hotShot

The reflection happens at the glass surfaces and depending on the angle the light hits this surface the reflection is incomplete. (I bet the "glass" from the bus stop is not simple glass, more of a multi layer material.) Since glass has 2 surfaces, you will get 2 reflections displaced by the thickness of the glass. Both images together appear sort of dizzy. If you make a silver coating on one surface (a mirror) the reflection at this surface is complete and therefor more intense so it dominates the front surface reflection. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflectance for more details.

You just got a perfect description of partners hand, you should feel lucky and not preempted. Since your partner does not have A or T in ♥, holding 2 of the top 3 honors or 3 of the top 5 includes ♥K and ♥Q. Even if he only holds 7 small cards you will make 6 tricks if they are not 3-0. So you know that your side has 6-7♥, a ♠, a ♦ and usually a ♣ leading to 9-10 tricks for your side. Your partner should not hold 2 side tricks so there's no need to investigate slam. So pick a game between 3NT or 4♥. If your partner is half way reasonable 3NT is the better pick because it makes at 9 tricks.

We play Lionel against weak and strong NT. We use judgment handle vul. and scoring influences.

This is not a folder problem, if is something very odd. The error message has something to do with DLL versions. Since this is a DOS program that does not use any DLL's this message should not appear. My impression from reading internet reports of similar errors (and I could be completely wrong here) is that the command prompt tries to preload DLLs prior to the program start, that are not available in the correct version. This can happen by installing new software, that overwrites DLL's. Visual Basic or Office (it contains Visual Basic as script language) are possible causes for the problem, but there may be a lot more.

Using the same setup, the program just work's for me.

First tell us which version of Windows do you use? You might need the tools "DOSBox"

Your so lucky to have a sister like this! :)

Perhaps you have to load the file prior to sitting at the table. At least that works for me. After you load the file to the movie window you need to "send" the board from the movie window to the table .

Agree with 2♣. If redbl of 2♦X is promising something in ♦, I would choose that over 3♣. Agree with 3NT. If 4♥ is really pick a major, i have to bid 5♣.

Whoever created the bridge laws had in mind that serious partnerships try to have a serious competition. This is far away from the reality of online bridge. While in reality nobody will start a tourney without discussing the basic system, this seems to be standard in online bridge. Taking the offline Laws literally, nearly no partnership will need to alert any bid, before they played a number of boards together. A tourney with 5-8 boards is far from enough to create agreements, if you don't discuss them. From the (offline) laws point of view, having no agreement is a rare exception that can happen because it's impossible to cover every situation with agreements. The online practice is, that players often don't discuss anything, it seems that they just start playing. Does that mean they don't have agreements? No it does not. It is implicit BBO user understanding to play something like BBO Baisic/SAYC, if nothing else is agreed. If a player has conventions in his profile, implicit BBO user understanding is, that conventions listed in the profile can be used. By using a call a player expect his partner to understand it, at least the player hopes that his call will be understood. In other words the player is hoping for an implicit agreement. Therefor I think -using self alerts- he should alert his bid.

You don't need to convince me about the laws, try to convince those who state: "Alert all artificial bids!" for their tourneys. If you had looked at the cards and thought about the bidding, you'd realize that if East's 3♣ promised 4♣'s and West's 4NT agreed the ♣ fit and since North is looking at 5♣'s, south has to be void and ♠A is a entry to play back to north for a 2nd ♦ ruff. So the ♣ lead is necessary, but if 3♣ is artificial north would have to lead his ♠A before one of the opps can drop his ♠'s.

You asked for ideas, I suggest 2. Don't blame me, if you don't like them. Playing without agreements is not bridge. Subbing into tourneys is covered by the bridge laws. Playing cards without dbl or psyches is not bridge.

The 3♣ bid was not alerted, so it should be natural, which it is not . The failure to alert an artificial bid, calls for a score adjustment, if opps where damaged. If you claim that it is not artificial, than bidding 3♣ without a card in ♣ is regarded a psyche and in a "no psyche" tourney this calls for an adjusted score. I bet that opps argued that because you promised to have ♣'s, leading ♣ is more attractive than leading ♠A (winning a ♠ trick). This is plausible enough to claim damage.

I have no earthly idea why people feel the need to show that hand with anything other than PASS. Your LHO and your partner share some 30+ HCP. Instead of opening 2♥ with 7 HCP hoping to find some 10 in partners hand, you are bidding 2♥ with 2 HCP expecting to find 15+ HCP in partners hand.

The decision is close, but partner has passed in 2nd seat, so I will pass. If this were a 2nd seat decision I would prefer 5♥.

Your observation is right. Unfortunately there is not much that can be done about it. Some people think that playing online is just fun and others take the competition so seriously that they want to win at all cost. To win a tourney with only few boards to play, you need tops. To get tops, you need to play better, bid more, double more often or redbl if it makes sense. Some overdo this and produce random results. The only cure would be tourneys with more boards, so that constant good play is more important than a lucky result in one board. Longer tourneys suffer from player that leave mid tourney, producing random results because a sub, can't deliver a good performance if he has to start mid game, not knowing the tricks that were played.

Wouldn't you have opened a weak 2H with this? This is a hand to weak to open as weak 2 or a long suit that has no honors.

In my partnership this is agreed as "misfit, single suited in ♥, weak and preemptive" (implication is that I should not bid on). I don't claim this to be standard.

Opener showed 5♥ I have 4, Opener showed 9+ cards in the majors so he holds 4- in the minors. At least I can try to make if harder for opps to make on a crossruff. So I lead trump.

1982 Alan Truscott considered neg. free bids hyper-modern in his column at the New York Times.

dbl This is not a question of right or wrong, it is a matter of partnership discipline. Partners average hand has opening strength and 4♠'s, having no better bid than pass, he trusts us to reopen with any reasonable hand.

Partner has 3-♠ (did not bid 1♠), (2)3-♥ (did not support ♥), 3-♣ (did not bid 2♣) and an unbalanced hand (did not bid 1NT). Not holding many ♣'s partner won't have many stopper there. So I don't want to be in NT. My bid is 3♦.

Your question is valid if the player over the redouble bids something. If redoublers partner passes, the question remains, if that is allowed under the given rule. Phils question was answered by udays clarification.

Let's assume that redbl in this auction is artificial and alertable (otherwise it's an illegal bid). Now under the given rule is the partner of the redbling player allowed to pass, or does redbl create the ultemate forcing, that may not be passed? In this case, the given auction would be illegal.

If you plan a high-tech approach there are few other interesting things. 1) Of cause the tables are networked, so that you "plug" your system in some server. 2) Your system descriptions is automatically updated. Whenever a bidding sequence is unavailable, the player has to enter it's meaning and the autoalert routine will use the description next time, the sequence comes up. 3) Each player has a complete partnership history on his "plug-in" device, so the TD can check if a psych is frequent or not. 4) Instead of putting up screens you can put the player from the same side of the screen in a different room. 5) The system can delay bidding or cardplay, if it's to fast and mark to slow moves in the log, so that the TD can check about timing issues.