This is in regards to some of the rumblings I have heard regarding my 
shuffling and cataloging of hands.  As most of you know, I have a
student game Monday evenings at 6:15 at the Epoch assisted living facility
in Norton.  I use the hands that have been played on Thursday at my Monday
group.  I analyze the hands AFTER THEY HAVE BEEN PLAYED BY YOU, not before.  
I have been doing so for about a year now.  The students get the benefit of 
seeing randomly shuffled hands with actual results of their play and can 
compare their play to yours, the experts.  I also reuse those travelers.
I get the benefit of having predealt hands on MONDAY EVENINGS ONLY, so I 
know what they are playing and can fix the hands if the cards get mixed up.  
The students get a write up each week with a sheet of all the hands they 
played, suggested auctions, and detailed analysis on at least a few of the 
hands.

In regards to the shuffling of the boards for Thursday evenings, I do not 
doctor your hands, fix them up in any way, or otherwise mess with your hands.  
They are randomly shuffled.  I do not know what is in the hands beforehand 
if I end up playing.  The reasons I was shuffling them is one, I found a few 
examples of boards that were not shuffled and the same hands were replayed 
the following week, and two, I generally left the cards suited after I
cataloged them.  As many folks only shuffle the deck a couple times before 
dealing them out, there were a number of wierd hands because of the 
hands being sorted and the decks were insufficiently shuffled. I tried to 
remedy this by shuffling the boards myself.  To guarantee a random deal, 
the cards need to be shuffled at least 7 times.  And that is what I have 
done, and ALL I HAVE DONE.  I plan to continue cataloging hands at least 
through the end of 2005 for this student group, and keep them for future 
student groups and student games I will have.  Whether or not you want me 
to shuffle the boards before hand is up to you.  I will not shuffle any 
more boards until we have a concensus agreement.  Also be advised, starting 
in February 2005, I will assess a 1 board penalty to both the north/south 
and east/west pair where the board started for each unshuffled board I find.  
If I have not done them, make sure they are shuffled.

Let me also add that I do one of these write ups each week.  I spend the 
better part of each Saturday or Sunday doing this.  I probably spend 6-8 
hours doing the cataloging of 12 to 15 hands, (sorting each hand, logging 
hands into a word document, reviewing the hands and typing out suggested 
auctions, making up the hands (different set of cards used from the 
Thursday night group), analyzing hands, and writing up the analyses.  
Then I would shuffle your boards.  Even if I wanted to, Which if I have to 
clarify, I don't, I wouldn't have time to screw around with the Thursday 
hands as well, since I do try to have at least a little bit of a social 
life outside of the bridge circles.


You can view examples of my write ups on the middle table in the main room.