tedf Posted February 7, 2020 Report Share Posted February 7, 2020 In case this hasn't arisen before -- when declaring there is usually no prominent distinction between the dummy and the declarer's hand. In f2f bridge declarer's hand is automatically invisible to the defenders and plans are made accordingly. On BBO one can lose sight of that, at least I do. And yesterday I saw Peter Hollands mulling over his plan of play in one of his videos and then suddenly say that, oh, that's the concealed hand so they can't see that holding. A labeling of the hands as "dummy" and "concealed" would mostly fix that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el mister Posted February 8, 2020 Report Share Posted February 8, 2020 I lose sight of this myself sometimes in robot games - it's usually when you switch seats so declarer hand is at the top of the screen, can forget that the bottom hand (the one you bid) is the open one.A label might help - couldn't hurt in any case. Certainly forgetting this can lead to some bad lines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve2005 Posted February 8, 2020 Report Share Posted February 8, 2020 I would label hand as declarer not as concealed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pescetom Posted February 8, 2020 Report Share Posted February 8, 2020 I would also clearly lable hand where human is declarer with hand bid by robot and vice versa.And use different colour or something for dummy, or even (gasp) place his cards on the table.And not leave things in a mess when a claim has been accepted.And never leave the yellow bar highlighted when viewer does not need to play.And...but we've been through this before, and BBO seems convinced that an interface hacked out in a day for MS-DOS is still sufficient :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msfolly Posted February 8, 2020 Report Share Posted February 8, 2020 They clearly need to label the dummy hand! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
citybadger Posted February 9, 2020 Report Share Posted February 9, 2020 I suppose having an option to arrange dummy's suits vertically, as is done in f2f bridge, is impractical. Could declarer's cards have a visual cue in the way they drawn, like curled up at the edges - to suggest their backs are facing the opponents - or arranged in a curve or with a slight perspective - to suggest being in held in a hand? Only as a selectable option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amidamin Posted February 9, 2020 Report Share Posted February 9, 2020 Dummy's hand has always a grayish background. But maybe bad eyes cannot see the difference between a white and a grayish background? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pescetom Posted February 9, 2020 Report Share Posted February 9, 2020 Dummy's hand has always a grayish background. But maybe bad eyes cannot see the difference between a white and a grayish background? No difference on my PC, phone or tablet that I can see.Maybe you are using a legacy client? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted February 10, 2020 Report Share Posted February 10, 2020 Here's a hand that's being played with the current web client, the color difference is quite noticeable to me (West is dummy). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pescetom Posted February 10, 2020 Report Share Posted February 10, 2020 Noticeable to anyone I think, but first time I've ever seen it.Maybe it's only implemented in hand diagram mode?I'm on pictures of cards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted February 11, 2020 Report Share Posted February 11, 2020 Sorry, I forgot that most people use picture mode. You're right, I don't see any different shading for dummy with pictures. And the shading color for played cards (when you have "Show played cards" enabled) is decidedly weird. We do have new designers working on the styling of the application. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pescetom Posted February 13, 2020 Report Share Posted February 13, 2020 Nice to hear it. I tried playing pictures of cards just now, for the second time.Found it just as frustrating as the first time, but at least I did get that useful and intuitive grey dummy. In real world bridge, calls are selected from a colourful 7x5+ box and are lined up on the green table (or tray) in front of players - I never understood why a graphic interface should be different, even on a smartphone.But that aside, my first question would be, why are the hand diagram boxes so big?They eat up a huge amount of screen unnecessarily and force unnatural positions for everything else.During the auction this is especially painful, with the (unintuitive) bidding "matrix" on the left instead of in the centre and the (unintuitive) bidding "box" on low right instead of centre right.During play it's not so bad but the play area still seems cramped and offset to my hand. I'm sure I could get used to it over time, and I do prefer the hand diagram, but I would like it integrated in a symmetrical layout that resembles real bridge as closely as possible. Please tell the new designers B-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tedf Posted February 16, 2020 Author Report Share Posted February 16, 2020 Can't help noting that for the second time in two weeks Pete Hollands momentarily lost sight of the fact that Declarer was in the North on the weekly free tournament, card pictures, Human Declare, Best Hand. Went on for a while trying to understand the robot defense and then the penny dropped. "Shame on me.", he said, and on me too for the several times I have done it. I'll try harder util help arrives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeavyDluxe Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 I do wish that, instead of just flipping the names, they'd rotate hands when I'm declaring from the Robot's seat. That is, make the robot/declaring hand south when I'm playing. BUT, they DO flip the names. So, I don't really know what people are complaining about. They already do mark which hand is declaring (it's marked with the name of the player playing the hand) and which is dummy (Robot). Perhaps not the clear-est indicators, but clear enough that I think doing more would be too much. Again, I'd prefer that they swap hands/rotate the table instead of simply moving my name to NORTH when they 'switch seats' for me. But, it's not like there isn't an indication of which hand is declaring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pescetom Posted February 17, 2020 Report Share Posted February 17, 2020 BUT, they DO flip the names. So, I don't really know what people are complaining about. They already do mark which hand is declaring (it's marked with the name of the player playing the hand) and which is dummy (Robot). What I am complaining about is that the names remain flipped (with no indication that they have been flipped) in a hand diagram that later gets posted.So from the point of view of a forum reader, this unintuitive peculiarity makes it look as if the bids actually made by the robot were made by the human and vice versa. This leads to frequent incomprehensions on the forum. "(bid by Robot)" and "(Bid by HeavyDluxe)" would be quite sufficient. From the point of view of a player, I couldn't care less what is written so long as it is clear that I am now declarer and which hand is mine. This could well be done by rotating the table and clearly identifying the dummy at the top of screen, I agree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted February 18, 2020 Report Share Posted February 18, 2020 Again, I'd prefer that they swap hands/rotate the table instead of simply moving my name to NORTH when they 'switch seats' for me. But, it's not like there isn't an indication of which hand is declaring.That was how we originally did it. But this was confusing because the opponents' bidding ends up swapped from where it was during the auction, so we changed to this style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnu Posted February 22, 2020 Report Share Posted February 22, 2020 I suppose having an option to arrange dummy's suits vertically, as is done in f2f bridge, is impractical. Could declarer's cards have a visual cue in the way they drawn, like curled up at the edges - to suggest their backs are facing the opponents - or arranged in a curve or with a slight perspective - to suggest being in held in a hand? Only as a selectable option. Arranging dummy with 4 columns, 1 per suit, (trumps to the left if a suit contract) descending in rank was done in the original Windows version. This dummy display format is actually spelled out in the rules of contract bridge, so the actual display doesn't follow bridge law. I've asked many times in the years since a web version came out for the dummy display to be fixed to conform with the laws of bridge, but nothing has happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pescetom Posted February 22, 2020 Report Share Posted February 22, 2020 Funbridge (which is owned by BBO) already has valid graphic representations of dummy, hands and bidding box: example Readable without problem on a cellphone, tablet or PC, conformant to Laws, simply what a bridge player would expect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted February 23, 2020 Report Share Posted February 23, 2020 Funbridge (which is owned by BBO) Just to clarify, Funbridge is not owned by BBO. BBO and Funbridge are part of 52 Entertainment, which was formed when the two companies merged last year. And this is a subsidiary of GOTO Games. However, our new designers are in France at the office that's shared by Funbridge and GOTO Games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pescetom Posted February 24, 2020 Report Share Posted February 24, 2020 Just to clarify, Funbridge is not owned by BBO. BBO and Funbridge are part of 52 Entertainment, which was formed when the two companies merged last year. And this is a subsidiary of GOTO Games. However, our new designers are in France at the office that's shared by Funbridge and GOTO Games. Interesting news, thanks.According to this press release of HLD Group, GOTO Investment was renamed 52 Entertainment which now includes Funbridge and BBO and through GOTO Games Asia also CBO (China). A profitable 17m euro / year worldwide business with 100 employees and agreements with 14 national federations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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