hotShot

The question is, how significant is 1 point? If you think of a bigger tourney with 100 tables, the rankings will be between +400 and - 400. I expect that values of 3500+ for world class player and 500 for beginners will be reached over time. I would consider less than 10 points as not very significant. In your example A and B won 4/4 times over C and D. A was 4-6 points better than C/D B was 2-4 points better than C/D A's ranking was between +3 and +2. B's ranking was between +2 and +1. C's ranking was between -1 and -2. D's ranking was between -2 and -3. This means that the ranking is quite stable, within this group. Now assume that B came from some other club and has ranking up to +20. AC and D have a ranking of 0. After your first event: the rankings will be: +3, +19, 0, -2 After the 2nd event: +4, +18, 0, -2 After the 3rd event: +5, +17, 0, -2 After your 4th event: +5, +17, -1, -1 So ever a longer period of time A and B will get to the same level, although A is not playing outside the club. And because B is loosing points to A in this club, B can regain points playing at the other club.

The average strength of a first hand pass is 8 HCP, the second hands average is a little less than 9 HCP. So if the bidding goes pass - pass 3rd and 4th hand share 23+ HCP. Holding 11 HCP of these, means that that LHO has 12+ HCP and his side will have about 21 hcp on average. I don't think that opps can double 2♠ and they won't have game. So bidding a final 2♠ seems appropriate.

There is a much simpler way to get a good rating, than signal processing. Set the start rating of a player to 2000. The rating of a pair/team in the arithmetical average of the players involved. At the end of a tourney you do this simple math: Any player/pair/team that scored worse than you, but has a ranking value better or equal to yours, increments your ranking by 1/2/4 points. Any player/pair/team that scored better than you, but has a ranking value lower than yours, decrements your ranking by 1/2/4 points. Simple to explain and it has some nice side effects. 1) Playing the same group of people the ranging will stay stable, winning against weak player does not help your ranking. 2) If player get better or weaker, there score will rise or drop with their results. 3) Loosing against better player does not hurt your ranking. 4) Large tourneys are more selective than small ones. 5) Regional and national tourneys will adjust the rankings between clubs. Problems: If everybody starts with a ranking of 2000, a local ranking will be quite stable after 5-10 tourneys, but to establish a regional or even national adjustment,a lot tourneys will be needed. This problem will be smaller if results of previous regional and national tourneys will be used to determine start values for the ranking points. Club player that have no scores from regional or national events will get a starting value a little below the average of those club players who have a score.

I'll just bid 4♠, there are only 14- HCP left for the other 2 players and if partner does not have ♣KQ or ♣ single with a lot of ♠s, we won't make slam.

1. What you call recap, is the movie window. You can move it to get back to the playing area, or you can close it and open it again using the "movie" button.

Sorry to correct you, but we get the government the majority deserves.

I don't think that it is beneficial to allow opps to enter the auction easily in 20-20 HCP situations. Lets say you don't open a bad 11-12 HCP hand, than your LHO has any bid available to describe his (weak) opening, this way they will find their best spot more often than they would against other pairs. If the 1st hand pass was weaker than 9 HCP, and you enter the auction in 3rd hand holding 8+ HCP, you might go for a number, if opps strength is placed in 4th hand. Without a sampling i don't know exact numbers but i think that these 2 unfavorable cases cover more than half of the situations.

East holds 16 HCP and opener should have 12+. So east knows where 28+HCP are located. South won't bid 1NT with nothing, so obviously his partner (west) can't have more than 6HCP. So if east intended his 2nd double to be penalty, than it is wrong, because he's not strong enough. East has 3-4 tricks in a ♠ contract and partner is not strong enough to make the 2-3 tricks needed to bring 2♠ down. If east intended his 2nd double to be take out, than it is wrong, because opps did not show a fit (so his side won't have one too) and his side is not strong enough for the 3 level. East has about 4-5 tricks playing any suit other than ♠, so the west hand would be required to make 4+ tricks to make. With this type of strength west would have bid before.

Obviously there is a need for some sort of "papers" to identify yourself. It should not be to easy to make false ones. I really don't see, why this ID should cost more because it is registered nationwide and I don't see why this ID should only be registered "locally". But this won't make a difference in the "war against terrorism". Terrorism and child abuse/porn are politicians favorite arguments, because any opposition can be discredited to help terrorists and criminals.

I can/have see 3 J's, 4Q's and and 3K's, you saw 28HCP and declarer should have about 9+ more of the missing 12. Partner can hardly have more than a 3 HCP, the only possible honor he could hold is one of ♣J or ♣K. He has a small chance to make ♠T, if opps try to take 4 rounds of them. If opps have a fit in ♥ (declarer has 5+ cards), where is our fit? If declarer has ♠AX(x)(x) his game plan should be to eliminate trump and drop dummies ♣ on his 4th and 5th ♥. This will make, if he has ♠T or partners ♠T will drop in the first 3 rounds. It all boils down to the question does P have ♣K or not. So I will play ♣A now and follow ♣ if partner encourages. If he's signing off, I will try the ♦ ruff instead.

The amount of raw data measured in bytes is growing fast, but the amount of knowledge is growing much, much slower.

Not really, but ...... it's either that or partner is deliberately ending this partnership.

pass Why did partner X 4♥ and did not leave the choice to you? Your partner expects to make a a few tricks himself and your minimum is 2 aces that should make 2 tricks.

I read a more scientific article about it and it might become interesting for nano machines one day, but it won't have an effect to the macroscopic world.

Are you sure about that? Can you please try logging in to BBOTV and clicking the BBO Vugraph button near the top of the screen. A window will appear that lists whatever vugraph matches are running. Please try clicking the Vugraph schedule button near the botton of this window. In theory you should see new browser popup appear. What happens? Thanks, Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com Yes that is sure! I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.6 now, but i think it's no new feature. I get the message that firefox blocked a popup window.

Would I want a ♥ lead from partner? No, but if opps play ♠ he won't have to lead anyway. Is it likely that opps can make game? If partner has a few points, than opps won't have game. We are red and opps white, if I bid I will have to make it, or else it will cost. I see 7 looser and I will be down, if partner does not have 2 tricks. So I think that one should consider to pass here very seriously.

My popup-blocker does not allow flash applications to open browser windows, but i could relax that for the BBO site. Now i get my lin-file automatic, but I see no problem to download in a different browser window. (But i might forget it sometimes ......) People that create FD-files with an editor of their choice, will be able to visit some upload webpage. I would see no problem there. In fact a lot of services available now, could be on a different webpage. Just imagine that the club and tourney management could be a different application.

This is good news.

Beside style and beauty aspects, i think there is something else to consider: BBOTV and company security Security and easy usage often don't go well together. It is much easier not to lock doors all the times, but it's not secure. From a security point of view the new BBOTV is an application that downloads its own code over the internet (so the company security cannot check it prior to executing), that has a bidirectional data connection that can send data from inside the company to someone outside and that can execute tasks for someone outside the company. If this application had any way, to access local system resources, like drives, microphones, webcams or others, it could be used to make all other security measures completely useless. While I don't think that Fred and Uday would be interested in anything that is stored on my PC, it is quite easy to make the application download its components from a different source. So all someone would have to do is create a modified version, that has a little "extra function". I don't know what local rights a flash application can have (I know they are limited), but I know that vendors have to fight possible escapes from that limitations from time to time.

I would pass. Since I was silent up to now, bidding know has to be caused by the knowledge of badly placed honors and probably no ♥ fit. Declarer will expect to see the 6 missing ♠ 4-2, and if i don't have ♥ support, most likely these 4♠ will be with me. Holding ♠AKQT in his 5-2 split in almost any combination will allow him to make 5♠ tricks anyway. Declarer will also suspect, that I hold the ♣Q, because this is the only other card suggested for an upgrade after the bidding. So he should be able to make 4-5♠, 2♥ (they should have 2 stopper), a ♦ and 1-2♣. After I tip them off with my dbl, I think they are much closer to makeing 9 tricks, than they are, if I keep my mouth shut.

Ok you are right, I was not clear enough. Playing weak NT you have an advantage whenever strong NT player open 1m (♣ or ♦). 1) If your partner opened 1m too, you can expect 5+ cards or (not in this case) extra HCP . 2) Your partner opened 1NT, you reached that contract without giving distributional information to opps and you might have preempted them from entering the auction.

It is a matter of style, but: If you put more 12-14 HCP (semi)-balanced hands into your weak 1NT, your 1suit bids get stronger and better defined. You will find that if you include 4441 hands into 1NT, your 1m bids will show 5+ cards or 15+ HCP. If you allow bad 5card majors, your 1M bids will show 5 good cards in the major or extra strength.

Is the second statement your justification for the first? No it's the thesis, I prove in the following lines. To use your syntax: weak+4 1M promises 4 and implies 5 or strong weak+5 1M promises 5 no information about extra strength => no benefit You are making the mistake of comparing by opening bid; instead, you should compare by hand-type. I gave an example for the implications a weak NT has on other bids. For a comparison you need to things and I was only talking about one. I think thats what I said.

Weak (12-14) NT works best with ACOL, with a 5 card Majors system, it is much less effective. If you open a 4card suit in ACOL you hold a 4441, 4432 or 4333 distribution. If your point range is 12-14, you can open most of them with 1NT. This means that the full disclosure of any 1-in-a-suit bid should be: 15+HCP with 4cards or 12+HCP unbalanced 5+ cards if not 4441. So ACOL with weak NT is somewhere in between a "Strong All.Suits" System and a "5card all suits" system. Some pairs open 4441 with 1NT too, so that they are sure, 1-in-Suit is 5cards or strong. If you use weak NT with 5-card majors, you don't benefit from the weak NT in the majors. (Some pairs allow bad 5card majors in their NT opening to get part of the lost benefit back.) The minors still benefit from the weak NT. So if you compare 5 card Major players with weak and strong NT you will find. Playing weak NT you are more competitive, whenever you open 1m, because partner can expect a 5card minor or 3 extra HCP to compensate the missing card. Whenever the points and cards are evenly divided between the sides, your side bid 1NT first and may benefit from an uninspired lead. Using weak NT the biggest benefit you have is playing in a strong NT environment, where average opps don't have an appropriate defense available and are unaware of the implication the weak NT has on the rest of your bids.

I don't think thats true. Football (Soccer) player at top level have to run about 10-12 km a game (about 90 min) top clubs often have 2 games per week over long periods. Perhaps you noticed that injured players recover in incredible short time. Obviously a player who is not exhausted at the end of the game has a big advantage. (e.g. Blood doping, EPO ...) Obviously anything that keeps a player going at high levels over weeks (with lots of games) is a big advantage. (e.g. EPO and Testosterone) Obviously a fast recovery from injuries, is a big advantage. (e.g. steroids, growth hormone, Testosterone). "Fortunately" football player are only tested after competition (usually only 2-3 of a team) and usually only urine tests are made.