Springold 2007 on BBVu

The Springold 2007 Knockout Teams is being broadcast on BBO Vugraph this week. I was lucky to run into the match between the Cayne Team (Versace - Lauria; Fantoni - Nunes today) and the Mahaffey Team.
I tried to google up more on the history of Springold but among the numerous interesting sites that came up, nothing was making sense for this problem exactly. The mystery was solved by cardpotato (a great guy who enjoys helping old ladies like me cross the street), who suggested this link . Springold is just one of the many events in the Nashville NABC 2007.
For a complete schedule of BBO vugraph broadcasts, please check here.

P.S. Paul, i know you are reading this - so here's something for you. :)



Joye Silver (BBO ME argent) was one of the commentators in the Open Room (where Fantoni and Nunes were playing). And, no, I didn't persuade him to change his level to "novice"! Looks like it is contagious enough! ;)

Tournaments, unplugged

Saturday was my personal black day for tournaments, both as a TD and a player,with all the usual issues blown out of any sensible proportion. It never fails to amaze me why rude, antisocial people ever take to bridge at all. I am still at a loss what the particular offence, "native goat roper" is supposed to mean, for example. It may well be that I should better remain in blissful ignorance about it.
Life, however, can be so sweet on the funny side of the street. It took me several days to stop sulking, and see everything from a new perspective.
Top auction:

Top alert:

Top lesson:

The multi is my pet-peeve. I would hate to get repetitive but the problem of abusing multi keeps raising its upgly head over and over.


Top reason for calling TD to a table:

Please, tell my partner to stop drinking beer! During the previous tourney he told everyone "Cheers!" instead of "glp"!

Minibridge, anyone? :)

Well, this is my latest discovery (as in discovering the wheel...). I have always been curious about minibridge, especially since it seemed to be a more natural way to introduce an already keen, very cute 8-year old to bridge (and, hopefully, he will realise sooner than me that bridge is not a computer game!).
BBO offers minibridge as an option but whenever I tried to make a table, noone joined. So yesterday I was lucky to hop into the 4th seat and actually play some! Gosh, I loved it! Here is how you play it: you count your points and press the appropriate button; then you look at the combined point count for both pairs.

The pair with less than 20 hcp become defenders (if both sides have 20, you just redeal). The person in the other pair that has more hcp is able to see partner's hand, and, after analysing the hcp power and distribution declares - yes! just declares - a contract (there is a menu between the play zone and the chat zone):



It feels very unusual, and is in fact great fun :)))
Apart from being a fun way to introduce kids to the game, I thought it might actually be a great tool for beginners (and obnoxious novices) because you can practise declarer techniques and counting. For defenders, as well - counting partner's hand is slightly easier but nevertheless quite a challenge - well, at least for me!

In fact, I liked it so much I will continue researching this topic!

Happy Birthday to TD ah que!!!
Many happy returns of the day, and many fun tourneys! Be very very happy!

Happy Saturday :)

Have several verrrrrrrrrrrrrry serious posts in tow... but the sun is shining, fish are jumping (somewhere) and the cotton is high (probably) so thought it was high time to lighten up and just let life go in a less predictable, more enjoyable manner. Dance, or, smile, or why not both? :)


The Carrapicho project, in case you are curious to check, is here.

Congrats, M & F!

Congratulations to Marty (aka mschwartl) and Fa (aka sailormoon) who came 3rd in an ACBL tourney yesterday!
Go get 'em, pals!!! I am very happy for you! :)

Memti's BIL Project

which includes both a tourney and a follow-up with analysis, focusing on defence play, is something you wouldn't want to miss. The only draw-back is only Intermediate level players are allowed to get their feet wet, which, as most of you know, means that I won't be playing there until I have the Bermuda Bowl trophy on my coffee table (well, and since I don't even have a coffee table yet, the matter is impossibly complicated).
The best thing would be to judge for yourself. There is a nice starting point here - you do need to be a registered forum member to access that post (fast, free and easy to become one). There are also movies in lin format, which include examples, explanations, and even let you practise by playing the hands out as a Bridge Master hand - check here. Make sure you follow Miksa's instructions strictly (i.e. not just open the lin movie but do save it on your local hard drive), or you will not be able to make use of all the features.

Summer Wine Teams #15

Thanks to sailormoon, we managed to run the Summer Wine Team Match #15; this time the playful wines were Porto & Riesling. The formal result was boring 19 imps won by the Portos (ze micas - jocarr fractal - rae123) but I believe we all had great fun - even the bubbly Rieslings (sailormoon - joe_45 mschwartl - jwheelerh) who threatened to make a fearful come-back during the next match!
Special welcome to JoCarr who played in our team match for the first time!

LazyHazyCrazyDaysOfSummer Tourney

Well, we all survived the tourney :). In the very first place it was started because during that lazy hazy and just sleepy afternoon of summer there were no free tournaments to play. In strict adherence with Murphy's Law, though, while I was configuring a small tourney for friends, at least 2 other were created. This drew an angry remark from one of the TDs - really not sure why, as his tourneys are usually huge, and there were so many people online that I was surely no competition for him. AND his tourneys are excellently managed, too - despite the fact that he is brave enough to run 150 - 160 pairs + single-handedly.
The first round was fairly quiet. Then the hazy-lazy-sleepy atmosphere turned a brighter shade of crazy, with me turning a whiter shade of pale by the minute (btw, how many calories does a TD burn during an 8-board, IMPs, unclocked?). Disconnections, reconnections, slow play, players who don't speak English, unhappy opps (no alerts and no intention to even attempt one) and even name-calling. Though it might all be part of the game, figuratively speaking, from a technical stand-point, I think, these are no minor offences (except the incidental disconnections, of course). My solution is blacklisting such offenders, and praying they will not be joining under any other nickname. Anyway, it could have been much worse, considering the temperatures soared to new highs during the afternoon!




Still, it was great fun - despite the glitches!

Yet another treat from Jimmy Cayne

Who Is Who:
llorenzo Lorenzo Lauria: photo & EBL profile here; more photos and interesting links (incl. interview) on the WBF Open Top 50 page; most of the links that come up in Google are in Italian.
nevaio Alfredo Versace - the WBF page with photo here; WBF Open Top 50 page with photo collage and links here;
jec Jimmy Cayne - the WBF page here with photo but not much info apart from that; if anyone discoveres an interesting link, pls drop me a line;
miamiwiz Michael Seamon - the WBF page here; the bridgeguys photo profile here;

The team from Egypt:
azzam1 Ayman Azzam
thejewel Adel Elkordy
A_Samir Ahmed Samir
mavrick Reda Amiry
Unfortunately, Google wasn't very helpful providing links with info about them.

The match was very interesting to watch. Yuo can see the travellers here. Predictably the kibs always knew better. And again, I kept wondering, if these guys play bridge, then what the heck is the name of the game I am playing on BBO...

Willover's Tango

Top Reason for Calling TD:

playerX: my partner hasn't played a card for 1.5 minutes
fractal: your partner can't - he is the dummy....

Happy Friday 13th :)

It was very lucky for me, actually. Off-bridge life and biz are going great; I am almost in love with Drupal (hopefully, not unrequitted 100%); and on-bridge I think I set a personal record today - ran a tourney with 200+ pairs. Luckily with the help of 3 coTDs! Spiralsnow, AnnC8 and Vapa came to the rescue!



Top reason for TD presence request:

Tourney 620 Director needed by xxx at Table 031 Player said:we need a warm body at south

Beat that, eh?

I do miss Summer Wine Teams, though! Hard to imagine, but is a fact - it is easier to gather 400+ people willing to play accidentally than 8, just 8, in the same time/place continuum for a teams match! Go figure! :(

BTW,

consider yourself lucky I haven't learnt how to add sound to video. As a result of more or less fruitless efforts to configure my site - as my baby-brother said, it is very intuitive and quite easy. Oh yeah! And some say the same about the allegedly "natural" bidding... But digressing... - the not-so-creative-but-much-deserved outlet was this clip (click on the pic up on the left).

Whew, shared misery is almost fun!
* Except that I am completely pooped!

* If you can read the above text normally, please do not read it - it just means your browser doesn't support bi-directional override (bdo).

Life is hectic,

and unfortunately not much time for bridge recently. I think I still remember what Stayman is about but not much else, I'm afraid. Maybe I should remove the gelatine-gunpowder concoction from my profile, and revert to the safer disclaimer that I play with random precision (no, that is not a system, it is a diagnosis), upside-down inside-out carding and stray bullet discards. Which is, unfortunately, not a joke at all!
If anyone is interested, came upon 2 sites with bridge quotes (some overlapping): the Pattaya Bridge Club and the site of the Calgary Duplicate Bridge Association.
Apart from that... gosh, it is SO HOT here....Have a terrific time of the day!