[uday]

If you don't get a satisfactory reply, the best thing to do is call the TD.

A number of cultures and skill levels and languages are squished together at any table at BBO. It is normal and perhaps correctible that some explanations wont be up to par.

You do have to call the TD, tho. That is the first step. Don't worry about the TDs time and the clock. That is the TDs problem.

[pigpenz]

auction:
1♠ pass 2NT* alerted as forcing spade raise

numerous msg from one opp as to what the bid meant
i kept saying forcing spade raise
they theyn said is it jacoby
now if i had said jacoby would they have said then what is that.

some people hit the alert button but dont type anything in, so you have to keep hitting the explain button till they finally say what it is, maybe the bid button shouldnt be allowed to work till you finally type something in

[glen]

pigpenz, on Jan 31 2006, 09:57 PM, said:

some people hit the alert button but dont type anything in, so you have to keep hitting the explain button till they finally say what it is, maybe the bid button shouldnt be allowed to work till you finally type something in

Love this idea - in tournaments (not in regular games) if you alert then you can't bid without typing something in the little white box - a little info-commercial should appear if you try to bid (okay, a popup-window) requesting that the little box be completed.

uday said:

Don't worry about the TDs time and the clock. That is the TDs problem.

Do you play in these?

uday said:

It is normal and perhaps correctible that some explanations wont be up to par.

Agreed - just the same way we know there will be bad drivers on the roads. What we hope for is that the TDs know how to the police. If they can not recognize a clear misinformation case (whether it had resulting damage or not), they need some support for improvement.

For process improvement, we could have:

1) ACBL tournament rules include announcement that to make suggestions or follow-up with concerns, email acbl@bridgebase.com

2) Emails get an immediate auto reply which includes a statement like - "sorry, we can't do any score adjustment at this point - however we are always looking for ways to improve the game, and add to the enjoyment."

3) Emails get a later reply indicating what, if anything, was done about it - if a mistake was made admit it and then say "we will try to do better the next time" - the "we" here is a collective we - the email replier likely had nothing to do with making the mistake.

4) Keep a spreadsheet to track types of problem, person involved, TD involved, and resolution type. This way you can see who's kickin' n' screamin' and which TDs deserve a big raise, and what's the big problem for the customer base. If some problems are frequent, develop a FAQ and include that in the auto reply sent.

This customer service approach may not see results immediately, but over time it certainly will, and when threads like this appear on the forum, everybody will say "email acbl@bridgebase.com!!!".

[Elianna]

pigpenz, on Jan 31 2006, 02:57 PM, said:

auction:
1♠ pass 2NT* alerted as forcing spade raise

numerous msg from one opp as to what the bid meant
i kept saying forcing spade raise
they theyn said is it jacoby
now if i had said jacoby would they have said then what is that.

Maybe the opponents should articulate this, but when asked for further explanation, maybe you should specify what kind of hands you can have for this forcing spade raise. For example, does it specify a certain length in spades? Does it eliminate certain shapes (no singletons or voids)? Is it game forcing or one round forcing?

You see, "forcing spade raise" is not quite a full answer. If I were defending (likely after the auction, I wouldn't need the info before) I would definitely ask for more info than that.

[DrTodd13]

I think I once ran by a similar issue with some ACBL directors. You sit down to play and your opps card says "Standard American." Four boards in you realize that these people have absolutely no clue what standard american is. They're bypassing 6 card majors, doubles have random meanings, other things that just make you go "huh? THAT is standard american?" I made some inquiries and petitions to try to get such people from being banned from writing "we play standard american." I lobbied to get their CC to say "we are clueless and bid pseudo-randomly." I don't care what your verbal agreements are, if there is something on the CC it takes precedence. If you claim to play something via a regular CC or an FD CC then that is your agreement. If you deviate from that, it is misinformation. These people have to learn somehow and if they are continually let to slide then they'll never learn. Obviously though, my lobbying got nowhere because the consequences would have been too shameful for the people who would be told that they are too clueless to claim to play standard american. We can't enforce the rules because we'd lose too much revenue.

[glen]

My favourite one from last week is this one: opponent is self-assessed as “expert” and opens 1♦ and rebids an alerted 2♥ over responder’s 1♠ bid (we are just passing). When this is clicked for explain we are told “suit”.

I private message opponent and ask if it is a reverse, and told “no, not after a minor opening”. This was quite correct, as the expert only had about minimum opening values for the 2♥ rebid.

So I agree with Dr Todd13 – it is better these players don’t have a sayc cc, and certainly don’t have a Full Disclosure (i.e. Bull Disclosure) cc.

What the default setting should be is no cc. And if a partnership has no cc, then they must enter something into the white box before they are allowed to make any non-pass call. Sort of a pay-as-you-go cc. However they can’t use the no cc approach and play any formal system (sayc, 2/1, precision, polish, TOSR etc.) – it has to be just play-as-you-go. For leads and carding, it will be “please ask if we are defending”. The system could pre-announce at the start of each round e.g. “NS are playing no cc” since they are “world class”.

[pigpenz]

as just a sidelight her what i have found very interesting is that a majority of the players who have AKQ's by their names that play in the ACBL online games have.......and I found this very interesting.....almost no experience at playing at real ACBL Live tourneys. Some that I have talked to say that all the masterpoints they have won are what they have won here, yes, right here on BBO.

So I have come to the conclusion that some of these people, who play in all 9 ACBL games every day either have glue on their chairs, no life at all, or have butts wider than my wide screen monitor.

So those of us that have played in real life tourneys find it odd that people dont want to explain what their bids are but probably they just havent been through the system to understand it.

[barmar]

Getting back to the original issue of this thread, I think FD does raise some new problems.

With a regular ACBL-style convention card it's not hard to scan the whole card to see what agreements you have marked. The old-style BBO convention cards aren't quite as easy, since you have to drill into a number of places (e.g. the NT responses), but once you're in there you can see everything.

But FD's extensive tree structure makes it pretty difficult to see all your agreements quickly. It's great for the automated explainer, but too hard for a human. So it seems quite likely that players will agree to use an FD card without really knowing what's on it, unless there's a good human-readable summary of it somewhere.

Of course, that's not the total solution, either. Many players agree to play SAYC without really knowing the whole system (some don't even realize that it includes Jacoby 2NT), despite the fact that the booklet and a graphical CC are available from a number of sources. Prior to FD, those players might fail to alert some bids, and you could infer that they don't realize it has special meaning (you have to guess whether it's this or they just didn't realize it was alertable), but FD now alerts for them even if they didn't intend that convention.

The root of the problem is that making a FD convention card is a lot of work, much harder than a traditional card. So unless pre-filled cards are provided, few players will go to the trouble. But the pre-filled cards are not likely to match any specific partnership's style exactly, and they won't realize this until they see it explain something that wasn't intended.

[hrothgar]

Simple recommendation:

Online bridge isn't the same as the face-to-face game. The sooner you recognize this, the happier you're gonna be...

The majority of the participants in online tournaments are pickup pairs with only the most rudamentary agreements with their partners. You aren't going to get much satisfaction asking TDs to apply a set of regulatory standards that evolved arround the face to face game. Even if the TDs were willing to try to enforce the laws, its unclear whether they're appropriate for online tournaments.

I see two easy solutions and to your complaints (as well as one complicated one)

1. Accept the fact that online tournaments are "just for fun" and don't get worked up about disclosure isues

2. Stop playing in online tournaments (In all honesty, you can get much better competition playing in set games)

3. Here's the hard one. If you're really pissed off about things, start organizing your own tournaments and establish some formal proceedures regarding partnership agreements, disclosure, and the like. If you think that this requires too much work, you can always pay someone else to do this... Its entirely possible that there is sufficient player demand to establish a "premium" fee based league. However, I suspect that you're going to need to pay a premium in terms of card fees.

[Al_U_Card]

How small a minority are the "I can't stand playing with the "unwashed"? Surely some bright TD will start an "EPT : Established Partnership Tournament" where only pairs with completely filled out c.c.s are allowed. Oh, I guess a 5 table tournament once a month is not much of a draw.......

[glen]

hrothgar, on Feb 1 2006, 06:16 PM, said:

...start organizing your own tournaments...

Speaking for my wife and I, we moved to playing tournaments on BBO (from Okb) due to ACBL games being available (a secondary factor was that it supports BBO via BBO $). So the only tournaments I would wish to organize would be ones that awarded ACBL masterpoints, and I don't believe I would have that opportunity. For the online games, I don't expect the bridge etc. to reach the ACBL sectional level, but if we were allowed to organize games, and if BBO made some software changes to make the work of the TDs easier, I feel we would over time approximate the maturity of a brick and mortar club game.

[pigpenz]

Glen
i had asked to run an experimental 26 board match and Direct for Free for acbl. Never reall got a real answer, person in charge kept saying they had responded by mail but never received any sort of answer....but was told by the person in charge by chat "in short the answer is no".

So there are alot of things that they can do, even in cities there are acbl games in competition with other acbl games. In short what deremines where people play is the competancy of the directors and the quality of the bridge.

Even here they could have upper level games say for people over 2500 mp or even teams games....the ideas are endless...but in general you dont find anyone from the acbl reading these forums

[uday]

Quote

but in general you dont find anyone from the acbl reading these forums

The ACBL in Memphis allows anyone to run an "Acbl sanctioned" club. There are about 5,500 such clubs. We - BBO- are one such club.

The ACBL in Memphis has no involvement in BBO beyond occasionally keeping an eye on the franchise, as it presumably would with any of the 5,500 clubs.

The people who organize and direct the ACBL games on BBO have nothing to do with the ACBL in Memphis beyond having been certified by Memphis at some point.

I (one of the 3 owners of BBO) read these forums. Gweny (who co-ordinates the ACBL games ) reads these forums. Fred (another of the 3 owners) reads these forums.

No one in Memphis will care to get involved in this endless carping. Hey, I work here, and...

[pigpenz]

uday, on Feb 1 2006, 09:32 PM, said:

Quote

but in general you dont find anyone from the acbl reading these forums

The ACBL in Memphis allows anyone to run an "Acbl sanctioned" club. There are about 5,500 such clubs. We - BBO- are one such club.

The ACBL in Memphis has no involvement in BBO beyond occasionally keeping an eye on the franchise, as it presumably would with any of the 5,500 clubs.

The people who organize and direct the ACBL games on BBO have nothing to do with the ACBL in Memphis beyond having been certified by Memphis at some point.

I (one of the 3 owners of BBO) read these forums. Gweny (who co-ordinates the ACBL games ) reads these forums. Fred (another of the 3 owners) reads these forums.

No one in Memphis will care to get involved in this endless carping. Hey, I work here, and...

therfore if Officeglen or anyone else wants to run an acbl game on bbo why cant they if they are certified directors.

[glen]

uday, on Feb 2 2006, 02:32 AM, said:

I (one of the 3 owners of BBO) read these forums. Gweny (who co-ordinates the ACBL games ) reads these forums. Fred (another of the 3 owners) reads these forums.

No one in Memphis will care to get involved in this endless carping. Hey, I work here, and...

I take it the "..." means you don't want to get involved with the "endless carping" either, and since you are the only one of the three you listed posting here, it appears they don't wish to get involved with the "endless carping" too. So it seems that "carping" is futile and a waste of everybody's time. I do appreciate the clarity.

[uday]

I am usually appreciative of constructive criticism, and usually dismissive of destructive criticism. It is unlikely that I am unique in this regard.

Perhaps there is some grain of truth in some of the complaints-just-because but it is mighty hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

[uday]

Quote

therfore if Officeglen or anyone else wants to run an acbl game on bbo why cant they if they are certified directors.

Same reason they can't walk into a random bridge club and start directing. The owner, or the scheduled TD, might get confused.

Officeglen certainly appears to be qualified to be a TD, if that is what you mean.

gweny@ would be the place to start, if interested. Maybe you can convince her that there is demand for a more "serious" acbl game ( if one can be set up. unclear how you'd keep out the people that are reluctant to explain, or who dont know what they are playing. We could restrict by MP or something but that would reduce the field further).

[pigpenz]

uday, on Feb 1 2006, 10:22 PM, said:

I am usually appreciative of constructive criticism, and usually dismissive of destructive criticism. It is unlikely that I am unique in this regard.

Perhaps there is some grain of truth in some of the complaints-just-because but it is mighty hard to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

Well Uday welcome to the Real World, the business World
In the past when complaints were posted here it was always said its up to the acbl since these are their games here, now you have posted that the ACBL games belong to BBO.
The reason I say that is cause its hard to tell who runs what here.

Carping or listening to your customers complaints is and always will be part of running a business The reason I say this in the past I always thought BBO owned the building and ACBL rented the space and Gweny was the office manager here for the ACBL. Now it appears that BBO owns the building leases rights for ACBL games from the ACBL and Gweny is office manager or secretary for the club.

The reason is that if people had complaints about the acbl games they normally wouldnt go to the landlord to complain about the way the games were run. So people start threads here about what they experience in acbl games, so either the owners of BBO if they run the club or Gweny who manages need to make a stand here on the forums once in awhile when they are complaints.....instead of the endless emails to abuse@

[bendare]

In ACBL sponsored or "sanctioned" games, ACBL rules and laws should be applied, enforced, respected, abided--in club rated games, tournaments, online and FTF. I believe ACBL's "sanctioning" of club games is basically equivalent to a franchise and franchise owners are expected to maintain "company" standards.

However, one of the major problems (and IMO THE major problem) in the BBO ACBL online games is that these games are open to thousands of players who are either not familiar with or experienced in ACBL standards, rules, laws and regulations. Many of those players also have no interest in learning or respecting and regarding those rules and laws. Someone here put it as "not having been through the system."

Then there are those who have "been through the system" in the FTF ACBL world and rightfully expect that ACBL games ARE ACBL games where ACBL rules and laws should and will be applied and enforced. Integrating huge numbers of players who know not and care not about ACBL rules and laws into ACBL games with those who do know and care creates big time problems and dissatisfaction and makes even reasonable enforcement impossible. What has happened in the BBO ACBL games is that even some who do know the rules and laws choose not to respect and abide them as enforcement is close to nil. Add those to the ones who do not and care not to know.

I personally do not fault the TDs for this, at least not to the extent that many here do. Last night I played in a 42 table ACBL game (84 pairs) and only ONE opp had a posted CC and the other 5 pairs were NOT playing the default SAYC cc posted for them. Three times I reminded opps that their cc was not posted. It was like pulling hens teeth (hens have no teeth) to get a response when I inquired opps system and carding. Most were not alerting alertable bids, and when I clicked on bids to inquire, it was, with few exceptions, either futile or at best a ridiculous response.

Had I called the TD for every occasion I would naturally have called a TD in a local club game, it would have taken one TD full time at my table. There were 42 tables!!! Instead, I did not call the TD at all except to private message the TD to announce again about requirement of posted ccs. How can the TDs distinquish between the players who simply are not familiar with the rules and those who are wittingly disregarding them and those who really do have "no agreement" and those who do have agreements but say they don't??? In many TD rulings, it all boils down to whether opps have been "damaged". Subsequently, the players who committed an infraction of the rules go right to the next table and does the same.

The situation is absolutely horrendous, Uday and Fred, and it is so out of hand I do not know how any reasonable order could be restored. Maybe that is the problem, there was never any order to be restored.

For those who "carp" here, I do not think it is necessarily about the one particular incident they cite in their carping, but the overall situation.

Under "Ruling the Game" in Feb. Bulletin, a TD reports that his club manager actively recruits new players (a good thing) but there are problems integrating the new players in with advanced and very advanced players when it comes to making rulings. The newer players often do not know alertable bids, they may have certain understandings that they consider standard which are not, etc etc., one or both is unhappy with rulings they consider unfair---------------------

Multiply that by 1000 for the BBO ACBL games, and personally I often feel I am trying to play tennis without a racket.

I noted a recent ACBL game here with 60 tables. That is 240 players-and ONE TD!!! And of those 240 players, I would guess that no more than 40 both knew and made conscientious effort to abide ACBL rules and laws to an extent one more or less takes for granted at the "other 5000" ACBL FTF clubs.

[Gweny]

Greetings... lets take it from the top -

Pigpenz - I send and resend and resent again and again trying to reply to you. If you like I can post those emails here since my frequent requests for you to fix your spam filter were not followed. For now I will put in header of my last try:

From: "Gweny" <gweny@bridgebase.com>
To: <xxx>
Subject: Fw: 26 board acbl game
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 22:08:18 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_001E_01C58CAE.5E9F1810"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1506
Disposition-Notification-To: "Gweny" <gweny@bridgebase.com>
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1506

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_001E_01C58CAE.5E9F1810
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


----- Original Message -----=20
From: Gweny1=20
To: KJ King=20
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 10:39 PM
Subject: Re: 26 board acbl game


----- Original Message -----=20
From: "Gweny" <gweny@bridgebase.com>
To: "KJ King" <xxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 8:08 PM
Subject: Re: trial 26 board game