Writing Down The Contract

[Vampyr]

Of course, the emphasis here was on entering the contract immediately and making it easily visible to one of the opponents.

 

Some clubs, such as my local club, want the opening lead entered. It does also help prevent incorrect declarer designations. The need for score corrections has significantly decreased due to this.

 

Yes, I am aware if there are sleepy opponents not paying attention, and if the feature for the table to correct a score in the same round without the Director is enabled, then North can use this feature to cheat - I've mentioned this on this site and other sites. But it does take a lot of keystrokes and opponents not paying attention to be useful. (Plus, if there is any suspicion, you can check the Bridgemate log and this North player would be quickly busted - and hopefully banned from the club for a significantly long time.)

 

But how many score corrections were there in the past? One per evening for every ten tables? Doesn’t seem like a big deal. In any case, turning over one of the opening leader’s cards should be enough. Maybe a half on average additional correction for a table that forgot t arrow-switch one of the boards.

 

About the ability to,change scores without the director present, you could of course do it after the opponents have left the table. It does not take many keystrokes; “=“ and “accept” would do. Anyway I was shocked to see this function enabled in Australia, before which I had thought that no SO in their right mind would have it turned on (actually, I didn’t know it was even possible). It is a ridiculous idea and I cannot see a reason for it.

[pran]

But how many score corrections were there in the past? One per evening for every ten tables? Doesn’t seem like a big deal. In any case, turning over one of the opening leader’s cards should be enough. Maybe a half on average additional correction for a table that forgot t arrow-switch one of the boards.

 

About the ability to,change scores without the director present, you could of course do it after the opponents have left the table. It does not take many keystrokes; “=“ and “accept” would do. Anyway I was shocked to see this function enabled in Australia, before which I had thought that no SO in their right mind would have it turned on (actually, I didn’t know it was even possible). It is a ridiculous idea and I cannot see a reason for it.

First of all: We (almost) always run barometer which means that the players receive their results for each round within a few minutes into the following round.

 

When players then approach me with a claim that an incorrect declarer has been entered and this claim is corroborated by the entered lead card I (usually) correct the error right away.

 

However, they know that with no such corroboration I will not make any correction without both pairs together approaching me (which of course is the normal procedure but means an extra burden on the players at a busy time).

 

I have noticed that the players are now much more conscious about correct registrations on Bridgemate than many of them were with their registrations on paper or when Bridgemate was new.

 

And they do appreciate the printouts showing cards, contracts, opening leads and results at every table for each board.

[blackshoe]

I get irritated by the "always lead before you fill in your scorecard" argument.

The little things that irritate people never cease to amaze me.

[barmar]

I understand that. But the software cannot tell the difference between the contract/lead being entered at the end of the auction, or it being entered at the end of play of the hand.

So?

 

While we often may not remember the opening lead, it's not considered critical (the software we use allows you to click "skip" for this). It's rare that there's a confusion over what the contract was.

 

As for why people like the opening lead entered, it goes well with the traveller feature. It's well known that the opening lead can be critical to an effective defense -- we have the well-known term "killing lead", and the aphorism that more tricks are given away by the opening lead than anything else. So it's often the answer to "How did they manage to make/set that unmakeable/cold contract?": "Oh, a club lead!" Our club also had a vote on whether to keep that feature enabled, and voted in favor as well, even though our web site with the recap doesn't show it.

[Vampyr]

So?

 

While we often may not remember the opening lead, it's not considered critical (the software we use allows you to click "skip" for this). It's rare that there's a confusion over what the contract was.

 

As for why people like the opening lead entered, it goes well with the traveller feature. It's well known that the opening lead can be critical to an effective defense -- we have the well-known term "killing lead", and the aphorism that more tricks are given away by the opening lead than anything else. So it's often the answer to "How did they manage to make/set that unmakeable/cold contract?": "Oh, a club lead!" Our club also had a vote on whether to keep that feature enabled, and voted in favor as well, even though our web site with the recap doesn't show it.

 

We have to enter the opening lead at some tournaments, but the lead is not shown when we view the results at other tables. So the function it is pointless, and thus it is good enough to just enter any card held by the opening leader.

[pescetom]

It's rare that there's a confusion over what the contract was.

It happens in my club (particularly disputes about whether the contract was doubled or not), unlike other possible mishaps such as exposed cards or bids out of turn, which merit entire laws and correction mechanisms but fortunately never seem to happen. Probably I'm just unlucky.

 

As for why people like the opening lead entered, it goes well with the traveller feature. It's well known that the opening lead can be critical to an effective defense -- we have the well-known term "killing lead", and the aphorism that more tricks are given away by the opening lead than anything else. So it's often the answer to "How did they manage to make/set that unmakeable/cold contract?": "Oh, a club lead!" Our club also had a vote on whether to keep that feature enabled, and voted in favor as well, even though our web site with the recap doesn't show it.

I'm fighting hard to get my club to adopt Bridgemate or a similar system, but I certainly wouldn't do so if it meant giving up the information about opening leads currently available from travellers. Electronic scorekeeping should make the post-mortem more fruitful ("what percentage of tables lead hearts and how did they fare?"), not less.

Entering the opening lead also enables the system to check that the declarer has been correctly designated, which is another error that sometimes happens, in my club at least.

[VixTD]

The little things that irritate people never cease to amaze me.

It's the assumption that there cannot be anything to think about when choosing an opening lead that I find irritating, or that players are incapable of continuing the thinking process while writing down the contract and declarer. It's similar to requiring thinking time as a defender after the play of trick one has been completed. I don't see why that irritation should amaze anyone, but perhaps you belong to the "play by rote" category of bridge player.

[gordontd]

We have to enter the opening lead at some tournaments, but the lead is not shown when we view the results at other tables. So the function it is pointless, and thus it is good enough to just enter any card held by the opening leader.

So you would bother to check that a card that was not led was in the opening-leader's hand in order to avoid giving information that might be of interest to others after the event, just because you can't see it during the event?

[barmar]

We have to enter the opening lead at some tournaments, but the lead is not shown when we view the results at other tables. So the function it is pointless, and thus it is good enough to just enter any card held by the opening leader.

Does it show up on the web site with the results?

[WellSpyder]

... or that players are incapable of continuing the thinking process while writing down the contract and declarer.....

While it may be a slightly harsh way of putting it, this is indeed quite close to the assumption I make here. I find it hard to believe that many people think as effectively about their opening lead while also doing other things as they would do if they focused just on thinking about the lead. I therefore also believe that in almost all cases where people write down the contract and declarer first, the opening lead takes longer than it otherwise would have done.

[barmar]

I'm fighting hard to get my club to adopt Bridgemate or a similar system, but I certainly wouldn't do so if it meant giving up the information about opening leads currently available from travellers.

Paper travellers in ACBL here have never had a place to enter opening leads. We didn't start doing it at our club until we adopted electronic scoring.

 

I've never seen it enabled on the scoring devices at any ACBL tournament, but they also don't enable traveller display. When tournaments used paper, they used pick-up slips, not travellers, so players weren't in the habit of seeing previous results.

[blackshoe]

perhaps you belong to the "play by rote" category of bridge player.

Sure, that must be it. :angry:

[pran]

We have to enter the opening lead at some tournaments, but the lead is not shown when we view the results at other tables. So the function it is pointless, and thus it is good enough to just enter any card held by the opening leader.

Does it show up on the web site with the results?

With our scoring programs it sure does.

[pescetom]

Paper travellers in ACBL here have never had a place to enter opening leads. We didn't start doing it at our club until we adopted electronic scoring.

 

I've never seen it enabled on the scoring devices at any ACBL tournament, but they also don't enable traveller display. When tournaments used paper, they used pick-up slips, not travellers, so players weren't in the habit of seeing previous results.

 

That's interesting. In Italy paper travellers always have a place to enter opening leads, and there is pressure from both peers and director to fill it in accurately. Sometimes there is no place to enter who was declarer and thus the lead is the only way to work this out (and to cross check that the score is assigned to the right line).

When declarer has made less tricks than others playing the same contract, the first thing he does is to ask to see the traveller, hoping to be able to claim that he was just unlucky to receive a different lead B-)

[barmar]

With our scoring programs it sure does.

I was asking Vampyr, since she said entering the lead is pointless. Obviously if your site displays it, it's not pointless for your club.

[VixTD]

While it may be a slightly harsh way of putting it...

Well, I told you I was irritated.

 

I find it hard to believe that many people think as effectively about their opening lead while also doing other things as they would do if they focused just on thinking about the lead. I therefore also believe that in almost all cases where people write down the contract and declarer first, the opening lead takes longer than it otherwise would have done.

I often do some of my thinking during the auction, particularly when it looks fairly likely what the final contract will be, so as not to waste time, and as I've said, maybe some more while writing down the contract. To then be told I'm wasting time when I haven't quite made up my mind is annoying. I don't mind if other people do it differently and can't think clearly while they're doing something else; I don't assume they're wasting time, and I don't presume to tell them what to do.

 

I am the sort of player who likes to have a think at the sight of dummy, and if I'm filling in my scorecard as dummy goes down, I sometimes find that trick two is already underway by the time I've had a chance to glance up and see the dummy. This interrupts my train of thought and slows the game down even more.

[blackshoe]

I'm trying to break myself of the habit of writing things down in the middle of a hand. For one thing, I think it'll help improve my memory, eventually. But habits are not easy to break.

[Vampyr]

I was asking Vampyr, since she said entering the lead is pointless. Obviously if your site displays it, it's not pointless for your club.

 

I don’t know, because like everyone else I go over the hands with the hand records and do not look at the online travellers.

[StevenG]

I don’t know, because like everyone else I go over the hands with the hand records and do not look at the online travellers.

That surprises me. Now our Community Centre finally has wi-fi, the results are usually online by the time I've got home. (We used to have to wait for the scorer to upload them from a memory stick, wwhich might not have been until the next day.) So I use the website to look at the results, travellers, leads, everything, and the increasingly excellent analytical tools Bridgewebs provides (both for my club and, apparently, the North London club). Even if, as I suspect, Vampyr finds a bar rather than going home, there are still smartphones.

[Vampyr]

That surprises me. Now our Community Centre finally has wi-fi, the results are usually online by the time I've got home. (We used to have to wait for the scorer to upload them from a memory stick, wwhich might not have been until the next day.) So I use the website to look at the results, travellers, leads, everything, and the increasingly excellent analytical tools Bridgewebs provides (both for my club and, apparently, the North London club). Even if, as I suspect, Vampyr finds a bar rather than going home, there are still smartphones.

 

Well, true, but after I have gone over any points of interest with friends I do not go home and look at them again by myself. But anyway you seem to be talking about club bridge and the North London club doesn’t require leads to be entered. And I don’t know whether we use Bridgewebs.

[WellSpyder]

I am the sort of player who likes to have a think at the sight of dummy, and if I'm filling in my scorecard as dummy goes down, I sometimes find that trick two is already underway by the time I've had a chance to glance up and see the dummy. This interrupts my train of thought and slows the game down even more.

That is possible, of course, and I do occasionally find the same thing happens to me - though it requires declarer to ignore the recommendation to pause before playing from dummy, and for my partner to acquiesce, too. When it does happen, my approach is to pause and think about dummy anyway. Then I look at what cards others have played at T1. Then I turn over the card I played at T1. And then I start thinking if necessary about T2.....

 

I guess others might complain that this means my writing down the contract after the opening lead is delaying the game just as much as those who write it down before leading. But in the vast majority of cases this isn't true, because someone will have done the thinking they are supposed to do before playing to T1.

[weejonnie]

That surprises me. Now our Community Centre finally has wi-fi, the results are usually online by the time I've got home. (We used to have to wait for the scorer to upload them from a memory stick, wwhich might not have been until the next day.) So I use the website to look at the results, travellers, leads, everything, and the increasingly excellent analytical tools Bridgewebs provides (both for my club and, apparently, the North London club). Even if, as I suspect, Vampyr finds a bar rather than going home, there are still smartphones.

We use Bridgewebs - and I try and get both sets of results (we play two sessions) up by 11.00pm. All players, of course, have seen the results on the computer at the club. Our community centre is basically in the same position- just got WiFi working.

 

And then come in the queries and mis-scores . . . Fortunately I have a (non wi-fi) copy of Scorebridge at home.

[barmar]

I am the sort of player who likes to have a think at the sight of dummy, and if I'm filling in my scorecard as dummy goes down, I sometimes find that trick two is already underway by the time I've had a chance to glance up and see the dummy. This interrupts my train of thought and slows the game down even more.

If you're not the opening leader, then you can be screwed no matter when you write down the contract -- other players may take action while you're doing it. Unless you do it right before your play to trick 1, which is likely to annoy the other players even more and also slow down the game.

 

There's no perfect solution as long as writing down the contract at the beginning of play is allowed (and I don't like the idea of prohibiting that). So let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good -- try to be as reasonable as possible. And don't get too hung up on players who don't do it exactly as you prefer. Remember, it's just a game.

[pescetom]

I'm trying to break myself of the habit of writing things down in the middle of a hand. For one thing, I think it'll help improve my memory, eventually. But habits are not easy to break.

 

Here in Italy only the most obsessive players write things down at the end of the game and in any other situation it would be regarded with suspicion.

Perhaps this derives from the laws:

"Unless the Regulating Authority provides otherwise a player is not entitled to any aids to his memory, calculation or technique during the auction period and play."

Our RA does not provide otherwise, although of course the right to require about the contract after the auction remains.

[blackshoe]

I'm guessing Italy doesn't print their system cards on the back of the personal score card. ;)