[Jim Harper]

there are two reasons to go to a table. to kibitz or to play. you should be able to tell the system what you want before you go to the table. if it drops you into the table as a kibitzer and you really wanted to take an empty seat you will have seen the hands if the cards have already been dealt.

if the cards have been dealt the table host should be notified that someone wants to sit and they can assign them a seat or let the system drop that player into the first available seat at the table.

[uday]

Not sure I get this. If you jump to a seat from the lobby, or with the new 'Fimd me a game' screen, you bypass the kibitzer step.

The cards can be redealt with the touch of a buitton, so protecting the deal on the table is not a priority for us. Maybe i'm missing the point.

[hotShot]

Often if a kib sits at the table the software redeals automaticly.
If not the player can simply type i was kibbing, i've seen all cards, would you like to redeal?
Often i would think i'll make my contract against any defence and don't care about a player knowing all cards. Otherwise the host can redeal.

[mink]

I am against changing the behavior of automatical redeals as they are implemented.

An automatical redeal occurs if any of the players sitting has seen the hand before, but the hand is kept if a player leaves during play and is replaced by somebody else.

Karl