mpefritz

I was playing at a free GIB table in the main bridge club and I signed up for MBT#521. When the tournament started, I was taken to the MBT. Pard GIB opened, RHO GIB passed, I made a call, and LHO GIB tanked. Now 7 minutes and no call. May be a bug. thanks, fritz (playing as pdfprime)

First of all, several examples from a well known book on balancing (I don't have the exact spots, but they were not great): ♠J8764 ♥A7 ♦K65 ♣A98 was suggested to balance with 2♠ ♠KQJ654 ♥7 ♦AQ97 ♣K6 was suggested to balance 3♠. Being an indy, I figured I could have no obvious way to figure out how to continue after any response from partner after my 2♠ call. So (being an idiot at 1AM) I made the "practical" 4♠ call :). My partner wanted me to bid 2♠ (fine) OR X (what?) Surprisingly the book on balancing has no examples of a 4♠ call (heckling self--no need to pile on). Both opps also misbid, and most players with my cards faced a call after either: 3♥-P-P-? OR 3♥-P-4♥-? Holding my hand of KQT9xx x AQxx xx How would people bid in those 2 circumstances? fritz

[hv=d=w&v=n&s=skqt932h7daq43c87]133|100|Scoring: MP 2♥-P-P-?[/hv] Playing a MP indy. Your call in balancing seat after LHO opens a weak 2♥. thanks, fritz

Just wondering...has anyone see GIB transfer to spades and then pass with a big hand? This example plus 2 others I have seen have been transfers to hearts with big hands. Can we call this the Major Big GIB Bug? Any chance to use GIB with set hands to check this? fritz

If you always have the human with the best hand at the table, you better allow the human to declare when the human side wins the auction. The inferences available knowing you have the "best hand" at the table would be very helpful, and, unless partner GIB was told that info, partner GIB might misdeclare by comparison. fritz

Playing a fixed number of boards would give a later player more info. He could know future holdings and change bidding strategy on earlier hands with that knowledge. And if the "barometer" scoring is kept, there would be even more info/advantage to the slower player. (The barometer scoring leads to some interesting strategies as is and I'd hate to see it go) Maybe having a 2 "team" tournament for money bridge where each table gets the same cards and have 3 bots at each table. Cheating would have no benefit since it is player 1 with the cards versus player 2 with the cards. This would be a improvement on the money Bridge games.

Yes, if people want to play at the speed of the slowest player, you can make a tournament where " Every round of action shall continue only after human players finish their bids at all tables. " Maybe.. Even if your hand and (partner) GIB's hand are the same at each table..maybe one table declares and the other defends..then info can be passed. Furthermore, auctions at other tables may help you determine partner's HCP so that defending may be easier. The other suggestion is similar S hands all around. Then you must play at same pace, else you might be ahead, know you are going to get a 4 HCP hand, and play slowly to not allow BOTs to have increased chance of a game against you. fritz

I was booted from BBO also. I was in the MBT room (around 1:25 EDT +/- 30 minutes), not signed up. I came back a few minutes later, and I was booted. I believe I was booted after the tournament started, but I am not sure what time as I was not at the computer. Not sure if this helps the bug fix. fritz logged in at the time as: pdfprime

I think EAST gets to choose which of his 4 cards gets played on this trick. All the others are penalty cards. So wouldn't EAST get to choose an x instead of the K to throw on the spade? After that declarer gets to choose which penalty card EAST plays, allowing EAST to take one more trick? fritz

Did he concede all his tricks by throwing his cards down or did he make a verbal concession? I think there is a real difference. In one case, he has pitched a card on the spade and the remainder are penalty cards if he has made no statement. Someone can parse the rules (I tried) to see if he gets to choose which card he has pitched on the spade. And then I think declarer gets to choose which penatly card to play. Also I wonder if there is a difference if he makes a concession before or after his cards hit the table. fritz

4♥ bidder probably thought pard had an invitaitional hand and 3♥ was a game try. 3♥ bidder was probably thinking 1-2-3 is a "preempt" and pard is not allowed to bid (info you are allowed to know). Would you have brought this to the attention of everyone if they had gone down and you got a top? fritz

I think I was the pass vote (I don't even think I voted pass now..and wait...) The auction after 2♠ seems crystal clear (P-P-X) , and showed up at the table. The Stayman bidder is not bidding a garbage stayman unless my partner is void in spades. Therefore, invitational or better values. On a great day, I will make 2SX. On a decent day I will be down only one when 3NT or 4♥ makes. On almost every other day, I have just enrolled for a bottom. Yes, everyone can line up at my table for free tops ;>) fritz p.s. My initial gut reaction was 2♠ until I noticed that RHO really can not have a garbage stayman hand and i read the vul situation...although it would be nice to know what sort of hands my opps would start a stayman sequence with, I still think the odds favor pass.

Here is a link to a picture of a traveler: http://www.baronbarclay.com/MATCHPT.html When I enter the score in the traveler, I write the contract in the contract column and fill in how many tricks over a book it made (OR undertricks in the DOWN column). I have never recorded a contract as 4S+5, just "4S" and "5" under the made column. When speaking to someone, I would say "4 spades, making 5", but in an email or my personal score sheet, I would write 4S+1. Just my style. There is a difference between verbal and written conversational score and traveler entry. fritz

Maybe alert with a name "Multi" and add a character/button (uday/fred??) which means "ask for more info if needed". This will perhaps make it less intimidating to ask about the "FDCCC" helne_t mentions. Certainly those with hot keys or prepared text do not have much problem, but those are few and far between. Please do not quote laws about full disclosure. I know short matches/long matches/known opponents/tournaments/Main Bridge Club all have different needs in alerting and explaining. On the original question, I felt the explainer probably meant to type 6M or 22-24 as someone else mentioned. Unfortunately 2 typos showed, "m" for "M" and no space. fritz

You got it right, but you missed banning the griping player in question. Did the griper's partner ask for an explanation of 4♣ or was it freely offered? In this case, I cannot imagine the supposed self-alert was done to misinform the opps and prevent bidding on the 3rd round after them being quiet. You may want to check South's other boards JUST to be sure that there are no funny alerts. 2♣ auctions are just plain awkward anyway. (Out of interest, how many opened 2NT or 1C?) Don't you usually have a statement asking for people NOT to hold up play for a ruling as you can adjust later? This is the thanks you get for restarting your tourney.. fritz

(deleted) fritz

TD got it wrong. However, a general ACBL ruling question: If a bid is NOT alertable (weak 2♦) in ACBL, how much info must be given to opps when they ask for an explanation -- live or online? And how much recourse is there if someone misspeaks/mistypes when describing a non-alertable "standard" agreement under the time stress of explaining the call? fritz

What is done about Matchpoint boards in the Main Bridge Club? Are these ever indexed against small tournaments? Sometimes there are very few MP tables so getting 16 plays could take quite some time. fritz

Defend using standard defense. I don't care who declares -- N,S,E, or W. 4S is going down ;>) as long as we lead (suit deleted). fritz

Should the player who called for the director be reported to (abuse)@somewhereweallknow.com? If I am reading the original post correctly, another player called the director because the holder of the 4=6=2=1 hand didn't bid according to what (s)he thought was good bridge Only then did the director have a chance to make a very poor choice. I am saying this under the assumption that this was not played in a INDY with very specific rules that either disallowed Stayman, but allowed transfers OR allowed Stayman, but required Texas transfers after a 1NT-2C-2D auction. I kinda doubt that. fritz

Different partners, different ideas. For me with some partners, TEXAS is ON after 1NT-2C-2D, whereas with others it is not on. Perhaps the director felt that EVERYONE who plays TEXAS would bid 4D with your hand after the 2D bid by the 1NT opener. Therefore, your partner (in an INDY of all things) would be in trouble for passing your 4H bid, which is clearly a transfer to spades. Right?? Huh?? Hey, it's an INDY where nuances are not discussed. The person who called the director must have been miffed thinking 4H was a transfer to spades and the 1NT bidder didn't accept the "obvious" spade transfer, and therefore they got a "bad" board for not getting a benefit of a non-existent bidding mistake :ph34r: . Certainly if TEXAS was not even agreed then this entire question is even more ridiculous. _rona, I agree that the TD seemed to step over a line here. fritz

Declarer play, defense, and bidding all intertwine with one another. A convention is nice to learn for the beginning player because it can be used in a recognizable situation. It gives them a sense of "ok, here it is during this hand, and I can do something productive. I will pull out my 2H card after my partner opened 1NT and I will make..TADA.. a transfer. YES!! Am I good or what!!" A small part of the game has been mastered. Well..until another bid is needed once partner accepts the transfer :) However, certain declarer play and defensive play techniques are not as obvious as when they should be used. The hand doesn't say "3-3 Split or finesse problem" to the beginner. Only by knowing all the choices can someone decide how to play or defend a hand. COUNTING is a skill to be learned from day one. To apply the counting, though, one must understand the bidding of the opponents, partner's defensive signals, and declarer play technique -- once again wrapping the topics together. I do agree that card play should be stressed by playing asking playing asking playing asking playing asking... The gains in card play may not seem as tangible, though, at the table due to the nature of bridge where a good play can be punished and bad play gets rewarded. fritz -- a frequent rewardee :)

A couple of choices: You are allowed to choose which alerts you hear. You can also replace the BBO sound files with whatever sound file you want. I have Homer Simpson's "D'oh!" as an undo request. That way you can have more pleasing sounds to alert you about your turn, new deal, etc.. fritz

Hi Ken: Several comments: 1) As has been told to you many times, conventions do not equal ability. Conventions, for the most part, do not exist by themselves. They exist as part of a broader scheme of bidding. Even the most basic of cards on BBO, called BBO Basic has both takeout and negative doubles, weak 2s, weak jump overcalls, Jacoby transfers, Michael's cuebids, 5-card majors, limit raises, and Jacoby 2NT. It also has non-natural interference to opponents 1NT opener. Many of these "conventions" are not well known by the social player. "25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know" is a great place for these players to start for learning these conventions. better is to play play play in the BIL. Also note that some the conventions listed above are for the SAYC based system. Some of these do not transfer over to other country's basic systems. So convention only criteria for skill or player level makes no sense in this multinational setting. 2) The large majority (at least 95%) of the social players are not very good when playing duplicate. They may have played for years and years without ever really having to compare their play with that of other (skilled) players. However, bridge has enough of a luck element that mistakes are never found or known to exist. On BBO you can look at how all the other tables bid and played. 3) Most players new to duplicate (in any form) should probably be called beginners, and novice if they haven't bridge played before. This will seem insulting to them at first. But trust me. It is very likely that they are at the beginner level. 4) Matchpoints and IMPs and rubber and chicago are completely different games with different tactics. It sounds like you are a beginner (even if you played socially for 50 years -- unless you have been winning in high stakes games versus good players). The suggestions by fred on the levels are to be used as guidelines for choosing your skill level. For the record, here were the people logged in today aorund 1PM EST 519 Private 72 Novice 91 Beginner 598 Intermediate 1143 Advanced 780 Expert 49 World Class 28 STARS were online with all skill different levels chosen. If true, the average player (aka "intermediate") on BBO would be "advanced" ;) (Huh?!) Encourage all your social playing friends to join the world of duplicate and go to the BIL. Have them get LTPB for free and, at the minumum, purchase a copy the Bridge Master series -- either the Audrey Grant or full blown version depending on card skills. fritz p.s. Do not take any of what I have written as me stating I am a great player. I know enough to know how little I really know. I am (self)labeled on BBO as advanced based on my club, sectional, and regional ACBL tournament results as in in the Rules of This Site.

How about a directory for people willing to be in it? Each player has the option to be in the directory or not as a checkbox on their profile sheet, with a default of NO. This database then can be searchable by name, country,level, key words in profile, etc... to find the player in question. fritz