Deliberate slow play?

[uday]

As we know, there are 2 basic types of tourneys.

 

a) UnClocked. The only goal of an unclocked movement is to reduce wait time inbetween rounds. This means playbacks for some pairs, especially at the fastest and slowest tables. On the other hand, there is no clock; each table can take as long as it likes to achieve a result for each board.

 

B) Clocked. This is an orderly ew-to-the-next-table-in-the-section movement.

If a table is still in play when the round is called (that is, when the clock hits zero), play is curtailed and AVE-Minus is assigned to all players (actually, AVE or AVEPlus, i believe, if an opponent is missing).

 

Anyway. I hear constant murmurs that some players deliberately slow down play to force an AVE-Minus. What do we think of this solution?

 

Keep track of how often a player has failed to finish a round. Use this data to either assign Zeros (when some threshold has been reached) or to restrict a person from playing in a hosts tourney (as an option, that is).

 

So, a host might be able to specify: "Disallow players with lots of incomplete boards", and the server could prevent players who have more than XX incomplete boards out of YY bds from playing in the tourney.

 

Or, the software could automatically assign sliding penalties; 1st slow play in a tourney, AVE-Minus. Second one, Zero.

 

Opinions?

[Cascade]

Sliding penalties are a good idea ...

 

but the director must be able to over-ride these.

 

There must be a way to accomodate players with legitimate problems.

 

Wayne

[mink]

hi Uday,

 

you cannot seriously asume that a player played slow because he sat at a table that did not finish a board.

 

But even if you measured the thinking time of each player, maybe the delay was caused by an interrupt he could neither foresee nor prevent - e.g. boss calling at the phone in the evening.

 

Therefore I strongly suggest not to assign any penalty that extends to subsequent tourneys to a player who has played slow.

 

Rather, the movement should be such that there are no such cases:

 

Clocked movement, but allow any unfinished boards to finish - except director abandons the play manually. Do not start a new board if less than 2 minutes time. Random or Swiss movement where next table for each pair is determined at the end of a round, so that some tables can finish the last round and these pairs are matched against each other when ready. Possible to implement this avoiding replays.

 

This way, you do not have unfinished boards (except those abandoned and assigned a score by director) but only unplayed ones. For those, Ave+ and Ave- should assigned automatically according to who was responsible for the delay that prevented the board from being played.

 

Karl

[McBruce]

I have only directed a few tourneys and none since a very hectic late summer for me began. But in the tourneys I directed I tried to "walk" from table to table when there were about 5 minutes or less in each round to see if anyone was having time problems. I imagine the slow play complaints come more often when the time per board is six minutes or less: with seven or more most will be finished in good time.

 

I also ask players to let me know (while continuing play) if there is a problem that will prevent them from finishing a board. If you train players well, they will know to message you with minor problems so you can deal with the full director calls first.

 

When I have to add a substitute, I monitor that table closely and offer them avg if they start the last board with less than 4 minutes left. An announcement that "you should be about to finish board x" (the penultimate board in the round) when there are about 9 minutes left will get some response from slow tables.

 

Now, this type of monitoring is going to be difficult in some of these mega-tourneys I have seen where one director handles 60 or 80 tables, but if you stick to Uday's guidelines and ask for help from available people if your attendance balloons, you can do this. It's all a matter of anticpating and keeping an eye on what's happening.

 

--McB

[hotShot]

Why would anyone play deliberate slow ?

 

Usually because he thinks that Ave- is better than what can be reached playing.

 

I tried to start a discussion on this at the directors board.

I would sugest a automatic of that kind:

1) If a contract is allready down,

it is scored as if declarer got the remaining tricks.

2) If a contract is made,

it is scored as if the defending side got the remaning tricks

3) If a clain is open, the table should be left open, untill it's accepted or

rejected.

4) both sides get Ave-

 

Situations where one could try to benefit from slow play, should minimal that way.

 

Probably it would be a good idee not to start a new board, if there is less then 3 min. left.

 

hotShot

[Rain]

I suggest clocked tourneys with 10 minutes per board. Once every table in a section (assigned randomly by computer) finishes, everyone moves automatically anyway. So it behaves like unclocked there. Of course, if there is 1 super slow pair, everyone will be held up. But you, the director will have more time to look into things. Its kinda obvious if you play super slow for 1 trick just to try to get Ave-, if the time you have to play with is 10 minutes (or more).

 

You can always note those who keep annoying you, the director by playing slow. Mark them as "enemies" and don't allow them into your tourneys.

 

 

 

Rain

[JRG]

Why would anyone play deliberate slow ?

 

Usually because he thinks that Ave- is better than what can be reached playing.

 

I tried to start a discussion on this at the directors board.

I would sugest a automatic of that kind:

1) If a contract is allready down,

it is scored as if declarer got the remaining tricks.

2) If a contract is made,

it is scored as if the defending side got the remaning tricks

3) If a clain is open, the table should be left open, untill it's accepted or

rejected.

4) both sides get Ave-

 

Situations where one could try to benefit from slow play, should minimal that way.

 

Probably it would be a good idee not to start a new board, if there is less then 3 min. left.

 

hotShot

 

I don't play in online tournaments very often (nothing to do with likes or dislikes - just awkward for me). So my comments are purely that.

 

Giving declarer the remaining tricks when the contract is already down may simply reward declarer's slow play and punish the non-offending opponents. For example, the declaring side has sacrificed against the opponents' game and are about to go down more than the game was worth -- now awarding declarer the remaining tricks may give him (or her) and impossible top!

 

Similarly with awarding tricks to the defending side when declarer has already made the contract (and even worse if it was a doubled contract). In this case, though, it probably matters more at IMPs (i.e. if doubled) and more at MPs (if not doubled).

 

Don't get me wrong though! Your method of dealing with slow play may be as good a guideline as any.