BurnKryten

I like to set "permission required" for opponents to sit, but then when I see the profile of the person who has asked, it doesn't show my notes. I have to try to remember which notes I have about whom, and sometimes I guess wrong and click okay to the wrong person. There's nothing worse than clicking yes for a person to sit, and only then see I left myself a note that "This guy was a critical bastard". I suppose I could just mark them as enemies, but I take pretty good notes - I'd like to use them.

Ten years ago or so, I was an expert and played in lots of tourneys. I haven't played live tournaments in ages, but I do play correspondence chess at SchemingMind. I am CuriousShadow there. The memory load for openings gets frustrating at higher levels, so I try to play mostly Chess960. I'm a bit baffled that anyone would suggest opening study for someone learning to play chess - that's perhaps the last thing to worry about B) The simple things are much more important: Develop your men quickly, control the center, that sort of thing.

None of the above.

I was kibbing at a friend's table today, as usual. I got some private messages from two of the players known to me, and used ctrl-R to reply. My messages appeared to go through as usual... not so fast! If the "allow kibitzers to chat to table" box is unchecked, then my messages never get received. However, I am not informed that they didn't go through either. I'd like to get a message telling me that my reply could not be sent. THanks!

The Dukes of Hazard The Greatest American Hero

Part of the VPN software we use for work is to disable all outgoing connections from the home PC to anywhere except to the work network - and there you have all the firewall rules, web browser proxy rules just like at work. Our company says they do it for "security reasons". It sucks. Our department has gotten around this by using a Citrix application to gain access to the network securely, without using VPN. I suspect you are stuck with whatever network restrictions you have at work, while connected from home via VPN.

1♣ Strong, Artificial, Forcing 1♦ Strong, Artificial, Forcing 1♥ Strong, Artificial, Forcing 1♠ Strong, Artificial, Forcing 1NT Strong, Artificial, Forcing etc. ;)

There are a lot of sloppy claimers. I tend to reject those claims in a tourney regardless of whether there really is a loser or not. If there's a trump left, or a finesse to be made, or a 3-2 break that needs to happen, it is the claimer's responsibility to make it clear what he is claiming, and what his line is. For example, if declarer hits the claim button with Jxxx trumps still out I'm going to reject that claim. If I reject his claim only when trumps don't break, I'm telling declarer how to play. Given BBO's current claim implementation, rejecting the claim seems to be the sensible thing to do.

I have done precisely this during a tournament where my partnership was doing very badly in a Swiss, and our opps bid up to 7NTX on the final board "just for fun", and attempted to claim zero tricks. I summoned the director, and refused to accept the claim, and explained what was happening to the director. Eventually, the director blacklisted them, adjusted the board to avg +/-, and everyone was happy. Without the option to reject the claim, it would have been difficult to get the director involved when necessary. I believe it is necessary to require opps to accept, even for a concession of all remaining tricks.

Am I really the only person who has this bug? I don't mind resetting my chat font every time I log in, but it would be nice to know how to fix it.

One thought that occurs - some may fear the embarassment of making a mistake among people. Perhaps they are using the bots to practice, and hopefully avoid later mistakes when playing with real people.

My chat font still doesn't stick, on either of my PCs. Anyone else reported this? Of course, now it's version 4.4.2, but same bug.

My chat font doesn't stick. Every time I log in, it has been set to Arial. I go into the options, and find that Times New Roman is checked off. I select Arial, click apply, and then select Times New Roman, and click apply, and that fixes it.

The contract is 6NT, as in the subject line.

I think in this case the defenders should refuse to accept the claim and call the director to have him take care of the situation. I think this is far superior to having the director try to sort it out after the fact.

Tested on Win98, had to install the speech software, double-clicking on the MSI worked fine, installed well, and speech now working great on Win98. Thanks for the links Fred.

Um... guys... this is the Win98/WinME thread :P

Thanks Fred, this worked perfect. Running the MSI failed, but I went into the control panel, and used add/remove programs to execute the MSI, and everything is working now. This was my WinME machine, I'll try my Win98 machine later.

I also don't see the voice button - I'm running WinME, sadly. Anyone have a link to the site where you can get the voice software?

In a competitive auction, North/South have bid and raised a suit. They are not going to be searching for a second suit, 4♣ is likely to be a lead director in this case. 1. Was there misinformation? Doubtful. North/South are clearly playing in diamonds - bidding clubs is not going to be an offer to play there. South is bidding clubs for a reason, and East/West should listen. The director was called after trick #1 - so North explaining South's call as "lead directing" after the ruff has already happened doesn't mean they had any explicit partnership agreement to disclose. As a defender, North is on lead and looks at his hand, with six clubs to the King, and wonders why partner bid clubs. It doesn't take long for a club to hit the table. To me, this is just bridge. Result stands.

I already perform these sorts of alerts with several of my partners - those I know are simply not good at disclosure. It helps to be fast on the keyboard, I just use the "chat to opps" option and describe special agreements, understandings, or past experience. I don't think anything further is needed from the BBO side, really.

Why assign Ave+ to both pairs? That does not make sense to me - I would choose Ave=/Ave= if the board was unplayable (and no result could be achieved), through no fault of any player. Or, if you decide that the side with the player who dropped out is at fault for the unplayable board, Ave+/Ave- sounds fair to me. It seems to me that assigning adjusted scores that total greater than 100% is patently unfair to the rest of the field.

I don't think high card points is required either - but an indication of your agreements is still necessary. For example, you could say "Natural, non-forcing", "Natural, invitational", or perhaps "Natural, forcing", or any number of descriptions that don't indicate points. If you have no agreement and partner will have to guess, then you can say "No agreement" or "2NT is undiscussed with this partner". This doesn't seem difficult to me - leaving it as "No Information Available" and forcing the opponents to guess what you mean is contrary to the Laws of Bridge.

[hv=d=s&v=b&s=sxxhaj98xdakq9xxc]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] Playing SAYC, more or less, you are first to call. What is your opening bid, and how do you plan to continue?

Just off the top, giving Ave+= is never equitable to the other tables - 55% > 50%. It seems to me that it's not right to increase the value of a particular board, especially an unplayed board, to more than 100%. If a pair is at fault for the late play, then sure, use Ave-+... otherwise, Ave== seems fair. Just my two cents.