[Scoti]

Hello all~! Some who play $$-Bridge engage in behavior I consider unsporting and inconvenient. He/She will either stall a bad hand until they are forfeit for too much time; or they disconnect and forfeit. There is a possible benefit to the offender, who forfeits, since the BBO system then adjudicates to determine the outcome of that unfinished hand. This helps the offender, if the computer plays better than he does, by eliminating the chance of his losing any tricks from bad play. It also wastes time of the other player in the case of stalling.
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Consequently, I favor adding some form of penalty so that it becomes disadvantageous to stall or to let the computer play the game for them. I mention penalty ideas in my poll, above, and would like to know the opinion of other players about it. Even if you have not tried $$ Bridge yet.

If you have not tried it, I would like to mention that you Can give it a try FREE, with no need to actually open a cash account there. That is because, in addition to the choices to play for a penny per point, 1/10th, 1/4th, 1/2, and 2 pennies per point ... there is the option to play FREE $$ Bridge. When that is done, it is set up in the same manner as games played for 1 cent per point, and it calculates how much you would have won or lost at that rate. But it only pretends that the play is for money. So that is a wonderful way to try it out for as many hands as you wish. With no risk. Thus FREE is a fast and pleasant way to play some Bridge with another human opponent, who also has a Robot Partner just like you do.
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I will refer to the player who is forfeit for running or stalling as the "Offender". My penalty ideas include these:

* When adjudicating the outcome, have the computer penalize Offender to lose one more trick, in addition to the true outcome. This makes it more likely for him to lose that hand, and will also lose IMP points, to thus lose more $$ that hand. More than if he had stayed and played properly to an outcome.

* Make it impossible for Offender to Win and gain any $$ that hand. Usually an Offender who voluntarily forfeits would have been going to lose the hand. But this penalty makes certain Offenders do not get to use the Robot's Skill (lol although that may be an oxymoron. Pardon the pun re "moron" too, please.)to find some miraculous way to Win the hand, that Offender could not find.

* Add 10% more to the other players $$ Won in that hand.

* Same thing, but jmake the increased winnings more, like 20%, 50%, 100% or more ? Perhaps the % might vary to be more for frequent offenders ?!

* Or to bar them from $$ Bridge play for a period of time, if they have repeated offenses?

* Do you have other ideas of penalties for this? Or thoughts of your own on some other way(s) to discourage stalling or running for forfeits?

* Or do you feel things work fine just as they are? Perhaps it is a minor problem, or no problem at all, in your view?
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I would be most happy to hear any supporting or dissenting opinions about this matter. Or does anyone have suggestions about other ways that our $$ Bridge experience might be made even more enjoyable than it is now. And IMO, it is quite a lot of fun, being fast paced most of the time, with interesting hands and play. And I find it to be a quite nice way to "warm-up", especially the FREE mode, before engaging in serious tournament play. Or Match play.

Although I will offer this warning to those considering it as a Warm-Up before tournaments ... I once missed a tournament because during $$ Bridge, it did not interupt my play there to get me to my tournament. So be aware of that, unless it is changed now.

About the $$ Robots; when the Game is set up the hosting player has the choice of three different levels of Robot ability. Fastest/Weakest, Medium/Medium, or Slowest/Strongest play by the Robot partners. Like when you encounter a Robot P on the regular tables or in a tournament; the Robot partner may be crazier some days than on others, regardless of the ability level chosen, IMO. And your Robiot P is also apt to "lie" to you from time to time, in the bidding explanation alerts. And not necessarily fibbing a 'little white lie', but a great earth-shaking whopper like claiming to have more cards in a suit than is true.
But that is robots for you. My other suggestion would be to always be able to get the ones that are having a Good-Day ~! ... since it seems to be a good-day vs bad-day occurance. And personally, I tend to leave when I get ahold of a crazy bot. So I would like to hear if anyone else has had the same experience with them, and might know what the difference might be, of good bots vs bad bots? If I am right about it being something that does come in streaks, it makes me wonder if it could involve Server load ? Either more players online (?), or more Robots in use (?), on those days they seem to be off their game.

All comments are welcome. Good Day Bridge-friends and regards, Craig.

[mgoetze]

There are 3 points of view to this problem and you are very obviously considering only one of them. That seems unlikely to lead to a good solution.

[bluecalm]

Experience of poker sites shows that any kind of 'disconnect protection' leads to abuse.
There should be penalty, a trick sound good, some fixed amount (depending on stakes) sounds even better. It's not "unfair" to people who lose their connection as if those disconnections are random then it evens out (sometimes they lose, sometimes they win when opponent disconnects)

[Scoti]

MGOETZE: Oh, but I did not promise to provide a good solution and only seek opinions & dialogue from other players about this problem which you acknowlege does exist. On that note, what would You recommend? Intuition tells me that it seems unlikely that only expressing doubts about the ability and approach to finding of a good solution will lead to creation of a good solution. Don't you agree? Still I can appreciate what I infer from your post; that the matter needs holistic consideration to try avoiding replacement of one problem with others. ;-)

[Scoti]

BLUECALM: Yes, now that you mention a fixed amount for penalty, that does seem more fair to me than a percentage, in that the penalty is then known beforehand with using a flat amount. You are right that it is only the deliberate disconnector's I would wish to penalize too, not those having unexpected disconnects. Tho protecting the unfortunate players who do experience true connection problems was the reason for my idea of requiring multiple occurances of forfeits before issuing a suspension from the $$ arena.

(But personally, my perspective in that matter is to question if I should even be playing $$ Bridge for stakes if frequent D/C's were an issue for me. Whether they were being caused by the site or by my own computer setup. Then I would have a responsibility to myself as a participant to try to eliminate D/C's. Still, as I believe Mgoetze alludes, my proposed penalties do not provide much happiness to a player who is in that situation! Were it me, I would simply restrain myself to playing in the FREE mode then, if my D/C's could not be eliminated or improved by me.)

[aurora1920]

Aurora1920 - As a purely sociable bridge player, the more I hear about competitive bridge (with or without $) the happier I am it doesn't interest me. What kind of person gets satisfaction out of winning by cheating? Like playing golf and cheating. Or cheating by peaking doing a Soduku. How can any NORMAL person get personal satisfaction out of that? They are weird people--not worth hanging out with. They're the kind that if you eat out with them in a group don't tip and count on the rest to do it for them! Or disappear when the check comes.

Are the dollars that big on internet bridge that they cheat on line purely for the money? I don't understand the ramifications of the penalties you're considering, but with my estimation of the human nature aspect, I'd make the penalty both costly and humiliating and only one chance before you get tossed out. There's no percentage in keeping characters like this in your game--they'll be sure to find some other way to cheat. Probably in the DNA.

It is amazing, even amongst little old ladies like me, at marathons and other competitive events (not like ACBL stuff) or involving money, some will cheat. To cheat in a sociable situation like our kind of bridge? To me that's slightly sick. How could one ever trust such a person as a friend again?

I'll stick to may dollar donation games -- divided up for prizes 1, 2 sometimes 3 and always a dollar for last in place so loser doesn't pay for a lousy game experience. Love to win, but don't mind losing--that's the best attitude. Or rather, MIND LOSING but not enough to degrade myself by cheating.

This post has been edited by aurora1920: 2012-May-24, 05:14

[barmar]

There are people who cheat in the MBC, when there's absolutely nothing to gain (they just get an ego boost having their name at the top of the recap for the board), and in tourneys where all they win are masterpoints. If people will cheat for these reasons, surely they'll cheat when there's money involved, even if it's relatively small amounts.

[jdgalt]

Scoti, on 2012-May-20, 19:14, said:

Hello all~! Some who play $$-Bridge engage in behavior I consider unsporting and inconvenient. He/She will either stall a bad hand until they are forfeit for too much time; or they disconnect and forfeit. There is a possible benefit to the offender, who forfeits, since the BBO system then adjudicates to determine the outcome of that unfinished hand. This helps the offender, if the computer plays better than he does, by eliminating the chance of his losing any tricks from bad play. It also wastes time of the other player in the case of stalling.

If this is true it should certainly be changed. I had the impression that disconnecting means you're out of that tournament or at least that hand.

Accidents do happen, so I don't think greater sanctions are appropriate unless intent can be shown. But certainly the person who disconnects and his partner ought to get a bottom on that hand; and if stalling prevents the play of later hands or cuts them short, the system should award the opponents "average plus" and the offenders "average minus" as a real director would do.

Obviously in games where you're alone at a table with 3 robots, you should get to pick up where you left off. This does need fixing.

Stalling should be treated as more serious than disconnection, since it is more likely deliberate.

While we're at it I can think of some simple changes in the program that would prevent accidental delays. For instance if only one card in a hand is a legal play (a singleton in the suit led) any click in the area of that hand should play it. And the last trick of every deal should auto-play itself from all four hands.

[barmar]

jdgalt, on 2012-June-09, 19:32, said:

If this is true it should certainly be changed. I had the impression that disconnecting means you're out of that tournament or at least that hand.

Accidents do happen, so I don't think greater sanctions are appropriate unless intent can be shown. But certainly the person who disconnects and his partner ought to get a bottom on that hand; and if stalling prevents the play of later hands or cuts them short, the system should award the opponents "average plus" and the offenders "average minus" as a real director would do.

Obviously in games where you're alone at a table with 3 robots, you should get to pick up where you left off. This does need fixing.

He's talking about Money Bridge games, not tournaments. These are head-to-head games between two players, each with a robot partner.

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Stalling should be treated as more serious than disconnection, since it is more likely deliberate.

While we're at it I can think of some simple changes in the program that would prevent accidental delays. For instance if only one card in a hand is a legal play (a singleton in the suit led) any click in the area of that hand should play it. And the last trick of every deal should auto-play itself from all four hands.

You mean like the "Autoplay Singletons" option that's already in the program? Are you suggesting that it should be made automatic instead of an option?

[Scoti]

jdgalt, on 2012-June-09, 19:32, said:

Stalling should be treated as more serious than disconnection, since it is more likely deliberate.

While we're at it I can think of some simple changes in the program that would prevent accidental delays. For instance if only one card in a hand is a legal play (a singleton in the suit led) any click in the area of that hand should play it. And the last trick of every deal should auto-play itself from all four hands.

Yes, I agree with you that stalling is a serious lapse of sportmanly conduct. And although I was speaking of Dollar Bridge, this does raise an interesting matter. I have noticed that in One particular clubs tournaments, some players there seem to be more inclined to stalling the second hand if they won the first hand, apparently with the idea that Hand 2, or Hand 3 will be the one to favor their opponents in that match. And so often they make the situation that hand #3 is AVE= for being unplayed. So they do it to rob their opponents of the chance to have Their good hand in that match. And some of these players have numbers like NINE after their names. Thus, they certainly know better & that they are being deliberately cheap and unfair in their play. A shameful thing to see from such accomplished players. And some are so blatant about it they may stall every bid. And even every CARD they play when declaring. And require their op's to call the Director repeatedly. And I do wish there were some inforcement guidelines for that. Though I suppose the DIR can impose penalty, I've only seen a TRICK penalty done once, in my two years here. And removal of a couple players that did not reply when the DIR asked them to play, several times. Maybe that is enough,, but simply need enforced more?

And it is funny how clubs differ in their tournaments. Another clubs tournaments are always subjected to Adjudication if all cards are not played. So the players will often just delay the playing of the last card, and take that time to chat about the hand; and let the adjudication take place to score it. In that club, it usually does not create a situation where AVE is pronounced in following hands. Apparently running more timely than the other club. But if that were not so, I can see how this could delay the tournament, or make for AVE hands too.

Another consequence of tournament stalling is effect it can have upon the Defensive Pair. Since Declarer can stall enough to where an adjudication takes place, that seems to favor Declarer since it uses pefect play to establish the remaining trickes taken. So often that might save Declarers contract when Best-plays MAKES ... so it takes away his chance of error. Such as miscounting, or whatever.