps” http://seekingalpha.com/article/73060-why-...t-default-swaps Comment: CDS = bonus-fueled greed 4. Excerpt from William D. Cohan’s book 'House Of Cards' http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...oryId=101681538 Comment: The overnight “repo” market

Grant Baze: in memorium http://www.greatbridgelinks.com/gblIND/Baze.html