Software Suggestions

[Old York]

1. The layout of dummy's suits is often confusing and, to make things worse, the layout of the dummy hand is often different to the layout of declarer's hand.

Personally, I do not like the black/red/black/red layout, and would like to see an option for SHDC or SHCD and also Trumps-on-left on/off button.

I fail to see why dummy should display SDCH etc in a no-trump contract!

 

2. Would it be possible for BBO to use Avatars in user profiles, perhaps in place of national flags? There should be no national boundaries in bridge! Is it just me who thinks that encouraging national clubs and national tourneys is a bit "racist"?

 

3. The Alert mechanism should not include "no agreement". No sane player would ever make a bid that he/she honestly believes partner will mis-understand. The alert must include the systemic meaning of the bid....or at least the bidder's expectation of partner's understanding. With self-alerting it is far too easy to give unethical replies.

 

Tony Hobson

[sceptic]

I think a tourney for polish is ok as I have never seen one that really debars anyone other countries from playing ( so no not racist in my eyes)

 

A tourney with NO Poles (not picking on anyone in particular here btw) allowed (in my eyes would be racist)

[1eyedjack]

Re. point 1, I cannot understand why anyone would from choice use the "card display" mode rather than the "diagram mode". To my mind, diagram mode overcomes the stated problem and has other benefits besides.

 

Re. point 2, I have no really strong opinion. This has been thrashed to death in another thread (search on Taiwan). Personally I like flags, but I dislike the stress it puts on Fred. Allowing free reign to upload user-defined avatars has the potential to create even more offence than national flags. At least in theory. I am unconvinced that the fears are justified, and I doubt we will ever know unless it is tried. Well, not exactly. Vast numbers of message forums allow uploaded avatars and I am not aware that they encounter much of a problem but I could be mistaken.

 

Re. point 3, I really do not understand this point. Is it a Flash thing? In the Windows client there is no specific "no agreement" dedicated response built into the software. You would have to physically type it into the explanation box. It would be rather bizarre to flag the alert button and type "no agreement" without prompting by the opponents, but if you are asked for the meaning you have to answer to the best of your ability and "no agreement" may be the most appropriate response to an enquiry. Face-to-face bridge specifically allows this response and there would have to be a compelling case for having the software depart from the laws when it currently complies, and at present I do not see the case for it.

[jtfanclub]

3. The Alert mechanism should not include "no agreement".

Of course it should. Heck, I've subbed in a tourney in which my partner and I didn't share any languages. I didn't even know what system he was playing. Every bid was, by definition, no agreement.

 

No agreement means that you haven't discussed the auction. If you have a meta-agreement (such as you're playing SAYC), then you can explain the meta if your opponents aren't aware of it.

 

But if I'm playing with a pickup partner, and the auction goes into strange places, I don't have to tell you what my logic is behind a bid. You get the same information about the bid my partner should already know, and if that's nothing, the answer is nothing.

[TylerE]

Re. point 1, I cannot understand why anyone would from choice use the "card display" mode rather than the "diagram mode". To my mind, diagram mode overcomes the stated problem and has other benefits besides.

The one thing that kills diagram mode for me is that the auction no longer displays in the center of the screen, and instead takes up a tiny postage stamp size area in the top corner. Doesn't sound like a big thing, but for me it's just enough of an annoyance.

[barmar]

OKbridge allows you to upload an avatar. I don't think I've ever seen an offensive one.

[1eyedjack]

Re. point 1, I cannot understand why anyone would from choice use the "card display" mode rather than the "diagram mode".  To my mind, diagram mode overcomes the stated problem and has other benefits besides.

The one thing that kills diagram mode for me is that the auction no longer displays in the center of the screen, and instead takes up a tiny postage stamp size area in the top corner. Doesn't sound like a big thing, but for me it's just enough of an annoyance.

Yup I hadn't realised that there was a difference there. I guess I switched off card display mode in favour of diagram mode as soon as I saw that the latter existed, so never got a chance to see the other quirks.

 

The most annoying feature in the auction display in diagram mode is that if the auction is too long to fit in the postage stamp area then the scroll bar defaults to the top of the auction, so that the last round of bidding is hidden, rather than the bottom of the auction (hiding the first round of bidding). Given that the last bid is of more significance than the first, this seems an odd default. That said, for me, annoying though that is, it is less of an annoyance than the card display mode generally, not least because auctions that invoke the scroll bar are relatively rare. But that is personal.

[Old York]

Hmmmmm

 

Thx for responses, but maybe I should clarify.

 

I tried to enter an "Irish" Tourney, the instruction was to change my flag to enter.

As a test, I changed my flag to Northern Ireland and was rejected. I wonder what that says to the world?

 

On the question of self-alerts, they simply do not work. Even TD's cannot force a player to give "full disclosure". May I quote....

"Players are expected to alert all alertable agreements, and all alertable bids that might be understood by a partner, regardless of whether the bid or convention is specifically discussed. Only if there is absolutely no reason to think that partner will have any idea what the bid means, can a player say "no agreement"."

Self explanatory, I would have thought?

 

I do wish people would put ethics first, and winning second.

[kfay]

I like your avatar :)

[inquiry]

I tried to enter an "Irish" Tourney, the instruction was to change my flag to enter.

As a test, I changed my flag to Northern Ireland and was rejected. I wonder what that says to the world?

The software has a number of ways a TD can limit access to his tournaments (by skill levels, by friends, block enemies, by custom list, etc). Among these are two options that apply to your Ireland, Northern Ireland condition.

 

The first, is the host can limit entry to people who match his flag, whatever it is. In this case, it was Ireland. That was the host perogative. The other way he could have done it, was by host country language. If he is flying an Ireland flag, I am not sure what language BBO expects. The irish constitution calls for Irish (gaelic I assume) to be the official language, but english is also an official language, and it seems to be main language. But whatever language the bbo software expects when the host flys the Ireland flag, surely Northern Ireland would meet the test. So what this says to the world is that the host wanted to limit play to people with the Ireland flag. Simple.

[1eyedjack]

On the question of self-alerts, they simply do not work.

I think that you are trying to connect two issues that should be considered separately, being (1) a perceived abuse of the "no agreement" explanation and (2) pitfalls inherent in the self-alert/explain system.

 

I would be just as capable (and indeed as prone if not more so) to answer "no agreement" in response to an enquiry about my partner's bid as I would be in response to an enquiry about my own, whether that explanation is appropriate or inappropriate in context.

 

Self-alerting/explaining was never intended to change the information exchanged, only by whom it is exchanged. Given that the problem of UI that would be present in a face to face game is overcome online, it has 3 advantages over partner-alerting:

 

1) The alert is instantaneous, being transmitted with the bid. Were you to rely on partner alerting, particularly if someone's connection is poor, there may be a delay of such magnitude between the bid and alert that next hand bids before receipt of the alert. The only solution to this (in the context of partner alerting) would be to have a "Non-Alert" button, which a player should press (if appropriate) on sight of his partner's call, and the next player delays his call until he has seen either an alert or non-alert confirmation. In this case I believe that the cure would be worse than the disease, and please note that I do NOT advocate this as an improvement.

 

2) When used properly, self-alerting reduces the instances of an inappropriate use of "no agreement" as an explanation. Clearly there will arise individual instances of abuse under either method. However I think it far more frequent that an explanation is offered (by the bidder) where his partner has no idea of its meaning and might well have answered "no agreement" had the explanation been up to him.

 

3) Self-explaining renders (virtually) redundant (at least in an honest game) any question over which of the hand held and explanation offered is the partnership agreement (on those occasions when they are inconsistent). This factor is however a double-edged sword. There is a widely held conviction (in error) that under the self-explain system you should explain the hand that you hold rather than the partnership agreement. Regrettably this view perpetuates among some tournament directors on BBO. This causes considerable (but unjustified) ill-feeling when a player deliberately departs from his partnership agreement and then proceeds to offer an explanation that is inconsistent with his hand. If self-alerting "does not work" then I think that this is the single largest contributory factor for its failure.

 

I think it should be born in mind that while the primary responsibility for alerting AND explaining currently rests with the bidder, his partner should not be exempted from providing an explanation on request (nor should he rely on that exemption if it is available). In this regard the software is mildly deficient in my view, as an explanation request sent by way of a click on a bid only goes to the bidder. You can still deal with it by private chat, of course, and there are higher priorities with the software developers.

 

Finally I would just observe that on OKBridge the software allows BOTH self-alerting and partner-alerting (at least it did when I was on OKB several years ago), and you get to see who alerted the bid. Is that an improvement? I have not really thought about it, but BBO could distance itself from that debate by allowing both types of alerting within the software and let the table host or tourney host restrict one or other alerting option if felt appropriate. I don't know how that suggestion would fit in with Fred's intention to simplify the interface and do away with hosts.

[Old York]

To every convention, there is an equal and opposite convention. Hehe

 

If a player fails to alert Jacoby 2NT, Jacoby Transfers etc, then clicking on the bid should produce a logical answer. To claim "no agreement" under these circumstances must be wrong. Even simple auctions like 1NT-2NT may, or may not, be artificial. If there is any delay in answering a query, then the clicker's partner may receive unauthorised info. It is a minefield. lol

 

Any ethical player should have no reason to conceal the bid's meaning. QED

 

Posting a convention card helps a lot, but competitive auctions get lost in the ether.

 

I quite agree that the bidder should never describe his actual hand, and I frequently alert simply as "artificial-forcing" etc but happily answer any resulting query.

[JoAnneM]

My favorite option when I actually do need an explanation for a bid is to simply query BOTH opponents, privately, at the same time. Although online bridge uses self-alerting you are still allowed to ask the other player what the bid meant. (Can you think of a reason why not?)

 

When you query both players you sometimes get some surprising answers. :o

[mike777]

My favorite option when I actually do need an explanation for a bid is to simply query BOTH opponents, privately, at the same time.  Although online bridge uses self-alerting you are still allowed to ask the other player what the bid meant.  (Can you think of a reason why not?)

 

When you query both players you sometimes get some surprising answers.   :o

Bridge laws let you do all sorts of things. :)

 

If you do this once a year fine, if you do this all the time in real life, annoying and just plain rude..but sure I guess legal and your favorite. :)

 

Lets make bridge even slower.

[1eyedjack]

Lets make bridge even slower.

I don't believe that asking both opponents for an explanation slows down the game - at least not significantly. It is not as if you ask one player, wait for a response, then ask the other. Properly constructed, the request for an explanation goes to both players simultaneously (so no time lag there) and each opponent uses an overlapping time slot to construct and submit their response. I don't recall it particularly slowing up on OKBridge having this facility, but others' experiences may differ.

[mike777]

Lets make bridge even slower.

I don't believe that asking both opponents for an explanation slows down the game - at least not significantly. It is not as if you ask one player, wait for a response, then ask the other. Properly constructed, the request for an explanation goes to both players simultaneously (so no time lag there) and each opponent uses an overlapping time slot to construct and submit their response. I don't recall it particularly slowing up on OKBridge having this facility, but others' experiences may differ.

I dont know why you think people respond to these inquires quickly...they do not. Now you double the chance someone will answer slowly, very slowly.

 

Asking one person, one question often slows down the game, now you want to double it. :) Again yes it is legal, and yes if you do it very rarely, ok....but all the time or almost all the time....uggg. :)

 

Even offline in f2f bridge people cannot finish on time, in KO they are often 30 minutes behind one table. Online is not any better when it comes to speed. :)

[Elianna]

Actually, you double your chance of a quicker answer.

 

Let's say it takes one of your opponents 35 seconds to answer, and another 65 seconds to answer.

 

Asking just one of them gives you an expected answer time of 50s (1/2*35 + 1/2*65).

 

Asking both at the same time (using the double arrow chat) gives you an expected answer time of 35s (the amount of time the faster person takes).

 

If you really want to hear both answers, that only takes 65s (the time of the longer answerer) not the 100s you seem to imply that it takes.

[mike777]

Actually, you double your chance of a quicker answer.

 

Let's say it takes one of your opponents 35 seconds to answer, and another 65 seconds to answer.

 

Asking just one of them gives you an expected answer time of 50s (1/2*35 + 1/2*65).

 

Asking both at the same time (using the double arrow chat) gives you an expected answer time of 35s (the amount of time the faster person takes).

 

If you really want to hear both answers, that only takes 65s (the time of the longer answerer) not the 100s you seem to imply that it takes.

 

 

Elianna keep in mind they maybe locked out of bidding until they answer...so even if one answers fast you may still have to wait for the other to respond. Also it was stated, I assume you will not bid until both answer...not just one?

 

and yes it can take 100/s of seconds for one to respond. Often

[Elianna]

My point is that the length of time it takes for an answer is the longer of the two, not the sum.

[1eyedjack]

I can only repeat that this was not perceived as a problem on OKB, at least not when I was there. Why would you think that it would be more of a problem on BBO? We do not need to speculate on whether it would be of net benefit or net hinderence. There is empirical experience on which to draw without the need for speculation.

 

It has been quite a while since I have been on OKB, but this does not seem to me to be a facet of human nature likely to change over time.