hotShot

If it does not say: "The player stated that he had forgotten ..." My experience tells me that statements like: are not necessarily established facts.

As long as you can buy anything you need to destroy a plane midair in the duty free shop, all those security checks are far from effective.

This is speculation, he could have been just a little unsure. To me Cascades suggestion: §66C => §84D => §12 Seems more plausible.

Anders Ericsson (Florida State University) says that you have to invest about 10000 hours of practice withing 10 years get world class in something. That is about 3 hours a day. His prime examples are darts, chess and violin play. I'm quite sure that it's also true for bridge.

Everybody knows google, but the google guys stay in the background.

Dubya is the person that definitely dominated the last decade. 10 years ago who would have thought that the USA would imprison people without a trial and without the status as prisoners of war. Who would have thought that there would be military actions in 2 foreign countries. Who would have thought that the alliance between the US and Nato (esp. Germany) could get a crack because of that.

There's hardly ever a technical solution for social problems. But the tourney problem could be solved, just by storing the number of tourneys a player begins and the number of tourneys a player finishes. Once a player has started in lets say 20 tourneys and he has finished 19 he would have a finishing quotient of 95%. Lets say if that goes below 80% a player can no longer list himself into tourneys, until he has finished enough tourneys as a sub, to get his ratio better than 80% again. As to the MBC, perhaps one could calculate the average numbers of boards before leaving the table. Leaving without playing a board or before finishing the second averaging several 0 and 1 will pull down your average. Perhaps hosts could ask for an average better than 2 boards/taking a seat.

Bidding space is a rare good and the most economic use is to put the most frequent followup's into the lowest possible bid. In theory this will allow you to exchange more information with your partner and to find better contracts. Implementing e.g. one bid to cover all strong hands (as in Precision) limits all other opening bids and allows responder a better judgment in the partscore battle. The advantages of an artificial system have a price: - more complexity (esp. dealing with interference) - higher memory load But these disadvantages can be overcome through training. In most boards the edge you gain will not make a difference, but in close team matches winning on 1 in 10 boards through a systemic advantage will make you more successful.

The main problem is that no human can do something really random. The secondary problem is that humans are great in discovering patterns (even if there are none).

Be careful not to over-interpret GIBs actions. GIB has no plan and no principles it follows. It just generates a set of deals that fit his and dummies holding and the restrictions defined during bidding. It solves all those double dummy and looks for the best card to play in most of these deals. Obviously GIBs simulations will be closer to the actual deal the more is known about distribution and honors. GIB plays best when everybody is bidding so that much is known about all hands from the start. During the first tricks GIBs DD analysis takes much time so GIB can't check many deals and the randomly generated deals may be far away from the one played. This can lead to plays/bids that appear irrational. During the last tricks GIB can handle lots of simulated deals and many facts are already known. The picture that GIB gets from his simulations is much closer to the actual deal and GIBs play gets close to perfect.

You only have 2 cards in each red suit, so unless partner has 6 cards in one of them you won't have a fit there. If partner had 6 cards in a suit he would not dbl twice. So the only chance to have a fit is in ♣. We know that opps can't have more than 8♠, so if we apply the LoTT there are 15-16 TT, if partner has 4♣ and 16-17 TT if partner has 5♣. Without applying further adjustments, bidding 3♣ would only be suggested, if opps have an 8 card fit and partner has 5♣.

I would pass. And why did I bid 3♣? Opps could be playing 2♠X with an unfavorable 5-0 ♠ split (if they have a fit at all), while partner seems to have some strength.

Why didn't North ask about kings? There was room to do so before 6♠ and any K would have made 7 a save bet. Jumping to 7 was an unnecessary risk.

2♥

I'll pass Because: - in my system partner can't have the extras needed for game. - both opps passed last round so why should i drive the partscore up one level

So your alert and opponents question made your partner notice the misbid. This creates the problem that this information is UI. But (without any evidence from the actual hand) I don't think there is an alternative to 3NT. Now thanks to her remark the information that she is stronger is UI to you, but fortunately after her 3NT bid that information is legally available too. So I guess, I would let the score stand.

I'm missing some information. 1) Did you alert the 2NT bid? If you did, opener would be very surprised to see an alert of his strong natural bid. In this case we would have to debate an UI case. 2) Did your partner alert 3♣ ? If your partner alerted your 3♣ bid, at least you don't have an UI problem (yet). If your partner did not alert your 3♣ bid or explained it any other way than "executed transfer", you have the UI that partner is on he wrong track.

I haven't used these, but perhaps this helps: http://pngwriter.sourceforge.net/ (as your example creates a png) Or pick on on the other C/C++ libraries from here: http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com/imglib.html

I'm sure the stand alone version of GIB can play SAYC. (GIB can play several systems.) I remember a post from Fred years ago, that maybe one day this feature will be included into the BBO Version, but that it has no priority.

Josh my impression is that you seem to think that opener showed about 15 HCP and responders 3NT bid showed only 10 HCP while he held 16 HCP. And opener somehow got the UI that there is more. My impression and I think others share this view is, that opener underbid his hand showing something like an average 13 HCP (more often (11) or 12 than 15) and responder showed about opening strength and a balanced hand. Discovering 2♦ cards in partners holding, makes opener reevaluate his hand and discovering extras (6♦ tricks and 2♣ trick => 8 tricks) in his unbalanced hand.

This is a browser issue, when you click a link, you follow the link. So it could be done with a little javascript, no need to get flash involved here.

As I see it, opener would bid 2♦ with 12 HCP and 5♦ cards. So I think holding 15 HCP, 7♦ and distributional values, pass is not on the list of LA's.

Would a musician be insulted, if you say you recognized his play or sound? Would a designer be insulted, if you say you recognized his design? Would a poet be insulted, if you say you recognized his style? The answer to those questions is, that it can be anything from the biggest compliment to an insult, depending on the way it is said and the smile in the speakers face. In a forum you need to be more clear, because the reader won't have your body language to make the intended interpretation, and in doubt they will assume that any ambiguity is intended.

You raise an important point here, a rating system also has to be simple enough to be understood. But there is still a risk that "urban legends" and "conspiracy theories" will dominate the perception.

HotShot, I think you should assume an efficient, fair and accurate rating system and then address Fred's concerns about when, where and how to display the ratings. It sounds to me that the bigger hurdle for implementation is the social impact of a rating system rather than the ability to devise a reasonably accurate rating system. Although I think that it must be possible to rate player, I'm sure that we are still far away from a solution. Many of those who suggest a rating system, seem to think that it's simple to get some sort of ranking from myhands. My point is that it is not that simple. Until there is a working rating system, it makes no sense to me to think about when to display radomized numbers.