gto girl

Come on guys....Spoo's original point was correct. The "highway patrolman" in this instance pulled you over and deliberately goaded you into saying something stupid. BOTH parties are at fault here, Max for instigating, and Rob for falling for it.

I agree with Spoo, too.

Very cool, Spoo.

Geo, See "The Contest is Afoot" thread. John and Shirley changed the starting date by request to make it easier for us in the Northeast. lmh

Hi, My first post. Have been reading the forums for a few months, and hope to actually start benchmark hunting soon. This discussion has been interesting for me to follow, because I would be very disappointed to find that “anything goes” in this game….of course, I also don’t yet understand many of the ins and outs of hunting & recording marks, so may be off base here. Once upon a time, I was a tournament bridge player. Fairly successful, too—my partner and I even won our state championships one year. (My husband and I spent our honeymoon at a bridge tournament in Canada nearly 30 years ago, which may be one reason why we’re no longer married!) Bridge and benchmark hunting seem to have some similarities. The majority of bridge players are those for whom the game is just a way to pass time, with no thought to being serious about the rules. At the opposite end of the spectrum are those very few for whom the game is a real business (and worth huge sums of money in partnerships and fees, which of course doesn’t happen with benchmarking). In the middle are those who are serious about the competition and improving their skills & scores, and who take the ethics and code of conduct of tournament play very seriously. Those who like to just mess around rarely attend tournaments. They aren’t serious enough about the game, and they tend to be rather loose with the rules. (Don’t argue with me; it’s true.) The tournament players don’t give a darn about whether or not the social players meet their standards, as long as the social players don’t attend a tournament and act as though they were playing bridge in their own living room. When at the tournament, one is expected to follow the rules. From what I’ve seen, most of the people who post on this site believe in a code of conduct for benchmark hunting. As a newbie, I want to see rules and parameters. Not only does this increase the challenge and professionalism of the game and the results, but it sets standards of behavior for those involved. And that can’t be a bad thing. So if someone wants to list a “traveling benchmark” as “found” for their own fun, then go ahead. Just don’t try to record it as any kind of official find. It dilutes the results for everyone else.