jjbrr

Among the more common hobbies, running, eating, sports, reading, traveling, I also enjoy volunteering around the community (coaching soccer teams when my schedule isn't so prohibitive that i cant commit to attending all the practices/games) and reading Latin poetry (Catullus, Horace, Virgil, et al). I played chess when I was younger but that was replaced by bridge. I also like hiking/camping in New Hampshire but obviously don't get a chance to do that as much as I'd like. Swimming sounds like a good hobby to pick up. I understand it's one of the best workouts one can do. And I imagine it's very relaxing at the same time. Seems win-win.

Because you can show with three steps what he's using four steps for.

I'm a magician. Do you have a trick that is your favorite to perform or that you think is the most exciting/intriguing?

just kidding. in all seriousness congratulations. the beginning of a wonderful journey

wut th marriage

So what are your favorite hobbies besides bridge? Anyone do anything truly unique?

Ya i was trying to be sarcastic but then i wiki'd the past spelling bee champs and in the beginning the winning words were like "interning" and "deteriorating" and "intelligible" and "promiscuous." the recent winners had to spell laodicean, guerdon, serrefine, and ursprache. there almost certainly is more truth in my statement than i intended.

Maybe he couldn't because Nadal and Federer are so great. Maybe he doesn't have more because Nadal and Federer are so great. It's a great big circular argument. Federer and Nadal are so great that they win almost everything, therefore other top players don't win very often, therefore their competition is bad, therefore they are not that great after all. I consider a different argument based on logic. There are, say, 6.5 billion people on earth, and more of them play tennis than ever before. When Sampras was winning Wimbledon, there were, say, 5.0 billion people on earth, with a smaller percentage having availability to tennis. So who is more likely to be better. The best of 6.5 billion people with widespread availability and advanced training available, or the best of 5.0 billion people with less widespread availability, and less advanced training available? And if you need a tiebreaker, perhaps note that the first of those players is going to end up with a LOT (20?) more grand slam titles than the second of those players. How can anyone even dispute this? This year's spelling bee champion is THE BEST SPELLER OF ALL TIME.

Thanks. Wasn't aware of the new overall award change. That makes it much clearer.

I am not our resident expert on the ACBL masterpoint scheme as it pertains to clubs (online or offline). Uday knows more - maybe he will chime in. I do know that masterpoint awards for games with 18+ boards are (sensibly of course) more for than those for our games with 12 boards. It would not surprise me if we were to try running 18 boards online tournaments one day (and continue running them if people want to play in them). So no, our 12-board speedballs do not offer as many masterpoints as a full session at the club (which in my experience always consists of more than 18 boards). There may be other factors in play as well that go against the number of masterpoints BBO can award compared to those awarded in similar games in real life ACBL-sanctioned bridge clubs. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com I'd be interested to hear from Uday, then. I just checked the winner of the "Pairs Thursday 3PM Speedball" and the winner won 2.00 Online points. Name: batoo-nadine5 Score:77.28 Rank: A 1 B 1 C 1 Points: 2.00 "A. OPEN GAME AWARDS Open games (SEE CHAPTER.4, Section Two-I.) award .10 MP per table for first place in each group. The second place award is 70% of 1st, third is 50% of 1st, fourth is 35%, fifth is 1/5 and sixth is 1/6, etc. This applies to all open sections for pair, and individual games. Maximum award is 1.50 masterpoints. (SEE Files MPPAIRS)" From http://www.bridgehands.com/Laws/ACBL/Dupli...ook_Clubs_2.htm This was what I was getting my info from, and I was wrong, it seems BBO offers more MPs to win. Or I just don't know what any of it means.

I concede MPs don't always reflect relative strength. It seems like the ACBL is attempting to award MP based on strength, though. And for practicality this is the best way to do it. KOs are a non sequitur in this thread, I agree. I wasn't arguing that they should award MPs based on field strength, I don't think. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the 12 board speedballs pay the same award as a full session at the club? My point is I'd hate to see this happen with silver points. 12 board speedball sectionals offering a full award would be a crime.

Agree. More than one session, non-trivial time commitment and this is a great idea. 7.5 minutes might not be too slow for everyone. I don't know what the best time/board should be.

So you don't want sectionals and regionals at all; you just want higher quality tournaments? I understand they're not necessarily mutually exclusive... but... maybe we're discussing totally different things?

I have no idea if your "quality of field" suggestions are true or not, but I do think they are irrelevant. Do you also think the ACBL should award fewer points for an event at the Wasila Regional than they would for an identical event at the New York City Regional? The ACBL does not get involved in rating the strength of the field and deciding on how many masterpoints to offer as a result. IMO it would be ridiculous for them to even consider doing this. I think the basic point is that the ACBL should allow sites like BBO to run occasional events that are recognized as "more important" than the "normal" games that we run. There are many 1000s of ACBL members who play online bridge (some by choice and some because health issues mean that online bridge is the only form of the game they can play). IMO these people deserve the chance to play in "major online events" from time to time. Whether you call such events "Sectionals" or "Regionals" and how exactly the masterpoint scales work for such events is secondary concern. I don't buy the arguments regarding cheating either, by the way. For sure "active cheating" is easier in an online environment, but pairs who are determined to actively cheat can easily do so in real life as well. It is also the case that the complete electronic records of all deals played in online bridge tournaments makes it much easier to investigate pairs that might be cheating than it would be in real life (where no such records exist). Meanwhile, some forms of "passive cheating" which are widespread in live bridge (for example, taking advantage of partner's body language, intentionally or not) do not exist in online bridge. Fred Gitelman Bridge Base Inc. www.bridgebase.com "Occasional" and "time to time" I think are a great idea for serious online tournaments. My first impression was that the potential to make a lot of money from online sects/regs would suggest having them more and more frequently to the point of making them like the hourly ACBL games. As long as the sectionals are as similar to live sectionals as possible (26 boards, 7.5 minutes/board, only a few weekends of the year) then I will concede all your points regarding relative field strength, cheating, and people with health problems. Once we get hourly speedball 12 board IMP sectional pairs offering ridiculous numbers of silver points to people in their pajamas, though, I question the point of awarding MPs at all. I assure you cheating was not my main concern. Having just played in a serious event to decide junior teams to send to Turkey, I'm the first to admit a serious online tournament can be a huge success. (Wd Jan et al) Just as an aside, and correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't they change the MP awards in KOs to reflect the average number of MP in the bracket, as opposed to the number of brackets? Does this not qualify as rewarding MP relative to the strength of the field? "Ridiculous" sounds like a huge overbid.

Do you mean "for the game" or do you mean "for in-person ACBL sectionals"? If one could get the same or comparable sectional MP awards without leaving his home against people who, in general, are intermediate at best for less money at any hour of the day AND he could cheat if he was having a bad round, I think this is bad for bridge in general for a plethora of reasons. I hope we also agree that online bridge and live bridge are two completely different animals with a different set of rules. The alert procedure is different, the directors have more pressure to make rulings (good luck getting a committee!), you lose important elements of the game like table feel, and then there is a set of issues concerning computers (I've never misclicked in real life, nor has my internet died while I was declaring a hand at a regional). I think these issues can't be overlooked. If you feel the competition is generally good in online events, I apologize. I have only my experience to go on and I could easily be mistaken. Omit that part if you disagree with me, and I still think my argument holds some water. And the point about the Swiss eventually allowing you to play against people of your strength is perfectly valid. But for how many rounds? At least some sectionals have A/X or KOs or open pairs or what have you to allow you to play against comparable opponents all the time. If they scaled the MP award down to like 5% the sectional award and charged more than a dollar per entry so that no one could amass gobs of the same silver points that others played in better events and paid more money to earn, I could be more tolerant of the idea. Or if they held them once or twice a year, it would make more sense. How often do you think they should have online sectionals? Sessions every day? Every weekend? Once a month? I guess I fail to see the light. Is this about masterpoints at all? If it is, I don't think you can reasonably compare online points with points won in a live bridge game. They should be two completely different things, as mentioned above, I believe. Even if live sectionals wouldn't suffer from this, I still wouldn't support the idea if everything was equal. If this isn't about MPs, then don't call them sectionals or regionals; call them serious tournaments for serious players or something. If this is only about convenience and money saving, then let's not be afraid to admit it.

I can sympathize with online sectionals if they're restricted to players in areas that make attending sectionals difficult or impractical for geographic reasons. A sectional for the state of Wyoming or Montana once or twice a year sounds like a pretty darn good idea. Open sectionals online seem like a quick fix for those who enjoy cheap thrills and instant, short term satisfaction. Long term, they seem like a disaster for the game.

Agree. Can't imagine bidding anything else.

Also very opposed. As a young person I've heard my whole life "I hope bridge is still around in X years." Providing incentive not to attend live tournaments seems like a good step in the right direction to really killing it off. Not only will you not have young people attending tournaments, you won't have old people either. Also, is there really that much interest to compete in a diluted field for inflated masterpoints? If the proposed sectionals draw the same quality of player as the ACBL games on BBO, what's the point? Can anyone explain the appeal?

bid my 4 card suit at as low a level as i can.

I was more inclined to bid 2NT first. I think I'd be a little more gunshy if partner's minor is clubs. Sorry, 5♠+5m always? I bid 4♠

I wouldn't bid 3♣. agree with jdonn.

Someone should teach him stolen bid doubles. Sounds like something he might like.

Ok, so you dislike the Italian option because you can make the food at home. Then when someone points out that a good, simple Italian dish takes hours to prepare, you complain that it is a waste of time. And you complain about the rest of the posters not being productive. Let's play some bridge? huh? I went to the Italian place on father's day weekend and loved it. Nothing I ordered was anything I would have any clue how to make at home, nor would I want to try given how good this place made it. I ordered a great deal of seafood, which, as far as I've experienced, requires a great amount of skill to execute perfectly. My point was I wouldn't get spaghetti and meatballs, which I believe is exactly what I said earlier. How you took this to mean I don't like the Italian option is beyond me.

And LA County for me (for the food anyway). In Orange County: 1 good Indian place (for my money anyway): 0 Chinese 0 Peruvian Lots of sushi and Mexican, but so what :( I'm sure you simply just aren't looking hard enough for a good Chinese or Peruvian recipe, Phil.

Agree with buying sauce in a jar. Agree with buying frozen ravioli, boiling it for 5 minutes and draining. One package lasts for 4 very large meals. There is so little value in making my own sauce/pasta that I can't believe anyone would even suggest it. The opportunity cost associated makes the time required very prohibitive. Ie I have much more important things to do with my evenings. Don't understand how you possibly have so many extra hours to squander in the kitchen.