[inquiry]

Frosty, on Feb 27 2004, 10:50 AM, said:

Interestingly, after the first survivor cut - even with 100% of the boards scored, I find that the slower players often don't advance. I get very few "out-of-time" adjustment calls in later rounds.

I think I can explain this observation. The majority of the very slowest players play slow due to the bad connections. The survivor movement has a very thoughtful feature you may not be aware of. The people who are cut are, say the lowest 15% (if that is what you set)...BUT... if one of a partnership is currently disconnected when the cut occurs (due to bad connection say), they will be include in the 15% REGARDLESS if they are in the lower group or not. This could have the unfortunate affect of cutting a leader if he or his partner happens to be disconnected when the round change occurs, but since the poeple who might be disconnected are generally the ones with bad connections to begin with, a few of them get "weeded out" at the end of each survivor round...

[csdenmark]

Jan - I have used a broad paint - please understand. I think we agree in most of your last statement - also about using tourney set-up for social play. Find a better word - I think I will be able to do so in danish language. So it need to be with all my statements in english - I try to express the basic meaning and if somebody want to read nuances - they will need to learn danish for that!

Quote

I'm aware of the stats for 7 minute rounds and that 8 minute rounds are possibly safer statistically .... however  - I don't see that you've included the stats for people who sit and wait for a clocked round to be over because they don't need the extra time.

Here they were: - 10-15% will create a summed waiting time of approx. 35 minutes. Time to annoyance - Try to run some unclocked tourney's then I am sure you will see these figures yourself. The quickest ones plays 4 1/2 - 5 minutes per board.

You will often face connection problems with many players living east of the present eastern border of EU. So it will be at least for 10-20 years more I think. Their broadband connection is mostly from work - home they use dial up. In european business hours connections are very vulnerable. Poverty will be the main reason for this not to change much for a very long period of time.

I don't care which set-up a TD prefer. Not of my business. But to create a clocked tourney using cuts(surviver) or individual - they are just creating an event heading for problems.

[Frosty]

Thanks CS -

I think you are too pessimistic .... clocked 7 minute survivor tournaments is all I run - 4 times a week, and its working for me .

I wish I were as gifted as you - I only speak one language!

Frosty/Jan

[spwdo]

hi,

since the discussion is slpping in to a clocked/non clocked one, i ve a few things to add their too,first to ben, when someone p is disconnected they are indeed excused from the tournament, 99%of the players know this, the ones not aware are informed from us so they have chance to get a sub so they can proceed, we(not much work) check the red dots at end of round , go to the table and give players that choice, often players say, its ok , no sub, let me be excused, fair enough.again we all agree on this i think that when u have a very poor connections , why enter clocked tournaments? second , i dont agree with east-europe part of cs comment that dial-up is causing more problems then others, maybe for a small percentage thats true, i run 2/3 tournaments per day at least, countless time i have seen and saw turkish , polish players,taking in the whole poduim. A whole bunch is regulars players(i even searched a long time to get a vey good polish/english apeaking td to help us out, some polish player know only polish, and we dont want to exclude anyone for only languages prob) well i run a few unclocked events myself, we taking numbers here, 16boards , +- 200 pairs, well this coud easely take all day, i agree when u have a mangeble field but this is not, then the waiting aprt of the game, when u are fast in unclocked , u play against the fast over and over again, same for the slowplayers, not fun when u get a zillion mesages "why u give us same opps again" at least in survivor this is based upon scores, secondly, how many last boards% are played in an unclocked event? the number of skipped boards is way to much , u only need one slow player each round to never be abled to play a last board, i think in overall its fair to say, when u run a private tournament, with small numbers i agree unclocked is an nice set-up, however we running tournaments that are scheduled and we dont want to overlap someones tourney starting 100/mintes later when we are hosting 12 boards for example, loads of players messages us:
"can we play both, it is finished in time, dont add time plaese(we signed in for the next)" in unclocked with some numbers , calls are vastly:" td, when we move", "td, why wait so long," "td, why is clock minus,""td,why same opps three time", td, i cant stay that long,"td why board is skipped when opps play slow on purposse", i woudnt say these things if i didnt knew, i dont know how many tried it before hosting a 100 table unclocked/clocked event, if it where to any advantage for me or players in general i woud reconsider this in a sec, as for the lazyness involved, jan mentioned a very good point, when can u play in main bridgeclub 60/90/120 of bridge with getting your scores and results afterwards and meeting other players witch u woud never met or play against in main, countless nice comments we get when 2 novice had the "privilige""opertuntiny"(they message me that) to play against 2 stars . another thing what some forget is that we are volunteers and when we run a 12boards/8 minutes/baord tourney we know we are finished in max 100 minutes.




greetings marc

[csdenmark]

I dont think a thread need to de-rail and this thread is not about unclocked/clocked events. Said this in unclocked events all tables are played, for 12 boards the first ones will end after 60(12 x 5) minutes and the last ones after 96 minutes(12 x 8). With very hard disconnections the last ones will end after 120 minutes(12 x 10).

I think we agree of the basic characteristica:

- clocked = uni-size
- unclocked = tailor-made

I think we disagree about the values of each of above items.

I think we agree that choosing format is like shopping in a supermarket. Each have the right to choose whatever he thinks is best. Nobody asks for reasons for decisions.

-------------------------------------

For me I think it now will be time for a conclusion.

Marc you started this thread blaming people with poor scores for intentionally disconnections. By that you confused cause and effect of an action. I opposed because correct arguments are neccessary to reach correct conclusions.

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We now know BBO server has the neccessary information for rightful imposing of penalty to violaters of basic rules for decent human human behavior. I am very impatient to see that implemented for automatic ruling. Such we all know will eliminate the problem in very short time.

I also hope it will pave the way for later better approach regarding disclosing information about systems and about basic personal information.

-----------------------------------------

Many kind of skills are required for a tournament director. A bridge playing site is not a computer game like 'Wargame' or so dealing with puppets. - You are dealing with human beings.

Skills like below are certainly needed:

- Bridgelaws
- Characteristica for several systems(4-card and 5-card major, pass-, club- and diamond- systems)
- Ability to understand/guess basic bridgeterms in several, maybe strange, languages
- Scoring
- Handling of software for substitutions and score corrections

The most important skill is not one the those mentioned above. The most needed kind of knowledge are about culture and psychology.

[spwdo]

claus,
1.i DONT STARTED THIS TO BLAIM, if i was like that u woud never know,this was a poll, in poll we can vote, just a gut feelling people can show without having to explain yourself, so it shows how people really think(some are afriad to write here they say because misinterpration of others) well i dont care, take me with my typinghorrors or leave me be
2.u just mentioned a few exceptions wher its not the case that its i.d
3.very contractdictory welcoming connections beeing checked by software beacuse all the exceptions u refererd too will be seen as closing bbo on purposse, it beats my smal brain that i`ve been attactk her with my statments and that now u asking to let software do it, well doh, all i report is give names and they probaly checked with the same or lesser standards then software will do
4.i dont talk about things i do not have seen a zillion times
5.i dont take humans as puppets, my numbers agreed with me on that, my friends list too
6. i try not to become personal in a overall conclusion, can be that im now
7.clocked/unisize, unclocked is tailormade, feel free to host with me a unclocked 200 pairs event and if there is still time we do the same clocked, private club is apples, open tourney are oranges, i do host also in tourney whith cheers mentalty, "where everybody knows your name"and its a whole other ballgame
8. and please i reask this "do not judge me"because u do know zip from me , aND DONT TAKE OUT OF CONTEXT WHEN SOMEONE HASNT GOT YOUR LANGUAGES CAPIBILTY BEACUSE U yourself claus DONT LIKE IT WHEN THEY DO THIS TO YOU
9.i agree with above on rest of points
10. i ask feedback on all my tourneys from players, other tds, yellows to try and make something the majority sees is a good tourney is really all i care,

[McBruce]

My experience with the Alphabet Point tournaments (Web Page Link) on this issue might be of interest to this thread:

--I began with a clocked movement and saw several instances of players in bad contracts playing very slowly according to the opps, but I was never called early enough to have a chance to confirm that foul play was taking place

--after the end of the first game, I discovered that the highest finishers had actually completed all of the 15 boards, so perhaps there is no real advantage in a longer tournament to waiting it out for an AVG-

--nevertheless, I switched to unclocked at that point, and instituted a system where players had two hours (8 mins per board) to reach the final board or I would penalize them 1 IMP or 1 MP per extra minute used

--of course, BBO scores cannot be changed, but my setup of awarding Alphbet Points allows me to adjust the results before I calculate them and print the leaders on the web page

--I tell players that I will add extra minutes to people who are delayed waiting for subs, and I remind them of the time and where they should be during the tournament. At the end I take a screen shot of the tables in the last round and record the finishing times of late tables. I remind people constantly that it is their obligation to try to catch up even if they were not responsible for the original delay

The result?

1) A few calls per tournament that players are playing deliberately slowly. I remind the caller that this is unclocked and there are no penalties for slow play on a single board as long as you get caught up, and usually this is fine. Once or twice a game I have to warn a player that their pace is too slow, and occasionally, if repeated complaints about a player occur, I will replace them.

2) NO PENALTIES FOR SLOW PLAY HAVE YET BEEN NEEDED. After four tries of the new format, nobody has gone overtime. Most players are done 10 minutes or more before the end, and usually there is a 4-5 table group that gets the last board about 3-7 minutes before the end. Almost always the tournament finishes about 2:05 after it starts. My experience with other long unclocked tournaments is that some seem to go forever before a result is declared.

3) Replays are a problem. Twice each tourney, I try to ask faster players who are more than a board ahead of the pace to take an agreed-upon break before the end of the hand to allow slower players to catch up and thius increase the number of possible matchups for the next round. Few do so. Some players are worried about the lengthy delays near the end waiting for the system to move them, but usually they are well ahead of time so a quick message quells their apprehensions.

4) Misconduct: So far I have banned four players from the Alphabet Point series. One complained repeated about just about evenything possible, and then ditched in round one during the next tourney. Another felt that a third-seat weak two on QTxxx was a psyche that should result in the death penalty or worse, and harrassed me repeatedly after the tournament with insane ravings in capitals. Two more people received repeated complaints and a tour through their fifteen boards found that they were psyching often and doubling or redoubling virutally everything. I'm liberal on agression but this was too much even for me, so poof -- banned. Outside of these four I have a short list of people I am trying to educate, and a few encouraging messages here and there seem to be working...

As for intentional disconnects, I haven't seen too many suspicious ones. One player disconnected after a clear misclick (1NT - 2♣ - 2♦ - Pass, with a 12 count), but most seem to realize that one mistake will not kill your chances at a good score. What I am concerned about is players making an intentional disconnect and then re-entering as a sub. I cannot keep track of all the replacements, especially now that players can choose their own. It would be nice if the software could prevent a player from signing up for the sub list if they were a player in the tournament at some point. (A player who was accidentally booted could be directly replaced by the TD if they sent a message explaining the situation, just not added to the sub list.)

[Frosty]

[quote name='inquiry' date='Feb 27 2004, 04:23 PM'][/QUOTE]
I think I can explain this observation. The majority of the very slowest players play slow due to the bad connections. The survivor movement has a very thoughtful feature you may not be aware of. The people who are cut are, say the lowest 15% (if that is what you set)...BUT... if one of a partnership is currently disconnected when the cut occurs (due to bad connection say), they will be include in the 15% REGARDLESS if they are in the lower group or not. [/QUOTE]

I am aware that this happens - however (and maybe it is because of the time of day that I host tourneys) the number of cut pairs who fall into this category seems to me to be very low.

I agree with the comments of others in this thread that slow play doesn't appear to actually improve scores. It would be interesting to see what the actual stats are on how many pairs are cut for connection versus scores. While I fully expect to see it once in a while - I've yet to be faced with a pair - or player from a pair - who came to fuss at me for disconnecting when they were doing well.

I'd be willing to bet that the slower players (regardless of the quality of their connection) get cut because they have lower scores.

Frosty/ Jan

[Frosty]

csdenmark, on Feb 28 2004, 01:04 PM, said:

For me I think it now will be time for a conclusion.

Marc you started this thread blaming people with poor scores for intentionally disconnections.

[QUOTE]

I can't find where this thread started with the assumption that intentional disconnects are because of poor scores. Didn't this start with a poll on whether or not enough is being done to deal with intentional disconnects?

I can find several places where poor scores are mentioned as one of the reasons players intentionally disconnect, but there are references to players who disconnnect for other reasons as well. What did I miss?

Frosty/Jan

[etherwiz]

If i may add something.

If my wife (when I was married) ever caught me in a bad bid she would not raise the phione to disconnect me, but would simply watch while calling me names. On the other hand if she saw me playing a good slam she would take a pair of sissors and CUT the Phone Line.

I know this because she once ripped the phone off the wall to hit me with it. This was the third time the police took her out of the house !

But back to what is more likely to occur in the adverage disconnetion. At least I hope no one has married someone like my Ex!

No one has commented that in the situation, when a pair formed by the Partnership Desk (where no one knows the other) makes a bad contract and then one starts calling the other names, the act of teh intentional disconnect is not relavent. The name calling should be stoped. First I would ask that person to stop, then I would sub that person out if he/she continued. Yes it would be an intentional disconnect - but my (the TD) intentions!

I have started to make notes on the players notepad when this happens and if a second time happens I will send ABUSE a note, mentioning that it is the second time I saw this. I would also attach a copy of teh Log showing the name calling - I always keep my log recorded.