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Stalling in free automatic fun No correction?

#1 User is offline   maartenxq 

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Posted 2018-September-22, 03:13

I played a 6 in free automatic fun and would have made it. Opponents were stalling and we got average. No correction. this new BBO policy?

Maarten Baltussen
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#2 User is offline   PhilG007 

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Posted 2018-September-23, 07:35

The automatic system allows only 30 seconds per decision per player. If a player exceeds the time limit,they are replaced by
a GIB. Usually the score is adjusted by a 'director' even though there isn't one if the play exceeds the round time. I think you were unfortunate on this
occasion
"It is not enough to be a good player, you must also play well"
- Dr Tarrasch(1862-1934)German Chess Grandmaster

Bridge is a game where you have two opponents...and often three(!)


"Any palooka can take tricks with Aces and Kings; the true expert shows his prowess
by how he handles the two's and three's" - Mollo's Hideous Hog
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#3 User is offline   Gazumper 

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Posted 2018-September-23, 08:11

This does happen and can be taken advantage of by a grumpy opponent but in my experience it's rare. If you get within the last 5 tricks GiB will play it out but that too can be taken advantage of because it seems to play to declarer's advantage with regards to finesses and squeezes etc. If the contract can be made GiB will make it.
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#4 User is offline   Left2Right 

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Posted 2018-September-23, 09:02

I stopped playing in these things and I recommend we all do. It's very unappealing when stalling occurs and worse, you never see whether BBO takes any action against the perpetrator. Worse yet, a perpetrator can issue himself a new BBO ID at will and begin the cycle all over again.

Your future is in your own hands.

My "favorite" incident: LHO got into a nonsense auction with a silly partner and bid the hand to 7NT, everything past the 4 level being doubled. He played two or three tricks of the silly hand and then stalled. Average assigned by computer. Complaint issued. Silence from BBO on the outcome.

No more stallable games for me.
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#5 User is offline   maartenxq 

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Posted 2018-September-23, 12:47

No big deal. Everyone who plays in this thing must know you are on your own. Was just surprised this now also includes stalling opponents.

Maarten Baltussen
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#6 User is offline   pescetom 

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Posted 2018-September-23, 15:43

View Postmaartenxq, on 2018-September-23, 12:47, said:

No big deal. Everyone who plays in this thing must know you are on your own. Was just surprised this now also includes stalling opponents.

I don't think anything has changed. As said above, if you get near the end a robot will decide, although rather drastically. In any case I wouldn't worry about "losing" to such miserable opponents.
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#7 User is offline   AyunuS 

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Posted 2018-September-23, 23:11

These tournaments are not ones you should take too seriously. Half the hands your partner will not play at a very high skill level and you'll likely get a low score and there wasn't much you could've done about it anyway. So the few times someone stalls, it's just another score that doesn't really represent how good you are. I'd just not worry about it too much and move on.

I kinda wish it had better anti-stall rules though. Like if you take over 20 seconds for more than 5 decisions in a row it should just consider you too slow and boot you or something. Usually when someone stalls they're not very subtle about it, and you'd unlikely take that long that many times in a row if you weren't trying to stall.
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#8 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2018-September-24, 09:21

View PostGazumper, on 2018-September-23, 08:11, said:

This does happen and can be taken advantage of by a grumpy opponent but in my experience it's rare. If you get within the last 5 tricks GiB will play it out but that too can be taken advantage of because it seems to play to declarer's advantage with regards to finesses and squeezes etc. If the contract can be made GiB will make it.

It's not intentionally playing to any specific player's advantage. It just puts robots in all 4 seats, and has them play normally, single-dummy. If it's to declarer's advantage it's probably just because the robots aren't very good defenders (they don't use defensive signals).

#9 User is offline   TrialBid 

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Posted 2018-September-24, 16:12

View PostGazumper, on 2018-September-23, 08:11, said:

This does happen and can be taken advantage of by a grumpy opponent but in my experience it's rare. If you get within the last 5 tricks GiB will play it out but that too can be taken advantage of because it seems to play to declarer's advantage with regards to finesses and squeezes etc. If the contract can be made GiB will make it.

It's the arbitrary 5-tricks-to-go cutoff that really can produce a really unhappy outcome now and again. It seems to me that a few heuristics could improve the situation a lot.

1. If the contract is already made (or defeated) with the tricks taken already (plus certain trump tricks in a trump contract) that is a good place to start. For the side going plus, that score or A+ should be used with the reciprocal score (or A-) for the other side.

2. If a good claim preceded timing out, the Robots should accept it, no matter how many tricks remain.

There are times, however, when I think BBO prefers to leave unpleasantness in games we don't pay for.
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#10 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2018-September-25, 08:37

View PostTrialBid, on 2018-September-24, 16:12, said:

There are times, however, when I think BBO prefers to leave unpleasantness in games we don't pay for.

We don't prefer it, but we don't go to great lengths to make the heuristics perfect, either. We're busy with more important things, like the HTML5 version.

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