[diana_eva]

Not a comment, but a nice play. Not sure where it fits (see trick 2):

---

[barmar]

8 ever, 9 never. If you continue the alternation, you're supposed to take the finesse with 12.

[lamford]

"I think that is Lavinthal" (Being asked what the alert meant after (1D)-Double-(Pass)-2NT*).

[Lord Molyb]

 barmar, on 2014-September-21, 13:43, said:

8 ever, 9 never. If you continue the alternation, you're supposed to take the finesse with 12.

But not with 13.

[barmar]

 lamford, on 2014-September-21, 14:02, said:

"I think that is Lavinthal" (Being asked what the alert meant after (1D)-Double-(Pass)-2NT*).

I'll bet there are hundreds of players who can't remember which is Lebensohl and which is Lavinthal. They're both unusual names that sound similar.

[barmar]

 Lord Molyb, on 2014-September-21, 14:04, said:

But not with 13.

Yeah, that's part of the progression: 8, 10, 12 ever; 9, 11, 13 never.

[lamford]

 barmar, on 2014-September-21, 14:14, said:

I'll bet there are hundreds of players who can't remember which is Lebensohl and which is Lavinthal. They're both unusual names that sound similar.

Indeed. And some of those cannot distinguish the auction (1D)-Double-(Pass)-2NT* from (2D)-Double-(Pass)-2NT*. They sound similar too.

[helene_t]

 barmar, on 2014-September-21, 14:15, said:

Yeah, that's part of the progression: 8, 10, 12 ever; 9, 11, 13 never.

With 6 ever finesse against the jack.
With 8 ever finesse against the queen.
With 10 against the king.
With 12 against the ace Well it can do no harm.

So it's right after all.

[gwnn]

Do Roman opening leads qualify? I.e., an odd club shows that I like clubs, an even club shows suit preference between the other three suits? A lot of people play them in my club.

[helene_t]

 gwnn, on 2014-September-21, 15:43, said:

Do Roman opening leads qualify? I.e., an odd club shows that I like clubs, an even club shows suit preference between the other three suits? A lot of people play them in my club.

Yes Roman carding is one of the most overused conventions in the Netherlands. The worst example I have heard of was a pair using it when they gave partner a ruff. Presumably leading an odd card would ask partner to revoke

[nige1]

 barmar, on 2014-September-21, 14:15, said:

Yeah, that's part of the progression: 8, 10, 12 ever; 9, 11, 13 never.

Roy Telfer??? (half-remembered mnemonic from an old Bridge Magazine) said:

At 52, 50, 48
Even numbers operate.
For odd numbers we equate
78 and 68*
To drop the K we want 11
The Q needs only 9
The J in turn requires but 7
The answer's always fine**
And if an inference you spot
Best forget the whole damn' lot

Explanation:
* The first 5 numbers are most likely break probabilities...
Missing an even number of cards 1-1: 52%. 3-1: 50%, 4-2: 48%.
Missing an odd number of cards 2-1: 78% . 3-2: 68% .
** "The answer's always fine" means the choice is close.

[silvr bull]

A month ago, partner and I played in BBO and an opp I will call ID:TenT came to our table. We could tell right away that he must know his stuff because his profile showed that he already had a few hundred logons to BBO. I extended my normal friendly greeting to the opps before play, and told them we open 12-14 NT. Partner opened 1♦, I bid 1♠, and partner bid 1NT, which he alerted as 15-17. As I was bidding 2♣, and alerting it as Stayman, ID:TenT typed these messages into the chat box:

ID:TenT how can it be 15-17 after 1S lol
ID:TenT omg and now stayman???
ID:TenT lol
ID:TenT clwons {sic}

ID:TenT with his experienced few hundred logons had no patience with us lesser players, so he wasted little time in leaving our table, but he did give us and his partner a parting gift by bidding 7NT as he left. I repeatedly asked the replacement opps to request an Undo, but they all simply abandoned the hand instead, so we were trapped at that monstrosity for many minutes until two unsuspecting robots finished the play.

[Fluffy]

That is the third time I see a finesse against the King with 12. There gotta be something for it, I guess bad players can't count up to twelve.

to silvr bull: you can undo the 1NT bid, this will take away the 7Nt bid as well.

[Jinksy]

Or just click redeal?

[helene_t]

Problem is you need human opps to accept redeal or undo unless you are using the mobile client. The solution is for one of you to sit as opp for that single board just to accept the redeal.

[Bbradley62]

 silvr bull, on 2014-October-05, 10:11, said:

ID:TenT with his experienced few hundred logons had no patience with us lesser players, so he wasted little time in leaving our table, but he did give us and his partner a parting gift by bidding 7NT as he left...

You should report this incident to abuse@bridgebase.com , as this behavior is unacceptable. A couple of weeks ago, I reported similar behavior, and the offender hasn't played a hand on BBO since. (I don't know whether he was barred, chastised, or whatever, but he appears to be gone and that's a good thing.)

PS: Never mind... I reported him after finding multiple other examples of similar incidents. But, in the future, you should report such things.

[Jinksy]

 Bbradley62, on 2014-October-06, 09:59, said:

You should report this incident to abuse@bridgebase.com , as this behavior is unacceptable.

It's not that obvious how to do this when you log on? Given how common this sort of thing is, maybe they should put a prominent note on the login page?

[Bbradley62]

There are (at least) two ways of doing this.

• email abuse@bridgebase.com , just as you would send any other email, or
  
• within BBO, you can display recent hands played. At the bottom left corner of the diagram is a bottom labelled "export deal". This leads to several options, one of which is "send abuse report"

Online, the first option is explained under:

• "Help" on main menu across the top of your screen
  
• "BBO Help"
  
• "Click here to open our help system in a new browser window."
  
• "How Do I... Contact BBO?" This provides a list of email addresses for various purposes.

[mycroft]

now I want to make a profile with userid ID:TenT (or IDTenT, if the colon fails in ids). I'm sure I'll be my usual polite, sensible self with that ID, as well as my usual one!

[silvr bull]

 Fluffy, on 2014-October-05, 15:02, said:

to silvr bull: you can undo the 1NT bid, this will take away the 7Nt bid as well.

I didn’t think of this during the “heat” of battle, but asking partner to undo his bid is a good idea. I’m sure ID:TenT’s hapless partner would have been happy to accept the undo to remove the albatross from around his neck.

 helene_t, on 2014-October-06, 01:16, said:

Problem is you need human opps to accept redeal or undo unless you are using the mobile client. The solution is for one of you to sit as opp for that single board just to accept the redeal.

This is another good idea that I did not think of at the time. Fortunately, two understanding and happily agreeable robots finally found their way to our table, and I chatted to partner (via Table) to play it out so ID:TenT would have the “benefit” of that score included in his BBOSkill profile. But I did have sympathy for his partner.

 Bbradley62, on 2014-October-06, 09:59, said:

You should report this incident to abuse@bridgebase.com , as this behavior is unacceptable. A couple of weeks ago, I reported similar behavior, and the offender hasn't played a hand on BBO since. (I don't know whether he was barred, chastised, or whatever, but he appears to be gone and that's a good thing.)

PS: Never mind... I reported him after finding multiple other examples of similar incidents. But, in the future, you should report such things.

I did email Abuse soon after the hand, and I attached screenshots of the chat sequence along with a screenshot of the hand, just as I have done several times when other players demonstrate they are fraternal twins with ID:TenT. After the immediate form reply that says the email was received and someone will look into it, all the other reports were followed up with a later email that said “Thank you for taking the trouble to let us know about this disturbing incident.”, and then added the equivalent of don’t call us, we will call you, if we care to hear anything more about this, which we never will. Unlike those earlier reports to Abuse, this report about ID:TenT had no follow up from a person, so I can hope that no news is good news, and maybe BBO did something to discourage ID:TenT from repeating this nonsense.

PS: I hope you did not report a user who really has ID:TenT. I would hate to be responsible for a slur on an innocent guy who has a great sense of humor.

 mycroft, on 2014-October-06, 16:52, said:

now I want to make a profile with userid ID:TenT (or IDTenT, if the colon fails in ids). I'm sure I'll be my usual polite, sensible self with that ID, as well as my usual one!

LOL! That would be a good idea for some appropriate guy. The advertising might help him find his perfect soul mate, who might have a user ID like Ima_Idjit_2 (no offense intended to anyone who does have a user ID like that), and they could live blissfully ignorant forever more.