[dogsbreath]

I have considerable sympathy for TDs but they also make their own problems..
I played tonight in a tourney advertised particularly as 7mins per board ('miss blue' was TD).. the 1st and 2nd rounds were stretched to 20 mins and remaining rounds were at least 16 mins ...once again the slow players are allowed to trundle along at their own speed ignoring all requests to hurry up. THIS IS NOT ENJOYABLE.. please advertise when tourneys will be allowed to drift along aimlessly so i can better spend my time elsewhere.
We MUST have SOME tourneys where the slow players are IMMEDIATELY booted ..why must we all suffer for a few? Alternatively , those who cant stand the pain must be allowed to leave without penalty.
Rgds very cross Dog

[Fouad]

As a player yes this annoys me a lot ... but when i am hosting a tourney usually the first 2 rounds have a lot of problems so time is incresed by max 2 min ... but the other rounds usually no need to increse the time ...anyway the important thing is that sure no TD wants to increse the time...but when he or she do so ...they have problems forced them to do so


fo

[uday]

System automatically increases time by 3 minutes in first round, FWIW

[Gweny]

Maybe we is asking wrong questions here.
Maybe question we need ask is if our wonderful wizard programmer Uday can give us some tool to identify habitual slow players/pair.

I am referring to people who chronically do not finish rounds. I am aware of some slow people but while tournament is going i no way of knowing from round to round if it is same people who do not finish. Maybe in tournament stats area it show us pairs who fail to finish x number of rounds. Maybe after x number of failure to finish rounds this pair is excuse from tournament?

If we know who this is we can either suggest they find unclock tournamnets or take other measures so people who sign up for 7 min rounds actually get to play 7 min boards.

[spwdo]

dogsbreath, on May 11 2004, 06:17 AM, said:

I have considerable sympathy for TDs but they also make their own problems..
I played tonight in a tourney advertised particularly as 7mins per board ('miss blue' was TD).. the 1st and 2nd rounds were stretched to 20 mins and remaining rounds were at least 16 mins ...once again the slow players are allowed to trundle along at their own speed ignoring all requests to hurry up. THIS IS NOT ENJOYABLE.. please advertise when tourneys will be allowed to drift along aimlessly so i can better spend my time elsewhere.
We MUST have SOME tourneys where the slow players are IMMEDIATELY booted ..why must we all suffer for a few? Alternatively , those who cant stand the pain must be allowed to leave without penalty.
Rgds very cross Dog

hi,

knowing miss blue and culbbaran myself(they actually do a very good/professional job) those dougbthing this shoud read they tourneyrules, wauw what a work.


But doggie u have a point and maybe gwen is on to something. We give with an occasional exception only one xtra minute first and last round.

problem is that some players only start slowplaying when they are down, they still do it cause it payed off for a long time.All we tds can do about it is adjust those baords and warn those players, i have several douzens of players warned for this.Most seem to take this but every day new ones arrive not knowing this.

hosted a speedball once , was still adjusting 15 minutes after the tourney, all played fast enough till they were down, taking the better A- for them, not fair, in fact trying to chaet i think of it, we can only try and stop this, maybe asked miss blue what happend, you ll get a nice answer


marc

[dogsbreath]

No serious criticism of TD was intended.. sry I posted when I did.. had only a limited time available to play and was invited, so 7-min per board looked attractive.. but I've played in enough tourneys to know better and that something generally goes wrong Watching the late finishers its easy to see why .. good claims not made or rejected and long delays between boards.. I suspect they are wasting time looking at 'Movie'.
However it would be nice if some TD was brave enough to try a really strict timed tourney, if it's possible ..maybe we are just subject to so many possible delays that it's not and the only sensible thing is not to enter if one's playing time is limited.
TY ALL lovely TD's
Rgds, Dog

[DrTodd13]

I'd like to second the motion that directors pay more attention to their conditions of contest and that they honor them. Time per round is just one part of the conditions of contest. System regulations should be another. Most directors say something like "alert non-natural bids." However, directors should realize that there are a variety of systems being played on BBO including MOSCITO, TOSR, a couple of forcing pass systems, etc. If you don't want to allow some particular class of systems then you must say so. If you say absolutely nothing about systems restrictions and somebody joins your tournament and plays a forcing pass system then you have no right to remove those players. Moreover, you have no right to demand they stop playing that system for the rest of the tourney. You established the rules and you should live by them. If you don't want to allow forcing pass then learn your lesson the first time and subsequent times you can explicitly disallow it.

[Gweny]

I agree Dog... Often players is sitting and not bidding and later say oh sorry i am looking at movie!

Maybe this is other idea to consider make current movies unavialable until board(s) for current round is finish.

[JRG]

Gweny, on May 11 2004, 06:13 PM, said:

I agree Dog... Often players is sitting and not bidding and later say oh sorry i am looking at movie!

Maybe this is other idea to consider make current movies unavialable until board(s) for current round is finish.

Neat idea. The only drawback is being able to see the movie when you call the director (or send the director the movie -- though that could, I suppose, be done at the end of the round).

[spwdo]

JRG, on May 13 2004, 02:52 AM, said:

Gweny, on May 11 2004, 06:13 PM, said:

I agree Dog... Often players is sitting and not bidding and later say oh sorry i am looking at movie!

Maybe this is other idea to consider make current movies unavialable until board(s) for current round is finish.

Neat idea. The only drawback is being able to see the movie when you call the director (or send the director the movie -- though that could, I suppose, be done at the end of the round).

as long as there are points in there and movie displayed they will cause some players to review their baords, if want take steps there , make movies avaible to players after tourney is finisched off course tds need to see both table and player movie, but dont see it as large problem, have to speed them up, if they get movie one round later those doing that will be looking at movie then.

Several tourneys are strict upon time, but u can understand that we add one minute when 25 tables are playing, if we dont this means 25 adjust. need 10 tds then.

No adjust means players letting clock run out when they are down, personally i think why bother to host then(because they like to play and if needed adjust their own baords?=happend to me couple of times, but it was stated in rules so no problem with it)



spwdo

[bambi1]

I would like to add two comments.

Firstly, some connections are more stable than others, that is well known to all of us. The best thing for you to do Dogs is to play in an unclocked tournament. That way you can finish in the allotted time. You may finish 10 boards at 7 minutes a board in 70 minutes. Others may finish in 90 minutes, so the results final results are not readily available to you with your quick finish!

Secondly, regarding DrTodds post. I have now added in my tournament rules, to Alert All Artificial Bids - Full disclosure is required - Laws of Duplicate Bridge (ACBL) are enforced. That eliminates any forcing pass system - hope that clarifys any misunderstandings in the future. And I hope players read the tournament rules!

[inquiry]

bambi1, on May 12 2004, 03:52 PM, said:

I hope players read the tournament rules!

From experience, I think it is safe to say "fat chance".

If you ever run an unclocked event, you will see why. People will start complaining once the round clock clicks to zero and they don't move, and keep it up... despite the tournment being clearly labeled unclocked. I know, because I am on of them (well I don't actually complain, but I kick myself everytime I accidently register for one of these things... this is always because I am too fast to accept an invite from a friend rather than read what it is I am agreeing too.

Wish we all paid more attention.. .players reading them, and TD's posting them.

Ben

[bambi1]

Oh, I know about UNclocked events, I cancelled one if you recall.

[DrTodd13]

Bambi,

The "laws of duplicate bridge" as promulgated in the western hemisphere by the ACBL say nothing about forcing pass being disallowed. In fact, the laws of duplicate bridge say nothing about allowed or disallowed systems at all. However, each bridge governing body for each country is allowed to establish rules for systems as part of the tournaments that they run. The ACBL has several sets of rules called GCC, mid-chart, and super-chart. GCC governs play in most ACBL events, mid-chart in flight A events with no upper masterpoint limit, and super-chart in certain phases of championship events. In order to be clear, you should say something like "Systems/conventions are limited to those allowed as part of the ACBL GCC." If you are going to run tournaments and want to restrict certain systems then you are going to have to learn what these things are and describe what is allowed in a way that everyone can understand. By the way, if you limit it to ACBL GCC then people from all over the world will have their normal everyday systems become illegal in your tournament. If you want to ban forcing pass systems and nothing else then I suggest you use the language that ACBL does as part of the GCC (or mid-chart or super-chart) to outlaw forcing pass systems. However, I suspect that there are numerous other systems and conventions you would also ban if you knew they existed. If this isn't the case then I don't see how you can justify singling out forcing pass systems for banishment. The only reason to do so is historical bias.

Todd

[bambi1]

I shall definitely announce NO FORCING PASS in the future.

That for SURE will eliminate any misunderstandings, as well as the Laws of Duplicate bridge being enforced.

But I am sure something will come up, and I will alter again!

Don't you just love this game?

[DrTodd13]

If you ask most bridge players what a "forcing pass" is, they will tell it is a high-level decision after one side is in a game forcing auction and the other side is sacrificing over their contract. For example, 1H-2N (j2nt)-4H-p-(5C)-p. Now, the opener has made a "forcing pass."

Therefore, a statement such as "no forcing pass" is almost guaranteed to create misunderstandings. Those who have no idea what a strong pass system is will assume that you are somehow outlawing high-level forcing pass situations.

That is why I suggested using the ACBL verbage that is very clear as to what is being outlawed.

[Frosty]

No worries, Dog -

If you want a fast game - try the ALL SKATE's. 7 minute Boards and the Wicked Witch (moi) doesn't give extra time unless there are system problems.

I have noticed that its usually the same players who don't respect the time limits. As TD, you cannot identify all who are guilty of this, but over time, when adjustment requests come from the same players on a regular basis, it gets easier to spot and screen out the slowpokes. It sure would be nice, though, to have a way to tell exactly how much time each player has taken during the auction/play.
Uday - any chance that this is possible?

As far as adding time - I agree with the Dog - tournaments should be as they are advertised. Players often have other commitments and plan their playing time according to the tournament desription.

Frosty

[miss blue]

answer to dogsbreaths : I never organized a tourney with only 7 mns per board , because with the connections problems of a lot of players it becomes very difficult to manage .