Guide to running BBO tournaments (without driving yourself crazy!)

[skrshawk]

Hi there,

This is an article of which I should take my own advice. Running tournaments on BBO can be a headache despite any of our best efforts. Simply put, users can get out of control, forgetting that the only other game in town is $200 a year up-front :). Now we can't exactly beat them over the head with this fact, so I thought I'd post some survival tips for the many volunteer tournament directors we have. Let me mention along with this how grateful we are to have you - there's a lot of people who wouldn't want to touch this with a ten foot pole :D.

 

1) Limit the number of players in the tourney. A good reference is 48 pairs to start, and another 36 for each additional director available. Why should additional directors handle less? For some reason, the more people you have the more they will collectively complain. If players get the feeling expressing their disgruntlement is acceptable they will all hop on the bandwagon - and it's trampling your way.

 

2) Substitutions are part of the deal. Of course, no partner is going to be perfect. Check the profile of the person that needs a sub - if they're playing a specific system (WJ, precision, etc.) advertise for a compatible partner. Countrymates also tend to help morale. There's nothign worse than sticking a WJ player with someone that only plays SAYC :). If the original partner returns, insert them back at the end of the hand (most of the time they will enter and kibitz and see all the cards in that hand which isn't fair to the opps).

 

3) Score adjustments - don't unless you have to. The only situation in which we're aware the software is messing up is claims being incorrectly recorded into final contracts. If you feel a procedural penalty is necessary or wish to score a currently playing hand by adjudication, ask then to make a claim and then adjust the score. Try to stay away from this as people don't like their scores tampered with, even by a director (who has every right).

 

4) Discipline - if somebody's breaking the rules of the site, call for a yellow. Let us handle it. If we're not around email one of us (most of you know our emails - we can be reached at yellow@bridgebase.com, insert the name of the yellow, for the most part). We can do a lot of things that cretins don't like and we love our jobs - we like to play bridge on a nicely policed site too :).

 

Feel free to add your own survival tips as you direct and gain experience.

 

Take care,

John

[uday]

Excellent advice. I'd add the following

 

. Some directors (Gerardo, Uday) don't allow the original player back in when he has substituted and returns later. Make your own policy.

 

. Don't play in your own tourneys, at least in the begining, or unless you make the max # of pairs really small (under 30 or so). If you do, make sure people know that there is no director :)

[Gerardo]

As you know, I like to run clocked tourneys (in minority).

Those had more work to the director(s), but I like them better, because of the drawbacks of unclocked ones (which I know are being addressed, I may switch in the future, or not).

 

I use 3 boards/round, so round ends doesn't come so ofter, which is where clocked work really are.

If you run a speedball, a min of 4 boards/round would be necessary.

 

That modifies John's points a bit, so

 

1) I think his numbers are conservative for unclocked, and about right for clocked.

 

2) I make people responsible for asking for sub a partner, so they have to ask for a sub. Being timed, they usually make an earli(er) decision about getting one. I usually take the first available, but John's way is better, will do that way. But, once partner subs you out, there is no way back.

 

3) That's the burden of clocked ones, at the end of round, there will be some AVE- for both on timing up. So, I request an early call on time problems to correct some AVE- to AVE+ if one pair is clearly responsible for most of the lost time.

I also use to adjust requested boards when time is up, no clear responsible of lost time, and end position is clear (usually unanswered claims).

 

4) Agree ;-). I'd also like to punish people who leaves tourney in middle, without telling directors, or stallers, if proven.

[inquiry]

Adjusting a Score and Dealing with a tournment escapee....

 

I have directed a couple of tournments (my own or helping with others), and have run across these two situations....

 

1) An opening bid of 2NT on 5-5 in the minors and 2 points. Of course no alert, or no story.....

 

The opponents called me after the first trick or two, and claimed damage. The 2NT bidder was some what indigant, after all, if opponents wanted to know what 2NT meant they could have asked (despite no alert and no convention card). I informed the 2NT bidder that 2NT should be alerted, and since opposite a natural 2NT opening the other pairs bidding was perfectly normal, I awarded average+ to the "non-offending side" and average minus to the pair who faild to alert (with Rain's help). :)

 

Do others adjust scores in situations like this?

 

2) In another tournment, one player kept leaving and coming right back (they would hit the "x" to leave and then relog onto BBO). This player actually called for a director to "get a substitute for me", then they left and came back two or three times more. Now, I have to admit I didn't ask the reason why this player was wanting to leave, but since they kept coming back to the gaming site, one can guess it wasn't a family emergency.

 

I was originally going to find a subsitute and let it go at that, but the fact the player left and then came back and left and then came back while I was searching for a substitute made me change my mind. So in this case, I called a yellow to deal with the "problem" (John actually). I don't know what the resolution of that was other than the player did get substituted for (and don't really want to know)...but a check of results showed this player had five for five minus imp boards, some fairly large minus imps. So I suspect the player was just feed up with their partner or the event, Although to be honest, checking the results show that the player who wanted to leave was responsible for all the poor scores, IMHO, not their partner.

 

I just want to know what to do about players like this in the future. My understanding is that it is against the RULES for a player to abandon a tournment due to poor scores or bad partner. Clearly since this player keep coming back to BBO, I assume such was the reason here. Should we have an extra reporting step beyond find a yellow to inform?

 

Ben

[uday]

I almost never adjust a board due to missing alerts. When the tourneys get more "serious" and there is something at stake, I might change my mind.

 

These days, it is really easy to find subs. So if a player were to lose his connection more than a couple of times, i'd replace him.

 

G, could you talk a bit more about the drawbacks of unclocked movements? To me the primary ones are

 

1) Takes too long

2) Very slow pairs and very fast pairs get too many playbacks

[mishovnbg]

Alerting is need at table Uday, else no fair Bridge. Will be too late to begin punish for not alerted or bad explained bids when tournaments become "serious". Try to play against me and my partner, if we not alert and explain our bids. Believe me, will be not fun for you to play, result is not interesting.

Misho

[uday]

Hmm. I'm open to other viewpoints and any director is free to run his game any way he likes, but why isnt this the same as playing at the Main Bridge Club if the oppos don't alert "properly" ?

 

The best defence, i think, is social; people should understand their responsibilities (about alerting) when playing. If the director has to get involved, we'll soon find that the director won't be able to handle as many tables, hence we'll probably see fewer tourneys.

 

Opinions? What do you other directors do when someone calls because an oppo didn't alert something?

[skrshawk]

Here's my typical approach to handling accusations of misalerting or nonalerting.

 

I make sure the players understand the possibility that it was an honest mistake and not intended to cause damage to them. The reason for this is that nothing stops people from cross-tabling by means of an instant messenger or other service. This said, nobody is going to waste their time trying to convey unauthorized information by means of misalerts.

 

This doesn't take away the need to properly alert bids. Simply put, the only bids that don't need to be alerted are natural system bids and internationally accepted conventions (things like Stayman, announcement of transfers, etc.) Unless there's some obvious malice going on I will give a warning the first time it happens assuming that the bid isn't wantonly destructive to the auction (4S on a 5 card suit with little support values is my idea of wanton). Any further complaints of misalerting or nonalerting I will handle with procedural penalties (by awarding contracts more favorable to the other side, average +/- scores, etc.)

 

Take care,

John

[Gerardo]

Drawbacks of unclocked:

 

1) Takes too long - true ;-)

2) Playbacks - Very true

3) You can't follow a player scoresheet and movie, those are tied to the table instead. In a clocked, easier because no wild jumps of pairs from one table to another.

So, if you need to review a board, you would have to wait till the end, and get if from myhands. Meanwhile, player keeps complaining about that board ;-)

4) Slowest tables get overpopulated of kibitzers, who are noisy. Silent kibitzers solves that, but sure thing someone will ask you to be a messenger, as (s)he can't communicate with a player (inside BBO). [Already happened to me]

 

About alerts:

I think most people do alert, but you still need to deal with the ones who doesn't, or who doesn't do it properly ("cue bid" [argh! HATE that one], "polish club" instead of "12-15 bal, 15+ with 5+ or any 18+", you get the point)

[uday]

This is what i send would-be directors

 

http://bridgebase.com/tourney/help/

 

Comments? when we're happy with it, might be worth translating it.

[JRG]

This is what i send would-be directors

 

http://bridgebase.com/tourney/help/

 

Comments? when we're happy with it, might be worth translating it.

 

 

 

Uday's notes have been added to the BBO Online Help. This is a good thread to post information about directing that you feel might be worth adding to the help system.

[paulg]

A small comment that is not intending to distract from the excellent job that our directors do.

 

With regards to advertising the tourney, directors almost always put the number of boards and whether the tourney is clocked.

 

Could I ask that they also advertise the maximum number of pairs as well. It's frustrating to search around for a partner and then find the tourney was already full. Only a few directors currently do this.

 

Regards

 

Paul

[McBruce]

Good point, cardsharp: in my second try at running one, I limited it to 30 pairs, made a lobby announcement that there were only 10 entries left and 10 minutes left, and in 2 minutes it was full! So I adjusted things to make it 40 pairs.

 

BTW Uday, when we make such an adjustment, the default seems to be one board per round. I was set up with 5 rounds of 3 boards, 8 mins clocked--but when I changed from max 30 pairs to max 40 pairs I did not notice that it had reverted back to 1 board per round and for 30 scary seconds (until the next change) I had a fifteen round tourney scheduled! Good thing there were 8 minutes left and not less than one... B)