McBruce

I actually had a partner once who agreed to play 2/1 in a club game. We filled out a card and about an hour in this happened: Partner: 1♥ McBruce: 2♣ Partner alerts. (This was in the days where you had to alert 2/1 repsonses in the ACBL.) Opponents ask. "2♣ is natural, showing clubs, but it is game forcing." So far so good. Partner: 2♦ McBruce: 3♣ Partner alerts. The opponents ask. "No longer game forcing." :unsure: Another partner I had once decided that "five card majors" meant that the correct opening bid with ♠x ♥QJxxx ♦ void ♣ AKJTxxx was (you guessed it): 1♥! We played a cold club slam in 3NT. Between rounds I asked partner why she had opened 1♥ and expressed my opinion that "five card majors" did not demand this level of compliance. She disagreed. Back we went to the table. Partner: 1♠ McBruce: Alert. Opponents ask. McBruce: May have as many as eight clubs or eight diamonds. I have not been asked for a game from this player since. :lol: MORAL: A 'general approach' is not a system.

Don't forget the useful hotkeys: CTRL+C copies a selected message to the computer's memory (called the Clipboard), and CTRL+V pastes this message whereever the cursor is. So if you have a text editor open to a file with your messages, you highlight one line, press CTRL+C, click chat (to whatever) and press CTRL+V. Then repeat for the second line, etc. Beats typing.

Perhaps a bit of help for Directors might ease conditions: --When a Director is directing a tournament and uses public chat to a table, to kibitzers or to the tournament (not the lobby), it would be useful for the software to display a reminder that its the TD giving the message. Instead of: McBruce: Problem here? ...it might be better to display McBruce [Director]: Problem here? Or these notices could be displayed in a different font. (Maybe since many of us give long announcements, this font could be a condensed but clear typeface to reduce the number of overlapping lines!)

I suppose you could simply use the <---> button and tell opponents privately something like "Partner may take my pass as suggesting a club or trump lead because of an agreement we have involving splinters, but this is a real stretch. I wasn't thinking of bidding." This is a good example of how online bridge is better than table bridge for Full Disclosure. In table bridge you have no easy way of letting the opponents know things without alerting partner and giving UI. And it is a real stretch, since the 4♠ call is a real suit, so you can't double for a lead unless you are sure you've got it beat. I doubt such an agreement should apply here.

Shrike: Unfortunately, McBruce has quoted a version of the Laws that is no longer in effect. In 1997, the word "reasonably" in Law 16 ("could reasonably have been suggested") was changed to "demonstrably." The change was intended to ensure that, for there to be an adjustment, there be a close connection between the UI and the action complained of -- a simple bridge argument, not something subtle and complex. A similar change was made to Law 73F. Thanks Shrike for the correction. I was aware that there were changes but haven't been able to find them online. Does anyone have an link to either the latest version online or a list of the most recent changes?

Gweny to mcbruce... well this is maybe option if i do not own young parrot who do tele, emergency cars, sparrows, cricket and other sounds he hear frequently. i force to turn off sound in bbo when i realize he is making all of sounds we here in bbo. tee hee this is why i ask for simple clock. You can configure nthclock to silently open a dialog box when an alarm goes off. No need to add a sound to it. (Not only that, you have unlimited alarms, which has saved me from my continuing overdue-fine donations to the construction costs for the public library's new wing...) :blink:

I don't want to give the impression that I am the ultimate authority in my tournaments although I realize that some TDs take that view. I expect the player in question to contact me when they find they cannot enter the next one. We'll talk, and if I get the impression that the player has learned their lesson, I'll be happy to lift the ban. It may conceivably be that the player had a connection problem at that point, or some local matter that had to be attended to, but since the player logged off 10 seconds after being booted, I find this unlikely. In general, it does absolutely no good to dispute a ruling at length with a TD during the game. Your best strategy is to let the Director know you disagree with the ruling and would like to discuss it later...and then forget it and PLAY ON! The NFL has instant replay: it's imperfect but it helps. TDs have movies, also imperfect (no chat or timing of bids/plays if that is an issue) but it helps. Losers (in bridge and in the NFL) give up when a ruling goes against them; winners shrug it off and do their best after a bad call. The difference is, if the TD has made a mistake it can be corrected after the game once tempers are cooler. I post online a rating system for my tournament series, so I can change the order of finish long after the BBO results are final. If anyone finds a clear error in my decisions, I would do so.

Firstly: Once again we have this strange attitude from several posters that a bid which shows a hand completely different from the one held is not a psyche if it is made in a situation where psyching makes no sense. This is complete rubbish. The 1♠ opener is a psyche by definition, and if your partnership has predefined rules as to when a psyche makes sense and when one does not, this is a PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT and you had better start alerting. Secondly: most organizations have some form of the Principle of Coincidence, an adjunct of the Principle of Full Disclosure, which states that if one partner takes an action which is outside of agreed system AND partner then takes a second action outside of system which combines with the first to provide success, then there is evidence that the pair is not complying with Full Disclosure. There is a warning not to overuse the principle, but comparing the example on the ACBL version (linked above) to the example submitted in this thread by mpefritz, we can get an idea of the severity of the problem here. ACBL: The following combination of overbid and underbid is an example of the PRINCIPLE OF COINCIDENCE. East, whose card is marked 15-17, opens one notrump with a balanced 13. West with 10 points decides to bid only 2NT and eight tricks are the maximum available. This "lucky coincidence" is the result of two improbable actions which, in combination, "work". The PRINCIPLE OF COINCIDENCE defines this sequence to be an infraction of ACBL regulations (full-disclosure). The score on the board should be adjusted whenever the misinformation directly damages the non-offenders (as by placing an extra card or wrong card in declarer's hand allowing an extra trick(s) to be made). Whether or not a score adjustment is made, a procedural penalty for the offenders should be considered. In the ACBL example a score adjustment is possible and a procedural penalty is likely when one partner overbids by a queen and the other underbids by a queen. In mpefritz's example, the opening bid of 1♠ on a 6-count is three times as much a distortion, and partner's failure to double is a coincidence. If it were possible on BBO, I would give a procedural penalty unless the players were novices. We don't know the rest of the hand, so we don't know if a score adjustment is reasonable. Note than the ACBL's version at least does not allow for the 1N - 2N auction to be adjusted to 3N down one. The only score adjustment possible is to give the defenders back tricks that they lost based on assuming declarer had a full 1NT opener. In mpefritz's example, the E-W side doesn't get to play 1NT doubled based on the Rule of Coincidence. But if 1NT should go down because declarer placed cards in the openers hand, the score would be adjusted.

You know, the more I look at this the more I am appalled at the actions of the so-called non-offending pair. They called the TD in the first round because their opponents were discussing in English whether they should alert some of their bids. Had these opponents listened to the conversation instead of calling the TD as a knee-jerk reaction, they would have learned something about the system. It's not like one player opened a forcing pass and said "partner, do I have to alert?" This was a natural bid which might be alertable because of the small possibility that it may be very strong. They called the TD again in the first round because their cc said one thing and their explanation said another. A fair-minded person would simply say that "your explanation is not anything like your cc, is your explanation right or is your cc right?" This pair appaerently smelled a way to get an undeserved good score and screamed for the TD. When the Director arrived, one player interrupted the TD's attempt to get the facts by saying "this is not fair" (I wonder what exactly the player thought was unfair), and the other said "please do something! second time!" (like the first incident was a huge violation). I get the clear impression that this pair was more interested in playing razzle-dazzle than bridge: it was more important to them to get a penalty assigned to the opponents than to actually think. We TDs need to swat this attitude like bugs on the window sill. Ask yourself whether the complaining player seems more interested in restoring equity or more interested in getting the opponents penalized. If the latter, be absolutely sure that the offenders have actually offended before you give a penalty. Tonight a player called me to the table, claiming that dummy had urged a claim. Declarer had the rest of the tricks when I arrived, but I didn't know when dummy had made his announcement. I gave a warning and the TD caller urged me to give a penalty. "Were you damaged by the dummy asking for a claim?" I said. The player did not respond and refused to play on. I warned the player not to delay, and still no response, so I subbed someone else in and added the player to my temporary ban list.

Online there are two problems with tempo: slow play in general, which some poor sports use to try to get no result on a board on which they are in trouble, and hesitations before bids. I don't think it is right to use net lag as an excuse when a hesitation happens. If, as in this case, the partner of the hesitator has made a very unusual call that works and that the UI might have suggested would work, an adjustment is called for. The difficult part is getting agreement that there was a break in tempo, especially online, because we have the constant factor of net lag. But if there is 45 seconds without a red dot or a red name, that is a clear break in tempo and the Laws dictate what to do. Players who call the Director often on hesitations perhaps should lighten up, but each call deserves a look. Not fair to let people communicate by tempo breaks. spwdo: well not sure bout this .knwing some laws/wich laws?? acbl?? uk rules?? still doesnt mean anything, know several uncertified tds doing a good job based upon experience and tablefairness and im very sure certified tds in real life have a lot to learn when they start hosting online. The Laws I quoted are the Laws of Duplicate Bridge, which you can access online here. I don't think it is "table fairness" to arrive at the table and dismiss something as possible net lag. Look at the partner of the hesitator and see if he did something unusual. If so, don't let him gain an advantage from his partner's hesitation!

(from Law 73) F. Violation of Proprieties When a violation of the Proprieties described in this Law results in damage to an innocent opponent: 1. Player Acts on Unauthorized Information If the Director determines that a player chose from among logical alternative actions one that could reasonably have been suggested over another by his partner's remark, manner, tempo, or the like, he shall award an adjusted score. A player who pre-empts with his first bid needs an exceptional hand to make another call when partner passes. Otherwise pass is always a logical alternative action when partner tanks. There's no question here that the opener does not have an unusual hand that should take action alone. But we don't have the whole story here. Was it clear to everyone that there was a hesitation before the player passed? Is it possible that the player was experiencing net delay (or that you were)? Did you make it clear to the TD that there was a long hesitation? How did the auction continue from that point? Another point is germane here: (Law 16) A. Extraneous Information from Partner After a player makes available to his partner extraneous information that may suggest a call or play, as by means of a remark, a question, a reply to a question, or by unmistakable hesitation, unwonted speed, special emphasis, tone, gesture, movement, mannerism or the like, the partner may not choose from among logical alternative actions one that could reasonably have been suggested over another by the extraneous information. 1. When Such Information Is Given When a player considers that an opponent has made such information available, and that damage could well result, he may, unless the regulations of the sponsoring organization prohibit (see Appendix), immediately announce that he reserves the right to summon the Director later (the opponents should summon the Director immediately if they dispute the fact that unauthorized information might have been conveyed). The ACBL (with rather poor judgment, I think) has prohibited this 'reserving the rights' described here, but it is allowed in most of the rest of the world. Online, since BBO makes no overall rules for Directors, I think that each individual Director is in themselves a 'sponsoring organization' as described in the Laws, and can allow this sort of thing. Activating this Law allows play to continue and reduces the necessity for TD calls in cases where the UI turns out to have little or no effect on the result. In other words, the poster could have told the opponents that he reserved the right to summon the Director later and given the opponents the chance to call if they dispute that there was a hesitation. Assuming all agree that there was a hesitation, no TD is required; you bid and play the rest of the deal and the side with the hearts can call at the end if they feel that there was damage. It is so much easier this way: you play the deal to the end, call the TD if you need to, and say "on Board 5 West's first pass, we all agree, was after a long pause. Could you review the hand and adjust the score if you feel it necessary?" That's it. Off you go to the next deal. The TD looks at it when he has time and adjusts if necessary.

What about the people who sit on the Director button? I was in the middle of a block of announcements, made longer because one player called three times. I finish the announcements, go to the table, ask what the problem is. Someone explains and I get another TD call to the table I am already at. "OK, folks, listen up. The Director is HERE. Next person to use the button while I am here gets a penalty. Now what is the problem here?" It's a non-responsive player. I look for a sub, and type "working on sub." None available. We wait ten seconds and another TD call from the same person--number 5!!! "[name], your score will be adjusted down 2% for repeated misuse of the Director button." No more problems. And since this is an individual, I did just that. Can't change the BBO results, but I have a rating system on my website. The miscreant lost several points in it because of this. Uday: we have to have the option to fine contestants in %age points for Disciplinary problems. See Law 91. It works!

I was baffled by this too. I assume that for some reason the TD misunderstood what was going on for some reason. Actually all five people involved didn't do terribly well. The side playing 2♣ as a weak two (which is not totally natural to most of us who are uncomfortable with opening one-bids ranging from 11-37 HCP) seemed to have decided on a spokesperson and the TD got answers from the one player when asking questions directly to another. The side that called the Director twice in the first round about this pair refused to shut up while the TD was asking questions, interrupting with "this is not fair" and "please do something!" And the Director somehow got the idea that they were trying to hide their system (because they had actived a SAYC card apparently). These things happen, especially in the hectic first round, especially when people communicate in languages other than their first, especially when ACBLers assume ACBL rules (which, it sometimes seems, include the right to bitch when things the ACBL disallows are in fact allowed). Misunderstandings are always possible when a TD asks a simple question and four people talk/chat at once. The rgb poster was playing in another tournament of the same TD tonight though. I wonder why. As to your question, there is no standard, and anyone can do so.

Any competant Director would quickly rule down one and let South protest. You might go back to +620 in some circumstances. If, for example, East had opened a 15-17 1NT and had so far only shown up with 13 HCP (with only the Q♠ still missing), AND South is clearly a good enough player to consider this to be obvious, I would let him get away with only a warning. It isn't quite true to say you cannot take a finesse after a claim. Actually, you are not allowed to play at all after a claim! Most online bridge allows the defense to choose to continue double-dummy while declarer is stuck in single dummy. TD decided against us: "4 HE is always made". There's nothing in the Laws that says that the other results on a board should affect a ruling. If someone muffs a claim you can't say "forget it, everyone else made it." You have to actually read the book and follow its instructions.

Gweny, I use a freeware program called nthclock for keeping track of where we are. It is a simple Windows alarm clock program which includes the ability to set an alarn which rings repeatedly after x minutes. So for 8 minutes a round, you set it to go off at start time and every 8 minutes after that. Only problem is that the BBO clock seems only to allow tourneys to start at the top of the second hand, once every minute. If there are 100 seconds to start time (1:40) and you reset the clock to five minutes left, the tourney will start in five minutes and forty seconds. But you can get a beep to remind you when the round is almost done.

House on fire may be a bit of a stretch. At least now we TDs can simply remind everyone that leaving tournaments often, whatever the reason, may have consequences, and then we need not worry about people who ask to leave. If someone wants to leave because they claim an emergency, that is fine with me, I don't need to know the house is burning down. If they leave to join another tournament, they haven't gained anything, since this practice will now increase their incompletion percentage and get them barred. Another fine solution from Uday. Bravo!

Sounds to me like the great majority of these boards lost to the clock are hands that have just a few cards left. What about this solution: have the computer play the deal out 1000 times choosing cards completely at random (whenever a player has a choice of what to lead or play) from the point that the clock runs out. This will take about 0.1 seconds based on the way computers run these days. If this process results in the same trick total 75% of the time, that is the result automatically adjusted to. I would guess that in virtually all cases where there are less than five tricks to play, the 75% rule will generate the most likely normal result, and if the result is still in doubt, no trick total will get 75% of the results (and you score as A-- as usual). This should prevent the TDs need to view and adjust dozens of boards in a short time.

Is it true (or just something I've assumed from reading this thread) that when time runs out on a table in clocked, there is no bidding or cardplay saved, and therefore no way to view the board and make an adjustment to the obvious or most likely result? If so, maybe this is what needs to happen.

Perhaps soon someone will start a tournament series that uses deals which are set up to find out who the experts are: --restricted choice situations will never work --any hand which comes down to a choice between a squeeze and a finesse will always be makable only by the finesse --hands on which the expert might consider a strategic cuebid will be opposite hands which will never stop bidding once they hear that specific cuebid --liberal preempts that experts only have the guts to try will be inserted into hands where even a rookie would double and get 1100 without much effort No, please -- I'm not serious! :)

1. Average plus/minus in IMPs, what does each side get? 2. Exclude players from tournament. I use a text file, one name per line, but I don't think it is working right; I have seen players on the list sign up without trouble. At the same time, some players not on the list are asking me to let them sign up and I cannot figure out why they are not able to. Do I need to submit a .lin file instead of a text file? Is it perhaps the encoding that I should change in the text file? 3. When I visit a table to check on their progress and they complete a hand, I sometimes get their movie screen, and then the dialog box with log off option as they wait for other tables to complete the board so they can move. When this happens I am stuck and the only option is to log off and then back on. Is there a fix for this? 4. We definitely need to be able as TDs to remove people from the sub list. A player who is disconnected playing board 7 can come back in at a slower table at board 4. 5. The claim mechanism on BBO seems to confuse many players: claiming "all the rest" or "all the rest but one" is not as intuitive as "making four" or "down three." I seem to be adjusting one or two mistaken claims every night...

Actually, if a player is the only one on the sub list and refuses an invite, I give him thirty seconds and then I sweep him in. Otherwise I cannot get the 'subs needed message' sent to the lobby unless I type it myself. Why sit on the sub list if you are not willing to play? Maybe the software should remove a player when he declines.

OK, let me see if I can summarize: 1. We began with clocked tourneys and AVG- to players who ran out of time. Multiply the number of rounds by the minutes per round and you know exactly when you will finish (unless the Director adds a minute or two). 2. Players in clocked tournaments find that (for example) they pass out a board, claim at trick three on the second, and have nine minutes left on the clock. At a bridge club we would go get coffee or go out for a smoke or take a leak or something, but online this is A Major Problem. Why can't we just find someone else who is also finished and go ahead with the next round against them? 3. And thus it came to pass ;) that Uday created UNCLOCKED tournaments. Once a few tables were finished, the system would reshuflle the players or pairs at these tables and let them go gung ho into the next board, instead of waiting for the round to end. And the slow tables have as much time as they need to play each board, since they may well be able to catch up later. 4. The advantages of unclocked: you cannot lose a board to the clock, you can take extra time on a difficult hand, and you usually wait less time for new opponents than you would in clocked. 5. The disadvantages: replays (playing with/against the same partner/opponent/pair more than once, which results because the unclocked format matches players by their speed, which subdivides the field into smaller groups which you usually cannot escape from), the waiting time still necessary (often in the final group a board will be completed but you have to wait for a slow table to finish it before moving), and the long, sometimes very long, wait at the end for results if you are in a fast group. 6. One solution to the long-wait problem is to penalize players for taking extra time, which cannot be done by BBO yet, but my tournaments include a rating system on my web site, so I can change the order of finish before I compute the ratings, and dock the slow players some matchpoints. The result of this is that my tournaments (15 boards, 8 minutes per board) are always finished within 10 minutes of time. The problem of fast players finishing 30-40 minutes earlier remains though. The initial question of this thread was why are there such long waits? The answer is that people play at different speeds. There are waits in clocked and in unclocked. As a player I prefer neither, but in a clocked tournament I am going to watch the clock a lot more, and in an unclocked tourney I leave at the end and check the result later instead of waiting for Joe Slow to finish making four overtricks in 3NT on a trump squeeze with 15 winners. :) As a Director I am not fast enough to be able to handle the flurry of Director calls that comes at the end of a round in clocked. Until the BBO software gives me some way to determine who is at fault when someone shrieks "slow play here!" I'll stick to unclocked. However, I did discover for the first time last night that I can claim for the slowest table when the result is obvious. This keeps things moving. But we're not going to find a permanaent solution for the waiting ever.

Let me get this straight, because it is an argument I have seen several times here and it still strikes me as completely illogical. mishovnbg: "About cheating and kibitzers. Why [do you n]eed to have kibitzer for cheating" The_Hog: "what good does banning kibbitzers actually do?" If you want to cheat, there are far more effective ways of doing so" If I had time on my hands and was not so busy spending time on a fairly successful tournament series, I would find more quotes in other threads that seem to support this argument: No action should ever be taken in an effort to REDUCE cheating unless it COMPLETELY ELIMINATES cheating. And I don't get this at all. The easiest way for one person alone to cheat is to use two BBO connections and play/kibitz at the same time. If I remove this and as a result 99 cheaters move to the second easiest method (whatever the hell that is), but a single cheater decides to forget it and just play bridge instead, this is a VICTORY in the struggle against cheating. It is a nuisance to those who just want to kibitz, but there are many other opportunities for that: I'm in this for those who want to play, I'm not spending my time to create a kibitzing environment. My choice is to do something for the players at a small inconvenience to the kibitzers. (By the way, I do allow kibitzers in the final 15-20 minutes of a tournament, once 12 boards of 15 are completed by all, after most of the fast players are done.) TDs reading this: a lot of you work harder than I do even. Do any kibitzers ever thank you for your work? There are countless ways BBO could set a middle ground here. The tourney software could be revised to allow tournament kibitzers to see only what the player they are kibitzing sees, not all four hands. Or tournament kibitzers could be forced to watch one table only regardless of who is playing at it. I'd reopen to kibitzers in a flash if that happened. Hey, what the hell good are screens? If Meckwell want to cheat there are a million ways they can do so even with screens, right? So let's burn all the screens, they're useless in combating cheating and they're a real nuisance. Does that make sense to you?

As a tournament director who now bans kibitzers until the final rounds when most are already finished, I want to ask those who demand the right to kibitz their favorite experts this question: Why is it so important to kibitz live when the myhands page allows you to see everything with the added advantage that you can slow down the pace to figure out why the expert made an unusual bid/play? Let me be clear here: I hate having to ban kibitzers from my tourneys just because a few may misuse the privilege, but a look at some of the unusual results people alert me to has convinced me I must. I just wonder if kibitzers know that you can follow players on myhands if you are interested in learning from them.

I began the Alphabet Points tournament series with a clocked tournament and switched to unclocked after the first one. Now, let's say right away that these events are fifteen-board, one board per round individuals, using SAYC only, so my experience may be different from other tourney formats. During that first tournament I was deluged with requests to extend the time, claims that players were playing slowly, and on and on. Most of these would come with less than 2 minutes left in the round. I would arrive at the table knowing that one or two other tables had the same complaint, and of course it would be too late to determine anything. From the complaints I got the impression that many, many boards were not being completed, but when I checked the results I discovered that almost all of the top twenty had in fact completed all 15 boards on time. I decided to switch to unclocked (actually a sort of 'unclocked but clocked' format) for the second tournament, and there are advantages... --the tournament always is virtually finished in 120 minutes, because I added a rule that penalizes players 1 IMP or 1% per extra minute used. (Of course, the software cannot do this, but the lure of AlphaPoints allows you to tinker with the final results, for slow players or misbehavior, before you post the updated leaderboards.) --Far fewer complaints about slow play. The only ones I get now are from people who have forgotten it is clocked, or from players who want to finish as quickly as possible, and I mollify them by pointing out that they are already way ahead of the field. --Nobody ever loses a board to the clock, and nobody can ever delay to turn a zero into an average minus. Occasionally I will hear a delaying complaint, make an announcement to the tournament that you cannot lose a board to the clock, and then go to the complaining table and the problem is mysteriously solved. :( --I have not done a study on this, but in entering the results into the AlphaPoints spreadsheet I get the impression that the slower tables produce a much higher proportion of the winners. I'm not seeing as strong an impression in the recent tounnaments, since the warnings/bans to tourney quitters and my recent decision to bar kibitzers until all players have completed 12 boards. ...and disadvantages: --there are always complaints about waiting times, as the software requires at least three tables to be finished a board before shuffling the 12 or 16 players for the next round. In the late rounds this sometimes means a delay of five or more minutes. --the 20-30 tables gradually divide into groups of players of similar speed, and after the division is set about 7-10 boards in, these groups play among themselves for the most part. Often a player will play with or against the same partner/opponent two or three times. --The fastest tables are often done 30-45 minutes before the slowest. Fastest often simply means you were lucky enough to encounter nobody with connection problems, nobody who refuses to claim, and nobody who goes off to the bathroom for five minutes while waiting for a seat change that takes place one minute later. The 'unclocked but clocked' rule is: if you don't reach board 15 after two hours, or finish it in ten minutes or less, you get penalized for extra time used. Frequent announcements of where everyone should be keeps most people on time, and during the final few rounds I keep a close watch on the 3-4 tables in the slowest group to make sure that they don't encounter any difficulties, advise a time-saving claim, warn them that they'll need to make up time in the next round(s) etc. Recently I have been watching close enough to assign conditional penalties to the players at the last table to complete each of the last 3-5 boards, which protects the unfortunates who get drawn into the slow groups at the beginning and are at their mercy. Usually these conditional penalties are discardrd when everyone finishes in time. Another thing I have done which helps a great deal is I have moved my announcements to the middle of the first round, after I deal with sitouts and subs. I think this sort of thing may be the answer to the clocked/unclocked dilemma. Certainly the unclocked tournaments I play in take far longer than the advertised clock time, where Alphabet Points tourneys are never more than ten minutes over. My 'unclocked but clocked' format seems to have stopped the players who go overtime while still allowing the fast and lucky ones to finish in 70% of the total clock time. I think this might be a far-future wish-list item. The system could: --penalize late finishers 1 IMP or 1% per extra minute used. --inform players who are in the last 'group' that they must finish this round on clock time or they will get additional penalties added if they are also late finishing the event. --a second onscreen clock telling players how many minutes left in the event. --since most of the problems begin with round one difficulties, an option to hold round two until round one completed at all tables might help