[han]

Mahaffey-Milner, board 32. It says that 4S+1 was made by NS but it was made by EW. So it should be a big win for Milner instead of a big win for Mahaffey.

If you click on the hand the bidding shows that 4S was bid and made by EW, but the auction makes no sense at all. I hope it will be corrected.

[WellSpyder]

 han, on 2012-May-02, 02:48, said:

Mahaffey-Milner, board 32. It says that 4S+1 was made by NS but it was made by EW. So it should be a big win for Milner instead of a big win for Mahaffey.

If you click on the hand the bidding shows that 4S was bid and made by EW, but the auction makes no sense at all. I hope it will be corrected.

The play record also makes no sense at all, eg the lead appears to be from the wrong hand, tricks have two cards that are in the same hand apparently played, etc. Were they playing a different hand at this table??

Incidentally, it's a bit hard to see how declarer could come to 11 tricks in spades, anyway...

[32519]

 mike777, on 2012-April-26, 17:40, said:

UNITED STATES BRIDGE CHAMPIONSHIP STARTS FRIDAY

The 2012 USBC, which will select the Open USBF team for the 2012 World Bridge Games this summer, starts on Friday, April 27th at 10:00 am. The 2012 USBC is being held at the Woodfield Hyatt in Schaumburg, IL. There are 18 teams entered, 3 of which have byes to the Knockout phase of competition. The other 15 teams will be playing a complete Round Robin on Friday and Saturday. Eleven of those teams will advance from the Round Robin to the Round of 16, which starts Sunday, April 29th. The Fleisher team will join those 11 teams in the Round of 16, which is a Knockout round played on Sunday and Monday. The six winners from the Round of 16 will join Nickell & Diamond in the Quarterfinal on Tuesday and Wednesday.

http://www.usbf.org/

Is the USBC a men’s only tournament? I don’t recall seeing the names of any women. If the women seldom get an opportunity to compete in the Open Events how can they improve their world rankings? Is their some or other sub-tournament within their respective countries giving them an opportunity to test themselves against the men?
I pulled the following off the WBF website:

5. Open and Women's Events
The MPs won in the Open events and those won in the events reserved for women will be subject to different rankings and will appear in two separate lists. If a women wins MPs or PPs in an Open event these points will appear as Open Masterpoints against her name, so a Woman can own an Open title.
a) In the Open list with the accumulation MPs and PPs won in the Open events. These MPs and PPs will determine the players Open Category
b) In the Women’s list with the accumulation of MPs and PPs won in Women’s or Mixed events. These MPs and PPs will determine her category in the Women’s ranking

http://www.worldbrid...s/mps/rules.asp

WOMEN CLASSIFICATION
Rank......Name…………Country….MPs…..PPs
..8……..Irina Levitina…USA……..2813….38 (Open Ranking = 3446)
12……..Jill Meyers……USA……..2435….44 (No Data Available)
14……...Jill Levin……..USA……...2369….30.5 (Open Ranking = 3308)
15……..Tobi Sokolow…USA……..2340….32.5 (Open Ranking = 1252)
19……..Lynn Deas…….USA……..2260….39 (Open Ranking = 3859)

[paulg]

 32519, on 2012-May-02, 07:24, said:

Is the USBC a men's only tournament? I don't recall seeing the names of any women.

Christal Henner and Sheri Winestock played in the round-robin but did not qualify for the knock-out stages.

[JLOGIC]

 32519, on 2012-May-02, 07:24, said:

Is the USBC a men’s only tournament? I don’t recall seeing the names of any women. If the women seldom get an opportunity to compete in the Open Events how can they improve their world rankings?

If they are OPEN events why would you say they seldom get an opportunity to oompete? Open is just that, open to anybody. Women get the same opportunity as men to compete in open events. If anything, the system is biased towards women since they can compete in both OPEN or WOMENs depending on what they want to do.

[han]

There are some women who play mostly in open events and do well in those, although certainly not at the meckwell level. In the US it is financially unattractive to do so though, because the top women can make much more money playing in women-only events (where they are the meckwells of women bridge). This is a major reason why many of the top female players in the US mostly play in women-only events.

I think that this has good sides and bad sides. On the one hand it allows for more professional female bridge players. On the other hand it may hold them back, since they rarely play at the toughest competition. It would be great if some female bridge players made it to the absolute top. This would be great for many different reasons.

Here in the Netherlands the main competitions are open, and all the top women players do play in the open events. There are also women-only competitions (as well as mixed competitions), but they are not taken as seriously and besides, they are at different dates so people can play in those as well as in the open championships. Of course it is much easier to organize championships at different dates in a country this tiny.

[paulg]

Scotland has two women in its Open team for Lille. There are no men in the Women's team.

[barmar]

In the US, the size of the fields in the major women's events has been steadily declining over the past several years, as more of them migrate to the concurrent open events.

[JLOGIC]

If the semis are clee vs diamond and us vs spector thats gotta be some record for youngest age of a semis

[CSGibson]

I find it really intriguing to compare scores with the Nickell-Spector match. Basically, whenever Warren Spector plays, the Nickell team has an advantage (again, based purely on the set scores). I wonder if Spector-Cohler is really that much weaker as a partnership, or whether it is because they play against Meckwell, who put a lot of pressure on you, and that the relative weakness of Spector-Cohler in comparison to their teammates is magnified by Meckwell's style.

Or maybe its just random.

edit:
Ok, I wrote that after the 6th segment, there was a much clearer correlation then.

Oh, and congrats to Roger & Justin on making the semis. Good luck the rest of the way, hope you guys meet in the finals.

[rogerclee]

 CSGibson, on 2012-May-02, 16:52, said:

I find it really intriguing to compare scores with the Nickell-Spector match. Basically, whenever Warren Spector plays, the Nickell team has an advantage (again, based purely on the set scores). I wonder if Spector-Cohler is really that much weaker as a partnership, or whether it is because they play against Meckwell, who put a lot of pressure on you, and that the relative weakness of Spector-Cohler in comparison to their teammates is magnified by Meckwell's style.

Or maybe its just random.

edit:
Ok, I wrote that after the 6th segment, there was a much clearer correlation then.

Oh, and congrats to Roger & Justin on making the semis. Good luck the rest of the way, hope you guys meet in the finals.

I practiced about 100 boards against Nickell-Katz before this event, and trust me, they are very strong. That said, I don't know anything about Cohler-Spector as a partnership but they are certainly strong individual players.

[mike777]

pictures of semi final players

http://www.usbf.org/

btw I lived and worked many years in Schaumburg Il...great place for this event. I know this place very well.

You may see the tall Green building across from the Mall(north) I worked on top floor. btw first job out of college was next door a few yards away from the green building, Union Oil co.

Too bad I am far away now.

Go Cubs!

Side note I was really conflicted with Roger Lee who I know from his very helpful bbo forum posts and I used to work around the Cal tech area(before roger) and Chipper who I knew from Urbana and 1971 when I first heard of bridge.

[cherdano]

A clee-JLOGIC final, it's meant to be!

[Antrax]

I know it's a dumb question, but how come JLOGIC is on BBO while he's also playing on vugraph? Isn't it cheating?

[Phil]

I am watching the 2nd set.

<speechless>

[CSGibson]

 Phil, on 2012-May-03, 13:15, said:

I am watching the 2nd set.

<speechless>

I'm at work, can't get the running scores, what's happening?

[wyman]

well, for one, 0/4 pairs reached 6C with

QJ Jxx AJxxxx xx
opp
x AKQ x AKQxxxxx

5C, 5C, 7C, and 4N

edit: the 18-count was in 1st seat, no opps interfered iirc

[aguahombre]

 wyman, on 2012-May-03, 13:48, said:

well, for one, 0/4 pairs reached 6C with

QJ Jxx AJxxxx xx
opp
x AKQ x AKQxxxxx

5C, 5C, 7C, and 4N

edit: the 18-count was in 1st seat, no opps interfered iirc

Hmm, it never occurred to me to notice the point count, just the two missing bullets in East with one of them in West. Meckwell with their strong club and artificial continuations was one of the two in 5C via hole in their methods. Milner/HLall: tried 2C-2D-4N, misunderstood as a point range and Milner accepted slam in his 6-card diamond suit for an oops, Hement converted to club grand.

It wasn't long ago, where 2C-2D-3C as setting trump with specific continuations, (our toy) was pretty much dismissed on these fora. So, we would have gotten a lucky result with the given hands--having failed to heed the comments

[Cyberyeti]

 aguahombre, on 2012-May-03, 14:21, said:

Hmm, it never occurred to me to notice the point count, just the two missing bullets in East with one of them in West. Meckwell with their strong club and artificial continuations was one of the two in 5C via hole in their methods. Milner/HLall: tried 2C-2D-4N, misunderstood as a point range and Milner accepted slam in his 6-card diamond suit for an oops, Hement converted to club grand.

It wasn't long ago, where 2C-2D-3C as setting trump with specific continuations, (our toy) was pretty much dismissed on these fora. So, we would have gotten a lucky result with the given hands--having failed to heed the comments

What happened to 4N-5♦-6♣.

[wyman]

My only guess (obviously I'm not sure) is that pairs are playing 4N=minors.