ALERTS in ACBL BBO Tournys

[manig]

These bbids are rarely alerted, can TDs do something?

[glen]

To answer your question, yes.

 

Also to take advantage of the new chat-to-the-whole-tournament-while-it-is-going-on feature, send a message to "tournament" saying "Opponents should have alerted!". If everybody does it, the TDs will get the message, so to speak. However sooner or later somebody is going to say "7NT was cold partner!" before the rest has played the board, and then it will be hasta la vista feature.

 

Yesterday was interesting when one of players chatted to "tournament" and swore at the TD. It seemed a good chance for the TD to try out zero tolerance.

[fred]

The unintentional chat->tournament bug will be fixed in the next version.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Double !]

pardon my ignorance, Mani, (hi there) but what happens when you summon the director and inform the director that there was a failure to alert by opps? And, why aren't you being alerted prior to opening lead by the opps that there was a failure to alert?

 

How would this situation be handled in real life?

 

tx

DHL

[pigpenz]

pardon my ignorance, Mani, (hi there) but what happens when you summon the director and inform the director that there was a failure to alert by opps? And, why aren't you being alerted prior to opening lead by the opps that there was a failure to alert?

 

How would this situation be handled in real life?

 

tx

DHL

again this falls on the TD's. Manig has run into this i have run into this, they usually dont do anything other than say "play on" :( Thats why at one time there was a move to start a life masters game in the hopes that this type of stuff wouldnt happen.

 

Generally I myself think that the fault lies in that the games are too large for one TD to handle...sometimes 50+ tables. Everything technically falls under FD(full disclosure) but sometimes getting the info is worse than pullng teeth, more along the lines of the inquisition B)

 

So even though I dont like it I have just learned to live with it, matches are too short to even things out and TD's wont make a ruling or are inconsistent when they do.

[uday]

These bbids are rarely alerted, can TDs do something?

 

Yes, if you call them.

No if you don't B)

 

 

Call the TD and let him/her follow up.

[McBruce]

Handling a 'failure to alert' situation is almost the same online as it is offline.

 

1. Check to see if there actually was a failure to alert.

2. If there was, hear the non-offending side's claims of damage directly caused by the failure to alert.

3. Decide whether these claims are valid.

4. If they are, adjust the score if the hand is over; or, if the failure to alert was discovered before the play begins, allow some of the auction to be re-done in accordance with Law 21B, again adjusting the score if necessary.

 

The TD online should be able to see in the auction box whether the bid was alerted or not. The difficulty online comes in determining whether the bid SHOULD have been alerted, since we have widely-varying rules to decide what should be alerted. Most alerting regulations (including the ACBLs) say that if the non-offending side is probably aware what is going on, they cannot claim damage later. So if your tourney rules say that all conventions must be alerted, and the opponents forget to alert a 1-level negative double which is on their posted convention card, you may not get redress if you also play negative doubles and are listed as intermediate or higher.

 

But if the TD decides that the bid should have been alerted, he may well have to go onto the next step: deciding whether there was damage that was directly caused by the failure to alert. This can get fairly technical and is a judgment call. Most TDs will make some ruling to allow play to continue and look at it in detail when they have time. In the hurly-burly of online directing, some TDs do not find the time to inform the players fully that they are going to do this, or what their final decision is when made. It thus sometimes seems that the TD has simply said "play on" and ignored the whole thing, when in fact they may have had a good look and made a decision, but simply not found the time to communicate it properly--especially when online this may require translation.

 

On the other hand, most experienced TDs, online and offline, will tell you horror stories of players who seem to feel that there has to be a penalty for any offense, even if the offense did not have any effect on the result. There are even some online TDs who feel they must make a ruling whenever someone does something wrong. TDing is mostly about communication: if you concentrate on letting people know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what the Laws say, most will accept even the rulings that they disagree with!