Bridge Winners Profile for Doug Couchman
Basic Information
- Member Since
- Feb. 25, 2014
- Last Seen
- July 22
- Member Type
- Bridge Player
- about me
Once upon a time a part-time TD and semi-serious (well, I thought so) player and student of the game, I fell out of the swing of it (moving around a lot doesn't help) but have recently come back and am now active on my unit and district boards, and second alternate to the national board. Having a girlfriend who — somewhat to my consternation — has taken up the game has helped me bring me back.. and also helped make it even more fun than before.
When not playing bridge I tutor, preparing people for standardized tests. (SAT and ACT for undergrad admission; LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, and GRE for grad school.) If you or someone you care about needs help on a test, I'm your guy. See details on my website.
Sadly, I've never played bridge outside the US and Canada, but I certainly hope to. I currently live in the San Francisco bay area.
- Country
- United States of America
Bridge Information
- BBO Username
- atakdog
- ACBL Ranking
- Silver Life Master
- A Third Option for Regional KOs - Stratified Swiss KOs
- No, my concerns don't change. But I do recognize that the fact that something is imperfect doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Anything that increases overall, long-term attendance is probably a good thing. I'm just pointing out that there's a tradeoff in that this sort ...
- A Third Option for Regional KOs - Stratified Swiss KOs
- Gotcha, and I'm sure you're not alone. But count me out of assuming that simply because something [i]is[/i] done a certain way, it should be. But your example is quite apposite: The Bermuda Bowl's format has been roundly criticized for its encouragement of dumping in ...
- A Third Option for Regional KOs - Stratified Swiss KOs
- Mike, I agree those things can happen; the difference is that what I am concerned about is times in which a team can help [i]itself[/i] by losing. That this problem exists in the Soloway is correct, and (imo) evidence that the event probably wasn't the best idea ...
- A Third Option for Regional KOs - Stratified Swiss KOs
- Jeff's scenario could still happen even if teams were to choose their opponents (which isn't a likely setup even though it makes sense): With one round to go in the Swiss, one very strong team (call them A) is well in front of everyone else and is sure ...
- A Third Option for Regional KOs - Stratified Swiss KOs
- The Swiss qualifying KO format creates an incentive for dumping in certain circumstances: As the Swiss portion of the event winds down, a team that considers its chances to be better (in whatever sense matters to them — in this case, I'm concerned about the expected masterpoint award) in a ...
- Do you want to be relegated from Bracket A to Bracket B?
- I would agree to play down only if teammates insisted, and if they did, they would never again be my teammates.
- Do you want to be in 3N? (Part three)
- I can see an argument for the second being best played nonforcing, and I suspect there are decent arguments regarding the others. But I fear that without a perfect definition of the parameters we might have a disaster in our future, and even with perfect definition one of us is ...
- How do you rule on this sitiuation
- I didn't think it too much of a stretch to expect someone replying to a "How do you rule?" question to know the rules. I will never cease to wonder why so many people think their own intuition is relevant how one should run a game for which there ...
- How do you rule on this sitiuation
- Was there misinformation? Yes. According to OP, it was established that the EW agreement was not as described at the table. Some doubt has been expressed in the thread about this conclusion, but we have no way to know how it was arrived at, and in any case if there ...
- How do you rule on this sitiuation
- ... notwithstanding that the law supports neither letting a result stand because the non-offending side has missed what you consider an "obvious" choice nor issuing a procedural penalty for this sort of error?
