Blue Uriah

Your understanding is wrong, and also an odd non-sequitur from the post you quoted.

Indeed, it was 29p at the time. And master points were included in that cost, so the real increase was only about 16p per person. If the club bosses tried to claim it was a £2 increase and this drove the players away then they're the crooks in this story.

Sorry, I don't know the people involved at all so I probably should have just kept my mouth shut. I was actually reacting to the first two responders who basically said that if you've paid your way onto the National team then you're entitled to have a free rein, regardless of how that affects your team's chances of winning.

People seem to have forgotten that you're supposed to be representing your country - it shouldn't be about your own personal agenda. But apparently all the Canadians who have supported the team throughout the tournament can go ***** themselves.

Yep, it should be on Youtube afterwards. Look out for the link on the EBU website.

Nope, we have no idea who the target audience is. We've never done something like this before and, as far as I'm aware, neither has anyone else. At least not well. We're just going to try and put on a fun show; if it's good people will watch.

Excuse the plug, but I thought this might be interesting to BBF folk. On Friday August 3rd at 7pm (BST) the EBU is hosting a Hangout on Google+ with three England players fresh from their success in Dublin and raring to go for Lille: Heather Dhondy, Sally Brock (gold in the Women's) and David Gold (who qualified for the Bermuda Bowl). A Hangout is essentially an online video conference so you'll be able to watch them talk about their preparation, what it takes to be a top player and answer some questions from the public. The Hangout will take place on Google+ so circle the EBU page there to avoid missing out. You can submit questions in advance, either through the Google+ post or on Facebook. So if you've ever had a burning question to ask the top pros, now's your chance!

I'm told there was a mix-up with the feedback forms. The bit about reduced entry fees and prize money was for the Cheltenham Midweek Congress the week before and this wasn't removed when they were reprinted for Bournemouth. So an honest mistake rather than an attempt to lie to you.

I don't think you understand how the NGS actually works. Perhaps you'd find the project documentation interesting. How successful it is remains to be seen, but maybe you should know the facts before commenting on how much money has been wasted. 95% of the work on the project has been voluntary and it uses data already available in the Universal Membership system, so the day-to-day running costs are negligible. It has taken time to develop, but the amount of money spent is comparatively little.

I'm sure you're right - it would be unlikely that the true skill of a partnership could be calculated so simply and elegantly as this. But it's interesting that you're guessing it's biased this way since someone else recently suggested that a 60/40 would do better than a 50/50. So there's probably not much in it. Edit: in fact, while I was typing Cthulhu D said just that.

Out of curiosity, how would you rate yourself? How would you rate your typical scratch partners? And how did you do on average when you were performing this host role? If you're a 60, partner is a 40 and you're playing in an average club then you only need to break 50% to improve your grade. Do you think you did worse than this more than half the time? Also, don't forget that the more your grade goes down, the easier it will be (assuming your ability remained constant) to go up in future. In the long run you'll oscillate around your true average and shouldn't stop playing just because you're concerned about a perfectly normal downswing - it's just as likely to happen when you play with an expert. Personally, I'd be more inclined to play with a beginner now than I would have been a year ago. Back then there was (realistically) nothing to play for except a righteous sense of civic duty, but now there's a tangible goal to aim for. If my partner is so bad that he averages 38% then I can still improve both our grades (and call the evening "a win") by scoring 48%.

You're assuming, a little cynically, that there are a lot of people out there who care more about their grading than about playing bridge. I guess we'll find out, but I hope that over time people will come to understand how the NGS works and realise that it doesn't really matter if you play with a weak partner or a strong partner - the system will take it into account. Of course, your new partner might be significantly over-rated and that will cause your grade harm, but they might equally be under-rated and you'll get a nice boost. I think part of the fear is that people are very bad at comprehending randomness. If all parties are correctly graded then your grade should go up half the time and down the other half. But when someone goes down they'll probably blame their new scratch partner rather than bad luck or their own poor play and cry to the world that they've been damaged by their benevolent charity. They'll keep quiet when they get 65% and go up a grade band, though.

Since Christmas there have been over 10,000 club sessions submitted to the EBU and 0.7% of those have been Butler Pairs, 0.5% Cross-IMPs. So I'd be very surprised if there were many people for whom this represented a "large majority". Still, to suggest that the EBU doesn't care about this tiny group is a little unfair. The conversion tables have been put together by some very clever people over years of study and trial and, personally, I'm at least willing to give it a chance before dismissing it so readily.

So the definition of an LA is different in this situation is it? Instead of it being a call which is at least possibly correct it's a call that is almost certainly wrong except in the 0.01% of cases where the opponents are on massive tilt and are just pissing about? Seems pretty harsh to me.

I think if you've got a 13 count and your opponents are confident that they're taking 10 tricks then partner is known to be pretty weak, regardless of what he opened. Even if you somehow can construct a hand where South is strong and East thinks he can make 10 tricks (good luck), you surely can't take it more than 1 off while you're almost certainly making a slam. When you doubled it was at least plausible that partner had a flat 23 count and East had King-Jack-to-nine or somesuch, but that's off the table now.

Assuming South's pass is forcing, North would normally be expected to double unless he had a dislike for defending. Here he might well prefer to pursue a slam than defend but at this vulnerability double is surely a LA. That said, East has claimed he would redouble 100% of the time (presumably the caretaker's dog is an idiot), and this would surely allow North/South off the hook. So I'd rule table result stands.

I stand corrected then. I can't say I've ever come across it myself, but if it's even plausible then I'm happy to adjust to 3♥ 100% of the time. If North knows the oppo have at least half the pack, including some heart values, then I'll believe him when he tells me he would have passed 3♥ out.

I don't think East is bidding 3♠, having already shown his hand. What concerns me is that the explanation West gave was so far off the planet that an experienced North should realise that something is up. If it was me, I'd probably ask him if he was sure that's what it meant, or if he had perhaps misread the auction. If North did this, or if he's not very experienced I'd definitely rule it back to 3♥. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. Is this the equivalent of someone blindly assuming that an unalerted 2♣ response to 1NT is natural?

Well, in my hypothetical scenario you "know" that 4♣ is, according to the system, a slam try so you say as much. You can't say that partner is prone to forgetting this bid because it's never come up before. You could say that this is a difficult auction and partner is not quite as comfortable with such things as you are and that perhaps he thinks it's something else but is that appropriate? Is one's level of bridge skill authorised information?

So let's say you're deep into a competitive auction and partner has bid 4♣. You have a bit of a think about it and come to the conclusion that it's a control bid making a slam try in spades. You're 100% sure about this given everything you know about the system and past partnership discussions and so on but there's a chance that partner isn't on the same wavelength and thinks it's lead-directing in case you end up on defence. You have a marginal hand that maybe should cooperate in a slam auction but you decide to play it safe and sign off in 4♠. So have you done anything wrong? You're taking into account the possibility of partner misbidding and continuing the slam auction is definitely a logical alternative. If not, why is it different to the Drury scenario?

So, after 8 pages of this I'm still confused. Is the Myles Coup allowed or not? :P

2♠ undoubtedly the correct bid on the earlier round. Check this link if you have any doubts. :D

I'm sorry, are you saying you're more likely to bid Michaels at red vs red than at white vs red? Anyway, I'm a little surprised - but heartened - that the response was so unanimous. I actually bid a direct 5♥ (it wasn't the sort of partnership to try out an undiscussed 4NT) but both routes get you there. The full hand was something like: [hv=pc=n&s=sq5hkjt83dt9764c8&w=s6432haq5dj5c7532&n=sah9742dak3ckjt64&e=skjt987h6dq82caq9&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1sp2sd4s5hdppp]399|300[/hv] So that was -500 with 4♠ going off on a club lead.

[hv=pc=n&s=sq5hkjt83dt9764c8&d=e&v=b&b=10&a=1sp2sd4s?]133|200[/hv] Teams of Eight, IMPs Anybody disagree with the first pass? What now?

So why are you arguing for even fewer opportunities? There are almost no events in the year where these systems can be played or played against and there are plenty of people like bluejak or mjj29 who enjoy doing both. If they go to one of the half-dozen or so where it's allowed and they don't have sufficient match practice to know their system then that's not really their fault is it.