[nige1]

zasanya, on Jun 6 2007, 04:15 AM, said:

I have made this suggestion before and I will make it once more.The authorities should seriously think of introducing timing devices at least for important events.Chess players use them,scrabble players use them ;why not Bridge players?

Agree with zasanya 100%. Clocks would show who really are the slow players and speed up the play. If tempo rules were enforced, so that (for example) each bid or play took at least 5 sconds and no more than 10. Then the director could shoot the hesitater Breaks in tempo, themselves, could be penalized -- rather than the director vainly trying to work out what was suggested by the unauthorized information, whether it was so used, and whether opponents were damaged. Nowadays, such cases tend to result in the most contentious rulings

Simple egg-timers would suffice for this. although an electronic set up would be better,

As in chess and scrabble, players would rapidly learn to employ other players' thinking time

[nige1]

zasanya, on Jun 10 2007, 04:08 PM, said:

  It will be best if all cards are played out and no claims or concessions can be made.

I disagree. On the contrary, IMO, in order to encourage claims, it would be better to accord the claimer an automatic time bonus.

I like the on-line claims protocol where the claimer simply shows his hand and specifies a number of tricks. Opponents can dispute the claim by playing on. At face-to-face Bridge, A defender would claim by showing his had to delclarer but not his partner.

This would greatly simplify claim law and make it less open to abuse.

Yes I know -- against bunnies, an expert might lay his hand down, with a spurious claim, in an attempt to discover which way to take a two-way finesse Pull the other one Even we bunnies might realize that a con was being attempted Would you like to be in the expert's shoes when the director arrived.?

[Halo]

Completely disagree with Nige1 suggestions.

As a chess player, clocks are just intrinsic to the game since the 19th century as timekeepers.

Nothing to do with judging claims or any other Bridge Laws rubbish.

Bring them in to control timeliness, nothing else.

[MikeRJ]

To me one of the biggest problem with the "chess clock" solution is how to allocate the time spent answering questions on the meaning of alertable bids - is the time charged to the side making the conventional call, to the side asking questions, or split bewteen the two? Whichever way is open to abuse.

Mike

[Fluffy]

at chess you have a free hand for the clock, and bridge you don't.


The clock could be tried online, actually it would be pretty easy to implement

For the nature of how I play online I'd pretty much apreciate that players had a rating system with a ratio of time spent/hands played, I don't really care of my opponent's level of play, what I want them is to be fast.

[zasanya]

MikeRJ, on Jun 11 2007, 03:58 PM, said:

To me one of the biggest problem with the "chess clock" solution is how to allocate the time spent answering questions on the meaning of alertable bids - is the time charged to the side making the conventional call, to the side asking questions, or split bewteen the two? Whichever way is open to abuse.

Mike

Both the clocks should be stopped while information regarding alertable calls is being supplied or is sought.

[jtfanclub]

Rossoneri, on Jun 10 2007, 10:36 AM, said:

I can easily see a problem with this, faster players can just play out hands instead of claiming just to run down the opponent's clock.

The newer clocks can be set up with a delay- after your opponent hits the button, there's a 5 or 15 second delay before the clock starts running down (in order to give you time to record your opponent's move).

A 5 second delay would prevent most forms of gamesmanship.

[barmar]

Fluffy, on Jun 11 2007, 04:14 PM, said:

at chess you have a free hand for the clock, and bridge you don't.

After playing a card, the hand that was holding the card is now free. After making a bid, the hand that pulled the card from the bid box is free.

The only issue is that for most players, these are different hands. Right-handed players bid with their right hands, and then during the play they hold their hand in their right hand and play cards with the left.

So to be accessible easily during both phases of the game, the clock should be in the center of the table (where the duplicate board is typically placed). Which would work out OK -- your hand is already in that general vicinity after placing a bid or card on the table.

[jkljkl]

Maybe one day we will have short range RFIDs in the playing and bidding box cards. Every player has an area in front of him where the RFID signal can be read.

So we get a complete record of the play and the time taken.

The TD will have a software that will visualise time usage and breaks of correct procedure. (Including automatical recalculation of time consumption due of stop or alert cards) Since final contract and play are a known factor results can be computed immediatly. The TD just needs a palm where he can make the needed changes.

The bidding cards can be used to accomodate claims. One player of each side has to use either the clubs (down 1, 2 etc) or the hearts (plus 1, 2 etc.) simultaneously.

Since every card in every different board has a different RFID an automatical alarm can be started if players are playing the wrong board.

Furthermore we can mark every player with a RFID-Tag ... etc etc

Analysis geeks will get a record of every single table and so more records than they can dream of.

Ok now I go back to my science fiction book ;-)

ciao stefan
germany