[Fluffy]

I love BAM (Barometer scoring), to the point I enjoy a lot less any team match I play which doesn't have it. Comparing my scores with the other table of players I know allows me to fill the dead times when I am dummy or when my very slow opponent is thinking. This doesn't have to be everyone's case.

Having said so, BAM (Barometer scoring) has a flaw, specially for KO matches that the slower table starts each hand with more knowledge of the current score than the faster table, and this gives an incentive to go slow which is pretty bad for serious competitions. Upon reaching the very last board, the slow table knows exactly what the score is, and might act accordingly is the match is close, or could for example settle for 4M when 6M is a possibility when they are 15 IMPs up, or something like. This is unfair because the other table had no such option, as they didn't have that info available when they played the last board.

Many have said that BAM should never be on for serious competitions because in real life you have no clue of what the current score is. They have a point of course, but it is no less true that most sports know what the current score is, and the main reason why you don't know the current score in real life is because there is no practical way to do it. If there was a practical way to do it online it may very well be better.
So how does a fair BAM work?
There are 2 solutions, the easy solution, and the "optimal" solution
Easy solution says that you can only see results for some boards, but not all. A good meassure on my experience would be 3/4, as one table playing boards more than 25% faster should be really rare. It would work as follow:When you start a board, lets say 10, you have accesss to the BAM of only 3/4 of the boards you have already played if possible, so you can see results for boards 1-6 at most if available. When the other table reaches board 10,they will have exactly the same information available to them. Therefore there will be no difference on the info available and both tables will be on the same spot regadless of how fast they play. There might be some minor info leakeage if one table is very slow, but that is not particularilly important. Open reaching last board, lets say, board 16. Both tables will have the same information available: results for boards 1-12, regardless of who went faster (perhaps only 1-11 or 1-10 for the faster table if the other is way behind, but again not vey important)


Optimal solution is harder to implement, but not much. It requires that whenever a new board is started, one of 2 things happen: A: you are the first table to play it. B: you are not the first table to play it. (you would be the second for team matches, but some other formats could aply the same idea)
If you are the first table to play, you take a look at how many scores you can compare inmediatelly. And anotate them, so say I start board 5, and the other table has finished boards 1-3. So on board 5 boards 1-3 are available to compare to anyone. And when any other table (usually just the other table) reaches board 5, they would be able to compare board 4, but that information is not allowed (yet) since table 1 didn't have the access to that particular info when they started playing board #5. However later on, lets say on board 8, most likely both tables will be able to access all first 1-5 and maybe 1-6 boards.
By the end of the a match of 20 boards it is very typicial that when one table reaches last board: board 20, the other table is playing something around board 17. This means that at the start of board 20 only scores from 1-16 are available for comparison. And when the final moment comes and the slow table reaches last board: board 20, they will only have access to the current scores after 16 boards, putting the players there at the exact same situation as the players from table 1, which is desirable.

[gordontd]

When you talk of BAM, do you actually mean barometer?

[pescetom]

gordontd, on 2020-August-29, 04:11, said:

When you talk of BAM, do you actually mean barometer?

I think he does, in any case the problem is the same with barometer visible and IMPs or MP.
I agree that some compromise between not showing at all and showing everything might be useful, not just to avoid advantaging a slow pair but also to avoid excessively speculative play.
In f2f or clocked movements, only showing the scores at the end of each round (or after board 3 and 6 in a round of 6) might be an "easy" solution.
Another possible compromise is to aggregate the scores for each round (or set of boards) without providing information about single boards, thus reducing speculative director calls and discussion about results which may be overheard.

[Vampyr]

pescetom, on 2020-August-29, 07:04, said:

Another possible compromise is to aggregate the scores for each round (or set of boards) without providing information about single boards, thus reducing speculative director calls and discussion about results which may be overheard.

This will not solve the problem of knowing what to do on the last hand, so that you could do something sub-optimal and still win.

Probably easiest, and obvious, is to turn off the barometer.

I suppose you play Board-a-Match, or Point-a-Board, simply by scoring by hand.

[pescetom]

Vampyr, on 2020-August-29, 07:58, said:

This will not solve the problem of knowing what to do on the last hand, so that you could do something sub-optimal and still win.

Probably easiest, and obvious, is to turn off the barometer.

Not letting people know the precise situation before last hand might be an objective for some directors, if they have a problem of speculative bidding by people who know that only a wild swing can make them win, or simply that it no longer matters. I don't have this problem as a director, but I can imagine that some may have or perceive it.
I do have the (common) problem that people who receive a hand by hand barometer in BBO will sometimes dwell on it eccessively or grasp any irregularity in the hope of getting director to cancel a bad score. I am not in a hurry to turn off the barometer but I would prefer them to get on with the next board, and hiding results until the end of round might be a reasonable compromise.

[Fluffy]

Vampyr, on 2020-August-29, 07:58, said:

This will not solve the problem of knowing what to do on the last hand, so that you could do something sub-optimal and still win.

It will solve the serious problem of one table knowing while the other doesn't. You can do something suboptimal, but the other table is going to have the same options as you.

Both tables will be at the same position, and neither will know the score on the under last board since it is impossible for both to finnish simultaneusly.

[Fluffy]

gordontd, on 2020-August-29, 04:11, said:

When you talk of BAM, do you actually mean barometer?

Yes, sorry, for some reason I've always used the abreviation and I tend to confuse the 2.

[Vampyr]

Fluffy, on 2020-August-29, 13:53, said:

It will solve the serious problem of one table knowing while the other doesn't. You can do something suboptimal, but the other table is going to have the same options as you.

Both tables will be at the same position, and neither will know the score on the under last board since it is impossible for both to finnish simultaneusly.

How can knowing the aggregate of the scores be much different to knowing the score on each board? You will still know whether you are ahead or behind and by how much, and will play accordingly. Turning the barometer off is very easy.

[smerriman]

Vampyr, on 2020-August-29, 16:51, said:

How can knowing the aggregate of the scores be much different to knowing the score on each board? You will still know whether you are ahead or behind and by how much, and will play accordingly. Turning the barometer off is very easy.

I don't think you're understand the thread at all - the point is to keep barometer on so you *can* still make decisions based on how far behind/ahead you are. Just to make those decisions symmetric with respect to the slower/faster table to take away the advantage gained from playing slowly.

Proposed idea makes total sense, I like it.

[sfi]

If it’s important to the players, just don’t start a hand until you get the previous hand’s comparison. You don’t need the software to do it for you.

[Vampyr]

sfi, on 2020-August-29, 20:35, said:

If it’s important to the players, just don’t start a hand until you get the previous hand’s comparison. You don’t need the software to do it for you.

That’s a good idea.

The solution I came up with would probably be difficult for BBO to implement: if the slower table are 1 board behind, show them their barometer result one round in arrears, if they are 2 boards behind then two rounds in arrears etc.