Late play

[Zelandakh]

Views about the OP: I would rule that a pair who failed to stay for the late board, if without a valid reason, will get A-, if with a valid reason "bigger than bridge" (someone here said this but I forgot who :P), he gets A+.

 

Are you seriously suggesting that a pair who played too slowly to complete their boards but had a "bigger than bridge" reason for not staying should receive an Ave+? This strikes me as ridiculous - under what Law are you making this ruling? If I play so slowly that I only complete half of the boards but have such a reason for not staying, can I get Ave+ on all of the remaining boards?

 

On the subject of BridgeMates, I am amazed how many errors I have seen in the online results at the club where I am now playing (which uses them). I find it very difficult to believe there were ever so many errors with pen and paper travellers.

[blackshoe]

The clubs around here don't use travellers, they use pickup slips. You see the following: score on the wrong side, score reflects the wrong vulnerability, pair number(s) missing, board number(s) missing, score "verified" by an east or west who clearly didn't actually verify anything, but just initialed the slip, slip not initialed at all, wrong pair number(s), wrong board number(s), score for a NT contract not including the "extra" ten points for the first trick (e.g, 3NT making 6: +480), score for a suit contract including that extra ten points, score incorrectly calculated. That's off the top of my head. I could come up with more.

 

Some time ago, I directed a two section club game (7 and 9 tables, iirc) and made the mistake of playing in the smaller section to make up a table. The pickup slips in that section were fine. It took me more than two hours to sort out the slips in the other section enough to post a reasonable result, and the club owner later went over them and decided I'd made two or three mistakes doing that. At least nine of the errors mentioned above appeared on those slips, sometimes multiple errors on one slip. I think there was one table that had only one error in their slips. All of the rest were a mess. Bottom line, if there's a way to screw it up, club players will find it. This will be as true of Bridgemates as it is of pencil and paper.

[mjj29]

Are you seriously suggesting that a pair who played too slowly to complete their boards but had a "bigger than bridge" reason for not staying should receive an Ave+? This strikes me as ridiculous - under what Law are you making this ruling? If I play so slowly that I only complete half of the boards but have such a reason for not staying, can I get Ave+ on all of the remaining boards?

I assume that whether you would get Av+, Av= or Av- would depend on whether you were at fault for the original delay. I'm certainly of the opinion that if I'm delayed by a clearly slower other pair such that I'm no way at fault I should be able to have my Av+ if I can't stay past the otherwise end of the event. In club bridge, of course, it's rarely clear that one pair or the other is 'clearly at fault' and hence the most likely assigned result is Av= both ways.

[blackshoe]

In club bridge in North America, my guess is the most likely assigned result is "not played", and it doesn't matter who was at fault or who couldn't stay for a late play. :D

[bluejak]

In my view there were certain types of mistakes when BridgeMates were not used, and there are certain different types of mistakes with BridgeMates being used. To suggest either group is ten times as frequent as the other I find completely and literally incredible - I really doubt twice as much.

 

To suggest that people who like non-Barometer methods of play should play Barometer because people in other countries like it I find fairly ridiculous. One might just as well suggest that because people in England like Mitchell pairs that people in Norway and Iceland should follow the English example - surely you can see that is ridiculous? A little tolerance for different methods of playing would be nice.

 

My experience of late plays is that they are unheard-of in some places and normal in others. I think that clubs should work on the basis of custom & practice as to whether they follow the practice of allowing them, requiring them, making them an option, or not at all.

 

It is important that a club that uses Late Plays should adopt a proper policy on the subject, as to whether they are optional, what happens if a pair has two late plays, and so on.

[pran]

In my view there were certain types of mistakes when BridgeMates were not used, and there are certain different types of mistakes with BridgeMates being used. To suggest either group is ten times as frequent as the other I find completely and literally incredible - I really doubt twice as much.

 

To suggest that people who like non-Barometer methods of play should play Barometer because people in other countries like it I find fairly ridiculous. One might just as well suggest that because people in England like Mitchell pairs that people in Norway and Iceland should follow the English example - surely you can see that is ridiculous? A little tolerance for different methods of playing would be nice.

 

My experience of late plays is that they are unheard-of in some places and normal in others. I think that clubs should work on the basis of custom & practice as to whether they follow the practice of allowing them, requiring them, making them an option, or not at all.

 

It is important that a club that uses Late Plays should adopt a proper policy on the subject, as to whether they are optional, what happens if a pair has two late plays, and so on.

I have referred to my own experiences and find it ridiculous that other people declare my experiences ridiculous just because they have different experiences (or maybe even just from theoretical considerations?).

 

I do not suggest that other players should change their accustomed methods of playing, but I mentioned barometer because somebody might find our experience with this interesting.

 

Curiously the first reference in Norway to barometer seems to be in a TD Guide of 1945: "Our neighbours, the Swedes run some strange series event with up to 80 pairs in a group. These events are not to be recommended for several reasons and it is very odd that they have not come up with anything better." The author continues giving all his reasons why barometer should not be deployed.

 

Well, as we know time has changed. According to a TD Guide from 1959 barometer appears to having become "the" standard for pairs events, and today one can hardly expect any response to an invitation for a non-barometer events for pairs.

[gordontd]

I ran a monthly barometer pairs at my club for about a year, but we've had to stop it because the numbers it attracted were so low.

 

We also have a few national events that are barometer in the final stages. These are well-received but not without problems, the greatest of which is that information is overheard from other tables due to boards being played at the same time.

[pran]

[...]

We also have a few national events that are barometer in the final stages. These are well-received but not without problems, the greatest of which is that information is overheard from other tables due to boards being played at the same time.

Yes, that is a problem (of course also with Howell or Mitchell, but more immediately with bareometer).

Or I should rather say was a problem until players learned to keep quiet: The automatic PP when players' "loud" comments destroy normal play at another table has demonstrable effects, and such problems are now extrememly scarce.