[jw_nl]

Players HATE the A- assigned automatically by the BBO software if a board is unfinished. Every TD who is directing clocked tournaments will know that.

"Why A- ????? that's not fair."
"Opps were slow !"
"if they r slow why sd we lose points..pl revise pr"
"why we get Ave in board 2 TD???????????????????"
"sorry...why ave is 3 imp for opps??"
"host 4. board???????????*"

When I create a tournament my uploaded Tournament Rules include:

"Adjustments.
The software will assign automatically A-- to unfinished boards. TD will try to adjust as soon as possible. Don't bother about that A--, just wait for the adjustment or a TD-decision. Calling TD or chatting in private to a TD will only delay the adjustments. After reviewing an unfinished board I will adjust as often as possible. Once you have seen the popupwindow with the adjustment and you disagree, please tell me why. Tell me the way to make the result you expected. I will review the board once again and if necessary discuss it with you. Please stop chatting to me after I have told you the final decision. "

I know that only a few players read these rules, so in my Description is : Adjustment of unfinished boards. Don't call TD! Wait for the adjustment."

Maybe a player was very late aware of my tournament and did register very late. So in my welcome message is: "Unfinished boards will be adjusted."

This was just one line and maybe a player forgot to read it. So after a round with unfinished boards I chat to tournament: "Unfinished boards will be adjusted. Telling me the result you like will delay adjustments. So DON'T CALL TD, Don't worry about that A-. Just WAIT for the adjustment. Substituting will get priority. Please patience."

Tournament 1
After my standard message about adjustments three players started talking to me.
With one of them:
Player: its easy then when u see u r getting down play slow and get average?? is this the system??
Player: will u kindly answer????
After finishing my chat to another player
TD->Player: scroll back and read my chats please.
Player: NOT EASY TO LOOSE IN YOUR SYSTEM... IF U R DOWN PLAY SLOW IS THIS IT?????
TD->Player: scroll back and read my chats please.
Player: that means.... U SCROLL BACK AND READ ME!!!!!!
Automated message: Player has been replaced with playerxx.
Player (Lobby): )))))) U WONT GET AWAY WITH THIS
Player made enemy, box "ignore chat enemies" checked.

With the second player:
Player: please adjust #4 4!S-2
Player: YOU ADJUST or NOT as Promised>>>>>>>>>>>
TD->Player: every chat by you and other players is interrupting / frustrating TD's work
Player: well we have to tell you what to adjust no?
TD->Player: NO if you had read my chats you would have known that
Player: yes i read you chat but you dont know which one to adjust if we do not tell you
TD->Player: I know which boards didnt finish...............

Tournament 2
Here we go again.
My standard message. Within 90 seconds 3 TD calls:
Player: Tourney xx Director needed by player at Table 00X Player said:we win 5!h X -1
Player: Tourney xx Director needed by player at Table 00X Player said:please
Player: Tourney xx Director needed by player at Table 00X Player said:come on please
TD->Tournament: please read my chat about adjustment. don't call please

Player: Tourney xx Director needed by player at Table 00X Player said:please change
TD->Player: if you call again I will remove you
Player (chat): please change the score
->TD: Automated message: Find substitute: Invitations issued
Player: we do 5!h X - 1
->TD: Automated message: Substitution complete. Player has been replaced with Playerx
Player (Lobby): gros enculée
TD->Player: READ ONCE in stead of bothering TD !!!
Player (Lobby): ta gueule avec 16 tables tu dois te bouger le cul
->Player: speak english please if you want to tell me something

If you don't understand french, don't think he told me he likes my tourneys

Tournament 3
Round 1 was finished.
TD->Tournament: the standard message.
Player1 (priv chat): please adjust board 2 for us, we were 3 down
Player2 (TD call) : my 2 board pls
TD->Tournament: to players who didnt finish board 2 : please scroll back and read my previous chat:
Maybe the players did read that. I didn't receive more chats/calls about adjustments. Due to many other TD calls the adjusting of one board couldn't be done during round 2

Round 2 was finished and again some unfinished boards, so I did send my standard message again.
Player3 (priv chat): board 4 we make contract .why average?
TD->Player3: scroll back and read please

TD->Tournament :
for players who don't understand how the A- for unfinished boards is assigned the next message:

The software will assign A- to unfinished boards automatically. I will adjust as soon as possible. Don't bother about that A- and don't call before you see a pop-up window with the adjustment. Give me some time to review the boards. Telling me the result you like will delay adjustment. Substituting will get priority. Please patience.

Player4 (priv chat): 4. board 2 sp +1
Player5 (TD call) : b4 average jon the other side???
Player6 (priv chat): controllare board 4 per piacere
Player6 (priv chat): no ave
TD -> Tournament: still players who are frustrating my adjusting. the next one who calls / chats will be removed.

Player2 (priv chat) : my 2. board pls
Automated message: Player2 has been replaced with player7
Player2 (Lobby): why?
TD->Player2: read my earlier chats please
Player6 (priv chat): board 4 no ave
Automated message: player6 has been replaced with player8
Player2 (Lobby): bravo celebration

Receiving thousands of calls/chats about A-- is so annoying.
Should a TD educate players who play in his tournaments? Should be a TD the always friendly person who has to accept all kinds of remarks of players who think they don't have or are too lazy to read the rules, the description, welcome message and other TD messages and think their score is the most important thing in the world??

No, I don't think so.

I hate that A-.
If a TD announces at tournamentcreationtime that he will adjust unfinished boards, I think he should have the possibility to choose between assignment of A- and something else like TDA (TD will adjust) or TBA (To be adjusted). Players wouldn't see the hated A- and (with barometer off and in crossimp tourneys) the -3 imps.

I think the TD will enjoy his tournaments much more or better, might enjoy his tournaments again.

[inquiry]

We adjust unfinshed boards in our tournaments as well. But I wonder about your dislike of the calls. It sounds like you have very large tournaments. If so, how do you even know if a board is unfinished if you don't want the players to call you.

Do you sit on the tournament status button towards the end of the round and write down teh table table numbers to check? If it is an individual or swiss, how do you know who was at those tables?

I ENCOURAGE people to send me private messages (not the dreaded TD button) when a board is unfinished...and even to call me before the round is over of possible.

[uday]

The a-- is assigned when the time alloted to the round (by the TD) expires and a hand is still in play.


If you don't want automatic averages when time runs out, you can

1. Extend the time per board to the maximum allowed. Your entire section will wait for any table that is slow. You can use the tourney-status button to find slow tables. With enough time, I assume that there won't be any incompete boards.

2. Set the movement to unclocked. There may be playbacks. But there won't be incomplete boards.


It sounds like you are taking the position that you want to set a time limit per round and you want to manually assign scores to all boards that were in play when the round ran out of time. That's a lot of work, if you ask me. maybe the TD *should* be allowed to set it to TDA or whatever. But nothing will help if the players won't read the rules or the messages from the TD

[jw_nl]

To Ben:

My tournaments are 4x2 IMPS 6MpB Clocked indy's and limited to 64 players.
At the end of the round I click on the tournament status, drag the popupwindow to the left side of the screen and keep these windows open. Resolution of my screen 1280x1024, Using BBO in narrow mode, Management window open on the left side of my screen. I direct with 2 accounts/PC's and this way it is easy to follow the progress of the tables and this way it's very easy to see which tables tables will not finish.
TD's who have large numbers of tables will not be able to direct like me, but that's their choice.
By going to the unfinished tables and click on movie it's clear who played the board. Adjusting is done using the Show the board history for a player (in the open Managementwindow), because then calls will not disturb reviewing.
I will only adjust if the number of unfinished boards can be handled in a proper way. Otherwise I will add time. However, this is rather rare. After adjusting unfinished boards the windows with the numbers of unfinished tables are closed.
So my players don't have to tell me which tables didn't finish and also I'm not interested in the result they like, because about 30% of these estimations prove to be wrong.

[jw_nl]

to Uday:

I prefer clocked tourneys because in my opinion bridge is a game in which players are trying to get the best result in a limited time and equal to all players. Delay is often due to replacements of disconnected players. In those cases I will adjust and other players will not have to wait very long each round. Even with only 6 min per board I have an average of less than 1 unfinished board per round.

When you have time set to 8 min per board many players have to wait very long each round. After a period with 7 min per board I'm back to 6 minutes per board now. When people are used to it, this speed is giving no problems at all. No more unfinished board compared to 8 MpB tourneys.
My experience is that extending time will only result in slower play, talking about the previous board and so.
Adjustment after the last will not change the published scoreboard, so to the last round I add time if necessary.
I don't like clocked tournaments with time set to 8 minutes and then every round extended to sometimes 11-12 minutes per board. Most players find this boring.
When a fastplaying player in unclocked tourneys has to wait for the scoreboard there is no win in time compared to clocked 8 min per board tournaments. That's why I prefer clocked tournaments. The number of complaints like "Soooooooo Slow" has reduced a lot now.
I hope that an alternative for A- will be made. I will love that.

[mink]

to jw_nl: I like the way you handle your tourneys, and agree with everything you said.

to Ben: it is indeed possible to keep track of the tables still playing when the round finishes, and I did that myself when I was still directing tourneys some time ago. If players tell the TD by private chat that they want a board to be adjusted, it does not much harm provided that they do not expect the TD to answer this message. However, unnecessary chat to TD always distracts a bit.

to Uday: In my opinion a decent director should try his best to adjust all unfinished boards, because in most cases the A-- is very unjust to the side which did not waste time, or even unjust to all if the delay was caused by the need to sub a player. Doing all the adjustments can be a lot of work indeed.

However, the server software could help the director by adjusting those cases where the final outcome is clear:

- round finished when both opps have agreed with a claim by declarer but the claim did not succeed because dummy was not online (maybe this has been fixed already)

- round finished when only the last trick was left to be played

- round finished when declarer had only trump in his hand and opps have no trump left

Maybe for all unfinished boards with 6 or less tricks left to play, the server could trigger a gib or deep finesse analysis of the unfinished board to be run on the client machines, and automatically assign the worst possible score for each side. I guess in many cases this would be the same score for each side. And even if not, it is possible that the difference is only about overtricks.

It would be even better of course that in cases where the results were not the same the delayed tables were allowed to finish their board even though the new round had already started - I suggested this long time ago. However I understand that this would require a considerable amount of software development.

Karl

[jillybean]

I don’t think automatically adjusting boards is the answer – the td will know which tables are remaining at the end of a round and it does not take long to visit each table and check what is happening. There are just too many variables imo for a board to be given an auto adjustment. A player is stuck, away from the pc, having trouble getting opps to respond to a query, it could be a time problem from the hand previously. If time does run out before the end of the hand the TD needs to look carefully to see how the hand had been played. The declarer may have set up a suit, one of the opps had shown out so a finesse was certain and so on. I think this is one area where a bot can’t do the job of a TD, at least not yet.

If too many tables are unfinished time needs adding or the number of tables reduced next time so the game can be kept moving.

jb

[mink]

Jillybean, I think you did not get my point: I agree that the cases you mentioned need an adjustment by a human, even if pre-adjusted by an automatism (like always A--). I suggested a final automatic adjustment only for those cases where there is only one result possible, no matter how the hand is played.

Karl

[jillybean]

Ok I misunderstood, I thought you were also suggesting GIB be used to analyze hands.

[jikl]

I also always adjust any unfinished boards. Uday and Ben, any competent director will know exactly which tables need adjustments, it is not that much work. I use a different message from JB though. Mine is something like "Adjusting tables 3, 5 and 8 from last round, please only call me for substitutions while I do this" This seems to work very well.

Sean