brian_m

Sorry for the slow reply Diana, I thought the software was going to send me an e-mail if someone replied. Yes, I know I can set the table invisible, but I tend to collect a few kibs if any of the Oliver's Precision group are online (provided I'm playing the system, of course), and I don't want to bar them from joining. In general, I don't think that encouraging people to bar kibs is a good thing for BBO.

When you're playing a set game at a casual table, and one of the players crashes, their seat reservation is automatically cleared. This can be a real nuisance if you want to re-seat that player, knowing they will try to come back, because the permission request if someone asks to sit is a modal form, and it can be a real pain trying to re-enter the seat reservation. Yes, I know you can fix this after a fashion by making the table invisible, but I don't want to block out players who might want to kibitz. I have two suggestions for a way to solve the problem 1) Add a checkbox to the seat reservation dialog which locks the seat reservation until specifically cleared by the table host. Obviously this must not block the table host being transferred to another player if the host themselves is lost. 2) Add a checkbox to the table options (defaulting to not set, of course!) which auto-rejects any permission request to sit unless the seat has been reserved. This request is caused by a recent experience with some moron who asked (and was rejected) to take over a seat in a set game where the player had crashed. The would-be new player asked at least ten times in rapid succession, but it's also a nuisance if you get a whole bunch of different players asking without any repeat requests. And no, I don't think it's worth reporting someone to abuse@ just for making repeated requests. I can't see how 2) can be a difficult task. You need to add a checkbox to the table options. Then there will be a piece of code which, in pseudo-code, will currently look something like IF request made to sit THEN show modal form to ask table host ______IF permission granted THEN seat player ELSE reject player What I'm asking for is for that piece of code to be modified to IF request made to sit THEN ______IF Autoreject flag THEN reject player ELSE ____________show modal form to ask table host __________________IF permission granted THEN seat player ELSE reject player P.S. Sorry if the pseudo code isn't as clear as it might be, I've made a few tries to indent the code but posting seems to strip leading white space. I had to resort to using the leading underlines.

Could we have an option to eject individual kibitzers and block them from rejoining the table? Individual permission to kib is a problem for the host when you get a lot of kibs (for whatever reason, we had almost 100 yesterday, and more than 100 the day before). I just can't cope with concentrating on playing AND having to control that lot on a person-by-person basis, plus when it turns out someone is going to be abusive, AFAIK I can only eject everybody (bar kibs) or else let the PITA remain. :( An ideal solution, although I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement, would be to bar anybody on the table host's 'enemies' list from joining the table. That would restrict the abusive types to a 'one session only' problem. If you could get the software to immediately eject as a kib any player whom the host flags as an enemy, that would be superb!

I've been helping out someone with extremely limited internet access in documenting the system he and his partner are currently using (it's a long story!). It's reached the stage where Jeff feels able to let it go public, so the PDF (~120 pages, about 500 Kb) is hosted on my wife's website, but NOT linked from the front page. HyDRA version 2 If anyone wants to take a look, feel free, but if you want to contact the author, please note the instructions at the end of the introduction (bottom of page 8, from memory). I don't have the time to check web forums, so any comments here will not reach Jeff. The basic idea of the system is a strong club structure but both relays and the usual Precision style asking bids are available, your choice as to which you think best fits a particular hand, or you can start off in relay but then switch to the asking bids (but not vice versa). There are also a few original features of the author's own devising.

I'm posting here at the suggestion of BBO support. My wife has age-related macular degeneration, and is starting to struggle to see the computer screen (for those who don't know, AMD basically results in the centre of your vision 'clouding over', it's like seeing things through a fog which gets progressively thicker as the disease progresses). Does anybody have any knowledge of software which would allow her to play unassisted on BBO via voice? Data entry is not a problem, as a former secretary and expert touch-typist she can still use a keyboard once she checks her hand positions, it's getting the information from the screen which is the problem. Thanks for any ideas. P.S. We can't play at an offline club with Braille cards, before anyone suggests it. She has other health issues which make it extremely difficult for her to travel, and the nearest offline club that we know about is more than 80 miles each way.

All right, let me try wording my comment this way. Please mentally substitute the following wording in my previous comment. When I lived and played bridge in the UK, this was the version of the multi 2♦ used by the overwhelming majority of those of my opponents who described their system as "Acol with a Multi 2♦", or some equivalent description. That was undoubtedly due in no small measure to the tight restrictions placed on the Multi 2♦ by the EBU after the statement of intent to ban it completely apparently provoked such a response from the membership at large that the idea of the ban was rapidly shelved. The passage of time has made me a little uncertain about exactly when such a ban was proposed, but I'm fairly sure I was living in West Lancashire when I read about it, which ties it down to 1989-94. as regards what does and doesn't constitute "Acol", well, I'll leave that discussion to folks who play it as their main system, which excludes me.

Maybe it reflects the different groups of players on BBO, but when I've seen strong balanced hands opened 2♦, it's overwhelmingly the case that opponents are playing the classic Acol multi 2♦ (weak 2 in a major or 8 playing tricks in a minor or 19-20 balanced) rather than a Mexican 2♦. Maybe I'm missing something, but unless you're playing under some regulations which forbid the multi, I can't see why you would waste 2♦ openers on just 18-19 balanced.

If you're going to play a multi, then why not go the whole hog and play four of them? :) That's assuming Tartan Twos are still legit for you if you're playing offline. 2♣ = weak 2♦ or the usual game forcing or big balanced 2♦ = weak 2 in a major or Acol 2 in a minor or some balanced range 2♥ = weak 5-5 ♥ and a minor or an Acol 2♥ or some other balanced range 2♠ = weak 5-5 ♠ and another or an Acol 2♠ With three ways to show strong balanced in there you should be able to spare the 2NT opener to show something else, e.g. the minor two-suiter that's not covered in the above scheme.

WINE is a collection of libraries designed to allow Windows programs to run under Linux - the name is even derived from Wine Is Not an Emulator. But, leaving that technical point aside, would you kindly indicate to me where in my postings I have made any complaint? The OP obviously hadn't seen the news article relating to redeals, and neither had I. A reply was made which was at least implicitly critical of the OP for not looking at the news article. I merely pointed out that some of us don't see the news articles. Yes, I know BBO would prefer us to use the flash application. I've tried it, and I prefer the old client. As long as BBO provides the choice, and the old client continues to work satisfactorily via WINE, then I will continue to use the old client. I don't have either the time or the inclination to go through your long rant in response to what was meant to be a jocular aside. I'm well aware of Bill Gates's philanthropic record. For the record, my PC came with a copy of Windows installed. Microsoft made their sale. However, I prefer the Open Source concept, and so nuked Windows in favour of Debian. My PC, my choice. I shall do my very best to remember to use more emoticons in future.

BBradley seemed to assume that the OP should have seen the news about the redeal problem. I just pointed out that some of us don't seen the news articles. I'm sure the Windows version shows the news correctly *provided* you're running Windows. Some of us don't see why Billy G. needs to get any richer.

I'll start the list with MOSCITO, as far as five card majors are concerned. In fact, in the variant I used to play, 1NT denied a four card major.

Not necessarily. It depends on the software in use. I use the Windows client under WINE and Linux, and no such notices are displayed.

OK, as I said, I don't know the database structure. It would seem to involve a fair amount of overhead if space has been allocated to store all explanations made. Maybe not in these days of terabyte drives, but if Fred and Uday have had the structure set up that way from day 1, all kudos to them.

Not quite correct. The BBO Windows client will run quite happily via WINE on a Linux system, assuming a couple of simple changes in your BBOVER.INI. For all I know, the same is true for Apple users too. I don't know the format in which the hands are stored, but I suspect the problem is that the space for alerts just wasn't allocated, and they're never recorded. I think you may be on a loser as regards storing the explanations, that would have to make the data structure considerably more complex, but it wouldn't seem impossible for BBO to be able to flag an alerted bid in some way without requiring major changes unless the data structure has been really tightly packed (for example, there are a couple of methods out there to store an entire hand as a 128-bit integer - you can't add anything to that sort of format) The answer to that depends on what system you're playing. There's a particularly nasty bug for opponents using the web client if you're playing a system where the bids vary by seat and vulnerability. I can't remember the details now, as it's been at least a couple of years (look in the FD forum for a thread started by me) but FD DID get it wrong for the system I used to play. Some of our bids were one meaning in 1st and 2nd seat EXCEPT vulnerable against not, and a different meaning otherwise, and we confirmed that our opponents (one using the Windows client, the other the web client) were seeing different explanations - the Windows client saw the correct explanation. I did report this bug, but then Fred (AFAIK) decided that FD wasn't being developed any more, and again AFAIK, it's never been fixed. Don't know about the web client (I detest it) but AFAIK using the Windows client, it's down to each user to tweak FD's settings. When I'm playing for real, I have to set FD not to show my alerts or my partner's.

Correct (I did say the system was Precision). The bids are based on Jannersten's writeup, he went some way past alpha, beta and gamma.