[bd71]

In our new bridge world, I find myself hosting planned team games which I had never done previously. Looking for advice from folks who have figured this all out.

Scenario: I have a planned team game where I know my teammates, but don't know the opposing players and have just communicated with the opposing captain. He has shared BBO usernames for his teammtes manually, but I worry they might not be EXACT (e.g. is the name "bd 71" or "bd71"?). I also do NOT know how the other team wants to sit at the table (e.g. who their pairs are and how they want to sit NESW).

When I just start a team game without reserving seats, I get such an avalanche of requests from strangers that it's literally impossible to do anything else because each request demands my attention. I know I can reserve seats for specific usernames, but I worry I may have usernames slightly off and I don't know the desired seating arrangement.

What is the solution to this?

(Side request for BBO: Can you set it up so the requests to join a table don't demand immediate attention and take the window highlight/cursor away from the chat box? While I was trying to write a message I would receive a request, refuse it, return to try to finish the message but my cursor was forced to deal with the next request before I get even get another word typed.)

[paulg]

My video at https://youtu.be/5kiuLfsQRIY is short and covers the basics.

I've never had another team not tell me what their partnerships are and if they don't tell me which seats they want then I presume they do not care.

Proper names are always a hassle. You can use the Search function on the Players tab to confirm, but it is often easier to try to set up the team match and you'll see get a failure. If you leave the create team window open then you can ask the opposing captain for clarification.

It is also worth watching https://youtu.be/RJ9SsLN68aA to see how to cancel a team match or make a substitution.

[bd71]

Thank you Paul...useful videos.

I'll preface this next comment by saying in general I think BBO is great. However, my assessment after doing a few of these team games and seeing Paul's videos is that the options for starting team games is sub-optimal and I'd encourage BBO to make enhancements. Possible ideas:

1. Prevent people from requesting to join a table repeatedly. Once someone is rejected one time, they should not be able to re-request unless the host does something specific to let them (i.e. hosts need to be able to reverse if they accidentally refused someone who does belong at the table).

2. Allow a host to perma-ban or perma-refuse someone from applying. This will help control those who spam a table with re-requests immediately after being refused...again and again and again.

3. Allow a table host to identify team captains (which might be the host) and delegate responsibility so that each captain can separately control who sits in their team's seats. This can minimize mixups on (exact) usernames and facilitate that each team's players are deployed how they want.

4. Most importantly, please make it so that when a request to join is made, the window/cursor focus does NOT automatically go to that request. Said another way, please allow a table host to finish typing a message or performing another task and NOT have the software FORCE them to deal with the invite (either by responding or navigating away) immediately.