Excessing Kibitizer Noise During Tournament Play

[inquiry]

Hi,

 

Last few days, I have noticed an oddity of untimed tournment play. Many of the players and most of the kibitizers at tables that finish early rush from one to another table to watch the last few hands to be played be played again.

 

This results in a table with 40, 50, 70 kibitizers, all of whom have seen the last hand, at least once, and maybe 2 or 3 times before. Maybe they have become bored with the hand, who knows, but now the "talk" to the table by the kibitizers is non-stop. I doubt it about the current hand (I can only read english...can't blame poor american education I guess because i took spanish and german in school). But just the same. the "noise" is overwhelming.... but only after a lot of the tables have closed.

 

I posed this poll to see how the community feels about this. My choice would be try to educate the players to be polite and respectful of others who are competiting....after all, sometimes a message to the table might be required... say if I was the running the tournment..since only yellows can chat privately to participants during play.... And by posing the poll, perhaps I am half way home to reaching my goal. :) I will say that both Saturday and today, a request was made to the kibitzers to please refrain from talking to the table, and it went ignored both days.

 

Ben

[fred]

Hi,

 

Last few days, I have noticed an oddity of untimed tournment play. Many of the players and most of the kibitizers at tables that finish early rush from one to another table to watch the last few hands to be played be played again.

 

This results in a table with 40, 50, 70 kibitizers, all of whom have seen the last hand, at least once, and maybe 2 or 3 times before. Maybe they have become bored with the hand, who knows, but now the "talk" to the table by the kibitizers is non-stop. I doubt it about the current hand (I can only read english...can't blame poor american education I guess because i took spanish and german in school). But just the same. the "noise" is overwhelming.... but only after a lot of the tables have closed.

 

I posed this poll to see how the community feels about this. My choice would be try to educate the players to be polite and respectful of others who are competiting....after all, sometimes a message to the table might be required... say if I was the running the tournment..since only yellows can chat privately to participants during play.... And by posing the poll, perhaps I am half way home to reaching my goal. :) I will say that both Saturday and today, a request was made to the kibitzers to please refrain from talking to the table, and it went ignored both days.

 

Ben

 

Player education is an appealling concept, but I don't

it will ever be close 100% effective as far as the

problem you raise goes.

 

In the next version (which should be available for

testing within a few days) we will have a 100% effective

solution to this problem:

 

The people who create tables will be able to specify

that public chat from kibitzers is not seen by the

players. Yellows and those designated as directors

of the tournament in question will still be able to

talk to the whole table when they are kibitzing.

 

Lots of other improvements and new features in the

upcoming release - stay tuned!

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[QQSV]

I just voted for tourney wide kibitzer chatter blocking; however, there is another possibility which I think would be a small improvement that was not suggested in the poll. How about blocking chatter until the play is complete, but allowing chatter after the last board of the round has been played and the players are waiting for the next round to start? That would make what can sometimes be a long boring wait a bit more interesting.

 

--Q (Dick Wagman)

[fred]

I just voted for tourney wide kibitzer chatter blocking; however, there is another possibility which I think would be a small improvement that was not suggested in the poll. How about blocking chatter until the play is complete, but allowing chatter after the last board of the round has been played and the players are waiting for the next round to start? That would make what can sometimes be a long boring wait a bit more interesting.

 

--Q (thingy Wagman)

 

Excellent idea Q, but harder to implement than

you might think. I will put this on my list of things

to do eventually :)

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com