BBO web-client 1.42

[fred]

Version 1.42 of the BBO web-client is now available. You can find out more about the changes in V1.42 here:

 

Link to V1.42 annoucement post

 

Feedback, suggestions, and bug reports are very welcome. We may not respond to every post that will appear in this thread, but I promise that we will read and consider what you have to say.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[babalu1997]

how is the completion rate determined?

 

if i leave a hand while i am dummy, is that an unfinished board?

 

if i leave after all players have left and stopped is that an unfinished board?

 

do i have to make abid to start a board?

 

thanks

 

i like several of the new features

[eyhung]

Hallelujah to keeping track of completion rate. I assume that the Flash software will alert you if you are about to take an action that will cause your completion rate to get "dinged". Will Windows users also get dinged?

 

What is the criteria for determining a "new member"? Date of first login, # of logins, or both?

[fred]

how is the completion rate determined?if i leave a hand while i am dummy, is that an unfinished board?if i leave after all players have left and stopped is that an unfinished board?do i have to make abid to start a board?thanksi like several of the new features

 

I can't get into specifics, but we have made an effort to be fair in this area. If you leave in a situation where your presence is not required to complete the board or if it is deemed that an incomplete board is not "your fault", then you should not expect your completion rate to suffer.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

Hallelujah to keeping track of completion rate. I assume that the Flash software will alert you if you are about to take an action that will cause your completion rate to get "dinged". Will Windows users also get dinged? What is the criteria for determining a "new member"? Date of first login, # of logins, or both?

 

Right now there is no warning in either client, but I suppose this might be a good feature to add in cases that we can detect.

 

The definition of "new member" is not something we are planning on making public and it is not unlikely that this definition will change in the future.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Rain]

Old client users also get "dinged" or tracked. But they cannot open tables that specify a completion rate, unlike new version users.

[babalu1997]

another question:

 

i see the completion statistics when people invite me to tourney

 

however, i cannot see their statistic before inviting them, is there a way to do that?

 

thanks

[fred]

another question:

 

i see the completion statistics when people invite me to tourney

 

however, i cannot see their statistic before inviting them, is there a way to do that?

 

thanks

 

At this point in time the answer is no.

 

We chose to be conservative in terms of when to show statistics in our first web-client release that contained statistics. If the response is positive (and maybe even if it isn't) future versions of the web-client will likely show statistics in other contexts - the one you mention would be a leading candidate. It is also likely that we will introduce some new statistics in future versions.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[t28]

Version 1.42 of the BBO web-client is now available. You can find out more about the changes in V1.42 here:

 

Link to V1.42 annoucement post

 

Feedback, suggestions, and bug reports are very welcome. We may not respond to every post that will appear in this thread, but I promise that we will read and consider what you have to say.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[t28]

never leave a hand but frequently lose connection during play; am I penalized?

[alan13]

I also have questions about completion rate. I regularly sign up as a substitute for tournamemts, hundreds of them ... and have completed all of them except for maybe two due to connection problems. However, my tournament completion rate is being reported as 95% ... that says that I failed to complete one in 20! And as for boards, in non-tournament settings I always announce to my fellow players that I'm leaving after that board, but it is impossibe to leave without a deal having been presented. Do you require the member to have bid before calling it a completion failure?

[paulg]

never leave a hand but frequently lose connection during play; am I penalized?

Historically, as far as I am aware, abandoning a hand and losing connection have been treated the same. I have no idea whether they are treated differently now, but as a table host I'm not sure it really matters. If your connection is poor, then you are going to disrupt the game frequently and we'll never know if you are going to return (even though we know you'll try).

 

As someone who, in the early days, got a couple of automated bans due to connection issues I do sympathise, but I do believe that BBO are doing the right thing here. If it is solely your connection to BBO that is poor, then working with the technical staff (support@...) can be very useful and can help determine the issues. For example, some ISPs' traffic management systems do not know about the BBO web client and will lower the priority of its traffic, which is not good.

 

Paul

[babalu1997]

Semantics:

 

In the web version, when joining a private game, the banner read-- Blocked, this is a private tourney etc...

 

 

Why not just the old, Sorry, this is a private game, .... it was nicer.

 

Or perhaps one could use the word restricted, instead of blocked.

[pooltuna]

never leave a hand but frequently lose connection during play; am I penalized?

 

I suspect BBO has no way to distinguish between a crash caused by an ISP, your computer, or by you forcing a shutdown. So yes it is a measure of how much you crash if you never leave a hand or tournament voluntarily. Nevertheless with directors setting tournament levels at 75 or 80 % they are catching the runners and effectively have to provide subs for the real crashes.

[Rain]

I also have questions about completion rate. I regularly sign up as a substitute for tournamemts, hundreds of them ... and have completed all of them except for maybe two due to connection problems. However, my tournament completion rate is being reported as 95% ... that says that I failed to complete one in 20! And as for boards, in non-tournament settings I always announce to my fellow players that I'm leaving after that board, but it is impossibe to leave without a deal having been presented. Do you require the member to have bid before calling it a completion failure?

 

 

Don't be alarmed at the 95% if you have consistently completed tourneys. Being a sub is unlikely to hurt you either. We only started tracking the data recently. As you play more, your individual stat will lean towards your true percentage.

 

On board - yes, you need to make a move and bid something to have started it. Otherwise you have not started the board, and are free to leave with no penalty.

[babalu1997]

When choosing a table at the main room, the More column only displays the word More on it, at least in my computer settings.

 

Is there a way for me to change the display so i can find out whether the table scoring is mp or imp without clicking on it. Better yet, can the scoring be displayed, as it is for the interesting tbale corner.

 

I ask that also because, when I ste an mp table, I get a large number of players who leave within a board because they do not like the scoring.

[fred]

Is there a way for me to change the display so i can find out whether the table scoring is mp or imp without clicking on it. Better yet, can the scoring be displayed, as it is for the interesting tbale corner.

 

Currently the only thing you can do is click "More".

 

Likely we will do an overhaul of the table list at some point before too long. It is a difficult problem because there is a lot of information about each table that some people might find important and there are horizontal space issues on screens with relatively low resolutions.

 

Try "help me find a game", then "play - interesting tables". The form of scoring (and the bridge club) appear in this list. Besides that, you will probably find it easier to search through a list of 10 "recommended" tables for one that is appropriate for you versus searching through many more tables in the Main Bridge Club list.

 

Fred Gitleman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[tozbek91]

I just have a couple of points:

 

Why would you change the profile background color from a nice yellow to a disturbing bright white? With all warm colors around, it doesn't look good.

 

Also, the "NOT ALLOWED" icon for kibitzers (screenshot) used to look much better, without the black clutter around it. Now it looks very low-res...

 

Other than these graphic decisions, I think the new version is great. But I don't know why you would change those colors and images when they look just fine.

 

Tekin

www.tekinozbek.net

[mike777]

Ihave no idea how to start or find a teamgame online with web version. Confusion.

 

 

AFter much confusion and trying I did get a message.......

 

 

no tg pending whatever.. exhausting.

[inquiry]

A player in an ACBL tournament reports that using FLASH she can not see her partnership convention card when it is the nice ACBL formatted one. I don't know if this a bug, a feature, or a mistaken report. Anyone else see this phenomena?

[fred]

Ihave no idea how to start or find a teamgame online with web version. Confusion.

 

 

AFter much confusion and trying I did get a message.......

 

 

no tg pending whatever.. exhausting.

 

1. Log in

2. Click "list all tables"

3. Click "team matches"

 

If you want to start a team match, click "create team match" (a button near the bottom).

 

If you want to kibitz a team match that is already running click "running" (a button near the top).

 

One nice thing about the web-client is that you do not have to specify all 8 players when you create a team match. You can leave some of the names blank and the team match will be created with empty seats which other web-client users will then be able to click on - that results in the team match host receiving a "permission to sit" request.

 

The "pending" and "running" buttons at the top toggle between listing team matches with empty seats and listing team matches that are already running.

 

Unfortuantely not very many people seem to be using the empty seats thing yet so it sometimes takes a while for a team match to get off the ground unless you specify all 8 players (as is necessary in the Windows client). At some point we will make it possible for the hosts of team match with empty seats to "advertise" to a larger potential audience of players (ie players who do not happen to be looking at the list of pending team matches).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[1eyedjack]

1. Log in

2. Click "list all tables"

3. Click "team matches"

 

If you want to start a team match, click "create team match" (a button near the bottom).

 

If you want to kibitz a team match that is already running click "running" (a button near the top).

 

One nice thing about the web-client is that you do not have to specify all 8 players when you create a team match. You can leave some of the names blank and the team match will be created with empty seats which other web-client users will then be able to click on - that results in the team match host receiving a "permission to sit" request.

 

The "pending" and "running" buttons at the top toggle between listing team matches with empty seats and listing team matches that are already running.

 

Unfortuantely not very many people seem to be using the empty seats thing yet so it sometimes takes a while for a team match to get off the ground unless you specify all 8 players (as is necessary in the Windows client). At some point we will make it possible for the hosts of team match with empty seats to "advertise" to a larger potential audience of players (ie players who do not happen to be looking at the list of pending team matches).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

I submit that it is just possible that this facility might be more used if it is more commonly known about. One way of achieving that might be to put the option to create such an event in a more logical place in the interface:

http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/41388-bbo-web-client-v38/page__view__findpost__p__492573

[mgoetze]

I've been giving the web client another try. It still sucks for trying to find a pickup game in the MBC, but I'm not doing that so often nowadays. In general, the Windows client feels much more responsive. Some of the new features do look useful, though.

 

I have some questions about the hand editor. First of all, when I generate some hands and save them to a folder, then go to show that folder, it is entirely unpredictable for me in which order they will be listed - is there a system? Secondly, are the dealer and vulnerability saved in a hand relevant when using the hands for a tournament/team match? Thirdly, if I create a team match and choose a folder with more boards than are needed, which boards will be used?

 

What's missing is a feature to just generate a set of randomly-dealt boards 1-8/1-12/whatever and save them to a folder, for use in a tournament/team match.

 

Oh and the team matches and especially the button to create one are too hard to find. ;)

[zenko]

Hi,

 

The web environment bring the worst out of many, so first thank you for trying to help the game be more civilized. Regarding completion rate I have 3 questions:

 

1) my board completion rate seems too high (100%), since I do recall sometimes not finishing a hand due to connection issue, joining a tourney and such. On another hand my tourney completion rate (93%) seems too low, once in a blue moon I do not complete a tourney because lost connection and by the time I get back the sub is already in my seat, but thats no more than 1 in 50 for sure. I wonder is it because I sometimes play a team match that gets shut down in the middle? That seems unlikely since the hands played up to that point are not even available to look up later.

 

2) What happens if you get kicked out of a team game/table, for whatever reason? Does that count against your completion rate?

 

3) When hosting a table what is a reasonably high completion rate setting to use? I.e. what is a average/median completion rate? Also I would suggest posting somewhere, at least periodically, the overall statistics, for this and many other reasons. For example those who are below average might that way get shamed into changing their ways, when they realize that "everybody is doing it" rationalization for behaving badly does not really hold true.

[fred]

I've been giving the web client another try. It still sucks for trying to find a pickup game in the MBC, but I'm not doing that so often nowadays. In general, the Windows client feels much more responsive. Some of the new features do look useful, though.

 

I suggest you try "Help me find a game", "Play - interesting tables". This is a more effective way of finding an appropriate table for a pickup game than scrolling through a list of 1000+ tables regardless of whether or not that list updates itself automatically.

 

I have some questions about the hand editor. First of all, when I generate some hands and save them to a folder, then go to show that folder, it is entirely unpredictable for me in which order they will be listed - is there a system?

 

In theory the hands will appear in the order that they were saved.

 

Secondly, are the dealer and vulnerability saved in a hand relevant when using the hands for a tournament/team match?

 

No.

 

Thirdly, if I create a team match and choose a folder with more boards than are needed, which boards will be used?

 

If you specify (say) 10 boards then the first 10 boards in the folder will be used (with the dealer and vulnerability of these boards being ignored - the match will always start with board 1, North deals with none vul, and follow the standard progression).

 

What's missing is a feature to just generate a set of randomly-dealt boards 1-8/1-12/whatever and save them to a folder, for use in a tournament/team match.

 

The reason we have not done anything like this (or automatic deal-logging to a folder) yet is out of concern that the database we use to save hands will get overwhelmed. I am sure we will eventually find a way to address these issues.

 

Oh and the team matches and especially the button to create one are too hard to find. ;)

 

You know I hear that a lot, but I really don't understand it - the path to this button and its location are almost identical in the Windows and web-clients. If you think of "show all tables" in the web-client to being the equivalent to "click to play or watch bridge" in the Windows client, I suspect you will see what I mean.

 

By the way, it is not as if it is necessarily a smart idea to make the "create team match" button more salient. Creating a team match entails certain responsibilities that I suspect the average BBO member is either unaware of or is not prepared to accept. Experienced and responsible BBO members who are interested in creating a team match (who no doubt represent far less than 1% of our users) will figure out how to do it or will ask if they need help.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com