slothy

I hope opps werent on the Club Ethics committee McBruce :huh:

Dear MonocledJack, I have metaphorically tied my fingers together to abstain from stating the obvious :P ....although your DUUH paraphrased it nicely.... Regards Alex ;)

http://compe.japandesign.ne.jp/report/aboutawards/g_design/g-mark/1976/img/shaver.jpg Just something i thought you might like for your birthday. About 20 years too late i admit :P)) Only reason i included it is that your wife was complaining to me the other day about how she found those little hairs a bit ticklish...then i realised i hoped she was talking about the times you were kissing her ;) May you continue to come on BBO as invisible for many more years to come... Lots Of Platonic Hugs Alex

For the sake of no one EVER taking me seriously ever again will try and answer this post with the SARCASM and the TONGUE-IN-CHEEK check-boxes unticked.... END PLAY An end play, normally invoked towards the end of the hand, is a strategy used by declarer (even by the defence if s/he is able to count declarer out and somehow is not declaring her/himself :D ) in order to force a particular defender, or either defender, to be on lead and force a return that can benefit declarer. In some cases, the end play requires some preparation of stripping opponents of exit cards to force them to open a particular suit (and thus becomes categorised as an elimination play) [and create a scenario as illustrated by flame and lukewarm above] OR you recognise that a particular opponent has to protect certain cards and can be thrown in to lead a suit that will be disadvantageous to the defence (and thus becomes categorised as a squeeze play) OR you force a particular defender to win a trick and ANY return by him/her yet again benefits declarer. This normally requires declarer and dummy to have a majority of the face cards and tenace holdings in all possible exits by a defender. (and thus becomes categorised as a Geez why did my p leave me ONLY in 3NT hand) The last one is sometimes instantly recognizable and sometimes is engineered unknowingly by declarer :P . The first two more often require some grease-work: declarer has recognised that an end play can be engineered and plays his/her cards accordingly... FOR THE EXAMPLE FETISHISTS I was recently kibbing a hand where declarer engineered this end play. Cant remember exact cards but the principle is there. Contract : 5 ♥ LHO had overcalled ♦ DUMMY ♠AQxx ♥AQxxx ♦xxx ♣T DECLARER ♠xx ♥KJxxx ♦Kxx ♣Axx How and why they got to 5 ♥ is not worthy of discussion - declarer just had to justify his bidding :). Declarer can see he can lose 3♦ if RHO can get in an lead a ♦ through or he is forced to play ♦ for himself. He also intuits that the ♠ finesse MUST be right for the contract to make. SEQUENCE OF PLAYS ♣ lead, taken by A; ♣ ruff; returned to hand with a ♥; Took ♠ finesse of Q which held; Cashed A♠; ruffed ♠ ( noting J ♠ by RHO); ruffed ♣; Drew last ♥; exited with ♠, RHO discarding a ♣, and declarer discarding one his small ♦s; (note: declarer does NOT ruff this. If he did so he will be locked in hand, exactly what he wanted to avoid and why he took this line right from the start. He is sacrificing the lead to ensure that LHO wins and S/HE is on lead and forced to play ♦ or give a ruff-and-slough) LHO on lead with K ♠ was forced to play ♦ last 4 cards being on ♠- ♥x ♦xxx ♣- ♠- ♥xx ♦Kx ♣- LHOs hand was ♠KT93 ♥x ♦AQTxx ♣KQx For the sake of completion and at the risk of being plagiaristic of me ol' buddy lukewarm :D, the tenace holding example is an old chestnut with regards to end play technique. EXPLOITING TENACE POSITIONS Holding A J 9 opposite T x x in a suit, there is a possibilty of losing 2 tricks in the suit if the person behind the A J 9 holds the K Q combination. Of course, if either of these honour cards are held in the other hand then there is the chance of the finesse ensuring that only one trick MAY be lost. But a person aware of end play technique would recognize that one existed and would do his damndest to reach a position where he can limit his loses to 1, HOWSOEVER the honour cards were distributed. So, as an extremely simplified example, let us say that we had the following ending:- ♠- ♥x ♦AJ9 ♣- ♠- ♥x ♦KQx ♣- ♠- ♥A ♦Txx ♣- IF one would to take the ♦ finesse at this juncture, the RHO will win and exit with a ♥ forcing you to take the finesse again and losing, and you may be left pondering how unfortunate you were that BOTH honours were offside. The CORRECT technique is to cash the A♥ first and THEN play small ♦ to dummy covering whatever card LHO played. The difference now is only that RHO has been exhausted of cards other than ♣s and is forced to play back into the tenace holding on the table. Note: it does not matter whether LHO has either or both of these cards as he just covers whatever card s/he plays. With both honours with LHO, he is forced to win on the table and concede a trick but he has restricted his losses to 1 BY FORCE. End play is about recognition and practice allows you to identify these situations easily after a while and to exploit them. It is very satisfying when you play a hand correct technically and taken a 100% line in a contract. END PLAY DEFENCE There is a brilliant discussion in T Reese's book 'Expert Game' about strategies defenders can adopt to avoid being end played. In this particular example, (for the more alert readers :) ) LHO could have avoided the endplay had s/he jettisoned his/her K T 9 ♠ so that dummy would have the boss spade and thus cannot be end played. In this particular case, alas, it would not have worked as dummy's ♠ would have furnished him with his much-desired ♦ discard ,losing just 2 ♦. However, end play defence can involve throwing or 'unblocking' unnecessary high cards in order to avoid such a position. Expert defenders can visualise the end game and can see that if s/he can discard appropriately, s/he can prevent her/himself from getting the lead either at all or at the undesired time, either to allow his/her partner to get in to lead a suit from the right side or force declarer to play a suit for himself. A classic case is the following DUMMY, in front of you, has ♦AKTxx and you have ♦Qxx Let's say you have a holding in another suit where you want p to get in and lead through, and you make the assumption that this is perhaps the ONLY way to get the contract off i.e playing p for J x x ♦. If you have the chance, a good tactic may be to flamboyantly discard your Q of ♦ on a discard, playing your p for the hoped-for J x x ♦. Notice that declarer can never set up the ♦ without letting partner in. Otherwise, entries allowing, declarer can play up to the AK ♦ (twice if necessary, ducking if on either occasion you play the Q in order to prevent your p getting in. (this is categorised as an avoidance play) Some may argue that if p has got J x and declarer xxx, say, you have just allowed declarer the luxury of 5 tricks in ♦. This is fallacious in the sense that, assuming there is no other way to get contract off and declarer knows what he is doing he can always force the situation where he loses the lead to you in order to protect his holding in a vulnerable suit. Of course, if you misread the situation and p has an ace somewhere you have a lot of explaining to do when the 5 ♦ tricks is the only way he can make his contract :) Hope that helped Jilly Bean PS Hee hee. For the more gender-conscious of you, although the defenders may have been male or female by my use of multiple pronouns, the declarer is inadvertently exclusively male :) and i ain't going to edit this to be politically correct. ;) forgive me if you wish.

An end play is when you go to the theatre and the curtain comes down and the actors come out and bow ...then go back behind the curtain and come out and bow again ...then go back behind the curtain and come out and bow again ...then go back behind the curtain and come out and bow again or is there something i have missed?

Dear Marc, I went into convulsions of sobbing - last time i cried so much was when Bambi was killed in the film and I was 5 years old - when i heard of your decision to stop A Bridge Too Far .... I am sad as this means i cannot sabotage your tourneys anymore Please come back - I need someone to take my frustration out on... Good luck with whatever you decide to do - As a friendly suggestion - how about taking 'I Want To Improve My Spelling' evening classes??? ... As i said only a suggestion, mate, but as you once typed to me "greere weii rew ur eue rewi weew uiwe riure ie wgtsse" and it is something i can never forget, my friend. I have read this over and over again, trying to appreciate the wisdom that oozes from every spelling and grammatical mistake, and each time i read it i say to myself with a deep, aching sigh "GEZZZZUZZ, WHAT THE HELL IS MARC TRYING TO SAY" ... Although, unfortunately, more often than not, i understand what you are trying to say ;) (85% of the time i disagree with it, and the other 20% i agree just so that you dont get upset) Lots of Knife-In-The-Back Cuddles :P :D :D Alex

Welcome to the forum Dwayne A Tauran who likes soggy Chinese food??? Sounds like a bull in a china shop? Ja ja

FELICE COMPLEANNNOOOOOOO TRRIITRIINNAAAAAAAAA ;) ;) Alessandro L'Inglese

Hope you guys carry a pooper-scooper around with you... alex xx (For all of you who dont know what a pooper-scooper is, not the first time what i have said not been understood :lol: )

Nice book Mish. I recommend it And doesnt mention the word ZAR anywhere :blink: Trying to get rid of some bridge books so if anybody wants it, they can have it Alex

Dear Lenze, To be perfectly honest Lenze (i see your situation through a wider lenze than others....ok ok i try) i played with my ex-wife about 3 years after we got divorced It took me 2 and a half boards to realise why we got divorced in the first place :D A 4-1 ♣ break and a K ♠ offside had an uncanny habit of reheating the acid B) My advice. Dont shave!!!, dont iron your shirt, don't change your underwear!!!Because if you win, AND you nonchalantly suggest to take her home for a coffee (yeah yeah) .....you might find that you fall in love all over again. OK, there as is much chance of that as the finesse of the 4 winning....It will then just take you another game to realise why you been separated for 8 years ;) PPS Lenze. Please show some compassion. There are men here who have been playing with wives they've been married to for 30 years , not their Exs. Words of Wisdom. Refuse to play in hearts: A bad heart break will ruin your bridge relationship.

Ummmm Guys :D Calm Down!!!!!! Or neither of you will get a lollipop!!

Please Misho, stop it!!!!!, or you gonna make me cry again :P Seriously, to get down to brass-tacks, by my 'overall' performances on BBO, IF i were to put expert on my profile, it would be self-prophesising :P . But, by MY definition of EXPERT, I do *not* consider myself one. And for me this is the rule-of-thumb that I wish to abide by. Of course, this does not mean that i do not want to study and improve my game, QUITE the opposite. It simply means that i reserve judgement for those who put EXPERT by theirs. When i had given myself an EXPERT rating - more out of self-ego-baiting than anything else, on a couple of occasions i took a line of play that was wrong, but fully justified in my assessment at the time and at the table. 2 minutes later, I could not be bothered to have to take 15 minutes to explain to my partner, himself a self-professed EXPERT, why i took this particular line when his justification for taking HIS line (after seeing 52 cards of course) was absurd and based on his knowledge of where the cards were placed!! Of course, when you get it right, you get the pathetic comment "Wdp, you took the line i would have taken" duuuuhhhh! Then you find it very difficult to stop yourself from making a reciprocal embittered comment when he goes off in a cold contract. (i do try, honest ;) ) Then, SUDDENLY, he comes round to the idea that partners shouldnt be critical and take into account the fact that one takes a view and sometimes gets it wrong. jajjajaja I am very happy to take constructive criticsm/ advice off someone i perceive as better than me, whether it be in bidding theory or play, as imo, this is the best form of instruction, and it is delivered in a way in which s/he intends it as such. So, Misho, i have no desire to waste time having to defend myself, for the main reason that, if i have to, by this time, the person i am trying to defend myself with isnt really interested in my justifications anyway, if you get what i mean. And i am not that sensitive or concerned to have a person, and s/he not someone i consider a friend or someone i respect, tell me that, in his/her opinion, i am not a good bridge player. Bridge is important in my life, coz i enjoy it and it occasionally gives me satisfaction, as does the social networks it weaves. But playing it with people who ooze arrogance and wreak a perverted pleasure out of trying to demean others with a misguided, self-exalting, self-delusional belief that they know better, without any justification, is not.

My dear Misho I am proud of my country, my parents and my name! I have to be honest, my fellow Bulgarian compatriot, and say, you made me cry. And it is hard for a man to admit that. The emotion you provoked in my heart was overwhelming. My bottom lip is quivering as i write. :) ;) I have not cried as much since watching Dr Zhivago and that time Julie Christie twitched her nose at Omar Sharif and she got angry and uncontrollably neurotic coz he opened Muideberg with a 6 card suit and they were in the wrong contract (see other thread). It was one of the saddest moments in cinema history... Can be really important reasons to do that - like security job (military), country restrictions, religious restrictions... SO if i am a Buddhist Monk working for the CIA and residing in the Vatican (NO FLAG for the Vatican btw...have to inform Freddie. Bridge really taking off between vespers in the Roman Catholic church). Life can be a real sacrifice you know.... (well actually i work for FBI but shhh) I dont understand this thread to be honest....yes If someone wants to submit their name in their profile fine. I prefer it as it tends to personalise the experience. If they dont want to then fair enough it is their right, CERTAINLY superceding MY right to insist they reveal it. But i can say with upmost modesty, it is not long before they tell me their name anyway (if they are female, takes a couple of weeks to reveal their age, but i have my stategems). If they dont reveal their names and i feel i would like to know it, then i have other people more open with whom i prefer to play with. I dont turn them away or refuse to play with them again but dont go out of my way to do so. As for my dear friend Claus, i have to say with all your soliloquies about rights and freedom of expression you seem to insist upon some incognito policy???? Dont get it. END OF STORY. As for me i put private as my skill level. For the obvious reason that i dont wish to be judged by what other people seem to put as theirs. Dont really see a need to prove ANYTHING. If somebody wants to know they can play with and decide for themselves. If people complain it is more a reference to their own insecurity about what they have put in their profile. Alex MSFPMC (Member of the society for the proliferation of the Multiberg Convention) Hee hee PS Just a point to Ulrich Freiherr Ulrich von Lichtenstein MSPEM (Member of the society for the preservation of European Monarchies) For how long have you wished to support institutionalised in-breeding?

I think some people have missed the point. I was not arguing bout the systemic merits of Muideberg, or whether to call it by something else..... If you REGULARLY bid Muideberg with 6-4 distributions, then YES DONT call it Muideberg... If you do it once in a blue moon (I personally hve never seen one: i have seen a white one though) for whatever reason then I personally do not think, imvho, that the opener should be penalised (this is what the thread started out as, btw). A convention is there as a guide-line and a point of reference not as a tablet of stone, to be used and not abused (with a FEW universally-acceptable exceptions). As an example, i play Acol with weak NT (12-14). On the rare occasion, i may open with a (good) 11 count, but not often enough to justify changing my CC. People tell me "if u open a NT with 11 points, put it on CC"..normally coz they got a bad board...ironically when they get a good one, ie played wrong way round, they are smugly quiet....grrrr So next time i played against this person alerted 1NT as "11-14: last opened with an 11 count 3 and a half months yesterday at 2:34 pm" It is silly and pedantic and stupid. What DOES really P*TH me off, and really why i dont agree with it, is people ONLY seem to complain when they get a BAD board, otherwise they keep quiet and see no reason to point out your deviations from system when they look at score-card and see a gain for themeslves...hypocritical and nauseous. (Amen) PS My suggestion, Marjoram, is to play them at their own game.... INVENT A CONVENTION CALLED MULTIBERG :) ;) which is a hybrid of the 2 systems you mentioned ..you never know you might become famous like Stayman, Crowhurst, Gerber, Mr Notrump or the Sikh expert Mr Balan Singh

Dear Marjoram, As Hoggy said, this guy is talking out of his you-know-what. He didnt actually say that, but i am sure it could be paraphrased as such. There is nothing wrong at all in bidding 2♥ with a 6-4 hand, although i agree with Rado that it is better perhaps to inform partner of your 6 card major rather than misinform him that you have 5. It is certainly NOT forbidden to open a 2 major with 6 cards. After all, you are deceiving your partner as well as your oppponents. As long as it is stated as 5+ 4+ (and even if it wasnt ie 5♥-4+♣/♦ !!! nothing wrong in bending the rules) as long as your partner is not privy to any information. I am quite sure there is no rule endorsed by Dutch Bridge that Muide-whatever MUST be opened with 5 cards.... Seems he may have misdefended and was just trying to get an adjustment. PS if you play at the Hague, i hope this guy not in your Government and adopts the same attitude to Social Policy as he does to his bridge Lots of hugs Alex

Dear Helene, I can only assume that is your name by your nik and if it is not, thank you for confusing me ;) Obviously, by your experience, you have never played at a table with me and my p!!!! one who incidently has beaten me to responding to this post. Your only concern is what strategy to adopt to get me to shut up!! Many have been tried, but alas none seem to work effectively... I have very little idea why people have no desire to chat...this is not a live tournament and nothing important is really at stake. And if people think there is, then perhaps they have to have a good look at themselves ( i have a mirror by my computer just for these moments: sometimes i scare myself but hey that's life). I see it is an opportunity to play social bridge, and play good bridge too, but to me it is important to get the balance right. Play well but dont tear your hair it if you make a mistake (assuming you are not wearing a wig) There is an old Cherokee saying "oh-shaa ma ta ba lo-me-na" .... I have NO IDEA what it means but i heard this old Cherokee warrior say it at this wigwam sale at my local supermarket. I am sure though that it has some relevance and meaning as to the attitude you should adopt. You soon find you gravitate to playing, at least in the main room, with people who you can get on with and are up to your standard. ie 'the balance' Lots of happy bridging Alex Ps If you make a good apple strudel and understand the offside rule in football, you are welcome at my table any time As for Doggy' advice about slicing a potato in half and sticking it in the garden??? Listen, he is Irish....need i say more??

What makes you think we DIDN'T laugh out loud Ben :) :) PS but just in case you get paranoid, i only managed a suffocated giggle... PPS yes good link

Yes Ben i would be interested....please post or provide link... Would be interesting to know what you spend your time doing when you not moderating :D Thx in advans Alex

In fact Mr Vnbg :) i did know that - You probably don't know that russian and by the way all slovenian use cyrillic alphabet which was invented and used first in bulgaria.- but saw no reason to include such an irrelevant fact to the spirit of the thread in my post :P . It is worth knowing and i am sure many people would be overwhelmingly interested in bulgaria's contribution to linguistics, and as a proud Bulgarian I am sure you were enthusiastic enuf to express that fact with little hesitation :ph34r:. Out of curiousity, were you asking whether i knew that bulgarian used Cyrillic alphabet or that it was invented in Bulgaria??? If people really want to know, I believe it was invented in the 9th century by a priest, called Cyril (hence Cyrillic), to translate religious manuscripts (the power of religion ;) ) from Byzantium so they could be read by native Slav-speakers . (please correct me if i am wrong Mish). For the avid readers amongst us, especially the addictive smokers, hee hee, D. Dimov's book "Tabacco" (hard to get hold of translation now) is well worth reading and a book of poems called "Motor Songs" (forgot author sorry :angry: )... NB. You may be wondering why i wrote the above. I bought a Bulgarian woman a coffee in a bistro once. Unfortunately she made a rather annoying noise when she drank it so that relationship didnt mature. However, she had the nicest pair of legs i have ever seen on a woman (or a man for that matter). Thus i wrote it out of nostalgia. Mish, you may like to know that the character Uncle Bulgaria in the Wombles series (english TV series ;) ) was so called coz he looks very much like you :lol: Although your bridge may be significantly better i am sure he can dig holes in the ground with his hands more expertly ;) What i probably didnt know, however, was your comment "normally bulgarians are friendly and patient". but i am VERY open-minded and patient too. hee hee I am currently writing some web-based software to allow people to interact using Maltese script (Latin script with a few variant characters) and it is proving quite challenging, to me anyway. That is the only reason why i said about the difficulty with the code-paging... Your Fellow Slavic Sympathiser, Alex . :D PS Misho (and Rado jaja) , please appreciate my ambassadorial function of promoting the history and literature of Bulgaria :D

Before that Ben perhaps you would be kind enough to translate what Dawn says into English???? ;) ;) :P Dawn's Ex-friend, alex

Sorry Maaaaa forgot to mention Polish !!! as one of the significant language-groups who use BBO (and a minority of whom, on experience, find it difficult to communicate in English) Perhaps even Russian, but this may cause unnecessary probs with code-paging... :) I DO HAVE TO SAY MAAA....in the defence of the tongue i love to speak slurringly.... Polish has 4 syllables dz, cz, sz, rz ALL as unprounceable as each other ;). Why don't the Polish, as they have now joined the EU ;) , decide to simplify their own language!!! ??? :) Before my (ex) Polish mother-in-law agreed to accept me as a future son-in-law she wanted me to say "Przygwoździ bździągwa gwoździem źdźbło, to pobździ źdźbłko" as fluently as a native Pole (and without spitting all over her in the process). You can imagine no surprise that our engagement lasted over 5 years... PS Maaaa God invented VOWELS for a purpose :P Seems like the Poles missed out on it jajaja

As no one has seemed to have bothered :) will put link to Freds article here :) Fred's (Unanswerable :P ) Post On Translation Project. Click Me Hi all, Well, Claus, the Italian one is just as incomprehensible as the French. The Turkish one is about as readable as a Braille document coated in sugar. Not that i wish in any way to denounce these on-line initiatives for natural language translators as they are better than nothing. But for the purposes Fred outlined in his document they are more of a hindrance than a help. I for one will be very willing to help in any translation that may need doing. Even though i am English, i think that we make a grave and dangerous assumption that everyone speaks English. Even more damning of my native language speakers is their supercilious and arrogant belief that everyone should speka ze English!! Even though the lingua franca of the table-talk may have to be English by sheer virtue of probability there is no reason to handicap people - for not wanting or having the opportunity to speak English - by not enabling the application front-end in their own language or one that they would just be as likely to speak as English eg French, German, Turkish, Arabic, etc ,etc. I would propose translations into those languages that make up a 'significant' sector of the user-base (we can abandon Aramaic and Cherokee on this basis ;) ) Even though i dont necessarily agree (fully) with Maurice Druon 'Ministre des Affaires culturelles (1973-1974) who said that French was a "gift to civilisation" (Le Figaro) hee hee (only said this to annoy Dom and Henri ;) ) i think translations into French, italian, Spanish and Turkish will be MUCH appreciated. Doing a quick head-count in the lobby these seem to make up a fair proportion of the user-base, Alexandre L'Anglais

I refuse to answer a poll that is longer than a weekly shopping-list for an orphanage.... :D :o Revised my opinion as i am waiting for the kettle to boil....I nearly choose people fighting together but i sometimes find that quite amusing but TWO people wanting an adjustment!!! how about FIVE (and 2 of them at the same table :) 1 asking for 3♥ -1 and the other other 3♥ + 1???

Cannot see why people in this thread, besides me naturally :(, did not opt for playing Q of ♣ on first round to cater for stiff T ;) ???? Out of interest Caren where was J ♠ ?? I would play with you of course :) However, there is still the question as to whether you would want to play with me, jajaja ....