[Walddk]

Let's face it. Most tournament directors (TDs) at BBO know nothing or little about Laws of Duplicate Bridge. We have all witnessed or heard about appalling rulings; sadly they are not few and far between.

Consequently, this question arises: Do we need an Appeals Committee at BBO? I am referring to bridge related issues only. Abuse or any other kind of misbehaviour should still be dealt with by abuse@

As it is now, most of the rulings are random. The ACBL directors are certified and very good at what they do. Others know what to do too, but an enormous percentage is more or less clueless.

No offence intended, but most TDs and hosts are nothing but nursery assistants. Subbing disconnected players, adjusting scores when time runs out, issuing warnings for foul language, urging players to alert and explain, etc.

What do you think? Should we have an AC, or should it perhaps only be in force as far as pay and/or masterpoints tourneys are concerned and let the rest be run as they are now?

Or is it good enough as it is?

Roland Wald
Certified director

[inquiry]

Short answer is no.

Longer answer. Still most tourneys are run by volunteers with no prizes. The director there is king. To have an appeals committee looking over their shoulder and telling them to straighten up is silly. Those tourneys are for the shear fun of playing the game while keeping score....

For Cash tourney's, ACBL tourneys' and BBO masterpoint events, I would say this. These are run by organizations other than the BBO (well BBO has the ACBL franchase I believe). For the BBO to "enforce" appeal committess on them seems wrong to me. They make their own rule. If they wanted to have certified directors, or appeals committees, it is UP TO THEM TO ESTABLISH. Same thing for events by private clubs or even by individual host. Nothing stops them from establishing their own appeals committee if they want.

I guess if I was handing out cash for an event I ran, I would establish an appeals committee so that all the players could expect an impartial hearing of their concerns. So I agree with you on the principle... but I disagree that the BBO should have anything to do with setting these up. BBO is our community (Fred and Uday are just the builders)... the users can shape issues like this... without input from the BBO starf (ohter than maybe a "hold the final result option button" to give a committee time to meet in a chat room and make a ruling).

Ben

[hotShot]

I don't think we need such an AC.

Since the BBO software prevents revokes, insufficient bids, bids and plays out of order etc.
Whats left are UI and missinformation cases.
Due to the selfalerts, that partner is unaware off, a lot of UI cases are prevented.
Based on what facts should an AC act.
How could they determine players of equal skill?
How could they know if they deal with a first time pickup partnership or an established partnership with new BBO nicks.
How can they rule on a timing issue, if they have no information other than some players accusation?
In a f2f tourney you can ask other players, because they don't log off within seconds.
Every day at least 162000 times 4 people meet to play one board on BBO. Most of them in the MBC but a lot of them in tourneys. If there is an AC it will have to deal with more than a hundred boards a day.

Who will volunteer to host a tourney, if he has to reseve additional time to deal with appeals?

[hrothgar]

Walddk, on Feb 10 2005, 05:52 PM, said:

Let's face it. Most tournament directors (TDs) at BBO know nothing or little about Laws of Duplicate Bridge. We have all witnessed or heard about appalling rulings; sadly they are not few and far between.

Roland has raised a complex issue:

I agree with Roland's basic point. From my perspective, the major of the directors on BBO have at best a passing familiarity with the laws. Moreover, some of them have extremely idiosyncratic ideas regarding the proprieties of the game... With I am grateful for the services that the volunteer Tournament Directors provide, I do believe that some kind of oversight mechanism is strongly desirable:

With this said and done, I don't believe that an appeals committee per-see would serve a useful purpose. Very few of the events on BBO really "matter". If a director gets a decision wrong, what's the worst that happens? My place in a tournament would improve from 1th to 9th? YAWN... Just not worth my time. I readily admit that there are times when I would take vindictive glee in seeing a tournament director over-ruled. Here, once again, really not worth while.

What I do think is necessary is some sort of mechanism to shied the players from the worst of these directors. As usual, there are two ways in which this can be accomplished:

Option 1: Create in a centralized oversite committee whose job it is to listen to complaints. If a Director messes up "too much: they get a warning. If this doesn't work, their right to host tournaments gets pulled. At this point in time, BBO is using this type of mechanism.

Option 2: Create a decentralized system by which users are able to provide feedback regarding the performance of directors. Players could then use this rating system to identify those directors that they wished to patronize.

I've long argued the Option 1 is problematic. Option 1 requires that BBO personnel insert themselves in the middle of acrimonious political fights. Equally significant, Option 1 doesn't scale well. As BBO continues to grow, the number of complaints will also increase as will the resources necessary to support the centralized committee.

In contrast, whille there is a one time cost to implement a review system, once this as been implemented there are no significant scaling problems. Ill note in passing that user based feedback systems have are used with great success in a wide avriety of environemnts ranging from online auction sites like EBAY (buyers and seller rate each other ) to major Universities (student rate their faculty and these ratings are posted openly in guide books)

[keylime]

I'm totally in agreement with Roland for certain prized events.

Many of the TD's here are kind-hearted, bridge loving people that want to host and for that I am happy that we have so many. In those gatherings I'm quite happy to live with whatever they choose.

My issue is when you pay money for an event and get a director that simply does not do enough to protect the rights of all four players at the table. Furthermore, when you play in an event that has very clearly defined rules of the road and the director-in-care not only isn't familiar with those CoC but rules in a manner that is clearly AGAINST the Laws and/or the applicable permissions of the sponsoring organization, the entire field is affected.

The fact that there is no apparent and visible mechanism for appealing for paid events is greatly bothering to me, considering what Law 83 and 92 states with the affording of appeal to a contestant. How are we going to foster an environment that is consistent, when the directors aren't?

I'm all for an AC in paid events (especially the ACBL ones) only.

[fred]

My objections to Appeals Committees on BBO:

1) ACs do not produce better rulings than TDs in "real life" tournaments (my opinion)

2) ACs cause bad feelings and controversy in real life tournaments (fact)

3) Most of our players would prefer to live with the occasional bad ruling (these things tend to even out in the long run) than have to wait (possibly hours) before seeing where they finished in a tourney (my opinion)

4) There would be logistic problems in trying to arrange for quality committees (especially when some of the players involved might have limited English skills) to be available whenever they were required (fact)

5) It would not be much fun to have to create a whole new set of rules and procedures for things like selecting committee members, dealing with frivolous appeals, getting rid of committee members who were biased, did a bad job (fact)

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[luke warm]

i think the concept is laudable, the implementation either impossible or highly complex/cost defective

nobody gets more chapped than i do when hearing about some of the asinine rulings that are made... however, the tourneys are free and the tds are volunteers... i still think something along the lines of what richard is proposing might work, even if it has to be done by the players... i just wouldn't want to do anything that could potentially harm bbo (such as having an independent website with director ratings, and then the poorly rated directors raising a stink, and this causing bbo to have to take some kind of action, etc etc)... also, it would be a helluva lot of work, because examples of rulings would have to be posted with explanations as to why they are wrong... then the td gets a 2nd or 3rd opinion, ad nauseum... i'd love to see it, i just don't see how it can be implemented

i stand behind my statement in an earlier post, i *still* don't understand why any director would not WANT to improve, even if that meant taking public criticism on occasion... unlike your bridge partner (who you should never criticize in public), a td is performing in the public arena and his poor performances harm everyone

[helene_t]

I agree with Ben and Fred.

Also:
- Directors have the freedom to specify their own rules ("everybody plays SAYC", "only one pshyche", "alert all artificial calls, even Stayman"). Some tournaments are restricted to players that speak French or Polish. May we assume that French/Polish rules apply, then? Are ACs supposed to rule on the basis of all kinds of rulesets?
- One purpose of an AC is to establish legal practice for cases that are not clearly regulated by the laws. We have the forum for that purpose.

[cherdano]

I must admit I would have never even thought about ACs for BBO. You know, in my local club I would not even call the director except when we need to settle a revoke or a lead out of turn.
In a short tournament with players skill as widely ranging as typically on BBO, your results are pretty random anyway. Why bother about one random bad result due to a bad ruling, if you usually have 3 more random bad results due to your opps not making the same stupid mistakes as everybody else in their direction? I certainly could never be bothered to wait until an AC meeting is scheduled etc.
If somebody is arranging a semi-private tourney with a more comparable level of skills, so that the results would actually mean anything, I think he would be better off looking for a competent TD than trying to organize an AC. And enocurage TDs to seek feedback on rulings in case it's a big tourney with several TDs.

Arend

[helene_t]

Richard's idea of a user-feedback based rating system for directors is interesting. I agree that user-feedback has proven effiecient in many areas.

I'm sceptical about this particular application, though. It will motivate directors to make popular decisions, such as adjusting to ave/ave instead of ave-/ave- in cases where both pairs messed it up.

In some areas, such as politics and the tourist industri, popularity is the ultimate goal of the feedback system or at least correlates strongly with the ultimate goal. I don't think the correlation between legaly correct decissions and popular decisions is strong enough to warrant such a system, in particular when the feedback comes from the involved parties.

If the feedback came from kibitzers only, at least the bias would be less.

[the hog]

I agree. I think an appeals committee is a waste of time. Those who play on BBO are not playing for sheep stations. Now if national representation was at stake....

However, I do think BBO has a responsibility to ensure that directors are better qualified; if events are run under the jurisdiction of a governing body, that body has the responsibility to ensure that participants get what they pay for.

[hotShot]

I think there are three major problems that lead to TD calls:

• players want to ensure that they get AVE+, when the time runs out
  
• players feel damaged because of a missing alert
  
• someones Explanation does not fit the hand

There are a few things where the software could help.

1) A psyche-Button
Next to "Alert" there should be a "Psyche" Button. If someone intended to bid something different than the agreement, this button should be used. As a result the TD (and only the TD) can see that the bid was a psyche (e.g. red background). The software should generate a database entry containing players ID, his partners ID and a hand record.
The psyche bid should be annotated showing something like:
This player made xxxx psyches before, yyyy with this partner.
If the "psyche" button was not used, the TD can rule that the explanation was wrong.

2) Measure time and log disconnects
Computer can measure time, so it should be possible to find out who was playing to slow. This is not a simple task, as discussed in another thread, but I think it can be done.

3) TD ruling charts
Now that the BBO-Software can open a HTML-Window, we should prepare ruling charts.
The ruling chart should show the workflow a TD should follow to make a ruling. This chart could be translated in different languages.
Even TD's with limited skills should be able to follow that chart.
It might be possible to display this chart to the players (in their own language) so that they can understand, what the TD is doing.

4) A ruling queue
If the TD is called and he needs to look at a board later, he should mark it to be put to the "ruling queue" this way he has easy access to it when there is time. If the tourney is finished before the ruling queue is empty, the result should contain "provisional" in the title and something like xxx boards to review.

All of this is a lot of work, but it could improve the performance of TD's a lot.

[DelfinoD]

Walddk, on Feb 10 2005, 09:52 AM, said:

Let's face it. Most tournament directors (TDs) at BBO know nothing or little about Laws of Duplicate Bridge. We have all witnessed or heard about appalling rulings; sadly they are not few and far between.

Hello

I think AC could be a nice thing, but it's rather waste of time. Most of tournament results are forgotten a minute after the tournament is over. It could be only used as a tool for suspedning TDs who often make wrong decisions, and nothing else.

I agree with HotShot's ideas.

I think there should be something like BBO Law. Made strictly for BBO. Not International Bridge Law or ACBL Law, because they are rather useles in online bridge.

This could be a short document that would tell TD what to do in centrain situations like:
- psyche bid
- no alert
- run out of time
- when you can easly make adj
- when there's no way to guess how it would be played
- talking during bidding
- possible cheating
- etc.

It should be a short document leaving no doubts for the TDs and players. It shouldn't give rules like: which systems can be used, which bids to alert etc. it's up to the TD who should announce it to players. The document should only give ideas what to do when there's a problem and a TD is called to the table. And most of all it should be made easy to read, so all TDs would use it.

This way directing could improve a bit, without any AC's

[DrTodd13]

TDs in real life have a lot of issues that they always get right because they come up frequently. Many of these issues are not present on BBO because you can't revoke, lead out of turn, etc. The remaining issues dealing with hesitations, UI, MI I'd say that TDs still get most of them right but to a lesser degree. The real problem is asking people uneducated in the laws to make such decisions. To let these people off the hook with "they are doing it for fun and for free" is not quite right IMO. They host a tourney and establish the rules for the tourney. If they don't specify any rules, then the International Laws of Bridge are in force and they have accepted a responsibility to abide by those laws. If they then don't know those laws that is a problem and we need some mechanism to educate those people and eventually bar them from hosting if they don't know the laws. If they want to say in the tourney description "International bridge laws not in force...I make up my own laws as I go along" then I'd have no issue with them hosting so long as people know what to expect.

I don't think a new rule book is needed. The existing laws (and the online bridge addendum) cover almost all of the stuff you need. I like the idea of measureing time per board so director can better reward/punish slow players and I also like the idea of presenting some dichotomous key for rulings but I don't like hotshot's psyche button idea.

If the ACBL runs a tourney and their rules state that an AC shall be available then they should provide one somehow. Sure, you could automate the process in BBO by having people recognized as potential AC members and then choosing some number that are online and not busy but this would take a lot of work for very little reward since ideally ACs would be very infrequent.

[uday]

The acbl games on bbo are considered club games, and IIRC, clubs don't have to provide ACs. That doesnt mean we should not provide ACs. My local club doesnt, fwiw.

[DelfinoD]

DrTodd13, on Feb 16 2005, 06:13 PM, said:

I don't think a new rule book is needed. The existing laws (and the online bridge addendum) cover almost all of the stuff you need.

So maybe there should just be some kind of oficcial BBO 'bridge laws abstract' which would be avaliable for all directors and players?

[shoeless]

I think those sponsoring organizations and tournament directors who think their events would benefit from an AC should go for it. It's not an issue for BBO to my mind. The more bureacracy that is created here - the less dynamism we will experience. So much wisdom has been put forth in the foregoing - I hope someone is gleaning. In this somewhat of a free market economy - seems to me the buyer needs to be left with some responsibility to ensure the quality of the experience they have here. I may have missed it but how about a director certification process operated by the association of TD's - those already certified by their national associations could likely be accepted carte blanche. Training and competency assessment for the others. Seems in everyone's best interests. Even those who just want to run a few tournies for kicks can't take too much exception to this, methinks, A period of a year, for those already serving to get certified would be appropriate. Or just put a little sheriff's badge on those who are accredited directors and let the chips fall where they may.

[mgoetze]

hotShot, on Feb 11 2005, 01:41 PM, said:

1) A psyche-Button
Next to "Alert" there should be a "Psyche" Button. If someone intended to bid something different than the agreement, this button should be used. As a result the TD (and only the TD) can see that the bid was a psyche (e.g. red background). The software should generate a database entry containing players ID, his partners ID and a hand record.
The psyche bid should be annotated showing something like:
This player made xxxx psyches before, yyyy with this partner.
If the "psyche" button was not used, the TD can rule that the explanation was wrong.

Great! Then we just need a "Tactical Bid" button, an "I used my judgement" button (this one could be disabled for ACBL tournaments, or automatically be converted to the "Psyche" variety if the bid is 1NT), a "I miscounted earlier" button and a "Yes I really think 6331 is balanced" button.

[Walddk]

mgoetze, on Mar 5 2005, 02:56 AM, said:

Great! Then we just need a "Tactical Bid" button, an "I used my judgement" button (this one could be disabled for ACBL tournaments, or automatically be converted to the "Psyche" variety if the bid is 1NT), a "I miscounted earlier" button and a "Yes I really think 6331 is balanced" button.

I agree wholeheartedly. Then we can also change the name of this site to

Bridge Buttons Online

(not to be confused with Bridge Bottoms Online, which are also quite frequent)

Roland

[mink]

mgoetze, on Mar 5 2005, 08:56 AM, said:

hotShot, on Feb 11 2005, 01:41 PM, said:

1) A psyche-Button ...

Great! Then we just need a "Tactical Bid" button, an "I used my judgement" button (this one could be disabled for ACBL tournaments, or automatically be converted to the "Psyche" variety if the bid is 1NT), a "I miscounted earlier" button and a "Yes I really think 6331 is balanced" button.

Very funny, I admit. But I agree with hotshot here - a psyche button would be an improvement. I can imagine a situaltion where a bid looks like a psyche but could also be artificial and part of the system, but just forgotten to alert. At present, as a TD I would ask the pair that made the bid, but I cannot know if they tell the truth or lie or even can understand English. If a psyche button was available and not used, I can rule that they did not alert.

However, the question remains if the work was justified by the benefit.

At least maintaining a database of psyches is work, and it could show only the freqency of psyches, which is not very relavant, but the frequency of psyches of the same kind can not be computed easily. I doubt that a tourney director would browse though the hand records when he needs to decide if this psyche was too frequent or not.

Karl