panther786

I am organising Team Marches for the last one year for a group of us old friends. I am being confronted with an unexplainable situation at starting up. What happens mostly with one specific player is that after I have ensured that 8 participants are online, I hit the Create Team Match button, invitations are issued to all and 1 of them does not actually receive it through the invitation that pops out and an auto decline is sent to me as the TD. I have tried asking him to reinstall the BBO App on his iPad, he has even tried a new iPad but we are having the same problem. I have been overcoming the issue by removing him from his reserved seat, creating a 7 reserved players team match and after setting up the match, inviting him as a substitute at the vacant seat, which works invariably. I am sure there is some setting that needs to be tweaked so that this does not happen. Incidentally, I have had the same issue with a few other players in the group but it got sorted out on its own. Consequently, there was no learning from such episodes that could be applied to the regular auto decline player. Can anybody who experienced this situation and successfully managed to trouble shoot it guide me with the resolution of this problem/bug.

I am not at all knowledgeable at this aspect and I am sure there are skilled persons and experts that BBO has to fine tune this. Conceptually speaking the format of rounds would have to be introduced in the team matches as it would allow all players/pairs to have played against all players of the other team(s). Under the existing 2 teams structure, any even number of boards may be specified and one could also specify number of rounds so that 1 round would stand for the current structure with N1S1 playing opposite E2W2 on T1 and N2S2 playing opposite E1W1 on T2 whereas 2 rounds would allow rotation of players with 1st round as currently and the 2nd round with N1S1 playing opposite N2S2 on T1 and E2W2 playing opposite E1W1 on T2. This change would enhance the current Team Match experience in my opinion and I understand a few of us are managing this effect manually through 2 team matches back to back. Extending this approach to 3 teams would require 4 rounds to achieve the same result of each pair having played opposite all pairs of the other 2 teams, for 4 teams it would require 6 rounds and for 5 teams it would require 8 rounds. In terms of IMP scoring, after all tables have played a deal, an average score is computed and score at a table in the deal is compared with the computed average and IMPs are accordingly awarded as presently, the only change being the comparison is not on the actual scores of 2 tables but the actual score at a table compared to the computed average of actual scores at all tables. I hope this clarifies the modus operandi on how a team match with more than 2 teams will work as queried by TylerE.

I am managing team matches for the past year as face to face social bridge playing has not been possible. Resultantly, a lot of senior citizens, who were tech non-savvy, have been forced in play online bridge mostly on BBO. Although, it may not be fair to generalise, but the present restriction of 2 teams is a stumbling block for making such matches even more popular than these have become during the last 12-14 months. In my personal experience, we have managed to get friends together from across many continents, find a mutually suitable time enjoy the present difficult times by playing together. BBO access has indeed played a huge role in bringing many people a lot of happiness and make productive use of their time. However, the constraint of a maximum of 8 players at such events is a major hurdle in making team marches become even more popular than presently. Also, I am confident many social bridge players who used to get together at homes earlier and play once/twice a week, after the present social distancing restrictions are lifted all over the world, would prefer playing both face to face only and also a few tables face to face and a few with friends across continents on the BBO platform. This would create a new segment of players, who would be dropping the physical decks of cards and use technology to create a cards-less environment in the long term, which will also assist in decreasing the carbon emission generated in the cards manufacturing by decreasing its requirements. My suggestion for consideration is to allow Team Matches to have a larger number of tables, say up-to 5 and bring a long term change in the bridge playing community all over the world. This is all the more desirable as BBO no longer issues credentials for free hosting of tournaments to independent hosts by granting them a Virtual Club status. I can appreciate that the load on the system for preservation of history may increase substantially but I am sure BBO can reassess and reduce the period for which it maintains archives of hands played - even a 3 months of such history may be sufficient going forwards. I would strongly urge the concerned persons to assess/reassess this suggestion in the light changes to our lifestyles that COVID has brought as this world will never go back to the lifestyles that we all had pre-COVID and let BBO bring a new segment of users into its active membership.

There are tools now available for video and audio input for apps and if integrated into BBO app, it can lead to a quantum jump in the playing experience. I can appreciate that the bandwidth and server requirement will skyrocket and may not be sustainable at no charge basis but I am curious if your team is or has considered this to make the BBO platform even more popular and give an extremely rich playing experience. I think this topic may be worth doing a survey and establishing how wide spread its desire is in the real world. Thanks.

Thanks paulg for your response. It was greatly helpful and clarified the confusion emanating from my earlier viewing of the results and responses given by others. Can you also advise how to get the view that is from no one’s perspective as this neutral view is least confusing and intuitive and what one would expect. The view that is accessible through history is what one is inclined to look for review and has been the one I have been looking at in the past. Many thanks for your super feedback.

The explanation seems reasonable but can you look at the specific case I have discussed in the initial post and reconfirm that the reporting is indeed this way. The Board 3 got +200 points for EW pair on Our Table while at the other Their Table, wherein the EW pair’s team members were playing at NS, the EW pair at Their Table scored 650 points and being against our team as well as from the perspective of NS, one would expect them to be recorded as -650, whereas the current reporting system records this result as +650. The recording system may be working correctly as expected with IMPs and possibly not working correctly with Total Points. May I request admin having access to the results database to look into it and correct the situation or just feedback to clarify any misunderstanding that I may have. Thanks.

The recording of the results in terms of + and - does not seem to make sense to me. Can some one explain the reasoning for the sign of +/- or am I missing something. Let me describe a specific recording of a board to explain my confusion. Tourney # 6450 Teams TGCE played between Sohail Team and Maarij Team hosted by Sherwanik. Board 3 was bid 3S and made 5 at Table 1 and the Total Points of +200 were accordingly credited to Sohail Team, which was playing at EW position on Our Table. The same Board 3 was bid 4S and made 5 at Table 2 and Total Points of +650 were accordingly credited to Maaarij Team, which was playing at EW position on Their Table. To a reader of the results from any of these teams, the +/- signs can easily convey points scored by them by being + while the points scored by the opponents by being -, independent of being reflective of Our Table and Their Table, which appears to reverse the +/- signs. In my way of looking at it, one tends to get confused while trying to assess where a pair from their team played well or badly with the existing recording logic. Can some one or the admin explain to me how the +/- signs are arrived at and how best to read/interpret the results. Many thanks.

Although I have played solo on the BBO for a number of years but started very recently playing with regular bridge playing friends on BBO instead of f2f setting. We have been playing on BBO after setting up a table with seats reserved for the friends who would be joining that session. While finishing off the set up of a table under Casual, there are 2 options, one for starting a table for relaxed game and the other for starting a table for competitive game. I have not been able to figure out the difference between these two type of games. My guess is that the hands that get dealt out in a relaxed game are easier to bid and play while the hands that get dealt in a competitive game are difficult to correctly bid and play. I have no basis for making this guess except common sense. Another possibility that comes to my mind is that the results that are recorded are against other table of a similar game type, I.e. when you select relaxed game your comparative analysis is against those tables that opted for relaxed game and the results they achieved whereas if you select competitive game, the same process is followed for comparison with other tables that played with these cards on a competitive game table. Can somebody guide me to know what is the real difference, if any, between these 2 types of games on a table started by any player on BBO. Many thanks.