FM75

The only way would be to leave the table and kibitz. Personally I think the idea of dummy seeing all four hands is wrong. How many times has a dummy just said "claim partner"? How many times have you wondered if the dummy involved could see all the hands (was using the old version)? I have seen it more than I like. Wait until the end of the hand. Then it will show up in the results section and you can review each trick if you want. At one point a windows player could undo immediately before the first trick! Yikes. It would be a nice feature to show a little "windows" icon on the players that are not using the web version, so you know what you are up against. :)

Since the beta allows you to pick the large index faces or the standard BBO index, I do not see how this could be anything but better. On my 15" laptop the standard cards are fine, but so is my vision. I think you need feedback from the folks that complain that the "cards are too small". That said, I suspect that many do not figure out right clicking will bring up the pop-up menu. I also think that the "options" menu could be better organized. Options, more options, Basic/Advanced seems like it just grew that way as more "options" got added. How about Settings (instead of options which sounds like something from Wall Street) with Tabs for Cards and play, Animation, Sound, Kibitzing , Chat, Managing Friends, etc. or some such functional organization? Settings is kind of like "File, Preferences" in windows, or Chrome, Preferences on a Mac. Settling on Preferences (Mac/Windows), or Settings (like iPhone, iPad...) seems better to me.

Bo Haglund DD link. http://privat.bahnhof.se/wb758135/ I have gotten a version of this working on a Mac. I am NOT working on developing an AI game playing program, however. Ginsberg paper is worthwhile if that is your interest.

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I think you have at best 10% chance partner has A and 5% the K onside. (On average he has just over 2 hearts.) About 10% chance he has 4 hearts. So on a heart lead, less than 25% chance of taking 9 tricks. However a black suit lead is probably between 50% and 60% - They rate to have longer hearts than either black suit and won't lead a diamond. Looks like a pretty good game - unless west is holding honor sequence in hearts.

None of the options offered. http://pigpen.org.uk/BBO/2d.php 2♥ rebid by partner allows us to specify 16-19 with 2♠ rebid. 20-23 2N,3♣,3♦,3♥ shows points and location of singleton. But this is systemic, with strong club system. You might or might not be able to wire that into your system. That said, 16-23 any 4441 comes up so infrequently that you might need the equivalent of reaching the finals of the Bermuda Bowl to see it in the course of an arbitrary competition. :) Above frequency was from memory on 16-23. Dramatically overstates frequency of 23+ and 4441. About 6 hands out of 100,000 will be 23+ and any 4441, if you are dealer. You can get some additional chances, if you are not, and earlier players pass. I suspect less than 2 in 10,000. Half of the hands, you will hold 23, a tad over 25% 24. Put this: condition shape(north, any 4441) and hcp(north)>=23 action frequency "points" (hcp(north), 23, 40) into: http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/dealer/dealer.php

I should have said 5-7, not 5-8... balanced 16-18 1N, 19-21 2N GF and use standard methods to ferret out the strain With 5+ spades, pass. Bid as you might have anyway over 1 spade opener, forcing for one round. Lebensohl after that if appropriate. Or can use what ever splinters / game tries you have in the tool kit.

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/rec.games.bridge/P-S48ncvbY8

Fair question. Opener's hand is only limited on the low side and the partnership is limited as well, but opener has very narrow window - 3 point range on the total partnership hcp. He could be opening on 27 (I had that yesterday in a Swiss Teams match), with possible slam, or he could have a meager 16. The opponents will have a very hard time staying out of trouble opposite even as little as 21. Won't they get there even against any standard system? There danger is when opener is just a bit strong, because neither opponent has much of a clue as to their strength - CRO is about shape.

pass = 0-4, X = 5-7. Next legal bid in suit shows 8+ and 5 cards. 1N = 8+ balanced. (a bit of a minus if you have this hand.) After interference, partner knows your strength more precisely if you were otherwise going to respond with 1 diamond than if they did not interfere. This is occurs fairly commonly. Without interference, we bid 1N to show 8+ and 5+ spades and 1S with balanced, allowing opener to bid 1N, which will right-side a NT contract and also serves as a control asking bid.

http://www.google.com/chrome Should take you to a browser download screen that matches your operating system. On a Mac, try Safari, or better still, see above.

The relative odds are not really material, so much as which is more likely here, IMO. For the odds to matter you would need to include the forms of scoring, etc. For the purpose of picking up the suit, at trick 5, you need only know which hand is more likely to hold the missing queen, not by how much. Information available: East preempted with H-AJ7632, 5 hcp and by trick 5 a small club and a small spade and 5 other cards. The locations of the 2 pointed Queens and the club Jack are not known. The ruff at trick 2 eliminated 16 of 32 possible spade distributions by defenders. It is also in the suit we would like to have used vacant spaces to figure the current probability of the location of the honor. The spade 5 is also missing and is equivalent to the 4 in this problem if West held it. The most precise vacant spaces information known was that at one point W had 12 and E had 7. Ignoring the ruff, but including the club trick, that dropped to 11-6. Including the known play of the 4 spades, changes it to 8-5, but that excludes the restricted choice impact. So on a pure distribution probability you would play the spade ten, because the odds are better than 1:1 that west holds the Q. What we do not know, from the original information provided is what East's minimum limits are for a weak 2 hearts bid - though they are clearly lower than Frank Stewart's :). If E would not preempt with less than 10 hcp on that heart holding, it is 100% that E holds the Queen. If he needs a minimum of 7 it is a worse than a coin toss because he must have at least one of them. If E needs 7-10 for his bid, the odds favor playing the King. It might even be true if he needs 6, because that can only be satisfied by holding at least one of the other missing honors. So to quote Dirty Harry..."Do you feel lucky?" Now to apply selection bias. At the table, declarer needed to play the King. If he didn't, then this topic probably would not have been posted. :)

It is not clear to me what you consider the "back button" in the forum. Perhaps you want to just click on the "Backspace" key on your keyboard, which in most modern browsers will take you to the previous page that you viewed?

I just reread your original post. It seems your concern is competing against the precision 1 diamond opener. My initial reaction is that it should be easier to compete against that opening, than against a standard 1 diamond opening, if for no other reason than you know much more precisely what you are up against strength-wise - presumably some 11-15, versus 10-20 for SAYC or 2/1 style. Then I note that you are talking about the results at the top level. At this level, I am not sure that it is really worth much to try to analyze the boards played against precision systems versus non-precision, simply because the number of participants is so small that any results you might find will simply be a reflection of the actual players playing and their skill levels (and individual variations) rather than the bidding systems used. Example - Pair A consistently scores better. Pair B consistently reaches better contracts DD. Can you conclude anything from those results? "Defensive" pair C does better than pair D. Is that because they played better, or because their systems were better suited to play against the teams they met (playing the 1D opening)?

I play one variant of a strong club, as devised by Oliver Clarke and Jason Hackett. I can't speak for any other systems, but in this system one diamond is any hand with 11-15 hcp that can't be opened any other way! In practice, this excludes 11-15 hands with a 5 card major, 2 and 3 club hands containing long clubs and possibly a 4 card major, and hands that would be opened 1NT. In the system mentioned, that is 10-12 NV, or 13-15 Vul. Though my partner and I have settled on 13-15 NV in 4th seat. For "information content" it seems to rank just a tad more descriptive than 'pass". To get an understanding of the hands statistically, you can construct the bidding system within which it fits and run it through the hand dealer program on BBO. It is hard to bid against, I guess, but it is not especially easy even for the partnership in a constructive auction. But 1D-p-1M-p;1N usually narrows it down to a very tight hcp range13-15 or 10-12 (the opposite of the NT range) and a balanced to semi-balanced hand. Looking forward to your analysis.

Kibbing or sitting at a table in a club, you should see chat and be able to chat to the club. BBO Now, - you can see tournaments. Maybe register while playing.

I guess you must be referring to Bredolab. http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2009-052907-2436-99 If you are running BBO Web on a Mac, you should be safe. If you are running on windows.. and clicked on an ad, maybe you want to refer to the link. Personally, I would have liked a more proactive and immediately informative response from BBO. By the time you discover this problem, it is likely somebody else has already encountered it. Confessing up front and quickly would be a good idea. If I were an advertiser, I would want that as well. Who wants to advertise where your target audience, to be safe, avoids clicking?

Anybody want to buy an old account? Expect to pay more than you would for a 3 digit Delaware license plate!http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif

In my mind, there is no question that the "Movie" software needs "bookmarks" (maybe if they were called bBooks instead of movies this would be more obvious). People may frequently not be able to read through anything longer that an "article" on a single hand at one sitting. Being able to return to the same resource that one left is important for that reason. Likewise, if the author wants to provide a number of quizzes, the ability of the reader to return to the "next" one is needed. It may also be important in the event that the author actually has an error. How do you describe it, when there is no "page number" or track number?

April, huh? :) ¿ʇsɐǝ puɐ ɥʇnos ǝɥʇ ɯoɹɟ ǝɹǝʍ sʇɐʇs ǝɥʇ ʇɐɥʍ ɹǝpuoʍ ı

The very first frame is awkward. On a normal screen you can expect the frame to be too wide for good reading. It would be very good to change the software to protect the authors from this layout problem. :) It has been well known since at least the 60's that it is easier to read when the line width is small. That is because the eye makes discrete movements across the page until it reached the end. Then it has to move all the way back to the left to the correct line - one below the one just read. If you want confirmation of this, consider that newspapers are printed with narrow columns and that normal books are taller than they are wide.

Nice idea. Can you create the link in such a way that it opens in another tab?

I find it a bit tedious to navigate through page after page on the web. It might be very useful to create a pdf version that could be downloaded and either printed or viewed in whatever pdf reader one has. Then you can search through it readily. Often I find it very useful to scan very quickly through manuals like what you have created to gain a quick overview of what types of options and features are available - yes sometimes laying on a couch or in bed. Or maybe in a car ride or other situations where connectivity is unlikely. The really good thing about this is that it nearly enforces good practice. How many smart bridge players have written truly awful books? You know, the kind with the hand diagram on the right page, and the description of play or the concept on the following left page. The publishing/editing of these is mind-boggling lazy/bad. The authors that do that well are the exception in the bridge publishing industry. Have you thought about the idea of chapters, and "books". Right now it looks like the single song model that Apple started. If you go down the chapters/books route, then table of contents and an index or a text search might be very useful. Also bookmarking, so that one can return easily later.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think there is anything wrong with context menus. That said, the same options that can be configured on a context menu should be configurable in a application wide configuration menu. People know to look there. It is very little effort to "complete" the configuration menu. After all, you have the elements in place to store the selection, and use the selection. All the code is in place, except for consolidating in one natural spot. It might not occur to somebody that the results table can be configured differently than the playing table. Giving the two items distinguishable names exposes the internal model to the user so that his mental model is more consistent. Maybe all these years the people who have been complaining about cards too small are talking about the cards on the results table (maybe most call that the movie table?). Labeling the two tables would not be a bad idea just to distinguish them.

Thanks. Another BBO Easter Egg! All back to normal now. Seriously Fred, why the "Easter eggs" on BBO, BBOWin, and the new phone/tablet versions? OK - that is a rhetorical question. Definitely off topic. It would be nice, at least for us modern era types, for ALL "preferences" be on a menu (or come up on a "gear").