Alert Box Improvement

[A2003]

I type the description of the alert in the alert box before making the bid.

Then, Opponent asks the meaning again by clicking on the bid.

Example: 1NT alert box "15 17"

Now, when I click on the check block which is on the TOP right hand corner, "No information available" APPEARS.

It is required to retype the same message in the alert box.

Suggest retaining the old message until it is replaced.

This will save some time during the tournament.

 

Second one:

Is there anyway to avoid clicking more than once even when it is not an alert?

I feel, if some one wants spade lead, it is possible to click on the bid several times which contain spade bid and asks the partner to lead spade.

This will minimize some unauthorized messages.

 

Thanks.

[fred]

If you click the OK button (instead of the X or the Cancel button), you will not get "No information available" and you will not have to type in your bid again.

 

If people want to cheat there are much easier and more efficient ways to do it than the method you suggest. So I am not going to lose any sleep over this (which is just as well since I am not getting much sleep these days).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[pigpenz]

similar to my post :P

we all know Fred and Udays policy in ACBL games that hesitations or whatever are do to internet connections ;) wink wink

 

but i never that of that one before asking about a one level bid to suggest a lead or a bid amazing on my post it was my partner that asked what 2♥ was to stayman.

[Free]

Perhaps it would be interesting to have the ability of using a FD-like explanation for alerts. It's a lot clearer, and more information is available.

 

The next step would obviously be a 'learning module' which saves all these explanations in a FD file (if you want) ;)

[Mr. Dodgy]

Perhaps it would be interesting to have the ability of using a FD-like explanation for alerts. It's a lot clearer, and more information is available.

 

The next step would obviously be a 'learning module' which saves all these explanations in a FD file (if you want) ;)

I would happily submit to this. I HATE asking for an explanation or clarification of a bid and getting "Capp", "Wilkosz", or "Suction" in reply. The current alert system's simplicity is charming but of questionable efficacy.

 

I think, in time, FD will take the 'next step', but we may need to be patient. I would LOVE to have a full FD file compiled for my system automatically by BBO - I'm too lazy or busy or something to sit down and do it manually B)

[Mr. Dodgy]

similar to my post B)

we all know Fred and Udays policy in ACBL games that hesitations or whatever are do to internet connections ;) wink wink

 

but i never that of that one before asking about a one level bid to suggest a lead or a bid amazing on my post it was my partner that asked what 2♥ was to stayman.

I'm not even sure I understand this post, but I agree with fred - if you regard every hesitation or request with suspicion, you could find an awful lot of suspects out there without real good reason. Some people's connections ARE bad. Some people are disabled and can't type quickly. I'm not disabled and I can't type well and I quite frequently have minor accidents which threaten to result in the loss of beer while playing on BBO (there may be a relationship here...I'll test it ;) .

 

I WILL ask for further explanation of an alert I consider insufficient. Yeah asking about 2♥ in response to Stayman is a little unusual, but imo it's still a fair question. Some variations on Stayman do exist - 2♥ may or may not deny 4♠s. It may promise 5♥s. Sure, opps SHOULD alert these sorts of variations, but many don't.

[Echognome]

If you click the OK button (instead of the X or the Cancel button), you will not get "No information available" and you will not have to type in your bid again.

 

If people want to cheat there are much easier and more efficient ways to do it than the method you suggest. So I am not going to lose any sleep over this (which is just as well since I am not getting much sleep these days).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

I agree with you that there are other ways to cheat, but I still feel perhaps a slight alteration in the code could improve people from trying to use THIS way to cheat. It is also annoying when you fully explain a bid (usually by FD for myself) and then get people clicking on your bids.

 

Since opponents always have the ability to ask privately, perhaps when clicking on a bid, it brings up the private chat message or sends an automated private chat message "could you please explain what 2X means" or the like. However, if the BIDDER writes an explanation on his or her own accord, then it shows up for everyone. That way, the fact that a question was asked is only known to the person that asks it.

 

Alternatively, the software can be kept as is, but the fact that a bid has been explained AFTER IT HAS BEEN CLICKED ON BY ONE OPP is only known to that opponent (using the same type of coding that hides the explanation to partner). Then if the other opponent happens to click on the bid, it can show up with it's explanation as the default and we can simply hit ok.

 

I only mention this because I hope that it would be quite a simple programming change. However, since I am not a programmer, I cannot say whether it is easy or difficult.

 

P.S. Sorry to hear you have not been getting good sleep.

[fred]

The reason I designed things so that both opponents receive the information when one of them makes a query was to prevent the player who made the bid from having to answer the same question twice. I figured that, if one opponent did not understand the meaning of a bid, there was a good chance that the other one would have to ask as well.

 

No doubt there are other ways we could achieve the same thing, but given all the other things we have going on, making changes in this area should be seen as (very) low priority in my view.

 

I have to admit that it never occurred to me that people would use this part of the program to cheat. But even if I had thought of this, our general policy is to not limit functionality in an effort to make cheating more difficult. The reason is that cheating will always be trivial regardless of what we do and we don't want to make life harder for our (hopefully mostly honest) members in an effort to try to stop something that can't be stopped.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[pigpenz]

there have been times when i am attempting to type in what a bid means ans while i am doing it the other opp clicks on the info button, which then means i have to start typing over and sends "no information avail" to the bidding box and then brings the TD to the table as opp says they wont answer my question.

 

FD has been in the works for a year i assume but probably in the ACBL games less than 25% of players use it. Everyone has to post a conv card it even becomes annoying when opps click on for you to explain your 1nt bid when they could just as easily look at your convention card....i guess we just live in an imperfect world.

[DrTodd13]

In the tinker-toy system I wrote, if one person asked a question I would get the answer from the bidder and then send the answer only to the person that asked. I would also cache the answer so that if the other opp asked that he would be returned the same answer. I hadn't done it yet but eventually you would want a small delay built in so that you couldn't tell whether pd had previously asked the question or not.

[1eyedjack]

The reason I designed things so that both opponents receive the information when one of them makes a query was to prevent the player who made the bid from having to answer the same question twice.

I think that a happy compromise could be possible:

 

The typed information is made only available to the person who clicks.

But if the second opponent clicks for an explanation (that has already been provided to the first opponent) then he automatically gets the latest explanation displayed to him, without the requirement to re-type.

 

The lack of delay between clicking on a bid and receiving an explanation would perhaps alert you to the fact that your partner had already asked for the explanation.

 

This method could be extended to a situation where an explanation is volunteered without any enquiry. In that case the explanation would not be automatically displayed to EITHER opponent, BUT the alert box would be flagged. Having seen the alert, EITHER (or both) player(s) could then click on the bid and, if already explained, the explanation would be displayed. In that way an "instant" display could be explained by a precompleted explanation, not necessarily because of partner's enquiry, an element of doubt that can only be a good thing.

[fred]

Sorry if I have not been clear about this or if people disagree with me, but the fundamental issue here is that I think it would be a poor use of my (very limited) time to do ANY work in this area right now. There are a lot of more important things I am working on.

 

This is especially true when you consider that the only reason this is an issue at all is that apparently some people are using this area of the program to cheat. I can't imagine that there are massive numbers of people who are doing this. If you play against such people, you would be wise to simply mark them as enemies and stay away from them in the future. Even if I tried to eliminate this method of cheating many other methods would still exist and cannot be prevented - I suspect the "alert cheaters" would simply switch to some other method.

 

No doubt our honest members would not want to play against people who use ANY method of cheating. So if you think they are using this method, don't play against them.

 

Besides that, there are benefits to having both players notified when either of them makes a query. Besides that, it is not always obvious that your partner made a query - perhaps the player who made the bid volunteered the information.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[1eyedjack]

the fundamental issue here is that I think it would be a poor use of my (very limited) time to do ANY work in this area right now.

Absolutely agree on that