Alerts during tournaments

[Cascade]

Is there a way we can encourage more and better explanations during tournaments.

 

It is easy to communicate to the opponents privately so it should be easy to tell them about nuances in your bidding.

 

I normally tell opponent's things like '4-card majors' or '5-card majors', '3rd and 5th leads' , NT ranges etc etc

 

I know there are many reasons why people dont alert - local practice, language difficulties etc

 

However it seems that the general standard could be much better than it is.

 

Last night I waited twice waited 2 minutes for an explanation on just one hand. All I received was 'forcing' and then to 'Does it show values?' after another 2 minutes 'Forcing 1 round'.

 

It turned out the opponent had a 9-count for this forcing bid opposite his partner's likely weak opening (actually a multi).

 

On another hand (the previous hand actually):

 

1NT (2C) alerted and explained as 'high suit'

 

I asked for clarification and was told 'hs' which may have been an abbreviation for hearts and spades but i thought was reiterating High Suit.

He had both majors.

 

Later they said I thought you understood capp. But 2C doesn't show the majors in capp.

 

I was tearing my hair out at this point :-(

 

Anyway this is a ramble but I just want to encourage tournament players to use the private chat to opponents to explain bids even ones that you might think locally do not require an alert :-)

 

We are from many different places and often will not understand what is common in other parts of the world. Even simple sayc openings coudl be annotated - as I said I always offer 'could be short we play 5-card majors'

 

My experience is that my opponents appreciate this.

 

Wayne

[hrothgar]

The issue of alerts, announcements, etc. comes up repeatedly. Better socialization and the establishment of cultural norms are certainly a partial solution; however, I am firmly convinced that the only “permanent” solution is a technical one. People are intrinsically lazy. Any system that requires that individuals expend extra effort is going to encounter severe problems.

 

As I mentioned before, I think that it would be possible to develop a so-called convention file that establishes a set of mappings between a particular bidding sequence and a hypertext string. This string would automatically be provided to the opponents when the appropriate sequence occurred. For example, a player might define that a 1NT opening means “15-17 HCP, balanced or semi-balanced hand”. From then on, anytime that a player opened 1NT this text string would automatically be provided to the opponents.

 

While this sounds good in theory, in practice there are a number of potential issues. The most significant is designing a file format that is

 

(a)  Compact

(B)  Easy to edit

©  Flexible enough to allow scripting

(d)  Able support conditional logic. My 1NT overcall over a Precision 1C means something VERY different than 1NT over a standard 1C opening.

 

I can think of some fairly simple solutions that would support some of these design goals, however, achieving all of them is far beyond my limited skills as a programmer. I’m firmly convinced that successfully defining this type of file format would be almost as significant to the evolution of the game of bridge as the first online bridge servers.

 

Assume for the moment that you had a convention file that completely defined a system such as Polish Club. Consider the possible uses:

 

(a)  Alerts/announcements could be completely automated without the need for user intervention

(B)  Players who were learning a system and playing non-competitively could use the convention file to announce the meaning of their partner’s bids.

©  Players who were learning a system and playing non-competitively could use the convention file to look at the meaning of their responses in and auction. For example, you open 1S, partner responds with a Jacoby 2NT and for the life of you, you can’t remember what your 3D response promises. Move the cursor over the 3D bid and the program tells you that this shows Diamond shortage.

 

At this point in time I’d almost be willing to pay for a good implementation of the file format and a decent editor.

[csdenmark]

I think it will be worth trying a simple solution like making it mandatory to load a convention card.

 

If it is not possible yet I think it will be very simple to implement that no cards loads unless both partners on each side have confirmed their cc. - This procedure must be repeated if changes in partnership.

[Orla]

I think it will be worth trying a simple solution like making it mandatory to load a convention card.

 

How much time do you think we have to peruse convention cards in a timed tournament?

 

I agree with what Wayne said.

 

Yesterday we played a 12 times 1-hand tourney - 8 mins. per hand. We whizzed from table to table. "Hi Opps we are playing Acol 12-14" "4-card suit bids"(hi P ;D). Few reciprocated.

 

I still "alert" my weak NT bid. If I bid uNT after 1D, I alert "Hearts" and "Clubs". So often I get: "precision" or "multi". I don't play them, so I still do not know what the bids mean :B) :B) ::) ::)

 

The directors ask us to alert every time, but few listen.

 

Orla

[csdenmark]

Right Orla - you mostly don't have much time!

 

Though I have noticed a few serious organizers of tournaments informing that the first 2 minutes of each round are for exchange of information of systems and not for play.

[DrTodd13]

How about this? Whenever you alert a bid, a box will pop up with a list of

your previous alerts (maybe you can say what system you are playing

so your moscito alerts don't get mixed with your 2/1 alerts). You can simply

click on a previous alert to use it again or type a new alert which will then

be saved. You could even heuristically match the bid with the alert so that

the potential alerts are ordered in decreasing order of likeliness.

 

Also, I think we should associate names with the alert text (or the alert info

if a more complex alert box is used as has been described in other threads).

I could name an alert like "Tresboof 1N" which would map to 9-13, unbal,

5+D, no 4 card major, 2+ controls. It would be much easier to find a proper

alert based on a name rather than having to parse each alert itself.

[hrothgar]

There is already an application called OKScript that [pretty much] does precisely what you want. As far as I know, OKS is compatible with Bridge Base Online's GUI.

[Cascade]

There is already an application called OKScript that [pretty much] does precisely what you want. As far as I know, OKS is compatible with Bridge Base Online's GUI.

 

OKScript works fine with BBO.

 

I use it in a very limited way :-)

 

Wayne

[keylime]

For smiles and giggles, is there a website that has this scripting tool so the serious players can use it as well?

[DrTodd13]

There is an application called "RemoteKeys" that I am currently

starting to use to automate alert messages. You can even assign

alerts to particular keystrokes so you don't have to click on another

window to send the right alert. RemoteKeys is freeware so you

can avoid the expense of OKscript.

 

Todd

[csdenmark]

Very - very nice Todd - thank you!

 

Promising - I really hope this tool will live up to expectations - then it will be the answer to our prayers!

 

I haven't tested yet - only downloaded. Sorry you forgot the address Todd. It is very worth to remember - other interesting stuff there too it looks like.

 

http://www.freewarehits.de/RemoteKeys.htm

 

1 hour later:

 

I have now made an initial test - an excellent script editor - with no programming I already have got it to work and to open chat box from a panel inserting text.

 

Simple and easy - for all to use - good luck