oryctolagi

Thanks. Is there a way for us to view rulings on requests, and the priority list for those accepted? It would be most helpful, and avoid duplicate requests in this forum.

I don't know what your definition of a 'decent player' is, but I'm quite happy to play with an inexperienced partner. Not every time, perhaps, but they are all part of the Bridge community. Thanks for letting us know - and rest assured you will be getting no upvote from yours truly! :lol:

I never got a proper reply to this request, the thread merely drifted off-topic. So I'm re-stating it: Please could we have an option to turn off the chat "->Club" when we are playing at a table.

Sorry, I don't quite see how this helps catch the sock-puppets. What may be of concern, is that you could get someone partnering themself - or kibitzing at a table they're also playing at. This doesn't quite chime with what you said in your original post. There, you were complaining about unsportsmanlike conduct such as walking away in mid-hand, irrational concessions, and so on. So, are you now saying you have a problem playing with beginners? Every bridge player was a beginner once.

While we're on the topic of multiple accounts held by the same person, I wonder what measures BBO is able to take, to police this sort of activity? I need not go into detail as to why this would be a BAD THING - especially on an online Bridge site! :blink: Anyone who's ever been involved in running a forum or similar site, will know that IP addresses are not a reliable check on someone's identity. And proxy servers abound... One way might be to ban anyone from registering via a free webmail. But that would be rather restrictive. I'm registered on BBO via a webmail myself. At least, I can categorically state that this is my ONLY account on BBO... :rolleyes:

Agreed. Allowing players to publicly upvote or downvote other players, is simply offering the trolls carte blanche to form a clique and gang up on someone they don't fancy. I know this - I've been there! (Not in bridge, but in other activities). Having said that, what wouldn't I give to know what slanders, those whom I've upset have written about me, on my profile! There must have been a few. Like the creature who slung me off a table just because I wouldn't let them UNDO...... <_<

Whether I want a lengthy postmortem or not, probably depends on how I played the previous hand. If I've played like a pudding (alas! not an uncommon occurrence! :( ) I'll probably want to go quickly to the next hand......

Actually, I just realised, if the diamonds had been 3-1, it's quite possible to go down if the cards lie badly. Whoever holds Kxx holds up the K till the third round, then leads a 4th heart, forcing you to ruff with your last trump. So you can no longer risk to give up a spade. But that's what Bridge is all about!

Don't beat yourself up about it! Often happens to me too :unsure: , and I'm sure to plenty of others. I think my general level of play is slowly improving as I get more practice on BBO, but I still have the most unspeakable cock-ups to my credit.... Better luck with your future hands!

Something has just occurred to me. I usually access the web-based player via a saved bookmark: http://www.bridgebase.com/client/client.php , so that I can quickly get to the login page; also it means that I get the client in a normal browser window and can have other tabs open (I sometimes take advantage of being dummy to read up on partner's conventions - e.g. on MrBridge.co.uk). But if you access the client by clicking on the yellow link on the homepage http://www.bridgebase.com , you get a different window which doesn't support tabs. Would this be less prone to a lost connection?

I don't see why. The OP didn't say he had a problem with rapid play; merely a problem with opponents using improper tactics. It would be a sad day when people were advised to avoid a style of play which they enjoy, merely because of someone else's misconduct. A bit like telling aspiring cyclists not to take up road racing, because of Lance Armstrong.... Personally, although I've not tried tournaments myself, I like to play at a reasonable pace - although like all non-expert players, I have moments when I need to sit back and think for a while. I believe that - like in chess - most speedball timing systems allow for that - up to a point.

I don't see how 5♦ fails, with diamonds 2-2 or even 3-1. Don't take the diamond finesse, ruff two clubs, using A♦ and a heart ruff as entries. You lose one diamond and one spade. But of course it's easy to see that after the event.... Losing the diamond finesse also exposes you to a spade ruff, if the spades were 4-0.

I stand corrected - I did ask if chat was allowed. But was there really any need for you to be so rude? :angry:

Now I've figured out what this is about (I haven't tried speedball myself, and after reading this thread I'm not in a hurry to! ;) ) - yes I agree this looks rather like a form of cheating. Perhaps the robots could be brought in to finish the hand, and scores allotted accordingly? Certainly players who try this on should be called out. As I understand it the Admin are able to retrieve the chat line (is chat allowed during speedball?). If so comments like "play please" during the slow play should be enough to confirm that you knew of a problem during the play, instead of retrospectively. Better luck with your future tourneys!

I have no idea how you could completely prevent cheats on BBO - at least if kibitzing is allowed. All it needs is a phone call to a 'friend' with a BBO account, and ask them to kibitz the table you're at. But I hope the feature isn't taken away from BBO. I've been kibitzing quite a lot, when I'm not playing. It can be amusing; and it helps me to learn new techniques without committing myself. I also spot many mistakes being made - sometimes self-evident even without sight of all four hands. All good education. But it's only a game. :rolleyes:

It's usually defenders who get peeved when a hand gets unnecessarily played out. You watch them pausing to think about each discard, not realising that it's immaterial. But after a rejected claim, they can see all the hands, so it becomes obvious.

Errr.... sorry my mistake [if there was some 'plot' afoot to befuddle me, well it seems to have succeeded, at least as far as this forum is concerned... ] In my OP I cited the wrong hand. It was indeed the previous hand that I'd meant to refer to. Yes there were two hands, in both of which I ended up as declarer, both of them made exactly, and in both of them I made a claim. The first one was the 2NT and I think I claimed the remaining 6 tricks after I'd made 2 and lost 5. If this was indeed what I claimed, it was rejected for no earthly reason. In the second contract, 6♠, I claimed after conceding a trick to the trump king. This claim too was refused. As barmar says, it is a bit demeaning, to say the least, when the only remaining trick which isn't an obvious high-card winner, is a self-evident ruff in dummy. But I didn't actually want to mention the second claim refusal in the forum, seeing as that seems to be too obviously accusing my LHO of a bit of skullduggery, maybe with the aim of messing up my game. I didn't want to make trouble, but it seems the cat is out of the bag now. All I actually wanted to know was, is it too easy to make a stupid mistake when claiming? That question seems to have been answered, thanks all. I shall be extra careful how I work the CLAIM facility, from now on.

I think dealer was East - and he would certainly have opened. :lol:

Please understand, this is not what happened to me. I was in a simple 2NT contract, I'd got to about trick 8 I think, having made only two tricks so far, but all my remaining cards were winners. So I claimed the remaining six tricks to make eight in total and my contract. But according to the oppos, I actually claimed only five of the remaining six tricks, hence I would have gone one down if they'd let it stand. I dispute that this is what happened.

I take it, East is reversing here, but with only 13 HCP and a poor heart suit, is it appropriate to reverse, even with a 7-5-1-0 distribution? Clearly 6♥ is unmakeable, and I don't follow East's 3♥ at all.

Provided the hearts are not 5-1 or 6-0, 6NT makes if two out of the four possible finesses win. I think that's a reasonable gamble, and it worked for me. Or there may be a better line of play. To make 7, of course, you need better luck than that.

Errr - no. You've got the wrong hand there. The contentious one which I was alluding to in my original post, occurred earlier on - albeit with the same opponents.

I'm not quite sure what the word 'shenanigans' means in this context - but I can guess. Here is a hand which I was in earlier today. [hv=pc=n&w=skjhktdkj63cak765&e=sat72haq972da9cj2]266|100[/hv] I was east and we reached 6NT by a fairly straightforward bidding process, which I made without too much trouble. With a good IMP score I was expecting at least an equal 'top' here but no: one table made an overtrick in 6NT (fair enough) and another got 7NT. Curious, I looked to see how the bidding had gone on that last one. East opened 1♥ and West responded 7NT. :blink: Any thoughts about the bidding? Any - er - suspicions?

I can well believe that. Why can't it always default to 'I claim all the rest'? After all if you claim when you can't, the defenders will be obliged to reject - but if you concede winners, they might not.....

The other day I was declarer in a perfectly straightforward 6♠. By trick 4, having lost one trick so far, I had an obvious claim for the remaining tricks, making my slam, so I claimed - and was surprised to see my claim rejected. But these things do sometimes happen, so I painstakingly played on, cashing all the winners. At some point one of the defenders posted in the chat-line "why don't you claim?" to which I replied "what happened to my earlier claim?". It then transpired that, allegedly, I'd claimed not for all the remaining tricks, but for all but one of the remaining tricks, hence going one down. They'd rejected my 'claim' out of pure generosity. Now, I'm perplexed by this. I would have thought it difficult to mishandle the CLAIM button, and it always suggests "Claim all remaining tricks" as the default. And I use a desktop PC with a mouse, and don't recall ever having mis-clicked on BBO. So is there a possible bug in the CLAIM button? Another possibility is that I had some sort of 'senior moment'. I am well aware that these things do sometimes happen, with me :( . A third possibility is that this was all a deliberate wind-up by my opponents, with the intention of either (a) covering for their incompetence in rejecting a clear-cut claim, or (b) breaking up my concentration. Or both :angry: . Is there a way of retrieving all that happened during the hand in question, including the chat plus any CLAIM attempts? Playing out the hand in 'movie' view doesn't reveal anything. Anyway, I would not have suggested the 'bug' theory but for one other thing. In another, totally unrelated hand, I played out a not-too-difficult 3NT and was surprised to get an unusually good IMPs score. So I looked at how other tables had fared, using the Traveller facility, and came across this. It would appear that, in 5♣xx, the unfortunate declarer intended at trick 6 to claim all the remaining tricks, but somehow contrived to concede the remaining tricks (including the top trumps!!) instead. His opponents, it seems, were not so magnanimous, and the result was a whopping -23 IMPs! So maybe there is a problem with CLAIM. Should I be wary?