Not playing "no adjustments" anymore

[anssibragge]

Well, I attended Sigth's ind. tournament.

 

I didn't take notice of the tournament rule "no adjustments" before signing. From now on I will.

 

Twise the opponents bid too high, and then played too slow and we got Ave- for a lot of IMPs. (Cross IMPs) :(

 

First, opponents playing 3NTX where surely noone else doubles, and it would have been -4 with the current playing. 800 against nothing.

 

Then later the opponents go in 4H which simply can't make, and was already -1 - and others won't bid that easily. And again too slow.

 

Shite.

 

abe (abragge)

[inquiry]

Many have wondered why run a tournment and then do no adjustments. This happens in a couple of cases. Case 1 is in the beginner/intermediate lounge events, as the purpose of the tournments is to provide a friendly atmosphere and a learning evironment (not only to improve bridge skills, but also the mechanics of a tournment) -- although when I direct there, I do adjust. Case 2 might be very large events with only one TD, where the TD has no chance to make a ton of corrections. The third case will be "automatic, unattended tournments" where there is no tournment director... should those events ever be initiated.

 

But Abe, the advise you give should be followed by everyone: PLEASE READ THE TOURNMENT DESCRIPTION before you sign up. There are a number of things. Some say "for people from France only", or for "advance or higher only", or "precision only", or "For people playing systems that are not standard in their own country (the fish out of water ones). Others sign up only to find that the minutes per round are too short or too fast to their liking. Others with only an hour to play, sign up for ones that will clearly last 2 hours or more, and have to leave in the middle. I myself don't play in ones with less than 7 minutes per board, and like you, I avoid ones with no adjustments, as it just doesn't seem like good bridge to have already taken 7 tricks on defense against 3NTX and then get average minus when if you just stop there you win 8 imps.

 

Ben

[Rain]

As an occasional TD, I don't like adjusting scores because

 

1)I don't feel that I have the requisite skill set--ie, adequete knowledge of bridge laws and technical skill. You may well ask why someone as amaeturish as I is directing tourneys...I guess reason is I feel that I am able to direct non-serious tournaments, just not serious ones.

 

2)Sometimes I don't adjust for anyone at all because if I can't do it for everyone, it is unfair to adjust for some and not for others.

 

3)TD can't know exact circumstance if its a time issue, unless he/she has been kibitzing that table since the start of round. (Almost impossible) Who knows which party has been slower or took up more than their fair share of time...?

 

I do adjust sometimes when it is a clear cut case. Anyway

 

As an occasional T player, I don't like adjusted scores because

 

1) I feel play slower than recommended time requires some sort of punishment. Of course, non-serious bbo tourneys are definitely much more lax than erm, Bermuda Bowl? But also, online access time is precious to many of us. If tourney states 8 minutes a board and someone knows he can't play within that time, yet still joins tourney, he/she deserves to get a bad score (and I think Ave - is much too kind. Deserves 0 ?) If they drag down innocent parties like Abe, Abe should get the score they would have gotten had contract made.

 

2) I also feel for the reason mentioned above adjusting score sometimes is inequitable. If someone deserves to get bottom for slow play and TD adjusts that score to something else and that affects my own board, I don't like it much. I guess all in, its because I agree that BBO tourneys are less official, less strict, so most TDs including myself are not "real" live TDs...

 

--------------

 

Hey on a side note, I have a suggestion :

 

Let directors adjust score in another manner too--award bonuses/penalties that will not affect the boards?

 

Eg.

 

What do you think of a change in the slow play penalty? If someone plays slow on purpose (and that is the only reason score can be adjusted, slow play that exceeds time limit caused by "thinking" should not be adjusted. Its just a fact that one has to accept...) that person/pair should get 0. For excessive and deliberate slow play, directors can exact a penalty of 1MP or 1IMP or something like that.

 

Similarly, director can give bonuses to the suffering victims. These bonuses are extras that are added on at the end of the tournament to calculate ranking/scores.... If 32 tables play, 1 table has deliberate slow play, 1 table has deliberate misalert, that round's MP is compared across 31 tables because the 1 table that hasn't finished (due to slow play) is not scored.

 

1) Slow play pair gets 0 (or more depending on how aggravating they are)

 

2) Slow play victim gets bonus equivalent to what they would have gotten under normal circumstance.

 

3) Misalerting pair gets normal penalty..like in real bridge. Their victims too. So their result still gets compared...

 

 

 

Rain

[Gweny]

Hey on a side note, I have a suggestion :

 

Let directors adjust score in another manner too--award bonuses/penalties that will not affect the boards?

 

Eg.

 

What do you think of a change in the slow play penalty? If someone plays slow on purpose (and that is the only reason score can be adjusted, slow play that exceeds time limit caused by "thinking" should not be adjusted. Its just a fact that one has to accept...) that person/pair should get 0. For excessive and deliberate slow play, directors can exact a penalty of 1MP or 1IMP or something like that.

 

Rain

;) Oh YES PLEASE. tee hee maybe we need "Yes I read description" thing. Tonight one player yell at me for "dismissing him with out warning and with out his permission."

 

I say to him - do you read description? (I think no!)

 

On topic of time events- yes it is very annoying to find people who no intention of playing 7 min or 8 min boards signing up for time events. People they play suffer and if it is large tournament maybe director(s) busy subbing people do not find time to make adjustments.

 

On topic of intentional slow play to avoid bad results - YES PLEASE THINK OF penalty where we ability to penalize naughty people without skewing results of entire tournament!

 

This slow playing to avoid bad results is very annoying form of CHEATING. I think it is very disgusting and very sad. My simple solution for this in last round is extend time. But this is not fair for all people is waiting to see results. (maybe we need Table of Shame award?)

 

Gweny

[inquiry]

Interestig ideas, rain.

 

1) I am not in favor of awarding bonus values to one side. However, the ability to sanction by removing values from the other would be ok with me. For example, I would not like to give a 0% MP to one partnership as a remedy for some action if that meant their opponents got an unjustified 100%. The reason, is the pair getting the 100% only because they were at the table with the person who is being sanctioned. However who this hurts is everyone else at the other tables. So the ability to give AVERAGE+ to non-offending side and zero to the evil doers would be ok with me.

 

2) I agree with the premise that it is unfair to adjust some scores in an event for some partnerships, but not others. So at the very least, directors should be consistent in their actions

 

3) IF as director you feel unsure about who caused the time problem AND you can not solve what hte likely result would have been if time hand not run out, AND you can not get a consesus from the players on what the result would have been, you could always change average minus to average or average plus. Perhpas, giving average plus to the side you think was damanged most by the slow play and average to the other.

 

4) If you don't feel qualified to adjust scores, this doesn't mean you should not run tournments... I would just entitle them "social" or "just for fun", and I would add no adjustments in the title. In addition, if I wasn't going to do adjustments, I would either run a no-clock event (so time is not a scoring issue...but has isssue of its own), or I would add more time per round than say if I ran an event where I was willing to make judgement calls on hands where time runs out.

 

Ben

[newmoon]

In the tourneys I run, I tend not to adjust for slow play UNLESS a player has called me to report slow play at least 3 min before the end of the round. Firstly, I warn" --- time ---" or " --- 3 min ---".

 

If it is 4Hx, e.g., playing 6th trick and 2 min left and declarer plays slowly, and declarer is -1 already and there is another trump trick for the opps, BUT NOTHING ELSE, I adjust there and then.

 

Why should the opps get Ave- when they seeked TD's assistance before-hand?

 

;) Newmoon

[Rain]

Its not an original idea actually. I thought that's what they do in real tournaments like bermuda bowl?

 

Eg, slow play. I thought they award penalty for slow play? 1 IMP penalty every 1 minute late, or something like that. Ok this is IMP. But if its an MP national pairs event, should extra penalties for something like late play count and be compared across all boards too?

 

Hmm, ok it depends on what they do in major pairs meet..I have no idea really. If MP penalties are exacted, then its just like what I proposed for BBO--independent penalties that will not skew results.........

 

 

 

Rain

[uday]

In normal ACBL tourneys, the director starts hovering when you start falling behind. This is not workable with a lot of slow players, of course.

 

One difference is that online, we *can* assign A-- and force people to move. In real life, the TD cannot.

 

A TD that really doesnt want to deal w/this can setup long time intervals for a clocked tourney (say, 10 mins per board). Now, one slow pair will make everyone wait.

 

But if we provided the director a means by which the slow tables could be identified, the TD could assign an adjusted score.

 

I dont like independent penalties but i can see i will have to implement them at some point. Similarly for a player clock.

[Gerardo]

Not sure at all about TD inability to assign Ave- to both parties in f2f, in fact only thing necessary is that the board can't be played and that both parties be at fault (I know, not easy. But not impossible.)

 

Procedural (independent) penalties has other applications, too, from (repeated) misalerting (Polish 1§ explained as "12+" anyone?)*, rudeness, slow play, the occasional wacko who opens 7NT, etc, etc, etc.

 

Sadly, I think that's the only way for some people to get it, maybe they can learn that way.

 

BTW, I read in EBU White Book preferred syntax of average is A4060 and A6040, which accomodates the procedural penalties (A6030 would include a standard penalty, 10% of a top in MP). See EBU White Book 2004.

 

But still another way for input penalties would be needed, to assign them in individual tourneys, to player at fault, but not to occasional partner

 

 

* In this case, I think amend their CC for the rest of tourney would be even better, so they have to open any 12+ 1§ for the rest of the tourney. I know, mean. But deserved, IMO

[newmoon]

Eg, slow play. I thought they award penalty for slow play? 1 IMP penalty every 1 minute late, or something like that. - Rain

 

The problem with online bridge is that you are not 100% sure if declarer plays slowly deliberately, or whether he has a bad connection. For that matter, there is no such thing as "hesitations" on online bridge for the same reason.

 

:) Newmoon

[uday]

Y, this is why a player clock is not easy to implement. Server could have "paused" just as it was a players turn to bid.

[anssibragge]

Although one can have connection problems, a clock to time both sides would show which side has "caused" the time problems, and would at least help the TD to see that if one side has used 7min and one side 2min, AND the result is a pending -3 in 3NTX for the long needing party.....

 

abe

[anssibragge]

I'm playing at the moment an Indy, round 11/14. On round 10 we had a player who was disconnected from arriving to table all the time.

 

The system should of course notice something like that and assign some proper score for that. Unfortunately there were no subs there either.

 

BTW, the ability to see the subs list is nice. (Must be beta-feature?)

 

abe

[anssibragge]

Excuse my wording "system should of course notice". :P

 

I don't know how the stuff is programmed and can't give suggestions to how much effot programming something like that takes.

 

I only thought it from the bridge side. And for that said "of course". It might take some effort to code the player clocks, as at least in my humble opinion this feature would be a part of that.

 

abe

[anssibragge]

*Sigh*

 

As I mentioned, I was playing a minute ago this indy, 14 rounds.

 

On round 12 the opponent playing a ridiculous 5!sX and falling vulnerable a couple tricks (cross IMPs), just let it go.

 

And we get -3 IMPs. The director 'director1' did not even reply to my calls for corretion, sent him a message first right after and then 1 board later.

 

The tournament is #665, my final result was #4, but according to the traveller, -2 or 500 meaning 9 IMPs from this board I would have been the the clear #1. :P

 

The board can be seen from http://www.bragge.org/misc/BBO/indy665.doc (unfortunately as a Word file, could not save it at the moment in other form)

 

abe

[mink]

Y, this is why a player clock is not easy to implement. Server could have "paused" just as it was a players turn to bid.

Hi Uday,

 

this is how I would implement recording times:

 

Client measures that time the player is thinking, just the time between receiving the action of RHO until the players own action. This period of time is sent along with the players action. The server can subtract this from the period of time between the actions as measured by the server, yielding the time the information was busy travelling through the internet.

 

Karl

[uday]

Prob I have w/simple measurement like this is sometimes the entire server can be delayed. For instance, the following events occur

 

a) it is your turn to bid, so server logs: Start Time

:D Server now starts up a 150 table tourney : Delay, 10 secs.

c) your bid - which you made promptly - arrives

d) I add 10 secs to your clock.

 

I'm sure there is a better way, but it would probably involve sending up timestamps w/each bid. Or having the client measure elapsed time and sending it up. So whatever the final ans. will be, i fear it wont be trivial, since it will probably involve a client change

[hotShot]

Prob I have w/simple measurement like this is sometimes the entire server can be delayed. For instance, the following events occur

 

a) it is your turn to bid, so server logs: Start Time

:D Server now starts up a 150 table tourney : Delay, 10 secs.

c) your bid - which you made promptly - arrives

d) I add 10 secs to your clock.

 

I'm sure there is a better way, but it would probably involve sending up timestamps w/each bid. Or having the client measure elapsed time and sending it up. So whatever the final ans. will be, i fear it wont be trivial, since it will probably involve a client change

Hi Uday!

 

If i would make my judgement based on 10 seconds i would agree with your view.

But if one side used 6 of 8 minutes while the others needed 2, you would need to start a lot of tournament to justify that.

 

That information would help the director a lot.

 

what also would be very helpful would be:

an automaticly played last trick

and a check for delibarate slow play

 

If an unfinished contract is down, check if this might be a top score for defence and assign A-+ or A+- in that case.

 

If an unfinished contract is made, check if this might be a top score and assign A+- or A-+.

 

And please give the TD's a /tourneylog like the /myhands site

showing:

Who played what board at what table

Who was subbed when

 

Have a nice day

hotShot