[KjellH]

Do we accept that TD or one of his staff can adjust a score without checing the accuracy of information with involved players? My suggestion is: NOOOOO. I have had several experiences. Latest was opps bidding 6 hearts, I double. Result is minus 3 vuln. In next round I get message score is adjusted to be 3 di doubled and made. On my complain to Director, I got the answer that he had 400 players in tournament and could not go deep into everything !!!!!!!!! Then I got kicked out of tournament !!!!!!!!! Fellow bridgers, do you think this is Bridge? I don't think so. I was encouraged to write this from member of bbo-staff (yellow). Fellow bridgers: SPEAK UP Let us keep the intention of good and fair bridge. If you agree: SPEAK UP

[spwdo]

hi,

as a td i can find myself in what the td said but i dont find it acceptable, the least this td could do was check the hand, but in his diffence i can say that hosting a tourney is not that easy, maybe its a thought to make smaller tourneys for this director to be able to be fair in adjusting score`s, maybe players need to be able to send the bridgemovie when u have scoreissue`s so the director can view the hand as it was played, i dondt not if software is able to do that but it would solve a lot off this problems

[bambi1]

I too direct here on BBO. It can be very hectic, adjustments, substitutions, calls every round! I have been in that situation many times. What I will do is give AVE to the board, then when I get time (hopefully) will go and review the board ( and review it again!), and properly adjust.

[Rhutobello]

I too direct here on BBO. It can be very hectic, adjustments, substitutions, calls every round! I have been in that situation many times. What I will do is give AVE to the board, then when I get time (hopefully) will go and review the board ( and review it again!), and properly adjust

I am sure it is not easy to direct any tourny, and online must be the hardest.

When that is said, I must agree with KjellH that do it the way he exp, is not good bridge at all.

In my opinion should no score have been adjust before you clearly can see the fault, and who have done it.

If you are easy with adjusting, you only give yourself problems because more people will complain in hope for an adjustment in their favour, even if there is no hold in their case, and they will bring this with them to next tourny and all of you will recive more calls.

So in my MHO be carefull with changing score and be sure they are right done 8)

Edvin

[inquiry]

Welcome to the BBO forum KjellH,

The story you tell is difficult to defend from a director standpoint. It is very unusual for me to adjust a score for a completed hand (I do spend a lot of time adjusting scores for unfinished ones...... )

Directors have very little time to deal with changing scores. Some simply don't. I change results typically when three or four tricks are left, after reviewing the movie, when the result on the hand is very clear (at least to me). Having said that, to adjust a contract that was played to completion by changing the result after the fact is a very radical thing to do. I find it incredible that a director would do this without some very convincing evidence of harm (failure to alert perhaps, something like that). But in that case, talking to both sides would be absolutely necessary to determine the situation. For a director to make such a change without discussing it, and then to boot a player for inquirying why the change had happened stating that 400 players is odd. If there was too many to explain to you why, how come that number allowed the TD to check and make the change in the first place?

But one thing for sure, Director decisions are final. This is a volunteer operation, if you don't like the way a particular director runs his/her events, play somewhere else. I do.

Ben

[Rain]

1 point Kjell also brought up was quality of directors. Think we need more stringent measures.

When someone applies to be a TD, I believe he/she is given a link to basic BBO tourney information. Yet many don't bother to read it before starting their first tournament. I think that's quite unacceptable. At least know how to adjust score, the format (contract, declarer direction, no. of tricks, etc).

What I proposed some time ago was to set a basic quiz, and all those who'd like to direct have to take it and get full marks. (Can always look at answers/retake quiz). The point being to force people to at least read up the basic stuff. When someone passes the test (gets full marks) then an email is sent to uday/support and only then will they be allowed to direct tourneys....

Even as uday/fred do their magic and program automated tournaments, auto. tourneys will be just movement and subbing. I doubt software can abjudicate on differences like score adjustment caused by opponents who alert wrong/don't alert/other infringement of bridge laws. So I don't think tourneys can be fully automated--will always need a TD at hand. And this TD will be freed from mundane chores like subbing disconnected people, and can concentrate on bridge issues.

To sum my points, I think TDs and those who would like to be TDs should ensure they are able to handle the duties involved.

Rain

[Gweny]

Rain, on Jan 4 2004, 06:12 PM, said:

To sum my points, I think TDs and those who would like to be TDs should ensure they are able to handle the duties involved. 

:-) If this help please use it
www.bbototalpoints.bravepages.com/TD101/
This is short presentation design to help people navigate BBO TD interface.

On topic of adjustments. I feel you pain KJ but I ask is this tournament you play in Survivor movement? You sure td "kick you out" or is this part of normal tournament elimination.

Please do READ description of tournament. (And TDs please LIST this in description!)
Please DO give TD Board number, CORRECT CONTRACT, and direction of declarer. All of this info is available in movie YOU see but unfortunately it is NOT readily available to TD if you not in same table. With this Swiss type ranking of tables TD maybe no way to see movie if you do not say who is opp or what table you play in in round in question.

No td like problems. We all wish we perfect knowledge of each board and ability to adjucate without error. :-( but with only 14-16 min per round <normally> we maybe no ability to help you when you say things like... "please adjust last board we win 110 points." This is of absolutely NO USE to td. we need contract - if you set 3nt by one trick then tell td what they need.

ie "in board 6 we set 3nt by 1 trick in table 12." then td is ok to go look at movie and decide. Further if you preparing to run out of time do not wait to under 1 min to tell td! It is better to let you finish round vs try unravel what you may o may not do with particular board.

:-) Gweny

[tenbrvc]

I strongly sympathize with KjellH, but I can understand the director’s actions, even though I agree it wasn’t the right action. Directors are after all human and I have directed tournaments where you get all kinds of problems with players.

As for Rain’s ideas about having more stringent requirements for allowing people to be directors, that also has a lot of merit. One of the reasons I became a director was because I didn’t see a lot of tournaments when I’m usually online, from about 7 pm Pacific time. Seeing that all directors are volunteers, I think that once you raise the bar for directing tournaments, there will be a LOT less tournaments offered.

All the directors are doing a super job considering the hassles when running a tournament. I don’t need to list them here. :-) After running a “bad” tournament, it takes me a while before I have the courage and patience to run another one. And all it takes is just ONE player to ruin your tournament.

Perhaps this is not the best place for me to say this, but I suppose that what I’m getting at is this is why I am leaning heavily towards hosting tournaments only for “friends” because you know you will not have to put up with all the demands that comes from players. Since I don’t have a “private” club, I don’t want to list 50% of bridgebase players as “friends”, so I’m hoping that the newer version (?) of bridge base will make it easier for me to restrict entries only to those players I know will NOT cause me headaches. This will make it more enjoyable for directors and players alike when there are no trouble makers!

[Elf]

In some tournaments it's written no adjustment. We can quarrel that justice is not done. I don't do it, but I'm thiniking about how many players need it. How many scores can adjust one director during two boards. Ten or more? People complain that it's unthinkable. Opps delayed, didn't alert, so it's the duty of TD to adjust. One example. One pair called me because of 2 ♣ was not alerted. It was the previous board. Opps are stubborn and say: we alerted and explained. I don't see the alerts from the previous board and I don't really know what to do. I did nothing. I checked in myhands after the tournament and 2 ♣ was not alerted. I feel angst that I didn't adjust and I empathise with the playerse who were right, but could I do something? How to deal with this situation?

[Gerardo]

You can adjust after seeing the hand in myhands, as long tourney is still listed.

[Frosty]

In my NTBHO, two things said by earlier posts are right on the mark.

- adjustments should not be made on completed boards unless there was some significant extenuating circumstance. It is hard to imagine a scenario that would not require a short conversation with both pairs - ergo, to adjust a completed board with no review, checking or talking to the players SHOULD be ruled out as an option.

- any adjustments that are made, should only be made after reviewing the hand play and should never be made on the word of the players alone.

I'm as green a rookie at this as any currently active TD, but I can't think of any adjustment request that would be treated differently than above.

Lastly, the difficulty of adjustments in the events I've hosted have been created by players who either have bad connections, are very slow thinkers or are very slow
players. I come from an environment where we played 8 rounds in 50 minutes EVERY tournament. If you didn't finish, you got the scores. I suspect that people COULD finish their hands in the time alotted, in which case the issue of adjustments should be moot.

[sceptic]

I would like to put my opinion in here.

when I first played at BB and tourneys started, I started to run some, just to allow some of the few directors the oportunity to play in them, I am one of the people that would not be able to direct tourneys if any standards are set, as you are quite correct some TD's like myself are not competant to run them, as perhaps they should be run at a club.

The observation I am going to make is, this is a free site and whilst some users seem to be getting more and more demanding, I think the software changes that are coming in, whereby you pay to play with a proffesional standard director, are great, this will allow the people who obviously demand more from the directors that run tourneys, the opportunity to participate in the environment that they want.

One advantage of tournaments that I see as extremely positive, is the chance to play with a huge selection of people that you may never meet, this in turn can turn into friendships and casual partnerships, I enjoy the tourneys I go in and if I dont get an adjustment , then so be it, I realise what a pain it can be and I accept this.

One mistake I do make is making my tournaments to big for me to handle or not getting any help, I never like to ask, so I suppose that is a flaw in my thinking, I would state on my tourneys my level of competence and the fact that no one will get adjustments, BUT, does anyone read the table description (I don't think so) another way of letting people know is to message the lobby before it starts (does everyone have ignore lobby chat turned off???????).

So a possible solution to table descriptions (sorry Uday this may be a hard one to do) is to have a pop up box come up when some one registers a team and they have to click a check box to accept the TD's conditions, that way no one can say the did not realise and that also gives you the option not to join a tourney that does not come up to your expectations.