slothy

sure you look sexy.... however, word of advice, mon ami, i wouldnt go around wearing your briefs OUTSIDE your trousers...your cell-mate might find it quite provocative...

Ummmmm, well, knew i should have asked your recent visitor to wash your socks for you... ..after she had darned them for you of course (assuming she was able to find some matching pink thread and a lickle pom-pom to replace the missing one) anyway, as your olfactory senses seem so acute, Steve, got to find another way to creep up behind you and pay you back :)

Dear Halitotic-Canine :D Although part of me was fairly insulted :( by the fact that you assumed i had prehensile elongated digits (may i say i pay quite handsomely for my weekly pedicure and had a multiple digitectomy a few years ago) ..i felt encumbent to reply to your post to announce that i am back, with the sole purpose of sabotaging Ben and Uday's faultless moderating skills and diminishing any seriousness a person may think their thread may live up to. My holiday was excellent thank you - can only assume that that question was implicit in your post, and if it wasnt then you should be ashamed - and the psychiatrist i visited said it wont be long before i regain my true identity and cease thinking that i am Brad Pitt, Steve Hawkins, Steve McQueen and Nelson Mandela wrapped in one body.... Anyway felt kinda kewt to know someone, other than my Mum and parole-officer, was wondering how i was doing but my overwhelming modesty prevents me from really taking your concern genuinely ..... :) I am trawling the posts as i speak trying to find an approprite thread to discredit.. May God give you many working finesses, Doggy Your fellow Poster, Alex PS put the 20 Euros in the post that OK?

Dear Lexica, I feel obliged to apologise on behalf of Misho and DoggyDog and just to make you aware that these two are not representative of the male contingent of this forum hee hee hee hee :angry: You came onto this forum to seek advice : you were answered by 2 men with one-track minds :unsure: I shall be going away for a couple of weeks so feel that i can say this without any fear of reprisal... AleX PS My advice about bearded mentors still stands. If DoggyDog is also bearded I think I would have proved my point beyond contention jajaja

Trying to work out what enjoyment you feel you can get out of your arm-pit???

HI Lexica & The Venerable Misho May i extend Misho's welcome to the Forum! Misho is right. Playing these programs doesn't really help your bridge i have found, unless you are playing pre-dealt hands designed purposefully to highlight a certain technique. I myself used it when i took up bridge and soon got frustrated with it. When you play random hands the line of play, especially in defence, is quite extraordinary :) Yet again, as Misho said, you cannot replace the human element. Having a mentor whom you respect, is obviously better than you, is patient (not of a mental institution by the way) and willing to explain your mistakes in a concise, articulate way, and of course commend you when you put into practice what you have learnt, is the greatest source of instruction and inspiration you can have. I was VERY lucky to have been mentored by a woman called Rita Oldroyd - sadly deceased - not very tolerant :) but a woman of high repute and an ex-international in her prime. My bridge, my appreciation of and love for it, improved dramatically within a couple of months. As for mentors.. :) My only advice is: AVOID MEN WITH BEARDS (and women with beards too i suppose - dont want to be sexist) That tuft of hair is only there to hide something ;) AleX

..And how RELIABLE was your source Dean.... :) you should not listen to cleaners' conversations ...and UDAY perhaps having a white-board in the office may be a good thing :) works in ours although i never read it...

Dont think you locked it properly Ben hee hee :) Which technically means that i can write what i want as it is a locked thread... but i will not abuse this slight administrational faux pas by our Eminent Moderator (peace be upon him) PS I bet 3,000,000 Euros Marc and Claus respond to this post.... my telepathy is sooooooooo strong on this Sunday morning....

Yes Dean I second what you say..... i always enjoyed reading them when they came into my mail-box. Over and above the rigours of having to write .lin files, F must have spent a lot of his valuable time composing them each week. Nearly all were instructional and worth reading for the analysis alone. We can only hope he decides to re-initiate them in the future, time and will permitting...

Dear Fred, Welcome back! With regards to Aisha's second problem...i thought it may be *important* for you to be aware of when/how it happened....as may have some bearing to your searching for the bug, if it is one...dunno... When it happened Aisha had the chronic misfortune of being my partner :D... The auction had gone 1♠ - P - P* - P *P: Aisha had gone through the procedure she described. The bidding had technically finished (ie she was to be dummy and she could see all hands anyway) when her request for an UNDO was put to the opponents. After the acceptance the bids unfolded as expected and she quite honorably B) voiced to the table that she could see all the cards and made her desired bid of 3♣. After that the auction continued as normal with the slight advantage that Aisha could see all the cards. I was declarer in ♠ so no idea what would have happened if she was declarer... She had requested an UNDO in the same set of hands (alas it is more of a habit than a misclick ;) ) with no problem. In this case, the only difference being that the bidding had ended... Hope this helps... Alex Ps One of the few hands we were in the right contract, believe it or not ;) hee hee

I am *desperately* trying to think of something to write about that will cause sufficient provocation to Ben to assert his powers of policing and challenge his idea of censorship. Alas i cant :D Will just have to mutter to myself about him whilst kibbitzing and keep my halo polished...

Well, well, well.... Nothing much to say to that :D

Tectonically, you succeeded admirably :D

Dont forget Jack you can always PASS and X later!! Depending on the texture of your hand you may have the ability to X ONE SUIT and one suit alone. IF they happen to bid it it is time for you to punish them for their insolence :D Alex

Dear Monocled Jack, I was deeply surprised, nay shocked, to discover you were lost for words. Having kibbed you recently i can say, with some conviction, that it wont be long before you find them again.... From a subjective viewpoint, and part of Acol, i use the XX as suggested by cardsharp. Suit bids are made (still FORCING although i know some schools who play it as non-forcing which i don't understand) where you are telling p that your hand is not suitable for a penalty as you lack any holding or length in a likely opponent fit and thus are trying to 'set the suit'. Support bids are made and are limited. The objective mainly being to hobble opponents and indicate to partner that the contract, if you buy it, is in his suit. If you have a strong/distributional hand and support and you have little idea where you want to settle, i play XX as waiting...see how opps bid to get a better idea of how points and shape are distributed around the table. In this last respect, i take XX as primarily penalty-orientated. You feel that you have a hand where wherever they land they gonna fall into trouble. Either by a misfit or the fact you have the balance of points and a doubled contract going off is better than any game you may have, (or not even!) . Yet again, matter of judgement. NB. Now if you play with the Captain/Crew philosophy, a XX is an express demand to take on the role of Captain, even at the expense of appearing mutinous: to swing by the yard-arm and tell your opps that they have met their Trafalgar. Those of you unfamiliar with the Captain/Crew philosophy....well, you can always find out :D

AN EVEN BIGGER SATIRE ALERT Claus [et al], With due respect, Sir :) I can only imagine that Uday 'removed' rather than 'censored' your post. If what you submitted was the product of an on-line translator the output is ,by and large, far from perfect. In fact, it has the detrimental effect of straining one's powers of word association and losing ones faith that the language it was translated into has any syntax or a modicum of semantic structure. As it happens, i have contributed code and design principles myself to the development of an on-line translator, and I know for a fact there are a few years to go before the Chomskyesque programming community will produce a program of satisfactory translatory skills. Especially from italian and Giascone's writing style in particular :D which, may i add, is heavily idiomatic. In fact in an effort to translate an essential extract of a computer manual from Swedish recently, it was more like reading a cross-fertilisation of a recipe for a cabbage soufflé with a magazine column about the mating behaviour of transvestite orang-utans. Out of curiosity, i filtered the text in question (Giascones) through one this morning and i was satisfied that the output bore only a passing similarity to the original post and in no way carried across the essential subtlety of the post, written in Italian. This was why, i imagine, Uday removed it. Very little to do with censorship! I started to translate Giascones post myself , but after reading other posts in the same thread, as he seemed to reflect a common opinion prevalent through most of the others, i reasoned i had better things to do with my time before i go away (like write a post like this :) ) Lots of love Alex. I was a bit harsh in my last post Claus and i apologise. Keep up the good work! PS To prove my point Claus..pass this post through an English/Danish translator...and if you cannot make a cabbage soufflé by the end of this week-end and/or have sympathy why male orang-utans who wear pink frilly dresses are pathetically hopeless at finding a mate and passing on their genes, I WILL EAT MY HAT. (This last phrase in particular will have an interesting translation)

Scusa!!! Ho voluto dire compleanno invece d' anniversario!! Mi pardonni! (anyway, WHO cares!! :D ) PS Da dove hai comprato quelli regali tritri, sono tanti 'cute'

Yooooooooooooo Mentre leggendo il foro, avevo visto che era il tuo anniversarioooooooooooooooo allora non bevi troppissimo stasera hee hee Forse hai bisogno una taglia di cappelli hee hee Anche tre anniversarii in un anno?? un miracolo :( :lol:

Slight disagreement Wayne :), I feel more comfortable wearing the metaphorical grampons, as it were, of bidding a suit naturally (eg 4+ cards) than having to open a suit with less than 4 :) coz i havent got 5 in a suit i have 4 in ;).... never thought i would ever use a moutaineeering analogy in this forum, but there u go.... Alex

You're a font of wisdom Ben.. always knew it :)

Dear Claus, I shall try and write this with an injection of humour to try and partially detoxify some of the venom that may be ejaculated in what i am going to say. Whether it will work or not is debatable! There are very few posts submitted by you that i have incidentally stumbled upon that in some way are not hypercritical (i use the prefix hyper very validly) of the software, either directly or implicitly. I am not sure whether it is your command of English (this i doubt very much as you seem quite fluent when you want to be and you only make a few mistakes - like forgetting that the pronouns God and Fred (peace be upon him) are interchangeable :P ) or whether by writing in a foreign language you lose a certain decorum in how you express yourself and are totally oblivious to what others may read into what you write ... Having read some of the archives (well not that old) it seems that Fred had a rather similar attitude to me and you didnt seem to take on board what he was saying. i felt that i had a rather perverted and misplaced duty to remind you.... I am trying not to be judgemental (seems like on this front i failed miserably huh?)- only asking you to be a bit more discreet. I have read your posts that over and over again seem to suggest that you are either unhappy with the software(forget this one it is timid in comparison) or believe you can do a better job. There is nothing wrong in perhaps occasionally (well once even ) to give Fred a pat on the back (not too hard, dont want to crack his vertebrae ;) ) and commend him for something that others have done with a more selfish and commercial will. I think it is unintentional. If not, then this post is more than justified. If it is, I am just asking you, Claus, to be more aware of how what you write is interpreted by others and that ones use of words and tone projects ones willingness to be a co-operative member of a forum, supported and funded no less by the people you are unintentionally (and i think it is) excoriating... sorry but i have read one post too many :( Alex

if Britney can take time off (Britney Time) from her $million schedule i am sure you can too... ;) I have noticed you do work tirelessly Maureen for BIL and you deserve time for yourself: Bens idea was a goody Just dont get Chris to call you Maureen Hallway at the table :lol:

hi Kath Have to agree with Hoggy here.....who i think is an acol guy too (or one of the many hats he wears :lol: ) You are never going to miss a ♠ fit if one exists (unless p misbids ;) ) - which i think is the main point -and you can always bid 1♠ over a ♥ to describe your hand to the full... you are also not going to be embarrassed by any strong bid that your p makes -(this is incidental) i think what you do not want to have happen is p to bid something like 2NT over your ♠ and then you bid 3♦...there is never any way you are now going to show him/her that you have 5♦ without lying about the length of your spades (unless you of course have agreed to ignore a long minor in preference to showing your 4 card major). It may be that 5/6♦ is the optimal contract with p having something like Kxx/KJx/KTx ♦ or (kxxx♦ and bids 6NT thinking in a 4-4 fit believing it to be a better contract )

Sorry to hear Marc that you found RemoteKeys too intellectually demanding ;) and that you remotely resembled 1eyedjacks avatar...if this does cause you some distress i can suggest a web-address.... yes dear i am :lol:.. With regards to RemoteKeys jack i have just downloaded it and am getting to grips with it....nice little program very funtional and more than sufficient for what you appear to want it for. The advantage is, well for me anyway, is that it doesnt add to the registry like i am sure OKScript does so if you want to get rid of it just delete the folder its in ...also, doesnt eat up memory which is good if you havent got zillions of RAM... So thumbs up from me...(used OKscript in its early days and very similar i think of course may have changed)... Out of curiosity Jack...have you ever been at an airport and an old friend shouted "Hi Jack" across the foyet and everyone in the airport lounge suddenly dived onto the floor????

LOL monocled Jack .... you read too many posts... ;)