[timouthy]

1. Bridge base should announce to all other players at table ~ 5 minutes before they go that they are leaving for a tourney since I have never witnessed one of these players announcing that they will be going soon. Alternatively they should just be automatically removed from a table right at the end of a hand around five minutes before the start of their tourney.

2. BBO lists how many visits to the site a player has on their profile window. They should also list how many times that player has left a table in the middle of a hand and, they also have my permission to automatically put them on my enemies list to save me the trouble when they have done this at the table I'm playing at.

3. Ok I lied, I have more than a coupla rants. I should probably know this by now, but why do people sit opposite you (you are there first) and expect that you are going to play their bid system? There are now many more 2/1 players than there used to be on BBO but SAYC is still the coin of the realm. Probably all 2/1 bidders know SAYC bidding so newcomers to table figure you will just play their system. What is still weird to me is how often it happens that they expect you will bid their SAYC system without even discussing it. Since it is left up to me, I start with "2/1 p"? Their elegantly phrased response is predictably "no" and then I say "last hand for me" which is usually the first hand played by me at that table.
I can imagine fixes for this too but if BBO won't do anything about the above two items, they couldn't give a damn about this one.

[onoway]

It is annoying when people leave abruptly and the message comes up that they've gone to a tourney, especially when they've just arrived at the table..once or twice the player has been there for less than a hand. It's rude and inconsiderate. However, I don't think it's up to BBO to monitor this sort of rudeness.. everyone has their pet peeves and pretty soon BBO would be a cross between the police and Miss Manners, hardly their mandate imo.

Point 2 is more difficult, quite a few players are in situations where computer connections are iffy and inconsistent. If players leave as soon as they're going to get a poor result, you can take some comfort in the idea that (I think) the player who started the hand gets to reap the results. Mark them as enemy and don't worry about them..it would be highly unfair to group the people with poor connections in with those twerps.

Point 3> Lots of people, possibly most, would rather have someone of relatively similar skill with a relatively similar profile sit as partner than stare at an empty chair for 10 minutes. (if you leave as soon as someone sits who doesn't fit your profile or expectations, would you then qualify for leaving the table without finishing the hand?)

I personally find it obnoxious when people sit at table, take a look around and leave again, or ask to sit and then take off, as though they've checked us out and found us all deficient. (It's interesting that none of these so far are particularly good bridge players according to their My Hands records, at least the ones I've checked for interest's sake). BBO has a lot of members and some of them have the "people" skills of a cockroach, that's just the way it is.

If you are very fussed about it then set your own table and lock it for anyone you don't approve of. But then don't complain when you have to wait for someone to show up who meets your standards.

Personally, I think you need to relax a little and go with the flow; life is full of little irritations and if you let them all get to you then you'll be stressing way too much for a long and happy life.

[cloa513]

What about people who leave because another player is unresponsive.

[blackshoe]

timouthy, on 2014-January-18, 15:58, said:

1. Bridge base should announce to all other players at table ~ 5 minutes before they go that they are leaving for a tourney since I have never witnessed one of these players announcing that they will be going soon. Alternatively they should just be automatically removed from a table right at the end of a hand around five minutes before the start of their tourney.

2. BBO lists how many visits to the site a player has on their profile window. They should also list how many times that player has left a table in the middle of a hand and, they also have my permission to automatically put them on my enemies list to save me the trouble when they have done this at the table I'm playing at.

3. Ok I lied, I have more than a coupla rants. I should probably know this by now, but why do people sit opposite you (you are there first) and expect that you are going to play their bid system? There are now many more 2/1 players than there used to be on BBO but SAYC is still the coin of the realm. Probably all 2/1 bidders know SAYC bidding so newcomers to table figure you will just play their system. What is still weird to me is how often it happens that they expect you will bid their SAYC system without even discussing it. Since it is left up to me, I start with "2/1 p"? Their elegantly phrased response is predictably "no" and then I say "last hand for me" which is usually the first hand played by me at that table.
I can imagine fixes for this too but if BBO won't do anything about the above two items, they couldn't give a damn about this one.

"Okay. Play whatever you like. I'm playing <some other system>. Live with it."

[timouthy]

cloa513, on 2014-January-18, 18:41, said:

What about people who leave because another player is unresponsive.

That "leave" still gets posted. Just because a person leaves a table does not mean you want to automatically screen them away from your table. It is just more information. Over time everyone will have "leaves". But the chronic-bid-and-scram types will have significantly more "leaves" per bbo visit than the background-noise-amounts of most of the rest of us and will stick out like a sore thumb. Even then you do not have to pay attention to it if you don't want to, but I promise you the quality of your games will not be as high as the those of the rest of us.

[1eyedjack]

To the extent that the three suggestions have any merit, I personally rank them in the order that they were listed.
And they have some merit, but not in my view sufficient to justify the epithet "rant".

In reverse order:
Point 3:
The majority may play 2/1. I wouldn't know, but take it as read. But as the OP himself stated, anyone who plays 2/1 can play SAYC if compelled. The reverse is not the case. Furthermore, while there are variants of SAYC out there, there are fewer variants than there are of 2/1. Simply less to discuss. Default should be the lowest common denominator.
Point 2:
BBO does log both board completion rate and tournament completion rate, and as table host you can set these limits for players joining. This is sufficient to serve timouthy's needs. That being the case I have some privacy issues that suggest not going further.
Point 1:
Just one of thousands of ways BBO players can be impolite, that we are asking BBO to solve by software. I have a tiny sympathy for the OP, since the "problem" is partially one of BBO's making. But at the end of the day, it is just one hand in the MBC that gets ruined. The first few times that it happens it jars, but you get used to it.

There have been rare occasions in which I have wanted either to flag an individual as an enemy or simply to add some personal notes into my area on his profile, but he has left the table without speaking into the chat area and he had an oddly spelled ID that I cannot reproduce and have nothing to click on. Maybe an automated message to chat "so-and-so has sat East" would provide a clickable name. But again it is so rare that it is not worth the devotion of resources and the increase in chat clutter would probably be worse than the disease.

[kenberg]

I make it a policy to never intentionally leave in the middle of a hand, and to never intentionally leave without announcing my departure. This way, if I disappear, my parters are 100% certain that the reason is something other than that I got upset.

It seems reasonable to me that bbo could rig things so that the host of a table could forbid seating for anyone who is signed up for a tournament in the near future.

I am not quite sure how this non-completion rate is calculated, but it seems to me that a person should only be charged for that if he leaves a table when there are three other seated players.Maybe refine this a bit. It is reasonable to expect someone to wait for a bit before disappearing after someone else is gone, but not for long I think.

[diana_eva]

There used to be a check that blocked people from joining a table when they were registered to play in a tournament starting soon. However they quickly found a workaround, which is to first sit, and then register to tournament. It is possible to register directly from the table. Or, they could be playing and receive an invitation while playing.

[fromageGB]

1eyedjack, on 2014-January-18, 21:49, said:

...But as the OP himself stated, anyone who plays 2/1 can play SAYC if compelled. The reverse is not the case.

This is not the case. I rarely play online, but when I have I had a quick SAYC summary printout in front of me. I have forgotten everything now, but do remember that SAYC had much I found unexpected. I suggest there are hazards both ways.

Blackshoe's answer is probably acceptable for one hand, even if against the rules. I think I may be a little more polite, though. "I am not sufficiently familiar with the method to have confidence in my ability to make the correct bids. Would you mind awfully if this is the last hand for me?"

[uday]

Leaving for a tourney:
I think we printed that message to let the table know that the guy wasn't leaving voluntarily, but was being dragged off to a tournament. The thinking was that the table would be less annoyed by this as (say) leaving to join another table.
Nowadays, the replacement of the bailing player with a robot mitigates the disruption, imo.

Stats on bailing:
We do have these stats ( for tables and tournaments ) and use them here and there. Should these be visible? We've never thought so before. I think so now, tho.

Choice of system:
No easy answers here. I suspect most players don't even bother with "2/1 p." In the Main Bridge Club, no one is going to want to wait while the opps go on about a card, not even for 30 seconds. So the only practical thing is likely to select one of the stock cards, preferably one that announces the meanings of bids in the bid box. But most people don't even bother with that. Hmm. Maybe I should make this the default - jump to some random table? I'll assign SAYC ( or 2/1, whatever seems more popular ).

[1eyedjack]

uday, on 2014-January-20, 09:10, said:

Stats on bailing:
We do have these stats ( for tables and tournaments ) and use them here and there. Should these be visible? We've never thought so before. I think so now, tho.

I disagree. What would be the point, other than to satisfy curiosity?
You already provide a facility to the table host to reject newcomers who fail a preset board completion rate. That satisfies the OP concern.
If there is no purpose to the proposal other that to satisfy curiosity then I tend to favour preservation of privacy.

[onoway]

1eyedjack, on 2014-January-20, 14:02, said:

I disagree. What would be the point, other than to satisfy curiosity?
You already provide a facility to the table host to reject newcomers who fail a preset board completion rate. That satisfies the OP concern.
If there is no purpose to the proposal other that to satisfy curiosity then I tend to favour preservation of privacy.

Possibly a compromise in that once a player has reached a predetermined percentage of abandoned tables there might be some sort of insignia..or a change in the banner colour like "looking for a game" is now green,"runner" nicks could be bright purple but all that likely would do would be that they would just make a new nick, so not sure what it would accomplish. Also, it doesn't address the problem of unfairly labelling people who have unreliable internet connections and are not leaving the tables by choice. As far as I know, the completion rate also doesn't distinguish between runners and people who have not played a sufficient numbr of hands to have one, so to speak, even if they have completed all the hands they set out to play.

Speaking of which, I have a question..since the tables automatically reset to a new hand when a hand finishes, does leaving a table at that point count as "leaving the table with unfinished hands?" If not, at what point in time does it count? Also, does leaving a table with 3 GIBS count?

Unless a table is blocked and requires permission, normally table hosts won't know anyway until someone sits that they are a runner. If the host then boots them in anticipation, they will have another black mark and it becomes a cycle they cannot get out of. It would be too bad if BBO simply became a bunch of locked tables everywhere, quite an unfriendly sort of place, entirely different to what it (imo) ought to be.

In any case, I tend to think in terms of how much information and control there is on a site such as this, it's the same as for government, a good rule to follow is less is more. Stick to the important stuff like abuse would be my vote, and let the little irritations alone, they're just part of life.

[HighLow21]

onoway, on 2014-January-18, 17:15, said:

I personally find it obnoxious when people sit at table, take a look around and leave again, or ask to sit and then take off, as though they've checked us out and found us all deficient. (It's interesting that none of these so far are particularly good bridge players according to their My Hands records, at least the ones I've checked for interest's sake). BBO has a lot of members and some of them have the "people" skills of a cockroach, that's just the way it is.

In all fairness, the reason I usually do this is that I'm checking partner's profile and the most recent results at the table. If partner is an obvious beginner OR the recent results my way are poor AND my partner was there for them, I'm usually out. I'll sometimes look at the play-by-play of the most recent hand to see why the results are so bad (perhaps it wasn't partner's fault). But that's why.

I'm checking to make sure it's a decent seat to be in before I make any bids.

[uday]

onoway, on 2014-January-20, 21:42, said:

does leaving a table at that point count as "leaving the table with unfinished hands?" If not, at what point in time does it count? Also, does leaving a table with 3 GIBS count?

IIRC, leaving before you take any action does not count. Don't recall offhand re 3 gibs , tho.

[uday]

1eyedjack, on 2014-January-20, 14:02, said:

What would be the point, other than to satisfy curiosity?

There are a number of data points that might help X decide whether he wants to play with Y

Prior bail stats
Prior tourney completion stats
Age of username ( ie, how long has this person been on the site )

Country of origin ( based on IP address lookup )
Average total points earned per hand over last N hands/days if enough data exists

# of people who have marked this person as a friend
# of people who have marked this person as an enemy ( and/or the ratio of these two numbers )
# of people this person has marked as a friend
# of people this person has marked as an enemy

None of this data is particularly sensitive but I know what I'd do if invited to play in a tourney by someone who has completed 20% of recent Ts..or who has been marked as a friend by 10 people but enemied by 100.

Backing up a level, this is all data that lets X decide whether he wants to engage with Y. Anything simple that helps that, whether in the list above or not, has to be a good thing I think.

[timouthy]

Amen Uday, I couldn't have said it better. I haven't seen a scenario yet where less information is better than more.

Mouthy Tim

[OldPlayr]

HighLow21, on 2014-January-21, 10:45, said:

In all fairness, the reason I usually do this is that I'm checking partner's profile and the most recent results at the table. If partner is an obvious beginner OR the recent results my way are poor AND my partner was there for them, I'm usually out. I'll sometimes look at the play-by-play of the most recent hand to see why the results are so bad (perhaps it wasn't partner's fault). But that's why.

I'm checking to make sure it's a decent seat to be in before I make any bids.

The problem could be solved, and the site made much more attractive, if improvements were made to the 'Take me to the first seat available' function to allow selection of partners based on bidding system. This has been suggested here many times, but no improvements have been made.

I suspect that this is because the core folks here who make software decisions all play with regular partners and never are forced to use this function. Life as a nomad individual player is not easy on BBO

When you get assigned a partner with a blank profile, or unfamiliar bidding system, what are you supposed to do? The only alternative is to jump back out & roll the dice with the 'take me to..' function again. Trying to use the 'view tables' function is near useless, as seats come & go so fast. By the time you have viewed a profile, the seat is likely gone. Trying to start a chat dialog on bidding conventions with a new partner with a blank profile is not productive for anyone at the table. As a result, I usually have to jump in an out of many tables before finding a partner profile with SAYC. (Imagine if I played a less popular system, like precision!)

An alternative to improving the 'take me to a seat' function would be to have rooms or tables set aside for specific bidding systems.

[onoway]

uday, on 2014-January-21, 13:10, said:

There are a number of data points that might help X decide whether he wants to play with Y

Prior bail stats
Prior tourney completion stats
Age of username ( ie, how long has this person been on the site )

Country of origin ( based on IP address lookup )
Average total points earned per hand over last N hands/days if enough data exists

# of people who have marked this person as a friend
# of people who have marked this person as an enemy ( and/or the ratio of these two numbers )
# of people this person has marked as a friend
# of people this person has marked as an enemy

None of this data is particularly sensitive but I know what I'd do if invited to play in a tourney by someone who has completed 20% of recent Ts..or who has been marked as a friend by 10 people but enemied by 100.

Backing up a level, this is all data that lets X decide whether he wants to engage with Y. Anything simple that helps that, whether in the list above or not, has to be a good thing I think.

I would really really dislike almost all of this, and think it's an example of the overuse of information just because it can be collected. You get into personality contests and mob rule and people refusing to play with weaker players because it brings down their stats. It seems to me that BBO is becoming less friendly for random players all the time and if all this started to happen I think it would be really unfortunate.

All of those things are designed to make sure that people mix only with their own and would further ghetto-ize beginners and weaker players who already are having problems finding people to play with them. That leads to the idiocy of novices putting advanced on their profiles and making things even worse. It's almost already got to the point that no-one wants to play with anyone not an "expert".

Someone told me the other day quite seriously that she was a better player than a certain teacher because she has better stats..the fact that the teacher is playing highly skilled and competitive players while she is frequently playing with an advanced p vs beginners apparently doesn't figure in her assessment.

For a while, I was compensating for playing with weak players by playing with GIBS to bring my stats back up, I've mostly stopped doing that because I can only get the GIBS past their best before date as I prefer the download version of BBO..which is likely enough to make anything I have to say disregarded entirely in any case, but there it is. OTOH maybe that's why my scores with GIBS were generally good, perhaps I should rethink that.

Also, mob mentality is alive and well on BBO as much as anywhere else, as evidenced by the adventures when G was alive and playing. Suppose someone decided to have a dozen IDs, which apparently some people already do, and have them all mark each other as friend..or.. mark someone as enemy and each of those ID's convinced one or two friends to do the same? It could turn into a business opportunity, like the outfits you can hire to give your website "likes" and links and competing websites "dislikes".

Hopefully BBO will never get to the point of acting on the belief that good scores are the only point and purpose of bridge. It is after all, supposed to be a game, and although the purpose of a game is generally to win, there is generally a social and fun aspect assumed as well, at least below the pro level. The posters who won't sit for even one hand at a table because it might not be good for their results are imo missing a very large part of what bridge should and can be about.

OTOH it might be useful for people who feel strongly about what system they play to be able to filter the available tables for that system.

[Antrax]

I'm with onoway, and another thing: right now marking someone as an enemy is the only way to mute people. I frequently enemy people who talk too much in kib chat or vugraph, and that shouldn't be an indication to anything beyond my feeling they're too chatty.

[jjbrr]

onoway, on 2014-January-22, 00:25, said:

Hopefully BBO will never get to the point of acting on the belief that good scores are the only point and purpose of bridge. It is after all, supposed to be a game, and although the purpose of a game is generally to win, there is generally a social and fun aspect assumed as well, at least below the pro level. The posters who won't sit for even one hand at a table because it might not be good for their results are imo missing a very large part of what bridge should and can be about.

Slight derail to respond to this as an idea just popped into my head, so feel free to move this to a new thread.

Has BBO considered implementing a sort of "trophy" system or achievement system based on player results? For example it might be nice to win an award for making 3NT 10 times, 50 times, 100 times, 500 times, etc, and receive a little trophy icon in an awards page in the profile or whatever. I can think of literally hundreds of little awards that might be fun to try to accumulate that would incentivize players to stay longer and play more hands.

You could even have a set of awards that you earn only by playing with lots of different partners, eg bid and make game with 100 different partners or with partners from 100 different countries or whatever.

Maybe as you accumulate achievements, you can have another little icon next to the red circle number with how many masterpoints you've won online.

Obviously the awards wouldn't need to require a certain level of skill - they should be accessible to beginners and experts alike - but obviously having lots of awards would be an indication of how much experience you have on BBO and probably correlates well with skill.

It might also be a good way of getting people acclimated to the features in the web client of BBO; give people a trophy for setting up a team game or a teaching table or whatever in the web client.

Anyway, just a thought.