[steve2005]

I've used FD and it has its usefulness but ..

the bidding explanation is given to the bidder's partner.
this to me is against the rules. its like for every bid you send a message to partner what your bid means.

Do you know how quickly the director would be called if I broadcast my bids meaning in a message to the table so my partner could hear it?

FD should be banned in tournaments.

[Vampyr]

steve2005, on 2013-June-22, 18:57, said:

I've used FD and it has its usefulness but ..

the bidding explanation is given to the bidder's partner.
this to me is against the rules. its like for every bid you send a message to partner what your bid means.

Do you know how quickly the director would be called if I broadcast my bids meaning in a message to the table so my partner could hear it?

FD should be banned in tournaments.

What should be eliminated is the possibility for a person to see alerts, explanations and chat by partner. I am very surprised to see that this occurs.

[FM75]

steve2005, on 2013-June-22, 18:57, said:

I've used FD and it has its usefulness but ..

the bidding explanation is given to the bidder's partner.
this to me is against the rules. its like for every bid you send a message to partner what your bid means.

Do you know how quickly the director would be called if I broadcast my bids meaning in a message to the table so my partner could hear it?

FD should be banned in tournaments.

You are partly correct. The web version and PC version treat the "announcements" (technically) differently.
Players on PC version can elect not to see the announcements. So they see only their own. Opponents may also turn off seeing them. So they might not see legitimate alerts.

The FDCC is very useful - if you have one - for working on PAs. Opponents should be in control of who sees - so for example - if 4 are learning a system everybody can see.

And the FDCC should be able to distinguish between Alerts and Announcements. That said, this all seems unikely to happen.

Yes, they should be turned off in tournaments and players using them need to understand the need to self-alert.

[steve2005]

well they have said they arn't going to make any changes to the software, so forever youll be able to see partners alert

[mr1303]

Actually, I totally agree with this. I know BBO management have said they won't update the Windows software, but I use it 9 times out of 10, and when I'm playing a complicated system, being able to check what bids mean before I bid them is a Godsend.

[steve2005]

mr1303, on 2013-June-23, 02:06, said:

Actually, I totally agree with this. I know BBO management have said they won't update the Windows software, but I use it 9 times out of 10, and when I'm playing a complicated system, being able to check what bids mean before I bid them is a Godsend.

Yes, its a Godsend, its also a violation!
You are not allowed to consult your convention card to see what your playing and that is what FD facilitates!
It even allows you to see complicated 2nd or 3rd round or even deeper sequences meaning! Also a violation, this is consulting notes which is not allowed in tournaments.

[Vampyr]

steve2005, on 2013-June-23, 09:24, said:

Yes, its a Godsend, its also a violation!
You are not allowed to consult your convention card to see what your playing and that is what FD facilitates!
It even allows you to see complicated 2nd or 3rd round or even deeper sequences meaning! Also a violation, this is consulting notes which is not allowed in tournaments.

This is true, but it should be changed in the Online Laws (if such a thing exists), as there is no means of detection or enforcement.

[PhilKing]

It's irrelevant. If you are playing on-line, it's pointless trying to ban someone looking at their notes. Therefore it is best simply to allow FD as well, which at least speeds up the process.

[steve2005]

PhilKing, on 2013-June-24, 02:17, said:

It's irrelevant. If you are playing on-line, it's pointless trying to ban someone looking at their notes. Therefore it is best simply to allow FD as well, which at least speeds up the process.

FD does it too good. If you can consult notes playing speedball good luck, your going to have unfinished boards, if not a time penalty. But FD automates the notes, so its no more than a mouse click to find out what a potential bids means. It also tells you what your partner's bids mean. This is an unfair advantage!

[FM75]

Steve, you can simply ask your opponents to turn FD off. You can tell by looking at their card that it is FD. Call a director, if necessary.

Problem solved - at least w.r.t your opponents.

[TylerE]

Frankly, I think this is barking up the wrong tree. There are soooooo many ways to cheat, some of which BBO would have absolutely no way of catching.

[barmar]

I think the concern is that it makes it easy to break the rules without even realizing you're doing it. If someone is on the phone with their partner or a kibitzer, they know they're cheating blatantly, and have to have serious ethical problems to do this. But if the program displays meanings automatically, it's hard to ignore it.

[barmar]

BTW, I think the justification for the FD behavior is that most people don't create their own FD convention cards. They're hard to construct from scratch, so most people who use it use one of the canned cards. So, unlike a convention card based on agreements that you and your partner explicitly came up with, you may not know all the agreements that are in the FDCC you chose. So it seemed unfair to force you to bid blindly.

[1eyedjack]

Another observation is that with off-the-shelf FDCC it is not uncommon for FD to explain the bid completely incorrectly, in which case it may be of assistance that the players can see the explanation that has been provided to the opponents in order to correct it manually at the deal.

[steve2005]

1eyedjack, on 2013-June-25, 16:07, said:

Another observation is that with off-the-shelf FDCC it is not uncommon for FD to explain the bid completely incorrectly, in which case it may be of assistance that the players can see the explanation that has been provided to the opponents in order to correct it manually at the deal.

yes that could be a problem, so you should see own alerts but not partners

[Zelandakh]

First of all, anyone who is trying to bid in a system they do not really know and thinks that FD will make up for it is fooling themselves. If you do not understand your bidding system then you will bid poorly regardless of notes being available. Secondly, it was stated up front that it was a design decision of FD (by Fred iirc) that the descriptions would be available to both partners. The concept was that BBO wanted to support a general improvement in bidding and this was a good way of supporting that. Finally, if you want to use FD as a bidding aid, it is far simpler to distribute a copy to both partners and use it in offline mode, allowing you to page forward in the auction and look at alternative bids that were not made. This also has the side-effect of denying that information to the opponents if you decide not to manually alert it.

I actually agree that the FD design goal was probably mistaken and that it would be better if you did not see the descriptions of partner's calls, or that this should be an option at the very least. But removing this would not actually prevent the activity taking place, only make it hidden. For relayers, being able to make the bids self-alert is really a godsend, speeding up play greatly and saving lots of typing. I will also mention that I would never have started designing my favourite (home-grown) bidding system if FD had not existed, since it started life as just messing around with an FD CC. That makes me quite fond of the whole FD CC system despite the flaws. I feel that it could have been an incredibly useful and beneficial tool for online bridge if it had been developed further.

[1eyedjack]

Zelandakh, on 2013-June-28, 03:35, said:

it was stated up front that it was a design decision of FD (by Fred iirc) that the descriptions would be available to both partners. The concept was that BBO wanted to support a general improvement in bidding and this was a good way of supporting that.

I didn't know that. I am am not against initiatives toward a general improvement in bidding. I would simply opine that different environments within BBO have different levels of competitive seriousness, and this kind of initiative should be excluded from the more serious events.

Zelandakh, on 2013-June-28, 03:35, said:

I feel that it could have been an incredibly useful and beneficial tool for online bridge if it had been developed further.

I certainly agree that it is an unfinished product. I found it to be a user-hostile product (from the perspective of THIS user) when I tried to document my methods in it.

[Cthulhu D]

1eyedjack, on 2013-June-30, 03:51, said:

I certainly agree that it is an unfinished product. I found it to be a user-hostile product (from the perspective of THIS user) when I tried to document my methods in it.

Kungsteen's scripting language makes it x1000000 times easier to write an FD card. I literally cut+paste'd our system notes in, fixed a few things and it was good to go. Addmittedly, that's because our notes were in excel to start with which made it very easy.

[Vampyr]

According to the Laws on Online Bridge, FD is not permitted (or at least it was not in 2001, which is the latest edition I could find). How is this dealt with for events where an NBO issues masterpoints?

[barmar]

Are there any NBOs that require observance of the Laws of Online Bridge? I suspect not. They're an experiment that has effectively been abandoned.