For the next 2 weeks we'll cover interventions over NT openings, from then I'm open to suggestions for the next topic. Please respond folks

Hand 1: I don't have any regular pards where we've discussed this yet, but I've always played all non-2D responses to show 8 or more points and a 5-card suit. 2NT would thus be balanced and 8+ points. I've only recently come across the idea that positive response bids should show at least an A or K. I can see some merit in that, but as I say haven't played it that way and have never had an issue with it. The only problem is that with a flat hand you're most likely to end up in 3NT with the weak hand Declaring, so it would be nice to figure out a way to set Declarer correctly.

Maybe for a no Aces and Kings hand, bidding could go: 2c-3S(xfer to NT)-3NT, leaving 2NT to show at least a K. Opener could be allowed to break the xfer sequence with a long strong suit of his own.

Hand 3: Bergen hand evaluation will upgrade your hand under the 'Aces and 10s less Queens and Jacks' rule. I don't see a problem with your 3S, surely its just suit pref. 4S would to my mind show 4-card support in S. You've already limited your hand to 15-17. The bot is gonna go for slam whatever you bid.

As an ex computer programmer, I'm very much in favour of clear and extensive documentation, something I saw very rarely saw in my professional career . So I'm looking forward very much to seeing what Todd comes up with. If you know Fazzoola, you might be interested to see the documentation of his home developed system, known as Galwood. I think his website is www.galwood.com. I was good friends with him in the BIL and he asked me to join his team to iron out the wrinkles of the system about 3 years ago. I was too busy to devote much time to it, so declined and subsequently Lioncub took the lead position. Both Alan (lioncub) and Fazz's partner died soon afterwards and I've only recently seen Fazz being active again.

The Wily Coyote is currently proof-reading Todd's first document and it will probably be released soon. I think more docs are due to follow.

As far as putting it all into a spreadsheet, that will probably take some considerable work and time. I think Todd feels that its doable, but it will require some skilful Excel programming. I have offered to help him, though my own Excel skills will probably need to be upgraded to be of much use to him.

The other alternative is that they decided teaching Bridge for free was not as attractive as giving private lessons for payment. I can't fault anyone who takes that stance, although my own view has always been that Bridge has given me a lifetime of enjoyment and I really don't mind putting something back into the game

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I discussed this with Maureen Hall at the BIL some years back. Maureen's view was that no teachers giving free lessons on BBO were ever out of pocket in doing so, because they pick up private students in the process. The BIL has always been very successful in finding and nurturing 'young' teachers who often begin as Teaching assistants or Mentors. And I believe that its largely down to Maureen that so many 'established' teachers began teaching there. We can only do so much with the size of the Admin team and the Teaching roster.

I assume that Oliver or Pam keep in touch with our teachers past and present. We perhaps need to utilise more our growing membership to suggest possible new teachers, and to encourage our more senior members to start to host some classes.

We desperately need to recruit more American and Canadian class hosts and TDs, so that the North American evening players are catered for, imo 

The recent announcement that Oliver will be unavailable this coming Saturday, 14th April prompted me to think that we should maybe have a team match or several matches, depending on numbers, with teams consisting entirely of OCPers, 2/1ers, SAYCers and perhaps even an ACOL team

So who's in? I'm thinking we could start at the usual weekday teaching time of UTC 18.00, New York 2pm, Paris 8pm and go on for as long as we like. Depending on numbers we could perhaps have a knockout competition or some kind of Round Robin structure.

So please respond to this post. You can nominate a whole team, your partnership or just yourself as an individual, giving your preferred system. Also please volunteer yourself, if you will, to be a Team Captain

All entries to be in by UTC 04.00 Sat - Friday midnight New York time, 6am Sat Paris time. I will post all Teams and 1st round matches as soon as possible, as separate posts in this part of the forum.

Each Team match will be 8 boards, 7 mins a board.

RSVP

There's a good justification there for everyone to familiarise themselves with the GIB Card and perhaps adopting it with partners that know it too. I've also only recently come across the IAC standard card developed by Joe Garcia which also seems like a very good idea. 

Well as I say I have built an Excel spreadsheet that looks to me to be whats needed as a getaround and could be used to get the Pairs matches kick-started into life again. I'll write it up and post it in the Admins section for everyone's perusal. Obviously it would be much better to have the IAC site facility working correctly.