Scoti

Yes, I agree with you that stalling is a serious lapse of sportmanly conduct. And although I was speaking of Dollar Bridge, this does raise an interesting matter. I have noticed that in One particular clubs tournaments, some players there seem to be more inclined to stalling the second hand if they won the first hand, apparently with the idea that Hand 2, or Hand 3 will be the one to favor their opponents in that match. And so often they make the situation that hand #3 is AVE= for being unplayed. So they do it to rob their opponents of the chance to have Their good hand in that match. And some of these players have numbers like NINE after their names. Thus, they certainly know better & that they are being deliberately cheap and unfair in their play. A shameful thing to see from such accomplished players. And some are so blatant about it they may stall every bid. And even every CARD they play when declaring. And require their op's to call the Director repeatedly. And I do wish there were some inforcement guidelines for that. Though I suppose the DIR can impose penalty, I've only seen a TRICK penalty done once, in my two years here. And removal of a couple players that did not reply when the DIR asked them to play, several times. Maybe that is enough,, but simply need enforced more? And it is funny how clubs differ in their tournaments. Another clubs tournaments are always subjected to Adjudication if all cards are not played. So the players will often just delay the playing of the last card, and take that time to chat about the hand; and let the adjudication take place to score it. In that club, it usually does not create a situation where AVE is pronounced in following hands. Apparently running more timely than the other club. But if that were not so, I can see how this could delay the tournament, or make for AVE hands too. Another consequence of tournament stalling is effect it can have upon the Defensive Pair. Since Declarer can stall enough to where an adjudication takes place, that seems to favor Declarer since it uses pefect play to establish the remaining trickes taken. So often that might save Declarers contract when Best-plays MAKES ... so it takes away his chance of error. Such as miscounting, or whatever.

It looks like I chose well with mid-diamond lead, if I understand the info from BLUECALM. But picking the best result, it bears explaining to look like more than taking a result peak, then voting. lol. To that end, let me also say, I would NOT have chosen the second best lead, being a heart. Simply because of discomfort with the Cohenistic idea many do follow, that my short suit is going to be my P's longsuit. I almost always prefer to lead against NT from either my long suit, or powersuit. Tho the latter is primarily a consideration vs 3NT, but not so much vs 1NT. Anyway that tells why I avoided a H lead. Although I feel that ops would rate to be short on Majors, having not gone to them, and that leading mid-spade may make the Queen a winner ... just as likely they may win with a J!s and hold the A-K and then I've made my Q a loser. I don't go with clubs because, 1)a four-card power suit vs 1NT isn't going to make a fast Set, 2)I WANT the RHO to win trick one if posssible without hurting us. (Because I feel it is going to be P's job to Set this contract if it is possible. Bidder leading trick 2 seems to make optimum situation that ops are not leading to their stronger hand, and are leading to my P having final say so for the trick. Also, If P happens to win trick one, he can lead to dummy weaknesses and being #3 I get to preserve strength of hand if my RHO happens to have a winner in trick 2. And 3) by leading from my strongest suit here, it decreases the chance that ops ever return to it. Additionally, winning in that suit does not tell me ops dont have that Ace. And so I go with mid-diamond lead. Not 4th down as I have a prejudice vs leading 4th down in NT. And here P might have to use much more force than needed if he must try to win the lead trick while sitting in front of the op with all the hcp. Going with mid !d may make my Q good after one trick. Yet if not, and a Jack wins, the Queen is not certain of being wasted, as were the case for Spade Q. And as a generality vs NT, I lead from length, hoping to return lead to me later with by a winner in my strong suit. (You could say that is the basis of my NT defense. When possible, I generally play for that. An exception is when my Strong suit is just TOO strong so that they would obviously never lead back to it. Like if I held the Ace Clubs here as well. Then I must lead top of clubs. And hoping to make a 4th trick in the suit as well.) My 2nd choice, well lead the Other Mid !d card! lol. Ok thats hedging things a bit. So let me say, the low !D. Here's where it proves I didnt Peek ... my next choice was Clubs. King. Not the hotest. But leading from a suit of 2 like H is just too Anti-philosophy and risk seeming to me, even here where I expect ops are not holding 8 hearts. Anyway that is how I viewed it. Tho much faster since it was a largely a philosophical choice for me.

TY BARMAR. I was unaware of that info in your post and it is very good to know.

BLUECALM: Yes, now that you mention a fixed amount for penalty, that does seem more fair to me than a percentage, in that the penalty is then known beforehand with using a flat amount. You are right that it is only the deliberate disconnector's I would wish to penalize too, not those having unexpected disconnects. Tho protecting the unfortunate players who do experience true connection problems was the reason for my idea of requiring multiple occurances of forfeits before issuing a suspension from the $$ arena. (But personally, my perspective in that matter is to question if I should even be playing $$ Bridge for stakes if frequent D/C's were an issue for me. Whether they were being caused by the site or by my own computer setup. Then I would have a responsibility to myself as a participant to try to eliminate D/C's. Still, as I believe Mgoetze alludes, my proposed penalties do not provide much happiness to a player who is in that situation! Were it me, I would simply restrain myself to playing in the FREE mode then, if my D/C's could not be eliminated or improved by me.)

MGOETZE: Oh, but I did not promise to provide a good solution and only seek opinions & dialogue from other players about this problem which you acknowlege does exist. On that note, what would You recommend? Intuition tells me that it seems unlikely that only expressing doubts about the ability and approach to finding of a good solution will lead to creation of a good solution. Don't you agree? Still I can appreciate what I infer from your post; that the matter needs holistic consideration to try avoiding replacement of one problem with others. ;-)

Hello all~! Some who play $$-Bridge engage in behavior I consider unsporting and inconvenient. He/She will either stall a bad hand until they are forfeit for too much time; or they disconnect and forfeit. There is a possible benefit to the offender, who forfeits, since the BBO system then adjudicates to determine the outcome of that unfinished hand. This helps the offender, if the computer plays better than he does, by eliminating the chance of his losing any tricks from bad play. It also wastes time of the other player in the case of stalling. _________________________________________________ Consequently, I favor adding some form of penalty so that it becomes disadvantageous to stall or to let the computer play the game for them. I mention penalty ideas in my poll, above, and would like to know the opinion of other players about it. Even if you have not tried $$ Bridge yet. If you have not tried it, I would like to mention that you Can give it a try FREE, with no need to actually open a cash account there. That is because, in addition to the choices to play for a penny per point, 1/10th, 1/4th, 1/2, and 2 pennies per point ... there is the option to play FREE $$ Bridge. When that is done, it is set up in the same manner as games played for 1 cent per point, and it calculates how much you would have won or lost at that rate. But it only pretends that the play is for money. So that is a wonderful way to try it out for as many hands as you wish. With no risk. Thus FREE is a fast and pleasant way to play some Bridge with another human opponent, who also has a Robot Partner just like you do. _____________________________________________________________________________ I will refer to the player who is forfeit for running or stalling as the "Offender". My penalty ideas include these: * When adjudicating the outcome, have the computer penalize Offender to lose one more trick, in addition to the true outcome. This makes it more likely for him to lose that hand, and will also lose IMP points, to thus lose more $$ that hand. More than if he had stayed and played properly to an outcome. * Make it impossible for Offender to Win and gain any $$ that hand. Usually an Offender who voluntarily forfeits would have been going to lose the hand. But this penalty makes certain Offenders do not get to use the Robot's Skill (lol although that may be an oxymoron. Pardon the pun re "moron" too, please.)to find some miraculous way to Win the hand, that Offender could not find. * Add 10% more to the other players $$ Won in that hand. * Same thing, but jmake the increased winnings more, like 20%, 50%, 100% or more ? Perhaps the % might vary to be more for frequent offenders ?! * Or to bar them from $$ Bridge play for a period of time, if they have repeated offenses? * Do you have other ideas of penalties for this? Or thoughts of your own on some other way(s) to discourage stalling or running for forfeits? * Or do you feel things work fine just as they are? Perhaps it is a minor problem, or no problem at all, in your view? _______________________________________________________________________ I would be most happy to hear any supporting or dissenting opinions about this matter. Or does anyone have suggestions about other ways that our $$ Bridge experience might be made even more enjoyable than it is now. And IMO, it is quite a lot of fun, being fast paced most of the time, with interesting hands and play. And I find it to be a quite nice way to "warm-up", especially the FREE mode, before engaging in serious tournament play. Or Match play. Although I will offer this warning to those considering it as a Warm-Up before tournaments ... I once missed a tournament because during $$ Bridge, it did not interupt my play there to get me to my tournament. So be aware of that, unless it is changed now. About the $$ Robots; when the Game is set up the hosting player has the choice of three different levels of Robot ability. Fastest/Weakest, Medium/Medium, or Slowest/Strongest play by the Robot partners. Like when you encounter a Robot P on the regular tables or in a tournament; the Robot partner may be crazier some days than on others, regardless of the ability level chosen, IMO. And your Robiot P is also apt to "lie" to you from time to time, in the bidding explanation alerts. And not necessarily fibbing a 'little white lie', but a great earth-shaking whopper like claiming to have more cards in a suit than is true. But that is robots for you. My other suggestion would be to always be able to get the ones that are having a Good-Day ~! ... since it seems to be a good-day vs bad-day occurance. And personally, I tend to leave when I get ahold of a crazy bot. So I would like to hear if anyone else has had the same experience with them, and might know what the difference might be, of good bots vs bad bots? If I am right about it being something that does come in streaks, it makes me wonder if it could involve Server load ? Either more players online (?), or more Robots in use (?), on those days they seem to be off their game. All comments are welcome. Good Day Bridge-friends and regards, Craig.

This matter of tempo is something that worries me. I have played friendly bridge and online bridge only, so it is a bit intimidating to think that my every card might be timed in a live tournament. Several times online players have remarked that they thought I had used tempo to signal my P. But that was not the case. Rather that I simply think about a lot of varied considerations, as well as keep 4 suit count, and try to paint a distribution picture. And if my own opponents are playing quickly then much of it will be done at times it is my play. So I may have what others could see as an unjustified delay, when I'm actually not even be thinking about the next card I lay. Its got to be done sometime. And surely every player has a right to think about everything they believe they need to in order to produce the most correct play. If it were to become a problem, I would just have to do as one player mentioned and take my full 60 seconds on Every play. But then of course, Everyone gets penalized for slow play if the event gets ahead of them, even the ops, who may be playing quite crisply. So I really don't know what to think of this. I would like to suggest it is overemphasized and ridiculous; but I cannot do that. Because at the same time, I know I could be quite capable of working out a Timed Sytem with a P, that says, "10 seconds means lead back the next lower suit, but 20 seconds go Up a suit" etc. ...as a simple example. But really it could become quite complex with meanings for 5 seconds after a Jack meaning different than 5 after a King, etc etc. OR BIDDING especially! But I just like to play fair. Yet can see where it could be a problem with some players. And maybe that is the answer. Surely players that do it chronically, or display some method/system to it, become apparent, and individual consideration by Directors may be needed. So I suppose my thought on it would be to do what you need to do for time use. And not to worry it unless you are getting complaints. I'm sure there are plenty of players who will let you know if they think you transmit via time use, or the angle of your crooked necktie !?

Thank you all for your replies. As mentioned, with me being a newer forum poster, It has really helped me to sort out who is who here. There seem to be a lack of good Chess players, I note, who always think ahead. Thats my other game btw. But anyway, it has been enjoyable. Now it gets more enjoyable as it seems I forgot to mention, that this concept was not exactly my own idea. I'm afraid that honor goes to Eddie Kantar. And he plays it with 8hcp, rather than my 9. But I guess he's a bit better player too, eh? So we'll give him that, ok? Except you knowlegable nay sayers of course ... I expect you will be wanting to take the matter up with him now, and help set him straight on the foolishness of this idea. I'm sure he'll be pleased to learn from you. lol. For anyone reading conscienciously, rather than playing troll the new guy ( or playing "be duped into looking seriously foolish", by the new guy, as the case may be) I'll add this: If you actually get the contract for 2 then expect hcp's to be fairly evenly divided and having 18 to 21 in which case your Make will gather 4 to 6.5 imp most often, tho Ive seen it go to 7 before. The less hcp, the more imp basically.. However, personally I find the defensive value very attractive, since that is my personal forte'. The dbl helps be rid of indefensible 1-level contracts (I never willingly let ops play for ONE, unless its because they should have bid Game)and pushes ops up. If they go to a 3 level contract of course, its likely to be set if hcps divide as mentioned. Even if not, then they may have had to shift to a lesser suit. This is particularly valuable in matchpoint for getting ops off of 1NT contracts and into suit. As often as not, naturally, to a minor. It has proven to be one of the most valuable defensive tools in the arsenal, and a definate factor in reaching +26/-4 in BBO Expert matches. Best wishes to those of you who wish to try it. And Thank You to those who don't.

Babalu ... you are dreaming. Since you have no way to know my p has 4 or not 12. And if you happen to have enough hcp to set us for 2d-1 for instance, then its me who gets to laugh at the Game contract you missed.

Then you preempt Yourself out of knowing if you have slam chances since your p Will think you have a weak hand to open 4 spades. This is not a weak hand. Not to anyone who uses distribution counts. But I do agree with you that the hand can bid by itself. (Which is exactly what a preempter is doing, taking his P out of the equation and guessing he might make 4 or need to stop ops from contracting, so it seems strange for you to be the champion of P rights, lol. The difference being, he is taking a shot in the dark that is not necessary to make) . Bidding 4 later "showing a better hand" makes no difference here since opener captains this hand, not P. Which is really what you are objecting to. Not opener "playing with yourself" as he would be if he opened 4 spades.

Yes, 1 spade regardless of vulnerability. Why would you preempt when you have spades and can overcall any other bid anyway. If ops want to go to 5 they are probably set and your p will know to lead a spade. Open one to find out what P has for points and suit, lest HE get preempted by ops. (Knowing you opened he may be able to overcall them whereas he may not be so inclined if they open with a preempt.) You can know you can always go to 4 sp anyway if needed, at no more risk than opening at that. Likewise you need not worry about being an hcp short if P limit bids, since the hand indicates up to a 4 level bid anyway. And you are looking at a potential slam hand here. You need info.

Thank you for your opinion and fine offer. Will you include more naughty words, so I too may try to shock and impress the masses with juvenile lexicon whilst trolling the bridge forums, spouting meaningless unconstructive comments about posts I did not really bother to read well?

I'm sorry, my German is insufficient to explain this.

I think you are right, there is not advantage Over normal takeout, if we had to replace that with it. The advantage of having it in addition is being able to get into the auction rather than giving it to ops at 1 level where they can not help but Make. It does not take the place of the traditional T/O. Indeed playing the standard takeout is part of what helps it to work, since takeout then becomes 10+ not 12 or 13+. It need not be carded distinctly and creates a certain ambiguity there. And as mentioned, the 2 level Make can score very well in IMP. Usually at least 4, sometimes 6-8. This has helped immensely toward several tournament scores, and a close match. It trys to win the contact in hands where hcp are near even between the sides. (Tho it is possible to Make 2 with under 20 of course) Or force the overly ambitious to 3. One may sometimes steal the contract due to vulnerability or unwillingness to go to a major or to 3 level by the other side. It seemed very safe to me also until today, albeit one sided, with dbl er knowing the pts and simply stops bidding at 2. GWNN Thx for the info. That seems logical and perhaps a good addition for me, knowing P will choose a major if he is 4-4 or perhaps even 4-5 with a minor. so for me to hold at least 3 in majors increasese safety. I too had 11 hcp today.

Is anyone else playing a minimum value take out double? Perhaps it is being called something else. I've been playing it with phenominal success until today, the first disaster. But that later. The idea being that after a weak looking opening by ops such as 1!d, P, 1!h the fourth seat dbl to show 10+. The distinguishing feature from usual T/O being only that P need only call long suit, which will be given to him to play in. This results in some Very good imp scores for making 2 bid since few open it lacking "opsning values" in either hand. Or else the ops really do have the stuff needed and overcall P's bid. But even then the Dbl serves to help limit ops from game, having showed points that may reflect normal T/O opening values, as far as they know. It has already prevented Ops from playing at One, where they are likely as good as anything, lacking Game values, and drives them upward where Set may be more than a dream. And if we go down one Decalring at 2 level, its still better than letting Ops have their way. All P must do to make it work is call long suit. Unfortunately today (new) P called a dark suit, interpretting it as Neg X (reasonable indeed, since i was not profiling dbl's) and holding only 3 clubs to my two. He did hold 6 !d himself however. lol. Which is what I expected his clubs to look like after his bid. So we went for 2c, not overcalled. I've Made two with 6 cards before, but 5 trumps is a little hard on P's, as well as ones image as moderately uncrazy bidder. We did not get Dbl for Penalty (no one ever does, of course). But it was still unpleasant. Tho P was kind and explained Neg Dbl theory to me; that is starts with not wanting to play in the suits already bid. }8-< Ok, neat, ive heard that somewhere . . . Comments on the concept, anyone else playing with wonderful success, etc. Whatever. 4th seat is basically declaring to have 1NT fit without the hcp, in my conception of it. (And good shot at a 2 level Make.) IE willing to play it in any suit p calls. P must only realize that it will be the suit he bids unless OC.