qwery_hi

Why was this so unlucky for her? The best way to improve is to play up so she should have been glad to be able to play in "A" with you, rather than seeing all the terrible bridge in C. I said it before and will say it again. When I play with a beginner, in my club I will NOT play in the B-group but in the A-group. Not quite. The best way to improve is to play with people a little above your level. Having a 0-5'er play in the A group would not be the best way to improve for 99% of the 0-5'ers I know.

If kids followed instructions that well, abstinence only sex-ed would be a success.

Servers them right for not paying attention in the sex-ed class.

Does your mixed raise have 4 trumps?

I may be very wrong, but I think for the vast majority of average bridge players you are the most accessible "World Class" bridge player, thanks mainly to these forums. When you're writing about bridge related stuff on here, you're speaking to - (1) Peers (2) Experts (3) Advanced I'm in group 3, and for me your views on Bridge judgment are close to Gospel. ** These things make you a celebrity. It doesn't hurt that you wrote BBO, and are the software guy for bridge :) ** EDIT - I should admit I'm lazy, and prefer to "blindly" follow someone's judgment if it sounds right, without thinking too much about why it is right.

I have a couple of questions about preemptive jump raises in the majors. Setting is teams, not MPs. The basic system is 2/1 100% GF. Are preemptive 1M - 3M raises a net gain? The books say 1M-3M should be 4 card support and usually <= 6HCP. Q1. How much do you lose if you're not playing this? And if it is decided to play this, Q2. Based on your experience, is it better to play the preemptive 1M - 3M as 4 card support and (i) 0-6 hcp OR (ii) 3-8 hcp?

Hey Winston, you should check out "Fabric of the cosmos"

I suggest the book "Fabric of the cosmos". If I understand it correctly - Time has no independent existence, space-time is the background in which all physics takes place. Speed of light attainable only for mass-less particles, and for these particles, the concept of "now" doesn't exist, or rather, past and future have no meaning if you are traveling at the speed of light, time stops. Time typically associated with the direction in which entropy increases, however, nothing in all of our equations favors the future over the past for entropy increase. So the real mystery is why the entropy was small at the beginning of the universe.

What do you think of making legal the bids of 8♣, 8♦ and 8♥?

Replace "argue" with "play" and I agree 100%. If you then proceed to replace "wife" with "self" then I agree 110%. "Don't play with your self?"

A simple LOL instead of a chuckle would speed up (my) realization.

Maybe if you were responsible for ensuring that 250,000 people have a good BBO experience when 1% of them get upset by some user's attention-seeking profile and 10% of the 1% send you e-mail to complain about it, the experience of responding to those 250 e-mails would cause you to feel some sympathy and understanding instead of disappointment. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Understanding - Yes, sympathy - a little, disappointment - a bit more. OK so if you were in charge, how would you prevent yourself from becoming disappointed? I can think of a few alternatives: 1) Allow anyone to say anything in their profiles or through chat and pay an army of people to respond to the flood of e-mail complaints that you would receive (not that these e-mails would do any good in most cases since the only appropriate response would be "sorry but here on BBO we allow everyone to act like an asshole") 2) Allow anyone to say anything in their profiles or through chat and ignore the flood of e-mail complaints you would receive 3) Only allow political/religious/sexual comments in profiles or through chat if you personally happen to agree with them Regardless of which of these options you choose, good luck staying in business especially when those who belong to the small % of BBO members who give you a $1 on occasion decide to stop playing on your site. Or maybe you have a better idea? Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Fred, I'm not going to be presumptuous and tell you how best to run the business of BBO. I don't know. I don't envy the position you are in re: the political, sexual, religious profiles. Its a zero sum game. Lets say I'm gay and have on my profile - "Only here to play with my wonderful husband FooBar". Is this bridge related? Kinda. Would some be offended by it? I guess. If I was asked to remove this from my profile, would I be offended? Yes. Facebook, reddit, digg, twitter, all media sites are grappling with this issue. They can't satisfy all the people all the time. I realize its not possible. There's nothing you can do about the disappointment, and there's nothing I can do about the state of affairs. But thanks for hearing my side of they story, and thank you for telling me your side.

Maybe if you were responsible for ensuring that 250,000 people have a good BBO experience when 1% of them get upset by some user's attention-seeking profile and 10% of the 1% send you e-mail to complain about it, the experience of responding to those 250 e-mails would cause you to feel some sympathy and understanding instead of disappointment. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Understanding - Yes, sympathy - a little, disappointment - a bit more.

Sure, seeing someone put "+++" on their profile also bothers me. What does that have to do with paying cards when there is already a level provided by BBO? Just because something on a profile bothers me doesn't mean that it should be removed. I seem to recall that +++ is some king of flag related to the Vugraph system The point remains. Just because I don't like that someone has "Homeland Security is big brother" shouldn't be the reason that it is censored by BBO. I'm disappointed with BBO, but from what I've seen from the moderators on this site, it's par for the course. When I see +++ on a profile I think the person is too full of themselves.

Sure, seeing someone put "+++" on their profile also bothers me. What does that have to do with paying cards when there is already a level provided by BBO? Just because something on a profile bothers me doesn't mean that it should be removed.

Well, Fred is a celebrity - Its kinda like discussing what motivated Brad Pitt to change his hair style

I think its even more nuts that Fred didn't consult you before participating in this discussion

I love you man

Having "Homeland security is big brother" is enough to get your note censored in BBO? Where did this come from?

I think this is grossly unfair to Mr. Cayne. Apparently it is your opinion that CEOs do not have the right for time off, where they are simply out of office. It is my opinion that everyone has such a right. He wasn't away for one day, it's more like ten days. The situation is similar to a addict high on bridge while his house is burning. Unfortunately, some of the neighbors houses got burned too.

There is no issue with turning off the cell phone for the 4 hours that I am in the playing hall. Even this is disallowed - why is it that I cannot have a turned off cell phone in the playing area?

Fred, has your team earned a bye to the Quarter Finals of the team trials?

What makes a game inherently better than another game? Poker has just the right amount of "complexity" to make it appealing to a large number of people. If we're looking for rich complexity, surely Go beats all other games hands down. But it is this extreme complexity which makes it less popular. Furthermore, poker admits many styles of playing : intuitive, mathematical or the whole spectrum in between. The ideal game would be one as simple as possible and no simpler. Poker achieves this balance quite well. And you can't remove money from poker - that would be like holding only individual tournaments in the ACBL. How many pro's do you think would be playing bridge then?

I've worked for both the ACBL and what was at one time the largest full-time chess facility in the country, and known many people who are good (say, 95th percentile or so) at both games. To a person, they prefer bridge. Most notably probably Woman's Grandmaster Irina Levitina. In the United States at least, serious bridge is far more popular than serious chess. The American Contract Bridge League has about twice the membership of the United States Chess Federation, more club games, and bigger tournaments. One year, I was the 8th most active member of the United States Chess Federation. Chess is a great game, and I still play some (mostly online). Bridge is better. And poker is the best.

I accidently closed a BBO private message which had a phone number + email before writing them down. Is there a way I can see the message again?