Express - Free Automated Fun

[Bbradley62]

Thank you for these events.

 

Are you deliberately showing the meanings of all bids? In the GIB games, the player has to "mouse over" bids to see their meaning; in this game they're all showing automatically. It's distracting and inconvenient, so I like the GIB-style better.

[barmar]

Explanations are shown the same in tournaments as in the main bridge club.

 

Explanations are shown immediately when the player alerts their bid. Or if they use a Full Disclosure convention card, which automatically displays explanations of the bids that are included on the card.

[uday]

That's right. These Ts use a Full Disclosure Convention card.

 

IIRC, the older Windows version might offer an obscure option that can tweak the behavior, but the web version does not.

 

I don't anticipate changing this unless, well, the usual ( lots of people ask )

 

U

[Bbradley62]

cool. I had never seen this before, as the free robot tournaments don't do this. It does seem unnecessary if everyone in the tournament has agreed to play the same convention card. I guess I'm easily distracted. Oh, something shiny...

[Bbradley62]

These tournaments say that they use barometer scoring. It appears to me that players are grouped by score in each round, but they are not assigned beginning at Table 1 from the top. Is it not standard practice to assign the highest-ranked players to Table 1 in barometer games? Is there an advantage to not doing this?

[uday]

You're thinking of Swiss (Danish) scoring.

 

All we mean by Barometer is that you get your MP at the end of each round instead of waiting until the end of the T.

 

U

[barmar]

I thought the Express tournaments weren't starting until Wednesday. I first saw the announcement of it today. Did the OP play in trials?

 

I didn't realize that he was talking about a specific type of tournament when I responded yesterday (the subject made no sense, since I hadn't heard about this tourney type).

[hotShot]

The announcement says September 6th! Guess that has to be October :).

[uday]

Bah, two adults eyeballed that and suffered an episode of 'refrigerator blindness' at the same time - ty, fixed

 

U

[Bbradley62]

These tournaments now run twice an hour, at :20 and :50, and both are scored by matchpoints. Any chance of changing one timeslot to IMPs?

[barmar]

The shorter a tourney is, the worse it is to score by IMPs. In a 6-board event, it can be practically impossible to recover from one disaster.

[uday]

That's what i was thinking too, when we made them both IMPs.

 

I'm working on a filter now that will allow us to restrict these events to people who don't bail out of the middle of too many Ts. Once we get that in, we can try longer Ts ( say an hour long ) and use IMPs.

[Bbradley62]

I'm working on a filter now that will allow us to restrict these events to people who don't bail out of the middle of too many Ts.  Once we get that in, we can try longer Ts ( say an hour long ) and use IMPs.

Thanks, Uday!

[babalu1997]

i tried it

 

did not like it

 

felt like bingo

 

i hate bingo

[Bbradley62]

These tournaments do produce some unusual situations. I played against two declarers who had bid too much, and both declared very slowly so the time ran out, and both sides were given Average. The second time, the score changed to +500 and I got a message saying that the tournament director had adjusted the score. I thought there wasn't a tournament director. So, what was that about? (The second time, we were on Trick 12, whereas the first time we were on Trick 8 when time expired.) Do declarers have carte blanche to play slowly to get an Average instead of the bottom they deserve when they have misbid?

[helene_t]

I thought the idea was that slow players be replaced by robots? Or is it that you need to think 1 min about a single action to be replaced, but if you think (say) 30 secs about every action you will not get replaced but get an average?

 

Maybe better to replace people by bots based on some measure of their over-all slowness but I realize that this could get quite complicated.

[gwnn]

what's wrong with bingo? :)

[uday]

When a board is left incomplete, it is adjusted (single dummy) using 4 bots, provided that 8 or more tricks have been played out.

 

Yes, there is a short term exposure to people who can manage to stall out the game. That will be resolved down the road with a tournament filter that will prevent people with "too many" incomplete boards from joining the express Ts.

 

Y, overall slowness better & more complicated. i threw the 60-second thing together in a hurry. Now that FG is back from his vacation, things may get clearer for me.

 

And speaking of bingo....one of these days!

[Bbradley62]

It appears that you get omitted from the final standings if you leave the tournament before standings are posted, even if you completed the final hand before leaving. Is this intentional? Or maybe this is that happens if you run out of time and the bots finish the last few tricks for you?

[Bbradley62]

My Robot partner took too long to bid and was replaced by another Robot. Hilarious!

[Bbradley62]

The timing of the "SOandSO will be replaced in XX seconds" messages seems to be somewhat random. The second warning "SOandSO is about to be replaced" comes with only a few seconds left. How about something like this: any time the second warning is needed, the player loses 10 seconds off his per-play time limit for the rest of the session?

[jillybean]

That's what i was thinking too, when we made them both IMPs.

 

I'm working on a filter now that will allow us to restrict these events to people who don't bail out of the middle of too many Ts. Once we get that in, we can try longer Ts ( say an hour long ) and use IMPs.

 

To be honest, I think shorter is better. These tournaments are good for a quick bridge fix, why not run a game continously and let people join and leave as they wish?

The thought of playing for an hour opposite random, self rated experts who I can't talk to does not thrill me in the slighest.

[Bbradley62]

When a board is left incomplete, it is adjusted (single dummy) using 4 bots, provided that 8 or more tricks have been played out.

#6035 Express - Free Automated Fun

Hand 6: one table ran out of time on Trick 12 with a very clear final two tricks; score stayed as Average. Maybe adjustments aren't made in the last round?

[cloa513]

To be honest, I think shorter is better. These tournaments are good for a quick bridge fix, why not run a game continously and let people join and leave as they wish?

The thought of playing for an hour opposite random, self rated experts who I can't talk to does not thrill me in the slighest.

 

Generally in the that Express tournament with about half really bad player including one that took me down in four spades with where simple direct of spades would have guaranteed the contract.

[Bbradley62]

Playing in this event, RHO opens 1♠ and I overcall 2♥. My bid is explained as:

"Preempt. 6+H; 5+♥ | 11+ points"

No, I haven't made a typo.