[Zelandakh]

It used to be stated somewhere on BBO that FD was designed as a tool to enable better bridge to be played and that this is why it was designed such that you can see your partner's alerts. I personally would far prefer my opponents to have some system notes they refer to than to start discussing their bids during play or to end up with a silly result, which is often the alternative. As long as they are willing to fully explain what everything means what is the problem? It is not like there is any money on it. Or is GIB also cheating because it can "refer" to its system notes during the auction?!

[jillybean]

The problem is that the laws forbid memory aids.
"A player is not entitled, during the auction and play periods, to any aids to his memory, calculation or technique."

Edit: Sorry, I posted this in response to Zelandakh's post and hadn't seen the rest of the discussion.

[Cthulhu D]

Zelandakh, on 2012-May-04, 07:27, said:

It used to be stated somewhere on BBO that FD was designed as a tool to enable better bridge to be played and that this is why it was designed such that you can see your partner's alerts. I personally would far prefer my opponents to have some system notes they refer to than to start discussing their bids during play or to end up with a silly result, which is often the alternative. As long as they are willing to fully explain what everything means what is the problem? It is not like there is any money on it. Or is GIB also cheating because it can "refer" to its system notes during the auction?!

I mostly put a FD card together to save myself typing, but there you go.

The funniest is when FD alerts something ugly we are playing (Typically the auction 1H-1S playing Kaplan inversion) as, say, 0-12 HCP, 0-4 spades, forcing for 1 round OR 5+ spades 13-17 points and they repeatedly click the bid to ask for more information.