pran

Frankly: I just do not remember.

I have some 50 years experience with computers, including writing my own, and testing routines for computerized card dealing. During this time I have come across several card dealing programs where the randomness was indeed unsatisfactory in some, or even many ways. When BIGDEAL was announced I took the liberty to verify also this program. All my tests were successful. However I discovered some disturbing risk for a C+ library failure which (at least in theory) could compromize the program with internal addressing exception or even undetcted failure. This risk was associated with the need to handle integer numbers within the full range [0 - 53644737765488792839237440000] (the number of possible different deals). So I 'translated' BIGDEAL to Delphi where I have my own library routines able to handle integers of essentially unlimited size without any risk of overflow or other failure. My tests confirmed that the outcome from both versions (started with identical parameters) were identical, but I was not able to eliminate the risk for malfunction in the C+ library. I understand that WBF require all deals for tournaments under their responsibility to be created using BIGDEAL, and I fully sustain this decision. It is in my opinion immaterial whether the deals are to be used in F2F bridge or any version of computerized bridge.

Wouldn't the obvious wording be: Declarer calls a card from dummy by naming it after which dummy plays the card by removing it from his remaining cards and facing it on the table. .....

Wouldn't the obvious wording be: Declarer calls a card from dummy by naming it after which dummy plays the card by removing it from his remaining cards and dummy facing it on the table. .....

Online bridge is new and interesting, but for how long?

I refer to 'The question is how' and I believe the general popularity of bridge is due to the social element in face to face bridge. Drop this and I suspect bridge will effectively become limited to those who (more or less) are playing for money rather that for pleasure.

In that case I predict that the game of bridge will become history within the next decade.

I have a strong feeling that a major topic should be whether (and in case how) the laws should treat new technologies e.g. online bridge.

Quite so - and de facto standards only exist (as 'standards') when part of everybody's fundamental knowledge, not just as part of 'somebody's own experience.

A very common phrace in French is: Qu'est-ce que c'est meaning (depending upon the context) something like 'WHAT?', so I guess 'Q' would be completely meaningless to a french-speaking player?

If a player's explanation is unclear or insufficient then that is the time to (immediately) request clarification(s).

Must be rather narrow circles?

After a quick look I find all these examples to be just that: Privately announced examples of 'what I mean when announcing Q' At the table I would (as a Director) have asked 'why did you accept Q as an explanation of the 4♦ bid when apparently you did not fully understand it?' And I would warn players not to give explanations which could be incomplete or misleading to opponents.

To be a 'standard' it must have been defined as such in publication(s) generally known to anybody who might be expected to encounter this term. Where can we find the definition that 'Q' is short for 'cue'???

To be a 'standard' it must have been defined as such in publication(s) generally known to anybody who must be expected to encounter this term. Where can we find the definition that 'Q' is short for 'cue'???