Bridge Winners Profile for Doug Couchman
Basic Information
- Member Since
- Feb. 25, 2014
- Last Seen
- 7 hours ago
- 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 — is attempting to take 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
- Foul is Fair
- That's true, Bernard, and I should have mentioned it explicitly, but again the assumption that your teammates are less crazy than average is not inherent to the form of scoring.
- Director call - have I missed something?
- "Could have known" can reasonably mean either of two things: 1. Had sufficient information to work it out (but maybe didn't do so); and 2. Maybe did know (but we're not sure whether he did). If it is intended to have the first meaning (which I think is ...
- Foul is Fair
- Not your point, but... "in a BAM event, your score will compared against the [i]competent[/i] players at just one other table. In matchpoints, your score is compared against a room full of crazy people." (emphasis mine) This assumption is implicit in so many discussions of BAM scoring; I ...
- ATB -640
- I agree that I would be required to disclose it, and would. My opponents would also be required to disclose their agreement never to defend a redoubled contract... but in practice I'll bet most wouldn't.
- ATB -640
- Apart from the bidding, I also credit declarer with being sporting enough to take only eight tricks, which probably required some care.
- ATB -640
- I would love to play against opponents who had the agreement that "we are not playing any low level xx contract by opponents". I will now redouble every time I'm pretty sure I'm going down, and assuming my opponents actually have such an agreement, I will never have ...
- Director call - have I missed something?
- "For me, there is no demonstrable bridge reason to think for 10 seconds as declarer." A "demonstrable bridge reason" is something that is legitimate to think about because either of two choices might produce the best bridge expectation, given that you're in the situation... [i]not[/i] merely a ...
- To bid or not to bid?
- Yes, of course I meant LA. I agree that you can't know the result for sure, and if you think there's a reasonable probability that pass isn't logical, then you can bid (and not be shocked if the director awards an adjusted score). If you do think ...
- Club level ruling . what do you think?
- If it's clear that they're playing 2/1 (is it?), then there was no misinformation, therefore no infraction, and we're done. If there is doubt about what they're playing, or some reason to believe that south bids this way often enough to create an implicit understanding ...
- To bid or not to bid?
- Was there a BiT? Yes — stipulated. Was there UI? Yes — partner wasn't sure what to do. Did it demonstrably suggest one call over another? Yes — given our diamond length partner was probably thinking of bidding on, not doubling, so the UI suggests 3♥ over pass. Is pass a ...
