[pigpenz]

inquiry, on Jul 20 2005, 06:02 PM, said:

Echognome, on Jul 20 2005, 04:35 PM, said:

That would effectively mean that one would have to keep data on every hand played by every player.

There is a program/database that already does this. For example, your first hand on BBO as echognome occurred on March 11, 2004. The hand you played was this, you were South playing with panzade against JRShip and Miss E. You played this hand at 9:09 PM (probably Las Vegas Time, but I am not sure). If it matters, you won 1.80 imps.

Scoring: IMP

West North East South

Pass 1♦ 7NT Dbl
RDbl Pass Pass Pass

---

H6 H3 HJ H4
DA D2 D9 DJ
DK D4 C3 D3
DQ SA C5 D5
DT HQ S2 D7
D8 CK H5


During March and April of 2004 you (not your partner) opened 1NT 16 times on BBO main room, your hcp range was from 11 to 17. You opened

11 - twice
12 - twice
14 - four times
15 - four times
16 - twice
17 - twice

Once you had a five card heart suit. You frequently were 4-4 in majors.

what is the program called that can access the database, is it bridgebrowser?

[inquiry]

pigpenz, on Jul 21 2005, 01:09 PM, said:

what is the program called that can access the database, is it bridgebrowser?

Yes, Bridgebrowser, by Stephen Pickett (sfbp on BBO). Here is a link to the his webpage...Bridgebrowser home page

[Brandal]

epeeist, on Jul 21 2005, 06:30 AM, said:

Interesting discussion. I have three questions (well, more, but I'm only asking three) and one comment.

First, in respect of the discussions regarding data, what of people (like me) who tend to play with a wide variety of partners, whether in pairs or individuals, using different systems and conventions?

Second, what about "evolution" of partnership bidding agreements? E.g. maybe a pair starts out using SAYC, then 2/1, then tries precision, then...(etc.). Or even adding/changing conventions would have an effect.

Third, what about data on carding?

As for the comment, a previous poster noted the problem of people not knowing the conventions they claim to use. I think the problem was not with not knowing the conventions, but with not alerting/explaining properly. If one makes e.g. a Michaels cuebid, the correct explanation is NOT "Michaels" but what one's partner will understand it as meaning in that situation (e.g. if nonvulnerable over a minor suit, IF this is what partners have agreed, "5-11 HCP, at least 5-4 in majors" or whatever). If partners don't know how to use a convention, BUT explain what they think it is properly, then opponents get alerted to the partnership understanding of what that bid means -- even if it has no name known to bridgedom.

Some good questions there

Having read posts,since English isn't my spoken language
I don't fully understand all technicalities but it seems
timeconsuming?

To browse thru all the data I mean,before bidding?

Or did I get that wrong.

Generally speaking I don't really see how this will
be anything but confusing or misleading oneself.

The idea is good tho

[DrTodd13]

I think that one of my previous suggestions may be helpful here. When asked for an explanation of a bid, you don't get just a text field to type in. You get a dialog box with multiple items like point range, length specification for each suit, indicates bal/unbal hand, etc. You would be forced to enter a certain subset of the information and could also type an additional explanation. Once the user has specific such thing as suit length and strength you can now automatically check their hand versus what they've described and if the two don't match then you can record this deviation from the stated agreement in a database and we could possibly extract habitual providers of MI.

[Al_U_Card]

Fortunately, we don't pay by the time we take to play.........any system like the ones mentioned, would make already tediously long play times interminable.

Or, when you have a question about a bid (hover your pointer over the bid in the box and see the cc listing for that bid...) and then click on the bid to have BOTH opps independantly describe what the bid means to them (if your pard is denied this info initially then he might click on the bid and the already written answers could be shown to him without him knowing that you have also asked).

This too would be long and involved but would in the long run tend to have players fill out a cc that shows an accurate description of their bidding systems.

Or we could all become decent, honest and fair and play bridge in heaven.......

[DrTodd13]

Al_U_Card, on Jul 21 2005, 11:39 AM, said:

Fortunately, we don't pay by the time we take to play.........any system like the ones mentioned, would make already tediously long play times interminable.

Or, when you have a question about a bid (hover your pointer over the bid in the box and see the cc listing for that bid...) and then click on the bid to have BOTH opps independantly describe what the bid means to them (if your pard is denied this info initially then he might click on the bid and the already written answers could be shown to him without him knowing that you have also asked).

This too would be long and involved but would in the long run tend to have players fill out a cc that shows an accurate description of their bidding systems.

Or we could all become decent, honest and fair and play bridge in heaven.......

I don't think that my suggestion would add significantly to play times. Take NMF for example. If you make a NMF bid, you aren't supposed to alert and say "NMF." You are supposed to describe your bid and not give the name of a convention. The reasons for this are many not among the least that NMF is in no way standardized and people who all claim to play NMF play many different variants. If we are supposed to describe our hand and not use the convention name then clicking min-max lengths for suits and point count won't add a lot to the time compared to having to type in the information by hand. The second benefit is that we can automatically translate this style of information into other languages and we can reduce the language problem. Technology can come to our aide to by having a list of arbitrary names assigned by the pair to a bid and then you can click on the name and it will fill in the real information from some saved profile. Each partnership could develop their own shortcuts in this manner.

I think Al misses the point. The pair in question were not refusing to answer the question. They said they were playing NMF and alerted as such but they used the name rather than a point count description and their usage of it highly deviated from normal usage. If we are serious about full disclosure, which we should be, then we have to do something about this issue. Leaving it up to individual directors won't do. Either we implement a much better CC system and a bidding explanation box not based on text and we use that to automatically detect deviation from stated agreement or we add a button that allows opps to report a pair every time they deviate from their agreements. This information has to be collected and analyzed to see who is violating their agreements the most.

[pigpenz]

[quote name='DrTodd13' date='Jul 21 2005, 03:22 PM'] [quote name='Al_U_Card' date='Jul 21 2005, 11:39 AM'] . Leaving it up to individual directors won't do. Either we implement a much better CC system and a bidding explanation box not based on text and we use that to automatically detect deviation from stated agreement or we add a button that allows opps to report a pair every time they deviate from their agreements. This information has to be collected and analyzed to see who is violating their agreements the most. [/quote]
I was thinking about this, I was district 20 recorder for acbl in early 90,s. At that time computers were just becoming in to being for home use regularly. I tried to keep records for the district on hardware. You have to have a way to build a list against players. When something starts to happen too often then that is when it enters into the realm of partnersip understanding that the opps should be also aware of.

Now the problem is whose problem is it? BBO, ACBL, BBOLand or whoever runs the tourney. I dont think it belongs to BBO to police the games, it belongs to the individual organizations that run the games. BBO can help, say for example...everytime we long on here I am sure that there is a button the the forum head can also see our IP's. So people who kibitz their ip's could be seen, so BBO cold monitor things like that but when it gets into bidding and play and unauthorized info thats the problem for ACBL or the orgaqnziation running the tourney.

You almost need to have a recorded that can do that. Maybe they could build a post button when playing in a game that you can file a recorder form that gets look over and then a data base (private) gets built.

Now the final thing is the TD's(acbl) have to be willing to make a ruling at the table. I have had numerous examples where an opponent fielded a call cause partner didnt realize that a bid was alertable.

example:
1nt 4[di] (texas)
5[di] 5[he]
pass

i have had these types of hands come up in acbl events and the director has yet to make a ruling on these. Usually you just get the info...finish the hand. So they have to be willing to take a stand for this process to work.

[Al_U_Card]

DrTodd13, on Jul 21 2005, 03:22 PM, said:

Al_U_Card, on Jul 21 2005, 11:39 AM, said:

Fortunately, we don't pay by the time we take to play.........any system like the ones mentioned, would make already tediously long play times interminable. 

Or, when you have a question about a bid (hover your pointer over the bid in the box and see the cc listing for that bid...) and then click on the bid to have BOTH opps independantly describe what the bid means to them (if your pard is denied this info initially then he might click on the bid and the already written answers could be shown to him without him knowing that you have also asked). 

This too would be long and involved but would in the long run tend to have players fill out a cc that shows an accurate description of their bidding systems.

Or we could all become decent, honest and fair and play bridge in heaven.......

I think Al misses the point.

Hardly. Technocrats and Police state tactics have their places, just not at the bridge table. Humans play and humans err (read cheat if you like....) and that is the rub of the green. Directors and rules were meant to ensure equity for the field. They have been perverted into some form of vigilante justice to punish the perceived wrong-doers.

In a f2f game, RHO exposes a card and you are allowed to use that info (indeed it is codified so that equity is approximated). Say, however, that RHO tips their hand forward and you inadvertently see the card of interest. Proceed by ignoring the new information or punish the fool for being lackadaisical?

Rules will always be broken and cheaters will always find a way-round no matter how you lock the door....... Disclosure should be just that, no more, no less.

[Free]

The online cc's on BBO are just fine for any natural player. However, from the moment you play a little artificial it's impossible to give a cc which isn't confusing.
- for 1X openings which you select 'other', opps don't get any information
- NT openings need a HCP range, but many players use 2NT for both minors, and even 1NT openings are used for other purposes than natural
- playing different systems in 1&2 or 3&4 seat makes it completely impossible to not confuse opponents
- relayschemes (suplimentary notes) can't be attached
- ...

Some of these points would also give problems for the suggested approach. For example, playing MOSCITO in 1&2, and some natural system in 3&4, you'll have 1♥ openings with 0 till 8 cards. What can anyone make from such statistics. Also, when you change your system, you'll have still your old statistics, so these should be resetted somehow.

When saving such data on everyone's computer wouldn't work. Me for example, I play on several computers. So statistics would be different depending on where I am. And if a computer has to be reinstalled, you lose the stats, but not the ones from your partner But apparently the data is already saved on some server, so no real problem there.

Imo it's a fine idea, but there are sooooo many bidding systems, so many variables in the game, lots of exceptions, that it seems an endless job to create such a system to give decent statistics. And how far do you go in this? If you have a bidding of about 3 rounds where every person bids something, do you also want statistics on that? Or just 2 rounds? Or even less? I mean, you can make the system as heavy and complicated as you want to, but is the juice worth the squeeze?

[Fluffy]

I think for serious tournaments the only way to ensure there is nothing going badly you should get an acredited tournament director or a person of trust behind each player who is playing, of course that means you couln't probably play from home, still moving 10-20 km to a 'safe' place where you are watched is better than moving thousand kilometers to play opponents in person .