shyams

I saw a re-run of the daily briefing by Trump his team. The presentation by Bill Bryant (lasting approx. 6 minutes) was extremely interesting and I thought it provided useful indicators for actions the average corporation / person can take to reduce the risk of Covid transmission. However, Trump's insane remarks immediately followed the presentation by Bryant thereby immediately relegating all useful information from the presentation to oblivion. Not one TV programme or News bulletin even mentioned the salient points from Bryant's presentation. Unfortunate!

Probably some of the candidates you named -- Warren, Klobuchar -- or even Sanders (if the Dem establishment could somehow accept such a hard-left candidate). Even a left-field candidate like Cuomo might be better. As for the Dem primaries, is it really a fair fight? The only way Mayor Pete or Senator Bernie would ever actually succeed would be if they were obnoxious and thick-skinned like Trump was during the 2016 Rep primaries. I wouldn't be too surprised if the Republican establishment had tried to derail Trump's candidacy during the early days of the 2016 primaries --- only that he browbeat every fellow Republican into submission. And as for Biden (reference to awm's post) and "return to the status quo pre-Trump" isn't the average American voter worried about back-seat driving by the Obamas or by Mrs. Biden (a la Edith Wilson)?

Note: I'm not a US Citizen or resident, I cannot vote. I agree with (1) that your Great President is a clown and has screwed up big time. However, he is not the only world leader to have screwed up on this matter. Your senators and representatives have screwed up as well... really badly. So there are many people to blame for the bad situation and Trump will probably get away without bearing all of the blame for this. I don't know what you folks find good about Biden. He has a track record of selling out to corporate interests (I'm not referring to his son), he doesn't have a strong record of suggesting citizen-friendly policies, and finally some of his rambling responses suggest an absence of coherent thought. And if you think the rambling responses aren't a concern, my guess is that this one factor alone will be exploited by Trump, the Republicans and those Super PACs to ensure that Trump is reelected. In summary, I think Biden makes a poor candidate to oppose Trump in the Presidential elections.

An article from the joinzoe website that may be useful reference for older people (link here)

Thank you for sharing, cherdano. I read both the articles; it made me feel de Blasio would make a great President!?! Maybe in 2024? :blink: :wacko: :rolleyes:

Isn't this line based on switching honour requirements the other way around? If East held the ♠K all along, it would be thrown only after North dumps the ♠Q. A small point: It is better to discard ♣7 and ♣8 to retain the two of clubs in North. Helps with a "finesse" guard squeeze if West began with three high club cards and got squeezed out {e.g. West holds: ♠Kxx ♥xxx ♦Qxxx ♣Q109}

Assuming opponents are experts, their discards are unlikely to give us a sufficiently clear picture. And most squeeze lines would give up on finding one opponent with ♦QJx. So I think I would simply draw trumps, try to drop ♦QJx, and (when it doesn't succeed) take a spade finesse.

I actually like the line played by hrothgar. I have never seen the bot play the ♠Q from ♠QJx(x) so it is a near-certainty that the Spade Jack is with East. So the best chance is a 3-3 diamond split followed by a squeeze. The only slight improvement of odds is (I think) to play off the top two diamonds as nige1 mentioned. You don't really mind going down a couple extra undertricks at IMPs if one defender held ♦QJxx.

I suspect this is from one of the challenges played by hrothgar i.e. he found the line to effect the squeeze not GIB.

... which has, as of this morning, widened to 10.0%. Worth a gamble? A roughly 10% return after costs over a period of (approx.) 4 months :blink:

I have previously bored this audience by quoting betting odds of Trump winning a second term. Here is another quote from today. As per a UK betting website, the current odds that Joe Biden will not be the Democratic Party nominee for President are quoted as 7.5% (rules: Nominee is the person chosen at Democratic National Convention. If, for any reason, this person is subsequently replaced before the actual elections in November, the outcome of the bet does not change). In other words, if one bets $1,000 on Joe, one wins $75 if his name is formally on the ticket. Otherwise one loses the $1,000 placed. Interesting! The market still factors a 7.5% doubt!!

My point was not about death rates (i.e. % of some denominator) but about the absolute numbers of deaths from coronavirus. The reason for my assertion is that the Govt. had previously said something like "we would have done a good job if the epidemic results in 20k deaths". We are at 13,729 (hospital) Covid deaths and are reporting some 700-900 per day. At this rate, we will cross 20k within a week! I do realise that models tend to specify range of outcomes and that holding the Govt. to account on one fixed number is not exactly fair. However, they quoted the number; and it is acceptable to criticise the Govt. for doing much worse. Note, as per ONS (link), "the provisional number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 3 April 2020 (Week 14) was 16,387; this represents an increase of 5,246 deaths registered compared with the previous week (Week 13) and 6,082 more than the five-year average". The absolute numbers have risen by 6k per week from mid-March onward.

I fear the UK is not doing well as per published statistics. * Number of cases are still growing at a rate of 5%-6%. This is despite a total lockdown that has lasted longer than the incubation period for the virus! * Number of deaths (in the hospitals) is still around 750-950 per day. And as we recently discovered, the death figures do not include those dying in old age homes who were never moved to hospitals. * The administration is already falling short of committed tests and committed PPE supplies to hospitals and care homes. It appears that a large number of nurses/doctors/care home workers are catching the infection and some of them are sadly dying. This is tragic mismanagement by the bureaucracy.

If you mean the login handle with which you get recognised on BBO, I believe it is impossible to change it.

shyams 30:42 Natali_ https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:aeecb870.7dcf.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1586814153&u=shyams That's my 19 matches done for this series. Thank you smerriman for organizing and thank you everyone for an enjoyable tournament.

shyams 33:3 smerriman https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:5c18f30f.7e65.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1586878439&u=shyams

shyams 34:17 sakuragi https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:e862a84b.7cfb.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1586723196&u=shyams

shyams 25:8 ye17 https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:0c63b189.7d23.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1586740007&u=shyams

[hv=pc=n&s=s532hatdakj94caj3&n=s8hkqj965dtckq985&d=w&v=n&b=12]266|200[/hv] IMPs, West deals, opponents pass throughout. Using 2/1 GF, our bidding went: North South 1♥ - 2♦ 2♥ - 2NT 3♣ - 3♦ 3♥ - 4♥ end There are 12 tricks in ♥ or ♣. Who was too timid in the auction?

shyams 18:41 shuba https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:d91a642f.7cfb.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1586723170&u=shyams

shyams 16:14 nige1 https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:e3b0f4af.7bc0.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1586587897&u=shyams

I'm not a fan of your president but the mere act of asking such a question is not in itself a horrible thing. The English Chief Medical Officer (and "senior leaders" advising the UK Govt) suggested something similar to Boris Johnson at the start of the pandemic here. Leaks to the press suggest that scientists advising these " senior leaders" were strongly opposed to allowing the pandemic to wash over the population.

If there is no cure for Covid19, the administering of a placebo would not worsen or disadvantage anyone in the control group. It is not equivalent to a death sentence because the "medication" is not tested.

I too am sorry if this offends anyone but I heard (caveat: not very robust sources) that very old people are not put on ventilators because the "intubation" often leads to other complications and death. I recently saw a BBC article of a 101-year old who was admitted to hospital and recovered without being put on a ventilator.

shyams 28:31 sep123 https://webutil.bridgebase.com/v2/tview.php?t=ARDCHALLENGE:1ec97f62.7b11.11ea.b96d.0cc47a39aeb4-1586512404&u=shyams