foo

the ♥T is very likely a stiff. If it is, and you duck it, They start by winning ♥K then getting a ♥ ruff. Followed by Them getting 2 or 3 more tricks in the minors. -1 or -2. Does not look like you can afford to hope the ♥Q will win the opening lead.

That would slow the pace of a round to ~ 1/2 - 1/3 present speed. IMHO, the "solution" is worse than the "problem" OTOH, there is nothing stopping us from having removable board numbers for boards and prepping for an IMP match by making as many sets of the same board numbers as needed for the size of the field. Protecting against the boards from one match being mixed up with boards from another match could be implemented by the simple expedient of having different colored boards or differing patterns/colors/etc for the removable board numbers. Thus every table would play only the boards that belong in their match and every match would play the same sequence of board numbers. 8 boards rounds, of course, are the other solution. OTOH, most seem to feel that 8 board rounds would result in events taking too long to play. ...and the era of "some board sets are better than others" and attempts at gaming the system for the kind of board set you want for your match would be over.

If you want to improve swiss movements, the single best thing that should be done first is to make sure that either a= every match uses the same sequence of board numbers or b= have 8 board matches. Why? because when you use less than 8 boards per match, some sets are more "swingy" than others due to having unequal amounts of each vulnerability ratio. Compare board sets 1-6, 7-12, 13-18, 19-24, 25-30, and 31-36 for an explicit example of the problem. As we all know, 6 (or 12 where the same 6 are used each 1/2) board matches are very common at IMPs.

Actually, if the folks I know in the Electronics Industry are accurate, $3000/table is an outrageous "overbid" on the costs involved. The 1st generation of Bridgemates are priced at ~$150 US MSRP. Let's assume that said price is mostly due to materials costs. Most of it in as of now expensive components like a CPU, a transceiver, a circuit board, RAM and ROM, etc The way things are said to work in electronics, if sales volumes are high enough, within 3 generations (~6-8 years depending on tech used and sales volume) the total cost to build a Bridgemate will most likely bottom out to the cost of the plastics used to make it since the electronics will be probably cost less. Which means $150 Bridgemates become $40, or less, Bridgemates. The same goes for any other consumer electronics device that does the same thing the same way for a large population over multiple generations of IC development. Right now, with no changes in technology, we could give each table the equivalent of a dumbed down PDA or tablet PC to do everything being talked about here for about $150 per table. Heck, we could probably upgrade the present Bridgmate HW and SW to have the capabililties discussed at ~ $300 per table. Not $3000. and that's now. In 10 or 20 years, it will very likely be cheaper to buy dedicated "Bridge Appliances" for the tables than it will be to buy bidding boxes, card decks, boards, etc etc.

The X is neither for T/O nor penalty. It is "cards". Say ~ a 12-15 NT hand with ♥ values.

Agree with jdonn

Any bid you make is going to be a lie to some extent 2S gets the strength right but lies about ♠ length 2N shows a flatter hand, or at least one with more scattered tricks 3C is an underbid playing SA or 2/1 without special agreements otherwise. Dorothy Hayden Truscott used to say "tell the least lie". In this case that means your partnership should discuss this kind of hand and agree which lie is most acceptable. I can think of partnerships of mine where each of the choices was the preferred one for that partnership; and where what was preferred in one was the absolute worst thing to do in another.

The folks in Europe, specifically England, have a better Gambling 3N opening than those in the US. ACOL style Gambling 3N =promises= stoppers at least 2/3 of the side suits and a decent long source of trick with 7.5-8.5 tricks in hand. some examples of minimums a= Kx_Ax_AKQxxx_xxx b= Ax_Kx_xx_KQJxxxx c= Kx_KQJxxxx_Kx_Kx etc IMHO, this is both more frequent and safer than the US style Gambling 3N

yep I made a typo. I corrected it and apologized for it. Can't do much more than that. As for "I don't see anyone else as being emotional in this matter", you certainly seem to be. Your reaction to me saying a bunch of things in one post that others had said most of over a few posts was to accuse me of some sort of inappropriate relationship with the Accused and make an Ad Homenium attack on me. I have to reluctantly conclude you want the Accused "burned at the stake" and a= you do not give a darn what anybody else thinks or says on the matter. b= anyone whom you perceive as being too supportive of The Accused is to be attacked if you think you can get away with it. Which is ironic given that I've been mostly saying that people need to calm down and be careful about what they suggest with regard to either you or the accused. The use of bold letters is not an attempt at shouting or whatever you seem to be calling it. It's an attempt to make it easier for admins to find the request in the middle of what is clearly a lot of text. Maybe I'm misreading you and you are every bit as phlegmatic as you claim. I certainly hope so.

I've been running forums like this one for nearly twenty years. IME, the only way to do that is to have the software intercept all posts, and require manual vetting by an administrator. That's very manpower intensive, and in 90% of cases a waste of time. I very much doubt it's ever going to happen. well, I am not a "computer geek", but it seems to me that one should be able to set up SW to notice if a thread is wildly busy compared to most and then have the SW call an admin's attention to that thread via an email or something. Participation in threads like these are clearly similar to behavior in "flash mobs". That should be a Red Flag all by itself. Combine the above with a quick filter on inflammatory terms like swear words or "cheat" and I'd hope you'd get a decent "auto magic" way of noting that there's a thread on where someone is being talked about as a cheater? But like I said, I'm not much of a computer guy, so maybe it is more complex than that in some way I do not as yet understand.

a= my primary sources of information about this are not on any of the teams involved. The whole Bridge world is discussing this situation. That is more than a little due to your efforts to "spread the word". It even got to me ;-) If anything, I am late to it compared to most (consider the dates of the incident, the beginning of the online threads, and when I first posted in them. Page =4= of this thread IIRC.) b= I have never been "laughed off" RGB c= MOST IMPORTANTLY, I am not defending either you or Mr Piltch. -I called for fair process. -I pointed out what the typical playing pro's attitude and responsibilities are. -I reminded some of some bridge issues that I thought were not being given enough credence or weight. -I said one data point does not a pattern make. -I have pointed out other such actions and noted the furor they caused in their day. -I said that a public forum is an inappropriate place to try a cheating accusation. None of these statements is unique to me. Others have also said some or all of these point in this thread. and on rgb. Now you seem to be attacking me because I am not "supporting" your PoV strongly enough to satisfy you. That's really bad. It implies that your emotions are so out of control on this issue that it will not matter what decisions are made or advice is given to you. You've made up your mind and the rest of the world had better conform to Justin's PoV! That is a very dangerous attitude. I am sure you are more logical than that at heart. Given the emotional reactions of some involved, this thread really does need to get locked.

enough. I've said my piece. time for me to exit rather than repeat myself or have the thread go off topic. It's clear that some nerves are still raw and some emotions still too high. IMNSHO, this thread should be locked. So should the rgb one on this topic. and we should be DONE with this unless or until the appropriate folk make a ruling or otherwise public statement. The way this is going I do not envy those whose job it is to properly deal with it.

you do realize that's an impossible standard right? unless I can find a situation that is an exact clone of this one, you can always claim it is not "close enough" to be valid to you. I simply do not have that kind of database available to me. I do not know if anyone does. 40 years from now we might if the present ability to record every board and every card played continues to be used and expanded. But even if we had such a thing, why should I spend hours or days hunting for something to satisfy your curiosity? Go do your own homework! :D If people taking what looks to be anti-percentage actions in high level competition is the issue, it's easy to bring examples to the discussion. If you want this =exact= situation, the laws of probability make it very unlikely since what you are asking for is a= an exact match to this board plus b= an exact match to the conditions of contest and state of the match plus c= a similar player to be sitting in each of the decision makers seats.

Sure, everyone tries to. It should still be known what those biases are. Was Mr. Piltch involved in your wedding? Did you used to play bridge with Mr. Piltch? Etc. These are useful things to know for people reading your posts, thanks. WHAT IN THE WORLD?

This is a complete lie. They were down ~45 after the first quarter, and WON imps in the 2nd quarter (including on this board), to be down only ~25, not 50. As I (who played the match) have reported here, Mr Piltch did nothing that would be considered insane on this level by most until the FOURTH quarter. That means the rest of the 2nd quarter, and all of the 3rd quarter, nothing. Starting the 4th quarter he was now down ~50 with 16 boards to go (a lot different than ~45 with 45 boards to go). He was indeed swinging at that point. Foo if you would like to report the facts of a match you did not play in in an event you did not play in at a tournament you did not play in, at least get them right. Also, Foo I will ask again are your posts on this matter biased at all? I think it is important for people who might give credit to anything you say to realize that other than being your usual foo self, you are also completely biased in this matter. Thanks. pardon the typo. I said last half when meant last 1/4. and was too busy answering another post to notice and edit it fast enough. *sigh* I am not the world's best or fastest typist. Justin's account is indeed what I was told about the sequence of events.