money bridge question

[Flame]

I started playing money bridge again and it turn out that there is a new strategy used by some players. Whenever they see a bad board they stop playing waiting for the game to terminate due to time limit.

For now every time this happend i was ok with the result i got but i still feel like there is something wrong here.

[Rain]

When time is up, for whatever reason, and board is not completed, GIB robots play out the board from the time the play stopped, and that result is then taken, and accounts are adjusted based on that.

 

It is unlikely that players who leave boards they think are "Bad" will obtain good scores from this strategy. Obviously, anomlies happen, but its unlikely.

[Flame]

Rain i know this and think its a great thing and so far its doing its work yet i believe you should keep track on the leaving thing just like you do in other tables if someone has an habbit of leaving he atleast should be notify that its not allright to do that.

[Trysalot]

There have been times I have "left" like that in the middle of a hand. It is not necessarily a hand that I know will give me a bad result. One time it was a clear slam for my side the minute the bot's declarer hand showed to me as the lead to the 6 level contract was made.

 

So, yes, occasionally, and sometimes several times over the span of a week, I will just stop playing and let the timer run to get me out of the table within a minute or so. But, unless I am at a table where chat is disallowed, I always send chat to my human opp telling him/her that I am stopping to let system figure the result and why. Opps have ALWAYS said TU, NP. And, when chat is disallowed, I will within a few minutes of leaving like that send a mail message of apology to the opp to read later.

 

My reason for departing that way is ALWAYS the same. Since we can receive and send private chat from money bridge tables, which we cannot do in ACBL, BBO etc. masterpoint tourneys, people who have me marked as "friend" will see me in money bridge and send me proposals to play the next ACBL tourney. If the person logged on just before game time and I accept the proposal and send chat asking how many minutes to start time (because the schedule is not exact; start of pairs and speedball are staggered) and the answer is 2 minutes, I have to get out of the money bridge table immediately.

 

In such a situation, I have already accepted the proposal, the system will not pull me from a money bridge table as it will from a table in the main bridge club or other social play room and drop me to the ACBL tourney table, and if I am not in a lobby at start time to be delivered to the tourney table then the partnership is cancelled and my partner would be disappointed at not getting to play.

 

If we are at an ACBL table and I am disconected, a sub can be gotten for my partner. But, as I found out one night when it happened, I was disconnected at the time the system started to put people at the tables, and when I got back I found out we were not in the tourney. So, similarly, if I am still in the money bridge table at start time because a bot stopped several times to do its scan to decide its next play and the hand is taking longer than usual to finish, I have done a great disservice to my partner by having accepted the proposal and might not get to partner that person again because he/she will be angry with me. The lesser evil is to insure I get out of the money bridge table by not making my next bid or play and letting the time run out to close the table.

 

So I do whatever I have to do to get to the ACBL tourney for which I just accepted a proposal. But I am careful to NEVER leave like that without telling my human opp I am doing it and why. The only time I ever leave without saying anything is when I have a disconnect which of course is beyond my control and does happen sometimes as a dialup user whose ISP has an occasional connection problem.