[TimG]

Just completed a 12 board ACBL tournament and had this much time at the completion of the second board each round: 8, 7, 4, 5, 9, 5.

At least one round appeared to end early (at about 2-3 on the clock), presumably because everyone was done.

What happens if a board is not completed in the given time?

Tim

[uday]

In any T, an incomplete board results in A-- (average minus) for both pairs.
In many Ts, including, I believe, acbl Ts, the TD then makes an adjustment.

[TimG]

You mean there is no mechanism for having some pairs advance to the next round, while others wait? And, any table that doesn't finish on time will eventually get an assigned score (in ACBL events) rather than some sort of average?

Tim

[uday]

In clocked events, the entire section moves, or waits, as one.

In unclocked, a pair can move on to the next round while others are still playing the previous round.

A table that doesnt finish will get an average, but it is my impression that in acbl Ts, players then call for the TD and get an assigned score.

People occasionally ask me to consider movements that mimic "real life" more closely when a pair is slow ( ie, make a couple of pairs wait while the rest move on). Maybe this is superior. I don't have strong feelings about it.

It would be slightly awkward (programming) to have a section move on in a clocked event while one table stayed behind to complete the previous bd. and this would raise other issues, i think . But I'm open to thinking about another type of movement.

[TimG]

In reallife tournaments, the pairs don't all move at the same time. I can imagine that the programming might be a mess, but then again, in a fixed movement like a mitchell, it shouldn't be too complicated to have some pairs start the next round before others have finished the previous.

In a Swiss pair event, it may be a bit more awkward because thepairings are not known ahead of time. But, in a real life Swiss team, matches are set (by computer) before all results are in.

I'm not sure how much of an issue slow play is. I know I am unlikely to keep playing in ACBL online games if waiting 35 minutes in a 6 round tournament is common. One of the most frequent complaints I have heard about ACBL club games (ftf) is that the games are too slow. But, they keep coming back, so maybe it's not that big an issue. Then again, BBO should continue to try to offer bridge players better games than they can find in a club.

Tim

[Dwingo]

One improvement to reduce waiting time in a clocked event is for the field to move when a certain % ( 90% or so ) finishes the round or when the Round clock is over, whichever occurs earlier.

This will open another can of worms. There will be a few tables that would not have moved. This would mean that the movement for the next round will be only within these slow pairs. In a Swiss movement, the leaders play among the leaders and so on. There is a convoluted logic that slow players are bad players and some Advanced pairs play slowly deliberately so as to be in the Slow group where they can meet some lesser mortals to get a decent score.

If it is not to difficult to do this programming, this can be tried out, but my hunch is that this remedy will be worse than the cure. There will be a lot of allegation and counter allegation. But nothing wrong in trying and if it doesn't work out, fall back to the original movement.

[Gerardo]

What about a swiss with first two rounds with fixed pairings (like in clocked), and pairings from round 3 on based on results from next-to-last round? I saw a few of them around here, that would allow a delay on finishing, like mink before and Dwimgo now suggests, without having the pairings affected.