[fred]

The_Hog, on May 11 2009, 02:28 AM, said:

True. Maybe he feels strongly about this issue, or maybe he is just killing some time to relax. 

You are right in both cases, Ron

Normally I wake up early in the morning and, unlike most of the tournaments I play in, the location and playing schedule of the Cavendish provided no reason for me to adjust my normal sleeping schedule. So I had to do *something* to keep myself busy for the few hours each day between when I woke up and when I started playing. Naturally, writing Forums posts was a good way for me to fill these gaps

And, yes, I do feel strongly about this issue and, as far as this particular tournament goes, it was personally important for me to speak out for several reasons (because the Cavendish is my favorite tournament, because I believe the Cavendish is very good for bridge, and because I know the organizers to be good and thoughtful people and I did not like reading some of posts that suggested that the motivations behind their line-drawing decisions were less than pure even though they obviously did not do a brilliant job of defining an un-fuzzy line).

I am not sure if the person who suggested that I am a "celebrity" was being serious or not, but it does seem to be the case that a lot of people are interested in what I have to say. For me this is not exactly a fun position to be in - it was much easier to go through life knowing that when I said something stupid I was nothing more than another random idiot

However, now that I seem to have a soapbox, I feel that I have a certain responsibility to try to bring attention to issues that I think are important.

This is one of those issues.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[cicus]

awm, on May 10 2009, 01:13 PM, said:

Apparently Zia and partner are playing a 2NT opening as 12-14 balanced.

This seems far more randomizing than any of the commonly played methods that people complain against. But it's "natural" so certainly legal under the regulations (or ACBL's regulations, etc).

This reminds me of my younger days when once I played a tournament with the system that we look at our hand and try to guess what contract will be best for our side. E.g. we opened the 15-17 balanced hands with 3NT. Now this is completely natural but highly randomizing. It seems to me this would also have been legal at the Cavendish.

[qwery_hi]

fred, on May 11 2009, 06:38 AM, said:

I am not sure if the person who suggested that I am a "celebrity" was being serious or not, but it does seem to be the case that a lot of people are interested in what I have to say. For me this is not exactly a fun position to be in - it was much easier to go through life knowing that when I said something stupid I was nothing more than another random idiot

I may be very wrong, but I think for the vast majority of average bridge players you are the most accessible "World Class" bridge player, thanks mainly to these forums. When you're writing about bridge related stuff on here, you're speaking to -

(1) Peers
(2) Experts
(3) Advanced

I'm in group 3, and for me your views on Bridge judgment are close to Gospel. **

These things make you a celebrity.

It doesn't hurt that you wrote BBO, and are the software guy for bridge

** EDIT - I should admit I'm lazy, and prefer to "blindly" follow someone's judgment if it sounds right, without thinking too much about why it is right.