[onoway]

In a small open tourney today there were a number of "disconnects" which were highly suspicious in that they suddenly happened with no red dot, and only when it was clear they were going to get a perhaps unusually bad result from the hand.

Might it be an idea to set up a system to track these people and if it was a pattern, to penalize them by tacking on a minus 20 imps to "their hands" results the first time it was decided that they were just running to avoid the result, and maybe 50 imps the second time? Matchpoint results could be similarly modified. The TD's would have to be careful, of course, and appeals might be allowed with no penalty for either player or TD if it was decided perhaps they were involuntary disconnects.

Most of the TD's already have a list of "runners'..it might be possible to expand on this as presently there seems to be no way to control or penalize these people and the problem seems to be getting worse. It makes the TD's lives difficult and most certainly affects the enjoyment and concentration of the responsible players.

If there was some way to make it more hurtful to disappear than to take a bad result it might change some attitudes, or prevent these people from joining the tourneys in the first place.

[jillybean]

I agree runners are a big problem in free tournaments. Seems to me the only way to deal with it is to keep adding to your ban list and/or start restricting tournaments to members only/no new members.

Some time ago there was talk of giving TD's the option to restrict entry to players with a xx quit rate. This would be great but doesnt seem to be high priority.

[matmat]

i'm all for public shaming.

[Old York]

It is my belief that BBO Sentry Robots keep a record of runners.

A long time ago I had serious problems with my connection and crashed 5 times at the same table, the crashes only lasted a few seconds and I was immediately returned. This was a social game in Acol Club and not a Tournament or Team Game. My connex to Internet was perfect, only my connex to bbo was affected.

Nevertheless, I was automatically given a 1 week ban by bbo. It was annoying but understandable. I hope all runners are also banned

Tony

[qwery_hi]

Happened to me too. Comcast has some issues due to which I was without an internet connection for a week, and I was using google's free wifi to get onto BBO. The signal strength was poor and I was disconnected 4-5 times in a day. I too was given a ban, but don;t remember the duration or type of ban.

[jillybean]

That’s good news although unfortunate that you guys were banned.
I think a player who goes for a number, abuses his partner and quits shouldn’t have 4-5 opportunities a day to do so. Its not the same as an unreliable connection.
Perhaps its impossible to track or enforce any restrictions and a zero % quit rate unrealistic.

Why cant people just behave!!!

[qwery_hi]

jillybean2, on Feb 9 2009, 12:01 PM, said:

That’s good news although unfortunate that you guys were banned.
I think a player who goes for a number, abuses his partner and quits shouldn’t have 4-5 opportunities a day to do so. Its not the same as an unreliable connection.
Perhaps its impossible to track or enforce any restrictions and a zero % quit rate unrealistic.

Why cant people just behave!!!

Yes I agree. I had no issue being banned, although my disconnection was not malicious.