hotShot

If directing we should report rude behavior to abuse, because if each TD is only blacklisting the offending player, other TD's have to suffer too. Some of the rude players get away by loging off faster than i can mark them as enemy. I write down the names add and then to my list after the tourney. By the way a lot people i am blacklisting for my tourneys, i blacklist while playing in other tourneys :) If i find the time i make a remark why i blacklisted someone. Perhaps i should add a date, but than it starts to get work. What you can to is turn on your chat log, and read it after the tourney. since you get substitution messages for all the subbing you made, you can blacklist the tourney runners. Unfortunatelly if players know how to sub their partner, you will not get a message. If would be a great feature if TD's could mark a player as banned from their tourneys, if a player earns the ban of at least 10 hosts perhaps an automatic message to abuse could be generated.

There are two effects from the movement, that influence your score. Playing a board, it does matter who your opponent is. If a world class defence can bring you down, who better not have world class opponents at that board. It does matter if the other strong pairs play a board in the same direction as you do, or if they are playing it at the other side. If there are 3 strong pairs and 2 of them play a board NS they gain a shared top at best. The other pair on the EW sides can score a full top. So no matter how many boards you play, there is allways a litte luck left. So i think you are right. Even at 175 boards a 0.03% split does not prove which pair plays better bridge, But it is significant to the question who won the event :P.

Well take a look at the South hand, i'm counting 5 looser here. If North 5+ hcp are a e.g. KQ there are only 3 loosers in our combined hands left. This is always worth a try playing IMP's.

I suggested to implement this feature a while ago. Unlike chess, you need to ask opponents about their bids. So while you are waiting for a full explanation, who's time is running? What if i don't need an explanation and just hit opps bids to force them to answer so that i can think on their time? This can cause more problems than it solves. But a time only visible to the TD within e.g. the players history would be very helpful to th TD if both sides claim, that opps vaseted time. From a TD point of view, i would like to see that claims have to be answerd before the software moves to the next round, that the last trick is played automaticly and there should be a list (similar to the players history) with all unfinished boards.

Well the question is do you really need to "picture" it. You can train your mind , to memorize a sequence of 52 cards. There a championships for that, and the methods how to do this are published. To have a photographic memory of that is not neccessary. Truth is, that a player who knows which of the xxx Cards are worth a trick (e.g. at the end of a game) has a big advantage.

Well i don't have the data for a full analysis, but a monthly transfer volume of more than 2TB is interesting.

I assume if 1000 kibs log in shortly before a vugraph sesssion starts this could let to a bandwidth shortage.. I wonder how much bandwidth you need. I think one player/kib needs about 1.5 MB/h downstream. I see about 5100 Users online resulting in a 7.5 GB/h bandwidth top performance. More than a 16Mbit connection can take. Lets assume an average of 2000 user/h 24 h a day that results in more than 2TB (Terabyte) per month. Whow!

EricK is right. You should start to play as soon as possible. This way you have declarer play and defence from the first moment on. Naturally leads, and cardplay follow next. Then bidding is the next step. This approach is very well supported by Minibridge. Take a look at the Minibridge leaflet (pdf) BBO supports Minibridge in the MBC.

I can use my mouse wheel anywhere except the lobby and the lobby view sitting at a table. The table list in MBC and the chat window scroll fine here (3.9.0).

If you follow this rule you will hardly run into trouble: Any bid should be alerted, that does not show length the suit bid, that does not have the hcp range one would expect or additionally promisses a defined length or strength in another suit. A minor should have 3+ cards a major 4+ cards and NT should show a balanced hand. Following this you will have to alert: Stayman, Transfer, nonforcing bids, preempts, splinter, fit jumps, 4th suit forcing, etc.

With good 19 P would have opend 2NT per definition of this system, so they are bad 19 and i can pass 2NT or the hand is not balanced. If p had is not balanced my hand might be good enough for game.

I see your point, but: is there a team/pairs captian? Or does any player who sits down force his team/pair to a match/table. Are team matches automaticly formed if 2 teams are in the team lobby? So in the end a td has to form a team match, and invites the teams/players. Of cause one could create some sort of partnership-desk and a "teamship-desk" , so the td has nothing to do besides creating the match, but will you get the opps you desired? perhaps some other players might be faster. If one day team tourenys with more than 2 teams are possible we will need such tools. Lets see the upcomming vugraph features, they deal with team tourneys with more than 2 teams, show match results and result tables. This might be a base for such tourneys at bbo.

I bid 2♣! P has max. 2 points for the queen in ♠. So he has at least 13 in other suits. If he does not have 4♠, you can still play 2♠ or 2♥ with 4-3 fit. And if he does not have a 4card major, you p should have enough card in the minors to stop them. If you don't see a 8 cards ♠, a minimum partner can pass your 2NT rebid. If you don't fit, opps won't fit too. Tell we what is the killing lead after 1NT - 2♣ - 2♦ - 2NT? Yes you might go down, but most of the field will go down with you. I think even at MP's there is more to win than to loose.

Hi Richard! I think the best way would be to create a team match with dummy players sitout1-sitout8. After that the match is visible to all, so players can list as subs and the TD can use the existing subbing tool to seat the players. Tourney chat can be used to organise seating without flooding the lobby. Only problem is not to show the cards before all are seated. I think that would be very easy to use and not to complicated inplement, since most of this already exists. Have a nice day Robert

to 1) No, but may players that could not register on time, register as sub as soon as possible. So usually at tourney start there are lots of sub's.

Guess he means that if you type (Transfer) in a message each recipient should read his native language word for "transfer" instead.

Why don't you simply redeal?

Are you sure you p understood your bid as a splinter? Even if he knew, the sequence 1♠-2♥ takes a lot of biddingspace. Bidding a splinter takes away even more. A splitner leaves P 2 save bids, 4♦ and 4♥. He won't show ♣ Control, he won't show ♠control if he does not have the ♦ ace he has to try slam or stopn in 4♥. You are strong enough to place e.g. a 3♦ or another strong delaying bid. If you bid 4♥ later your p should know much better what to expect.

I don't think the TD knows what players enlisted but did not show up. So i don't think there is a chance to select someone later. The odds are that all players from partnershipdesk list as sub as soon as the tourney starts. So at first there are lots of subs und the chances are smaller to be picked. Later the number of subs is smaller ..... You can sign up for a tourney as soon as it is anounced. That is 10 Minutes usually byme, and several day for some of the regular events.

Please consider this: You are playing a wvery difficult Contract/Defence when one off the Opps disconnects, you wait a moment and no problem you wait a little longer, are you sure you still remember all tricks you wait even longer, do you still remember your game plan and everything you figuerd out? Waiting is highly unfair against the opps. They have to play faster to catch up the time. I don't mind i make my mistakes fast, but there are players that actually play better if they have time to think. There are no subs in real life bridge, because players usually don't run that often. The software should be changen in the following way: 1) If a player disconnects, the boards should be canceled after 1 minute the result wont be fair even with a sub, who doesnot know what happend. and the distortion to opps is not acceptable. 2) The timeout period, until a player gets fully red, must be much shorter in tourneys. Players can sub their p themselves than. 3) If the remaining time in a round is too small to have the innocent side play the board under regular conditions the next board shoud be cancelt. 4) If a player does not sub his missing Partner within 5 minutes, he should be dismissed automatically.

Win an event, IMHO. :) Well such a graduation event should perhaps be a litte more serious than a usual tourney perhaps some 24 Boards.

I'm with free, don't open a 10 looser hand. If i have to bid, i bid 1NT, if Partners 5+ ♠ are good, there is a good change to get 5♠ and my 2 Acces. Since P has 6HCP in ♠ at the most, there must be something in the side suits. So if we end up in 3NT and P does not have a♥ stop, we are down one. Sh** happens....

I dissagree here. 2 Boards more are 16 more minutes with 2 extra it can be 18. Yesterday i planed to play a tourney at 9 pm. At 7.p.m. i was askes to join at 12 board tourney starting in 4 minutes. So it should have been finisched at 20:44 so i joined. It acually finished 20:52 leaving me 8 minutes time. I have no problem with that, but a last minute change of the number of boards even one more would have been to much. If somehow i have time to play BBO for about a hour I can play 8 boards, i would not start to play 10.

QJ10x xx Axxx xxx Kxxx xxx Jxxx Kxx Kx xxx Jx Kxxxx Q10x xxx Jxx xxx QJx xxx Jxx Kxx J10xx xx Qxx xxxx AQ xxx xxxx xxx KJ10 xxx xxx xxxx KQx xxx Axx xxx 109xxx xx Q10x xxx should i continue ? Declarer has: 4 AKQJ98 K72 AQ2 P has: QJ10x xx Axxx xxx Declarer has 9 quick tricks 6♥2♦1♣ both in NT and in ♥, but he has a chance to get the 3rd ♠ or the finess in ♣ as trick number 10. So the chance is better than 50% to make 4♥as well. Kxxx xxx Jxxx Kxx Declarer can loose 2♦(AQ behind K), 4-5♠ (AQ behind K) so he might be 2-3 down in 3NT before he makes his first trick. But he has 9 sure tricks in 4♥ and if one of the kings or the J♦ makes a trick he has 4♥. Kx xxx Jx Kxxxx Same as the hand before but declarer can loose much more tricks in ♦ and ♠since opps have more. Opps can't get more than 3 quick tricks in 4 ♥ und you can ruff a ♦ or draw the ♣ if they are not worse than 3-2. Q10x xxx Jxx xxx You have 7 tricks if opps let you, almost no stop in ♠ and weak stop in ♦, i don't think that you make 3NT. If opps can draw your ♠Q they have at least 5♠, 2 acces and ♦Q. You risk going down 4! You will go down in 4♥ too, but no more than 3. I would still prefer to play ♥. QJx xxx Jxx Kxx Nice hand for 3NT, but if you make it, you need to stop a ♦ or a ♠ so you will make at least +1. In that case you will make 4♥as well. J10xx xx Qxx xxxx Great ♠ stop! Opps play 4 rounds of ♠ if they are not 4-4 you will loose another spade when ♦A or ♣K make a trick. To make it you need ♠4-4 and ♦expass or ♣ finesse. (If 4-4 AK9x should not be behind JTxx..) 3NT is not better than 40%. In 4♥ you need ♦ expass and ♣ finess to work, about 25%. First time 3NT is a little better, but with this hand i would have passed 3♥. AQ xxx xxxx xxx Declarer has 8 quick tricks 6♥1♠1♣ both in NT and in ♥. 3NT have a good chance. If you make an overtrick there is a good chance to make 4 ♥ too. This time 3NT is better, but if ♠ is lead and the finess does not work, and spade is played again.... you better get some valium. In 4♥ you can take the ace follow ♠ yourself and a gain a table entry if opps play ♠. KJ10 xxx xxx xxxx You need opps to get your ♠ trick and they can eliminate you on ♦. Seems that all hand with enough HCP only in ♠ are a little better in 3NT. KQx xxx Axx xxx No doubt over 3NT or 4♥. 109xxx xx Q10x xxx You make 3NT with this? I see opps take 4♠ and ♦A at once. Since the strong hand is dummy opps may try to play ♣ before you drop them on ♠. At 4♥ you can ruff ♠ try to develope ♦ and play ♣ finesse. Not the best chance, but much better as 3NT and you will not go down more often. So 2-3 of your 10 hands are better in 3NT than in 4♥. All hands are weak and the HCP are in ♠. Since your intention was to show hands that are better in 3NT than in 4♥ this is not convincing.

Dear Flame, as said before only the North hand is relevant for the ruling. You are right, there might be distributions where 3NT is the better contract, but please post me a South hand, that is weak enough to bid 2♦, where 3NT is made and 4♥ cannot be done. And it should have a significant statistical weight. Remember that the hand of E/W are irrelevant in this bidding.