Hi all, I would like to bring to your attention an unhappy incident that took place today. Let me start by saying that this is an isolated incident that I wish to bring to your attention, and that, most of the TDs I encounter on BBO are really polite and helpful. I will reproduce here the email that I have drafted to the host of this tournament, in which I have described the situation: "To whom it may concern, I would like to voice my displeasure concerning a TD that I recently encountered while playing one of your tournaments. Specifically, the unhappy incident took palce at XXXXXXXX (today, 10 May 2009), and the name of the TD is XXXXXXXXXX. I would specifically like to highlight the rudeness, inflexibility and lack of reason that the TD in question displayed when my partner and I were dealing with the TD in mention. The circumstances are as follows. My partner (darcchion on BBO) had played a small trump to the Jack in his hand with the Q outstanding. The RHO played small, the hand played the J, and LHO played small, with the Jack winning the trick. After the round had been played, RHO claimed he had misclicked. My partner said he would allow undos, but not when the round has already been played. I would like to point out here that the undo was not an obvious one, as some players might play low fearing their partners have the singleton J. That the undo was only asked for the Jack of trump, a critical card, was played, makes it even less clear whether it was a genuine mistake. After listening to my partner, RHO agreed and said it was his mistake and retracted his undo. However, LHO insisted that my partner allow the undo and thus called the TD. The TD did not even consider or review the situation and claimed it was an obvious misclick, asserting that we all have to be friendly. Ironically, she (or he) promptly barred me from the tournament even though all I wanted to do was to clarify the situation to her. I was not even the declarer, nor did I say anything out of line or that was untrue. In fact, it was our RHO himself who repeatedly represented that he no longer needs an undo, and refused to ask for an undo - but the TD insisted that it was us who refused to accept the undo. At that point, since the RHO refused to ask for undo and the LHO refused to proceed with the play, we were all waiting so I took the time to attempt to present my reasons to the TD again. Let me emphasize that through out, we were all very polite (all 3 of us including the RHO I do not know what to speak for the LHO) and we were prepared to accept any ruling from the TD but we believed we had the rights to present our arguments for the TD's consideration first. That can been evidently seen from the fact that, when the RHO finally asked for undo again, my partner promptly accepted it. Despite all these, the TD removed me from the tourney, presumably for not being able to accept undo as a dummy?!?!?! I feel that I have been unfairly treated and that action should be taken against the TD in mention. I did not even have the chance to defend myself and clarify the situation. At the very least, I should be unbarred from future tournaments. I assure you that everything I said was true, there was no rudeness at any point of time displayed by either me or my partner. You can double check this in the BBO chat log, or even with the RHO we were playing with at that time. I understand that BBO Fans is a profit free club that provides free tournaments for BBO members. I genuinely appreciate your efforts and enjoy most of your tourneys very much. I also understand that the TDs are volunteers who do not receive remuneration and may not be professionals thus please understand that I am not trying to criticize the actual ruling of the TD, even if we may not agree with it. The crux of the issue is really this: why was I, the dummy, being booted from a tourney for having a polite discussion with the TD, where nothing I did was out of the line or violated any of the BBO/tournament host rules. Do we not deserve respect from the TD(s) just as much as the respect we give to the TD(s)? Do the TDs enjoy ABSOLUTE discretion (I try to refrain myself from saying the word "abuse") to remove players as they wish and/or give out oppressive rulings? " [mild editing by inquiry]
