j_with_a_B

Curling is shuffleboard for frost-backs, hosers and Canknuckleheads...

If you are Curling while wearing ice skates then you may not know how most people play the game... I have never seen "curling balls" before... They must be made of stone!

I have no idea why BBO would want to shoot themselves in the foot. After several months since the pandemic started and online bridge grew so quickly, they now do this? The chat on another thread was along the lines that "Once the server problems are resolved, we will be able to allow tourneys to be larger again at most times of the day." This is a major reversal to those obvious platitudes. I have been hosting free tourneys on BBO for over 10 years and have helped with or run over 10,000 of them. There seems to be a mindset that players in free tourneys are a burden to the site and if they were cut back then more players would pay to play instead. Nearly half of my regular players have BBO Masterpoints. They pay to play in many tourneys but come to play in the free ones for a more relaxed mood and a more social environment. I manage two daily tourneys, H B G Goulash at 6:30 pm ET and Blonde Magic at 1:15 am ET. I set them up once a week for the coming week. As it is now, I have at least 8 "tickets" to create them. When the last one is all that remains, I copy 7 more ahead into the next week. This was not possible with Version 2 when first released and I pointed it out on this Forum. The next day the option to copy tourneys was implemented. It allows tourneys to be copied from a template which saves a lot of time and effort and reduces errors. Once a tourney is set the way it is wanted then copying that makes it very easy and foolproof to set up. Making such a retro move as eliminating THAT is nothing short of misbegotten punishment for folks like me or a blatant attempt to make things much more difficult to the extent that we would give up and go find another site. I understand there is new management involved but I see they have neither experience with this site nor an aptitude for seeing the unintended consequences of poorly considered actions. I would like not to think this is an act of malice due to some erroneous notion that Free Tourneys are harmful to BBO. I have many *STAR* players as regulars, and they often play with players new to the site. They find the free tourneys a great way for them to get used to the software and gain some experience in how tournaments run before moving on to play in more competitive tourneys for ACBL and BBO Masterpoints. I notice many regulars that have started in our free tourneys as new members and watch them accumulate Masterpoint ranks over the years. I truly hope this is nothing more than a trial balloon and it is promptly popped and deflated and tossed away. It is time to go back to what was promised and start INCREASING the size of free tourneys during off-peak hours, not crippling them.

Now that a few weeks have passed and the new usage pattern at BBO has become known and stable could it not be time to further increase tournament sizes for free tourneys during the off peak hours? I think it is fine to not have any free tournaments during those daily times when BBO has 40,000+ people logged on and several dozen tournaments are running. Later in the day that number falls quickly to around 20,000 around 6-7pm ET, yet tournament sizes are limited to 40 tables. Six hours later, that number falls to less than 10,000 and maybe only a dozen or so tournaments running for a few hours after the Western Hemisphere goes to bed and Europe has yet to wake up. Surely at that time of the day when the system is only at a quarter of the load as 12 hours earlier it could handle much less restricted sized tournaments. I think that BBO would be misguided when if it starts thinking that "Free" tournaments are an unproductive burden on the site. I manage 2 tournaments daily and approximately half of the players there in each have Masterpoint Awards showing they have spent considerable money on BB$ to earn them. They come to play in some of the free ones for a lighter, less serious, more relaxing game as a break from Speedball and others. Many new players come to the free tourneys to get used to the software and the site before risking serious money and frustration in the more serious events. Now that a few more weeks have passed, please consider further changes to the limitations imposed during the off peak hours. The system has shown it can handle much more than is being allowed now. John Branscombe Hosting as j_with_a_B for the Happy Bridge Group (H B G) and Blonde Magic (BlondMagic)

I would suggest that being a playing TD is unwise. Pick a lane and stay in it! Doing both at the same time is not fair to your P and opps as well as to the rest of the players in the tourney. Regardless of how well one may think he can do either, it is not possible to do both at the same time.

Perhaps traditional tables and regular non robot tournaments could be on separate servers? Whatever you can do to allow BBO to adapt and grow and prosper is always welcome!

It is hard for any long time TD's not to notice the severe "temporary" restrictions placed on our tourneys recently. I understand there is a recent increase in the number of groups clamoring to find a place to host their numerous formerly Live Bridge groups and I hope that they find BBO an excellent place to play instead during the current widespread quarantine situation affecting much of the world. I hope that many will get to know the site and find it a suitable place to play long after things return to normal in the rest of the real live world. I can fully understand the sense in restricting the size of tournaments that are being run by inexperienced TD's that are newly arrived and just getting used to the site and the software. I am sure that part of the rationale for the size limitations must be to limit the traffic. However... The automatic tournament size restrictions seem to be causing problems for all the tournaments that have been running for years before this new situation arose. When I arrive to host my daily regular tournaments I am barraged with pleas from frustrated angry regular players that ask for me to raise the limit when I cannot. There are a number of, I hope unintended, consequences. On reviewing other forum posts recently I see many of the newly installed TD's expressing concern that they do not know how to keep players that are not members of their private group excluded. Naturally, when one tourney fills up people look for another to join, thereby making the new group much less "exclusive" than they wish. I hear the frustrations of players that have played near daily for more over a dozen years in my tourneys and understand why they are so upset, and feel that I am punishing them for some inexplicable reason. I know that several TD's have resorted to hosting multiple tournaments simultaneously in order to satisfy the demands of their regular players. It seems silly as a workaround and is quite awkward but possible. Surely having many more tourneys running on the servers for any same given number of players on the site is as much, if not more, of a load on the system as far fewer larger tourneys. There are no warnings given either to the players or TD's that a size restriction is being inflicted. The loyalty of BBO's regular clientele is being sacrificed. Both players and other TD's have expressed their intent to me to find other sites they think may be more welcoming. And, in a pre-emptive move, I would like to refute the often trotted out argument that the free tourneys on the site do not matter since they generate no revenue. IF that were true then all the Star players I see and the ones with hundreds of BBO Masterpoints would never be caught playing in our tourneys! Many of them come to play in free tourneys to introduce their friends to the site and the software before trying their hand at earning Masterpoints or playing in the ACBL events. I truly hope this is truly a TEMPORARY situation and not going to be the norm for the indefinite future or until the Covid-19 issue is over. BBO, please rise to the challenge and do whatever it takes to grow the site to handle the situation! At the very least review the logic in the tourney size limits in the first place! If it is to keep the site from crashing due to the overwhelming load, them consider putting the limitation at the front door! Once the site reaches a load considered to be at the limit then why not restrict further logins instead of rearranging the size and number of tourneys allowed? PS. I there any reason that the same tourney size restrictions apply whether there are 40,000 people logged in as when there are only 6,000 or less? That really is baffling! John Branscombe (j_with_a_B) TD for The Happy Bridge Group - (H B G) and Blonde Magic - (BlondMagic)

There seems to be a new contagious disease threat beyond the Covid-19 currently in the news. It affects a smaller portion of the population. It is caught and passed on to victims that share a certain mental deficiency and seems to affect only certain people. They think they are special and that they can never catch a contagious disease and are sure their laziness and dimwittedness will protect them. "Moronavirus" is potentially far more devastating than Covid-19.

Yes! I use it a lot! Just load the board and play it through to the last trick in play and press the GIB button or do it at the table if it is still in play and GIB will show the possible outcomes for each possible play. Green numbers indicate overtricks for declarer, red ones undertricks and an equals sign (=) a contract just made. HOWEVER, caution must be used as well! It is most important to ALWAYS give the benefit of the doubt to the player that is about to play the next card! You must assume the declarer will try to take as many tricks as possible and that the opps will try to set them as much as they can. You also may have to make the not always true assumption that the players involved remember what has been played and want to win.

If you right click on a disconnected player a popup menu appears that will offer (among other things) either "Replace with Substitute - any" and "Replace with Substitute - see list" or words to that effect. You can decide there. If a player can see the tables of the tourney and clicks the Substitute button, then they become listed as a sub for that tourney. If they click on it otherwise then they are available to be called on by any tourney. You can reseat players that have been replaced, but I, as a TD, and most subs, consider that to be bad form unless the sub clearly consents. They may consent, but still consider it tacky. Subs are precious and should never be abused or taken for granted. Without them, many tourneys would never be able to finish at all, or only do so with mostly Averaged scores assigned for many of the boards. As far as the best times to run a tourney, that is debatable. I would say that the total number of players on BBO and the number of players disconnecting and the number of players willing to sub all vary in close proportion to each other, making sub availability a minor practical concern. Scheduling open free tourneys that start at the exact same time with the exact same parameters has always been deemed to be inconsiderate, indeed even predatory, when there are only a few players on the site. Changes like goulash versus normal bridge, or Individual versus Pairs, or restrictions according to country or language, among other things help differentiate them. Most recently, however, with the highly restricted tourney size limits and abundance of new people and groups hosting, this is much less of an issue than it once was. If you schedule a tourney for any particular time and no one comes to play, you should take that as a clear clue another time may be better! :)

If they are frozen or otherwise cannot play, just ask them exit BBO and come right back. They will be re-seated at the same place. That usually helps them get a better connection. If they cannot do that, nor can they reply or acknowledge that request, then they may be truly frozen and would need to be replaced.

To not replace the sitouts at all would mean that there will be a table in every round that will not be able to play that round. Far better to replace them than not. Substitute players should be welcomed, not avoided. If not for them to fill out a table then when there is an odd number of pairs registered, one pair would have to be excluded at random. To avoid subs completely would mean many tourneys could never end without TD's having to adjust each remaining board to Ave== to reach the end. This is just my opinion, and if exclusivity is paramount, then I think what you propose is workable. I would suggest you make your adjustment at the start of each round so it is clear to the pair that is there that the round is over as soon as it started.

The clock in the unclocked tourneys is to determine if a table will continue to play the rest of the boards in the round. When unclocked, any table not starting to bid a hand with at least 4 minutes left on the clock will have the rest of that round cancelled. Averages, A==, are assigned by BBO to both sides, and players don't even see the cards. If they have seen the cards for a hand they will be able to finish it regardless of what the clock says. In an unclocked tourney the clock is reset for each table each time a new round starts. The slowest tables at the end are usually due to people having to wait for others earlier in the tourney to finish a round before they can move on. The fastest players play each new round with other fast players right away and usually move on through the whole tourney much quicker. If a table is slow and misses a hand in a round I will neither reward nor punish either side for a hand they cannot play and they don't even see! I prefer unclocked to clocked tourneys since there is never a need to go and make adjustments on tables that time out playing the last tricks of a hand.

Such vandalistic players like this are, thankfully, few but often seen. My policy is to keep notes on such players and blacklist them so they cannot join my tourneys, to begin with. Unfortunately, for reasons I do not know, BBO will still allow them to sub. I have to watch for them and replace them as soon as I can when they sub in. A player that intentionally comes to spoil a tourney for others is guilty of rudeness that should see them banned from the site. A four-year-old having a hissy fit tantruming on the floor while holding his breath kicking and screaming will eventually come out of it. It would be a great help to all TD's that if players are on the "Ignore" list of the host and they are excluded from a tourney that they ALSO be unable to sub in the same tourney. Then, when there is the ongoing sub shortage they would not be able to sabotage during the time it takes for a sub to become available. On a related topic, and perhaps not appropriate here, it would be a wonderful blessing to all TD's if robots could be made available as a last resort to use as subs. With the recent additions of so many automated and robot tourneys and various ways to play solitaire the previously usually abundant sub-pool has greatly diminished. Players short of time but with enough available to play a few hands used to look for games to sub in. Now there are so many options for them to play in instead that we often run short of subs. In the last year or so I have had to cancel far more tourneys than I ever did in the ten years before that due to the chronic sub shortage, especially early in the tourney. (When it occurs in the final round many tables get ended with Ave ++ just to clear the table.) Having robots available to sub would be a cure to that ongoing problem. John j_with_a_B

Very true. But it becomes obvious that skill at cheating is the only one involved when the margin of the win is so wide and consistent. Even champions do not win all the time. It is hard to believe that something more than skill in the game is not involved when players bid their partners' suits, always make finesses that most would never try and lead to P's voids instead of their bid suits. Skill and luck are no match for foreknowledge. I very often argue on behalf of the accused in their defense when I realize they play well and do so several times every day, day after day with their regular partner of several decades. I am lucky to have had the chance to get to know most of my regulars and their levels of competence. When 2 players are partners and both nicknames are new to BBO and created the same day or only a few days apart or are names I have never seen before they often catch my attention. When they score in the high 80's in Match Points over 9 or more boards even one time I tend to note them mentally. If they return and come first or second every day for a week or more I cannot help but be more suspicious. As I said, in the past I often would blacklist them until a new pair with the same patterns quickly took their place. I am hoping some sort of software tool can be developed that can examine such cases objectively so the burden of detection and analysis is somewhat lifted from the TD's. My tourneys are all free ones and there are no Master Points at stake and the prize money is not a factor. I appreciate BBO's policy that in these free tourneys the Hosts and TD's are free to exclude anyone for any reason, no questions asked or justification needed. I am sure I have blacklisted a few players in error in the past. I know I allow some to continue to play that other TD's have long prohibited. The respectable players would simply prefer not to swim in a pool where the top is covered in pond scum. Surely a decent tool for analysis of hands for evidence that one player or pair of players may have known more about other hands in the deal than they should have been able to would be worth developing. BBO would be the ideal place for it to be developed. From what I hear, the world of high level international competitive bridge could benefit from something of the sort if only to exonerate some high money prize winners of wrongdoing. John