Standard Explanations

[Limey_p]

One of the big, big advantages on line bridge has over f2f is in the area or alerts/announcements - my pard does not see what I tell the opponents.

 

In order to make it easier for me to fully disclose, here's a suggestion:

 

- Have the software maintain a list of the explanations I've previously provided in a drop-down list.

 

I should be able to edit the list when I'm away from the table, much as I do a convention card. A direct tie-in to the convention card in some way might be nice but might not be necessary.

 

Also it might save the odd second or two if some standard explanations were available too - like "transfer", "one round force", etc.

 

AP

[1eyedjack]

It may not be supplied by BBO, but there are several third party products that will do most of what you are asking. They will not tie them into a CC, but as Hrothgar mentioned in another thread recently, the whole CC thing needs revamping anyway.

 

Personally I use OKScript, but others find different keyboard macro products simpler and effective.

[candybar]

Failure to alert is one of the biggest problems in BBO, tournaments and main tables alike. We need something that makes it EASY to alert and explain.

 

The point is not to punish failures to alert, but to get people to do them as a matter of habit.

 

It would make it MUCH easier to comply with alert requirements just by adding a simple pulldown list to the Alert explanation box when bidding. Then allow players to add phrases to the pulldown list (stored on their computer), which can be selected when making an alertable bid.

 

With this, I could store explanations for just about every bid that might be unknown to anyone, and easily select the explanation.

 

Asking people to find some macro language and set it up is asking too much of most BBO players. It's not worth their time, and many are simply not computer literate enough to do it.

 

The current system, where I have to type in the explanation every time, is far too cumbersome to encourage its use. It's also time-consuming for slow typists.

 

Just add a selectable list to the Alert explanation box, make it easy to alert/explain, and I'll bet the alerting compliance skyrockets.

[csdenmark]

Failure to alert is one of the biggest problems in BBO, tournaments and main tables alike.  We need something that makes it EASY to alert and explain.

 

The point is not to punish failures to alert, but to get people to do them as a matter of habit.

 

It would make it MUCH easier to comply with alert requirements just by adding a simple pulldown list to the Alert explanation box when bidding. Then allow players to add phrases to the pulldown list (stored on their computer), which can be selected when making an alertable bid.

 

With this, I could store explanations for just about every bid that might be unknown to anyone, and easily select the explanation.

 

Asking people to find some macro language and set it up is asking too much of most BBO players.  It's not worth their time, and many are simply not computer literate enough to do it.

 

The current system, where I have to type in the explanation every time, is far too cumbersome to encourage its use.  It's also time-consuming for slow typists.

 

Just add a selectable list to the Alert explanation box, make it easy to alert/explain, and I'll bet the alerting compliance skyrockets.

Fill in your convention card and load it. That's the backbone in bridge.

 

In that way you will also inform opps. of the relevant possible alternatives - they are just as important as the explanation itself.

[DrTodd13]

Just a good CC is not nearly enough. In most systems that people play here,

the vast majority of opening bids are not alertable. It is only later in the auction

typically that things are alertable and since the CC can't possibly go into this depth then yes we need a better alerting system. I personally use RemoteKeys to automate the alerting process and by and large that works fine for me but even then we typically only cover a couple rounds of bidding and subsequent rounds I still have to type by hand (we use a relay system). I agree though that it is too much to expect everyone to install an add-on and to use it that way. The integration with BBO could be much smoother and it could be easier to use.

 

Here are a couple of ideas. When you make a bid, the system looks at your hand and if you have less than 4 of the suit that you are bidding then it automatically asks you for an explanation (perhaps providing a default answer of "better minor" when the bid is 1♣ or 1♦). You could come up with some other simple rules like opening NTs that are unbalanced ask for an explanation. Perhaps there should be no way to close the alert box without indicating something...maybe you either type something or hit the "natural" button.

 

I also think it might be interesting if you had a "formal" mode where every bid automatically asked you for an explanation. In this mode, I think we should do away with textual alerts as the primary mode of conveying information. These are sometimes hard to interpret when someone is not using their native language. All in all, this could enforce proper alerting. You'd be given a box describing known length in each suit, HCP range, bal/unbal, natural/artificial, forcing/non-forcing, etc. Once you've entered this information by hand you save it away in a list that the user can select from later. You can even let the user save groups of these alerts into a "system" file so that if you play different systems then the saved alerts won't get mixed between the two.

 

Lack of proper alerting is pretty rampant and for some people in a casual game they don't really care but again I do think we need a mode with much stricter alerting requirements. I don't think an education campaign is going to force people to do it because if they don't do it there is generally no punishment. You are going to have to programmitcally force them to behave better.

[csdenmark]

One of the big, big advantages on line bridge has over f2f is in the area or alerts/announcements - my pard does not see what I tell the opponents.

For pick-up partnerships it is a really poor thing. For opps. too. I all to much need to play contracts bidded by opps. based on misunderstandings because of a pick-up partnership. Most partnerships in on-line bridge are so.

 

Occasionally I would like to know what partner has explained if anything at all. Simply to overcome the language problem and the cultural problem my partnership is facing when I am playing with a pole who is unable to communicate in anything else than polish language.

 

So also here it might be wise to look at the other side of the coin.

[Elianna]

Here are a couple of ideas. When you make a bid, the system looks at your hand and if you have less than 4 of the suit that you are bidding then it automatically asks you for an explanation (perhaps providing a default answer of "better minor" when the bid is 1♣ or 1♦). You could come up with some other simple rules like opening NTs that are unbalanced ask for an explanation. Perhaps there should be no way to close the alert box without indicating something...maybe you either type something or hit the "natural" button.

That would be a great idea for someone who can't figure out when opponents are psyching!

 

They open 1s, the alert box pops up and asks them to explain their call. They fill in natural. Now I know that this can't be real, because other times that they've opened/bid 1s it's been unalerted. yeay, the system is telling me that opps are psyching!

 

:)

[1eyedjack]

Here are a couple of ideas.  When you make a bid, the system looks at your hand and if you have less than 4 of the suit that you are bidding then it automatically asks you for an explanation (perhaps providing a default answer of "better minor" when the bid is 1♣ or 1♦).  You could come up with some other simple rules like opening NTs that are unbalanced ask for an explanation.  Perhaps there should be no way to close the alert box without indicating something...maybe you either type something or hit the "natural" button.

That would be a great idea for someone who can't figure out when opponents are psyching!

 

They open 1s, the alert box pops up and asks them to explain their call. They fill in natural. Now I know that this can't be real, because other times that they've opened/bid 1s it's been unalerted. yeay, the system is telling me that opps are psyching!

 

:)

I think DrTodd's suggestion has some mileage. Elianna's objection can be overcome (within the original spec) by including "psyche" as an optional radio button in the popup box. If the player selects that box then it permits the closure of the box and progression of play with no explanation imparted to the opponents (they can of course still ask, and if permitted to psyche an artificial call you could still alert and explain the agreement).

 

The main benefit of DrTodd's suggestion, as I see it, would be as a tool to help players who wish to be ethical but who are unsure whether a bid should be alerted given the particular playing environment.

 

But if you are going to make disclosure optional when the test parameters are exceeded (which I think is sensible, not least because I would not like to put 100% trust the algorithm) then the system could be simplified by the program simply prompting a suggestion that the bid should be alerted, with a tick or cross option to accept or refuse the prompt.

 

Players should be assured that a lack of prompt does NOT mean that the bid is not alertable. Nor would the prompt require an alert ... it would just be a stronger suggestion. The prompt would have to specify the cause of its being prompted.

 

All rather pie in the sky, I reckon.

[Elianna]

Here's another objection: Say partner opens 1NT, I want to bid 2♣ (asking for a four card major). When I have less than four cards, a window pops up saying that I need to explain my bid (and since it's not a psyche and I believe in full disclosure and not a convention name), I type "asks for 4+ major". All well and good. But now I bid stayman holding 4 or more clubs. No pop-up window comes, and I forget to alert it (or I alert it later, by clicking on the bid instead of typing ahead of time). Now opps know I have 4+ clubs.

 

I could go on with other examples. I guess the solution around this would be to always alert bids, but isn't that the solution, anyway?

[bearmum]

Failure to alert is one of the biggest problems in BBO, tournaments and main tables alike. We need something that makes it EASY to alert and explain.

 

The point is not to punish failures to alert, but to get people to do them as a matter of habit.

 

It would make it MUCH easier to comply with alert requirements just by adding a simple pulldown list to the Alert explanation box when bidding. Then allow players to add phrases to the pulldown list (stored on their computer), which can be selected when making an alertable bid.

 

With this, I could store explanations for just about every bid that might be unknown to anyone, and easily select the explanation.

 

Asking people to find some macro language and set it up is asking too much of most BBO players. It's not worth their time, and many are simply not computer literate enough to do it.

 

The current system, where I have to type in the explanation every time, is far too cumbersome to encourage its use. It's also time-consuming for slow typists.

 

Just add a selectable list to the Alert explanation box, make it easy to alert/explain, and I'll bet the alerting compliance skyrockets.

ITA :) I looked at a macro language that a poster recomended BUT although I am reasonably familiar woth my computer I found it too much hassle B)

[1eyedjack]

ITA :) I looked at a macro language that a poster recomended BUT although I am reasonably familiar woth my computer I found it too much hassle B)

I agree that there seems little incentive unless you are in a regular partnership.

And I also agree that something of that ilk would be better built into the BBO software. Trouble is, as long as there IS a workaround, it may be viewed as a low priority.

[1eyedjack]

Here's another objection: Say partner opens 1NT, I want to bid 2♣ (asking for a four card major). When I have less than four cards, a window pops up saying that I need to explain my bid (and since it's not a psyche and I believe in full disclosure and not a convention name), I type "asks for 4+ major". All well and good. But now I bid stayman holding 4 or more clubs. No pop-up window comes, and I forget to alert it (or I alert it later, by clicking on the bid instead of typing ahead of time). Now opps know I have 4+ clubs.

 

I could go on with other examples. I guess the solution around this would be to always alert bids, but isn't that the solution, anyway?

The program could keep a small database of sequences where an alert is always expected, I suppose.

 

But another objection is that the prompt to alert may remind the bidder of his system and suggest a different call.

[coyot]

Perhaps the solution would be a customizable file with "bid definitions".

 

Example file:

1♣ - natural | better minor

1♦ - natural | better minor | natural denies major 4card unless GF values and 5+♦

1♥ - natural | 4card is enough | natural and denies other major | transfer to spades

...

 

This would cause the system to show a dropdown with possible meanings. If you click on alert, you have to choose one item (separated by |).

 

Since for higher bids there would be a lot more possibilities, perhaps it would be good if the system could "recognize" which partial popup menu to use...

I.e:

 

Opening and response section:

[2HE] weak 6card or 5+4minor | 6+card 2-5 HCP | 5+card 12+HCP | 3card 6-9 HCP | transfer to spades

 

Opener rebids

2♥ 6card 12-15 | 4card 12-17 | 4card 16+

 

I know this looks complicated, but these files would have to be generated only once for each bidding system, could be shared by the community.

 

Also, natural meanings would not have to be covered here, so you would have only to describe conventional possibilities.

 

The above system would give the players the "easy alerting" and "as little typing as possible" while not being automated in any way (and therefore not being able to give any extra info to opps as mentioned in the examples above).

 

The "bidding system" file would be plain-text to allow easy changing. And I believe that pretty soon somebody would come up with a simple program that would allow you to take your system file and modify it for you with various gadgets. I.e. you would select "I want to play weak jump shifts as 2-5 HCP" and it would automatically add/modify an entry in 2♦,2♥,2♠.

(The editing mechanism itself would be fairly simple, would take a few hours max... the only hard part would be filling the editor with gadget data.)

[adf]

I like this idea in general, and Coyot's take on it particularly. Regardless of whether we take Coyot's user interface, there should be some mechanism of tying explanations to bids. For example, "4♠, 5-6♥, 11-15HCP" is something I would say only for a 2♦ opening bid, while "exclusion Blackwood" could be for any of several bids.

 

It would be nice to be able to share these files with the community.

 

It would also be nice if the system had a central file of translations. For example, if I explained a bid as "nonforcing," and I were playing against one or two non-English speakers, it would look this up in a dictionary and provide a native-tongue explanation to the opps. Maybe it could do this for CCs as well. Ad hoc abbreviations tend to frustrate this approach, so having the dropdowns would facilitate it, as would having more room for each bid on the CC.

 

For bids which are early enough in the auction to be on the CC, the system should automatically provide the description there as a choice.

 

The UI should probably be something like this:

1. click "Alert" but don't see or type anything

2. Select your bid

3. The list appears. Now you can't change your bid withour requesting an Undo. Yes, could you still have UI that you forgot your system, but we're not talking Spingold here; I believe that many players already look at their CCs during play.