Undo rqst- seen by all?

[belladonna]

Was under the impression that when a player ask for undo (in tourney) his partner can not see this,seem I was wrong - was advised by BBO that his partner can see him asking for undo.

 

Is that the way it should be?

 

just wonderfing,any comments?

[1eyedjack]

I think you are right - undo requests are seen by all, and that is how I think it should be, on balance, although I can see how it could lead to UI on occasion.

 

If the game is played properly, undo requests (provided that they are allowed at all) should almost never be refused. They should only be requested in the case of misclicks or the like. The laws allow for such bids to be retracted, and in practice the way that the software achieves this is to provide the opponents with the discretion to allow or refuse the undo, which in truth gives them a greater degree of power than that intended by the laws.

 

Once an undo request is accepted, it becomes obvious to the partner of the requester that such a request has been made, and concealing the original request becomes something of an irrelevance.

 

If an undo request is rejected, then something has already gone amiss. Either the rejection is in appropriate or the request is inappropriate. Should the partner of the requester be kept in the dark, if his partner made a misclick and the opponents insist on capitalising on it? The opponents, after all, not only require him to abide by his misclick but also can take advantage of the knowledge of the fact.

[belladonna]

some tournies ( like mine) allowed undo for misclick BID only,player ( maybe unaware of this ) request undo on card play - and that is not allowed - so if opp reject this they did nothing wrong - but ui info was passed.

was suggested to me either allow undo for both - or not allow undo at all,seem thats t only solution.

[1eyedjack]

Perhaps a useful addition to the software would be for the tourney host to be able to disable the undo request button (a) throughout the tourney or (b) throughout the cardplay within the tourney. So, in your case, the undo button would become greyed out once the auction is concluded.

 

Incidentally, as I recall, at the risk of thread drift I would prefer it if the software treated the auction as concluded once the opening lead is faced and not before, so that there would remain an option (if Undos are allowed) for the final pass to be undone. If dummy has set his options to kibbitz declarer then declarer's cards would likewise not be exposed to dummy until after the opening lead is faced. This is I think the treatment at some other bridge sites and I commend it to the house.