Time violation

[mycroft]

You may be different, Josh, but most people do exactly what Ed says, and it is incredibly distracting. And the reason that directors don't let you do it is that after round two, you're a board ahead, after round 3, you're a full round ahead, and we have no idea whether to call the round (forcing the slow ones to catch up) or whether to delay a bit because 2/3 of the section is still playing (that would be your table and the table behind, on round 6, and the two tables in front of you, on round 5, plus ancillary stragglers). So we delay, because unless we go hover over your table, we can't see you're on the first board (and if you're on the second, yeah, we could work it out by sequence, but we are thinking about other things...) and now the rounds take 17 minutes instead of 15, and strangely enough, that means the speedies get more impatient...

 

Oh, and for other reasons, I had to unb0rk 4 rounds of a 2-board section a month ago. With the people that didn't fill in the boards on the slips, the ones that got the wrong pairs, and the ones that put the board numbers in the pair boxes and the pair boxes in the boards, it took about 20 minutes, counting calling the rounds, catching the stragglers, and answering director calls. And the scoring TD was twiddling his thumbs the whole time. "Why don't you have the hand records out?" (because most of the room hasn't moved into the last round?) "Why are we waiting so long for the recaps?" (see above). And you are making the caddies' jobs harder, trying to figure out movements from tickets, because they're not going to know when to pick stuff up, so you'll have two rounds of tickets on your table more often than once, which makes the chance of this that much higher...

 

If you're polite, and if you don't disrupt the other table unduly, and if you aren't disrupting the game unduly, fine, go ahead, especially in the last couple of rounds. Otherwise, expect "no", or "when I call the round", or something more forceful yet. Please note: as soon as the round gets called, the onus switches. Those who are perennially late who do not immediately pass what boards they do have done upon the round call are treated just as abruptly by me.

 

I do note, Josh, that in his first response, Ed said the equivalent of "if you are polite, and ask at the right time, and show consideration for someone who's clearly deep in thought, then fine". In other words, "if you aren't a dick, I won't be either." It's only if you think your request to start the next round early is more important than the current round at this table that he's going to be a dick. And frankly, someone who asks for a favour should both accept "no", unless it's clearly unreasonable, and do it politely.

 

However, I'm sure you are and do, so no problems, eh?

[jdonn]

I just wrote an extremely long detailed reply and accidentally lost it. I'm too lazy to redo it so you are spared, but I have to ask. What does it mean to unb0rk a round?

[mycroft]

So, for many reasons, not least a first-time caddy and a N-S sitout, I got drawn attention to the problem after being told by the scoring director that "it looks like I have bits of three rounds here, and I don't know what goes where. Can you figure it out please?"

 

Turned out in the two "rounds" of 14-table tickets he handed me, he not only had overcomplete rounds (14 tickets in each, rather than the 13 he should have), but there were elements of *4* rounds. Plus there were four entire tables missing. I have seen situations where two rounds get mixed up (usually over a hospitality break, where 3 tables play through it on the next, and get their break at the end of N+1, and one or two play through it to catch up), but this was ridiculous. Add to that the fact that there was an uncommonly large number of misprinted tickets - wrong pair numbers, E/W and N/S switched, no board numbers printed, and one where 5 was playing 11 and they played boards 5 and 6; the ticket read NS5 playing EW6 playing boards 10 and 11 - and it was a jam. And another round got called before a couple of the "missed" tables were resolved, so there ended up being *5* tickets on those tables.

 

It was amusing. Or at least it was amusing in the bar afterwards, after we finally got it all sorted out, and got the recaps hung, about 5 minutes later than usual (with, of course, everybody crowded around the scoring area bouncing numbers back and forth. While not as dangerous as when we used to hand-score and hand-add the sections, numbers at the scorer's desk cause higher-than-average miskey incidents, which are (usually) caught, but that takes even more time).

 

Could have been worse. *I* could have been scoring instead of on the floor.

[mycroft]

er, if you're confused by the vocabulary, "b0rked" = broken, from the same kind of terminak (hmm, where did that word come from?) operator error that produced pr0n.

 

If it's broken, it's broken. If it's broken beyond belief, it's b0rked. If it's broken beyond all repair, other words or acronyms are used. For some reason computer admins have a *lot* of words for "things not working right"...

 

P.S. I've always liked "BAD" = Broken As Designed.

[matmat]

So, for many reasons, not least a first-time caddy and a N-S sitout, I got drawn attention to the problem after being told by the scoring director that "it looks like I have bits of three rounds here, and I don't know what goes where. Can you figure it out please?"

 

Turned out in the two "rounds" of 14-table tickets he handed me, he not only had overcomplete rounds (14 tickets in each, rather than the 13 he should have), but there were elements of *4* rounds. Plus there were four entire tables missing. I have seen situations where two rounds get mixed up (usually over a hospitality break, where 3 tables play through it on the next, and get their break at the end of N+1, and one or two play through it to catch up), but this was ridiculous. Add to that the fact that there was an uncommonly large number of misprinted tickets - wrong pair numbers, E/W and N/S switched, no board numbers printed, and one where 5 was playing 11 and they played boards 5 and 6; the ticket read NS5 playing EW6 playing boards 10 and 11 - and it was a jam. And another round got called before a couple of the "missed" tables were resolved, so there ended up being *5* tickets on those tables.

 

It was amusing. Or at least it was amusing in the bar afterwards, after we finally got it all sorted out, and got the recaps hung, about 5 minutes later than usual (with, of course, everybody crowded around the scoring area bouncing numbers back and forth. While not as dangerous as when we used to hand-score and hand-add the sections, numbers at the scorer's desk cause higher-than-average miskey incidents, which are (usually) caught, but that takes even more time).

 

Could have been worse. *I* could have been scoring instead of on the floor.

isn't adopting 21st century score-entering hardware a solution to a lot of the scoring problems?

[jdonn]

I want to start a crusade against abbreviations that aren't much shorter than the original word, name, or phrase.

[han]

I just wrote an extremely long detailed reply and accidentally lost it.

Was your reply also reasonable?

[jdonn]

I just wrote an extremely long detailed reply and accidentally lost it.

Was your reply also reasonable?

Entertaining anyway. But it's like politics or religion, I'll never be able to convince the wrong people of anything.

[matmat]

I just wrote an extremely long detailed reply and accidentally lost it.

Was your reply also reasonable?

Entertaining anyway. But it's like politics or religion, I'll never be able to convince the wrong people of anything.

oh sure you will.

you just gotta use their methods.

 

pitchforks, torches and the occasional burning at the stake

[mycroft]

matmat: yeah, probably. At $150 a table, though, getting (for our unit) probably ~20 sessions a year out of them isn't likely going to be a cost the punters will bear. If we had $5K to spend on helpful things like that, we'd have a duplimate machine. At least that could be used for more than just the tournaments, and could be rented by the clubs.

 

If "abbreviations that aren't much shorter than the words" is aimed at borked and pr0n, jargon != abbrev. (necessarily). ISTR that casino culture is at least as jargon-heavy as Computers...

[shintaro]

:P

 

I agree with a campaign for outlawing abbreviations mainly those none Standard;

 

But English could be a problem for those across the 'Pond'

 

 

:P

[Free]

Can we get back on topic please? I find this quite interesting. Your oppinions about abbreviations are not... Already 6 posts that we could do without, now 7 with mine included.