etiquette

[Guest Carvesalot]

I want to share what happened to me on BBO the other evening.

 

My partner (who I know) started a new table and invited others from the lobby to join us, and some oppo arrived soon afterward. The first board was dull. On the next my LHO bid up to the four level without any encouragement from his partner. This ended with my doubling him in 4♥.

 

The 'advanced' player took one look at dummy, and then left the table without comment.

 

It must be something to hate your own bidding so much you cant stand to play the contracts you have bid...

 

Anyway, a new opponent turns up, we reset the score, and redeal the hand.

 

And once again, some three boards later, the oppo are in trouble. One of them made a ridiculous bid, and the result was a no-play slam.

 

What do you suppose happens? The player in the wrong, who was dummy, disappears without comment. Unlike the previous disappearing player, this one had not gone offline but had gone to another table to inflict himself on somebody else.

 

This happened over and over all evening. Every few hands one opponent or other would dislike his partners bidding or play sufficiently to disappear half way through a hand. And a few hated their own bidding or play sufficiently to do so.

 

I am not being unfairly selective. I play on BBO most evenings, and people are acting like this all the time. I think this sort of behaviour is incredibly rude, and there is no way I would ever leave half way through a hand without comment, whatever I thought of the bidding, the play, or anything else.

 

My guess is that few of the offenders would treat their real life bridge partners in this way. But there is a sort of anonymity attached to playing online, and so some people feel they can be as rude as they like.

 

Clearly these are not the sort of players we want on BBO. So two things - one, do others agree that this sort of thing is much too common, and two, if so, is there anything that can be done about it?

[scoob]

one, do others agree that this sort of thing is much too common

irrefutably.

 

two, if so, is there anything that can be done about it

sadly, not much. the method i use myself (as i'm sure others do) is to keep track of opponents who have provided a positive experience - when starting a table, i always invite from that list before i (resignedly) open the table up to the public.

[Double !]

Maybe each player should black-mark (label as enemy) any players who do this and just not permit them at your table of you have control of the table. This practive of leaving the table in the middle of a hand is so increasingly prevalent that It's not clear that abuse could handle the overload if every similar situation were to be reported (as perhaps they should be.) Maybe we need to take more care in monitoring our own tables and reject such players when they try to tap in to our tables. I really don't know.

[inquiry]

These are three different situations, that we (bbo administrators) differentiate between.

 

Let me spell them out.

 

Case one - A... Pair reach horrible spot, maybe doubled. This happens by a bad auction, a misunderstanding, or anything short of intentional misconduct during the bidding by either partner. After this the dummy (player not playing the hand) chooses to leave.

 

Case one - B Same as above, but declearer chooses to leave the table.

 

Case two opponents reach crazy contract by the eihter player (but most often dummy) bidding badly on purpose (example 1NT by partner, jump to 7NT by dummy with 0 hcp). Then dummy leaves.

 

Case Two and Case One-B report to abuse. In the case of case two, the person duing this will certainly be sanctioned. Such bidding is against the rules of the site as it spoils the enjoyment of others who are trying to enjoyg the game by unfairly skewing the result of imps or matchpoints.

 

In Case One B, also report to abuse. The reason here is you are not "allowed" (well you can physical do it of course) to leave a hand during play (runners). If you start a hand, you must finish it. Simple as that. A declearer who leaves is always running the risk of being sanctioned by Abuse. This is not a secret but you maynot know this, we can check frequency of such actions IF YOU REPORT IT.. someone who does this often will be treated more harshly than someone who did this just once or twice. This also applies to table host who feel like they can boot every partner or opponent who displeases them (or beats them). We have even seen people who boot anyone who bids a slam against them before the hand is over then they redeal so the result will not stand. We deal with this if you report it.

 

As for case one - A. Rude to leave without a comment? Sure, but better than for the player to say "partner you a blithering idiiot, I refuse to play with you goodbye." And leaving as dummy in the BBO main room violates no BBO rules (the hand is over for the dummy). As a Yellow, I just wish every person who thinks their parter is an idiot or worse, would just excuse themselves at the end of the hand without making negative comments. I guess the old saying if you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all still has some meaning. No need to report case one - A to abuse because this is allowed. IF you find the player leaving without as much as a "thanks, goodbye", mark them as enemy and move on.

 

Only if you, the players report such behavior will we catch the violators. And as we catch and punish them, others will think twice before doing it too.

[42]

I hate this behaviour, too! It happened very often to me and I logged off then, being frustrated. Blacklisting does not really help although I do, too many unknown persons (or players with different/new IDs) are nowadays playing (which is good, of course!!). When I open a table, I require permission to join AND I write in the table description that only players are wlc who want to play more hands. Funny, but it worked (or it was just lucky). I deny permission when the profile is totally empty because for me it implies that the player has reasons to leave others in the dark. Now most of the time I play tourneys or teammatches or we meet with friends. Sad that the possibility of meeting new nice people is a bit restricted this way. I remember the early days of BBO when we were a big family *sigh* It is easier to behave badly in a big crowd than in a small group. Changing the ID is too easy imo. I think there is no solution to this problem :(

Caren

[scoob]

The reason here is you are not "allowed" (well you can physical do it of course) to leave a hand during play (runners).

maybe it's time for this to change. if you want to leave between hands you should have to have permission from others at the table - if you leave (signout of bbo) without permission you're automatically banned from re-joining bbo for a short term (hours?)

 

(i know this will never happen and i'm sure i could come up with several pages of logistical problems arising from it - but it's nice to dream)

[inquiry]

The reason here is you are not "allowed" (well you can physical do it of course) to leave a hand during play (runners).

maybe it's time for this to change. if you want to leave between hands you should have to have permission from others at the table - if you leave (signout of bbo) without permission you're automatically banned from re-joining bbo for a short term (hours?)

 

(i know this will never happen and i'm sure i could come up with several pages of logistical problems arising from it - but it's nice to dream)

So every person who loses connection is banned for hours? if they were playing at a table? You know you can leave by disconnecting your cable, picking up anohter phone, closing your internet connection, or having your line disrupted by some action other than your own. Really, this suggestion is unworkable.

 

A better one, is if you leave a table during play (this would apply to dummy too I guess), you will be blocked from joining another table for some period of time (minutes to hours?). You can always rejoin the table you left. This is probably not workable either, but at least it has the chance to workable. If you are disconnect, you get re=seated when you are reconnected.

[Gerardo]

I support scoob's idea, starting with 10 min, then 15 min after a few reincidencies, then 20 min, etc.

 

It allows the emergency leaving without punish, as it should be, and the perps would be affected. BTW, dummy should be included, if you bid it, watch your partner play it.

Time to leave would be before your first bid on a given hand.

 

10 min is small enough to not be a big problem, but big enough to make leaving pointless I think. Oh, people under this ban would be uneligible to play tourneys, even if registered.

[Guest Carvesalot]

It is not often a player leaves half way through a hand if they are 20 or 30 imps up, but it is common for players to do so if they are 20 or 30 imps down. So this isnt just an issue about etiquette, it is about bad sportsmanship. They continue playing only so long as they are winning.

 

If this much is right then there may be some things we can do about it.

 

For instance, players should be able to look who is at a table and get an idea of how tough the game at that table will be. Here, BBO is not exactly helpful. For one thing, players are allowed to keep their skill level private (although I must say it doesnt take many hands to have a guess at a players skill level). This should be discouraged.

 

And for another, the self-chosen skill levels have been subject to much inflation. 'Advanced' seems to cover almost anything at all, and i would guess that 'advanced' players form the vast majority of players on BBO. (I think a lot of people decide 'if he is advanced, i must be too...').

 

Thirdly, there are several very experienced players who think it witty to put their skill level as 'novice', taking no account of the fact that others coming to their table have a right, in my view, to know roughly what they are up against.

 

So my idea is this. Most of the players who are rude at the table are getting stuffed at the time. And so, it may help if players could have an accurate indication of the skill level of their oppo before joining a table. This way players who cant stand to lose might better be able to avoid players likely to stuff them.

 

In the 'main bridge club' section, if you scroll through looking for a table with a free space, and before clicking to sit at a table you look at the skill levels of the other players there, the seat will frequently disappear. How about having colour codes to indicate the 'toughness' of a table? (so before joining a table, you can see at a glance roughly what is happening).

 

Something like-

 

pale green - all beginner / novice

green - all intermediate or lower

pale yellow - intermediate & some advanced

yellow - two or more advanced

dark yellow - all advanced

red - one or more experts

dark red - all experts

black - one or more world class, or players with a 'star' on their name

 

If this was the case, a player can see at a glance how tough a table is going to be, and I'm sure this would help things.

 

One more thought - any two players who are a regular partnership are obviously much harder to play against than two equally good players who don't know each other. What if, on your profile, you could list your 'regular partners'? And then, perhaps an extra icon could appear by both of your names when playing together? This is more of the same idea - players can get a genuine idea of the actual strength of their oppo. better still, of course, if BBO could automatically detect when a regular partnership is playing together and supply the icon.

 

This wouldnt fix the problem of rude players, obviously, but it might well help.

[coyot]

I would suggest a simpler system - add the sum of player skills and map that to a color scale somehow.

 

(Don't think that one expert and 2 novices makes a "tougher" table that all advanced).

 

And as for the skill setting: As long as it is purely user-selectable, there's no reason to ban "private". And since we don't want to induce more cheating, we don't want system-wide results-tracking. (With the exception of a system suggested someplace - paid anonymous indies with no kibitzers and given system...)

 

What I would suggest:

Create an article in the bridge library, maybe in the form of a test, that would "suggest" you your skill rating (Leave it as user-selectable).

 

Maybe it could just say:

If you routinely use these techniques in play, consider yourself advanced... if you also handle these on daily basis, you're an expert...

 

This would probably help to at least UNITE the perception of the skill level scale.

I've discovered that my perception of intermediate, advanced and expert is significantly different from what other people, including BBO officials, think. My experience is that "Expert" is the most abused rating. I've seen so many "Experts" on BBO play significantly worse than I do :-) - and I KNOW that I'm FAR from expert :unsure:.

 

Some of these self-proclaimed experts might just think they're expert because i.e. they another "expert", saw him play and thought "Hell, I can do better than that..."

 

(If you search the forums for my ID and "advanced", I am sure you will find one of the posts where I describe what I consider to be intermediate, advanced and expert bridge...)

[inquiry]

I support scoob's idea, starting with 10 min, then 15 min after a few reincidencies, then 20 min, etc.

 

It allows the emergency leaving without punish, as it should be, and the perps would be affected. BTW, dummy should be included, if you bid it, watch your partner play it.

Time to leave would be before your first bid on a given hand.

 

10 min is small enough to not be a big problem, but big enough to make leaving pointless I think. Oh, people under this ban would be uneligible to play tourneys, even if registered.

Just as long as you agree the ban is on PLAYING at another table, rather than logging on. Banning someone who got disconnected from rejoining BBO (and most often, presumably the table they abandoned) is a mistake. Scoob's post (to me at least), suggested banning "re-joining BBO" (well actually stated that). This is, as I said, unworkable and unfair. But. like you suggest, and which I supported in the spirit of Scoob's idea (DESPITE how some took my response), a ban from leaving one table to play shortly thereafter at another is perfectly acceptable idea. This is the essences of scoob's idea (you can;t play for a period of time after you did this) and what I suggested might be workable, and is what you are suggesting.

 

This time-limit ban from joining another table (or tourney) is a fine and is workable if it allows someone who got disconnected to rejoin the very table that got disconnected from. To me, this is workable way to approach the "nice dream" scoob had.

[Guest Carvesalot]

As an afterthought, (and moving onto a different topic), there is another advantage to colour coding tables for toughness - when comparing scores to work out the datum, compare a table's score only with tables of the same colour. In this way, who is winning at a very strong table will not depend on how many weaker players play off a cold game, miss an easy slam, etc. And so the score would be more meaningful.

 

Just a thought.

[pigpenz]

i agree if someone does leave like that it should be setup so that they cant log on for a time period, sort of like going to the penalty box in hockey. :) and you can leave early if theopps bid a makeable grandslam ;)

[Elianna]

The bad part about color coding is that many people can't tell colors apart. Also, computer moniters vary, and having colors that are close to each other can be interpreted differently on different screens. May I suggest a numerical or alphatical system (either instead of or in addition to colors).

[shoeless]

In the present BBO environment and maybe a long time to come - we are left with the responibility of finding a suitable game. with a little information that might be easier to do - I suggest that stats on hands played and unfiinished hands that come up automatically on our profile will be useful in avoiding players who are runners. Over time - we all disconnect but not significantly in terms of hands played so think the numbers will quickly tell the story. Programmable? Don't know.

[mink]

shoeless, I like your idea. But it should be carefully considered what makes a runner a runner. Examples:

 

I have just passed initially and one opp does nothing for some minutes - am I a runner if I leave? - We are in the middle of a board that started 15 minutes ago, and one opp has lost connection 10 times during this hand, but the host, his partner, always waits for him to return? - I was insulted by an opp? - One opp left after I had started to bid, and we have waited 3 minutes for somebody else to sit there? - I have a personal emergency and tell opps I urgently need to leave immediately before I do so (e.g. I cannot play bridge if some other person is in the same room and shouting at me)?

 

All this, I think, should not be counted for my unfinished hands, but difficult to do so, if possible at all.

 

Karl