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TD presentation from BBO
TD from Portugal Rui Lopes Marques has given very interesting presentation on BBO. This is transcript from BBO forum.
General Comments
Welcome all and... lets start working -)) The most important thing in a competition, I think, is the integrity of the event.
What I mean is that the one that wins is the one that should win according to his results. Not the one that was most lucky in TDs assignments. So, a TD should be as transparent as possible. Without being invisible of course
Procedural Penalties/Difficulties directing at BBO
BBO has a severe limitation on the software for running tournaments in the form of inability to give penalties. If you wish to give a penalty to a player you have currently to do it on the score of a board, thereby giving a plus to another pair. This means that you break the integrity of the competition when you assign a penalty of some sort. Example: Lets think about those "one trick penalty for not alerting" Board 1 4S=, Board 2 4S=... penalty in either board will mean 4S-1. Which means something like 7-10 imps, depending on vuln
Now Board 1 and Board 2 4S+1... Penalty would be then 1 IMP only... And someone would be collecting in one case 1 imp, other case 7 to 10 imps.
1) Any penalty should be proportional to the size of the crime
2) Extremely important---penalties should not benefit anybody else.
So as much as possible penalties must be avoided. If BBO permits TDs to deduct points from a player/pair, then there would be no problem in gioving MP or IMP penalties... but in any case never "trick penalties"... Even in table bridge I tend not to penalize whenever possible... because we are in a tournament not to show how smart or brilliant we are, but to administer the tournament to the taste of the players and according to the regulations in force, as much as possible. So, the important thing to consider whenever we take any decision at a table is..."equity". Not justice, but equity. There are many cases when the laws of bridge seem unjust but justice is what the legislators care with TDs must do equity within the framework of the regulations and laws they have.
General comments on giving A+/A- scores
About giving A+A- scores: The mark of a good director is to give as few possible av+av-. On table bridge we only give those 60/40 or similar when no result can be obtained at a table. When there is a result at a table, and there has been any kind of problem that resulted in damage, we try to achieve equity by removing the damage... how do we do this? for example with a wrong explanatioin, assume the good explanation would be given to the opponents and NOT to the offending player that is astray, of course. Like if players were behind screens what would the players with the good explanation do? what would happen from the pn (from then on)? Only if you cant get to a final (adjusted) result should you say ok there is damage but I cant determine what is the final outcome and so I give 60 to the non offenders and 40 to the offenders AV+AV+.... never, or almost. This is when there is no possible result but not by the fault of the players I would give that if for example a kib says to the table the final outcome before they start the bidding, or the play, or something like that ok?
Something to remember when players call for TDs and seek appeals?
TDs are not in a tournament to be smarter or idolatrated by players They are in a tourney to administer it and be fair and polite to all.
TDs should ALWAYS give players a chance to be polite too... but when a player is not, then the TD can act on an (almost) equivalent plan. If a TD is rude to you, you can always report him, and not play in his tourneys. Players have always their times of distress
and it takes a lot from tds sometimes to put up with that. Please, when there are questions let them vanish before throweing more in the air. It takes a lot from TDs, even emotionally. But a TD should remember also that a lot of times a player is only wanting someone to "let it out" before resuming his normal ways. I was the td in charge of the transnationals at the estorilībermuda, and after 20,000 boards played, there was no single appeal (and no match with more than 30 VPs awarded). why? there was a lot of luck there
but also players a lot of times complained, wanted to appeal, etc. but they just wanted a chance to be listened. Always listen to players.
Even if they say things you dont agree with, listen to them. That is your job, too
What laws to use when directing in BBO?
Now... What laws? You all know, if you direct in table bridge that there is an international code of bridge with 90+ laws. For online bridge there is a published version made by wbf in 1999, when the scene on online bridge was on its infancy and these laws have severe shortcomings. So we should follow the main bridge laws...
Online Laws
Live bridge laws
Unfinished Boards in BBO
About unfinished boards: .... Principle of equity. The players have gone to some extent towards completing the board. We assume that they are not in a "1!c" only auction but somewhere finishing the auction or in the middle of the play. We should ALWAYS get a result on those boards. Take a look at the movie and see the probable outcome. If you cant decide between 4H= and 4H-1 try to find who was the guilty one and adjust against him. If you cant find because they both blame each other then you are free to do 40/40. One detail Another shortcoming is that we cant see the frequency on a board during the tourney. So it may even happen that both 4S= and 4S-1 are below 40%... in which case you would be giving a gift to one of the pairs... Beware... Maybe it will be changed in the future (uday, pleaseeeee) It is very helpful for a td to see the frequencies on a board when making these decisions. One other detail... huffelen would be nice when BBO saves those boards that runs out of time. Avoid adjusting in one way because you see as a whole that the hand is going that way. What matters is where the hand goes taking into account the bidding and the card play that happened up to the time I see too many times TDs saying "the normal result is this" when they should think "it is this, taking into account what happened up to now"
Playing TDs?
This brings an other important issue. Playing TDs... It is a practice here, but it poisons the integrity of the competition.... A playing TD cant make adjustements, cant see unfinished boards in time, cant get timely information from players. Even if they adjust in the end, the players will be gone and the competition will be meaningless most of the time because whenever someone is in trouble he just lets time run out. But for a minimally serious tourney... Please, dont drink and drive. One other thing: Do not be too light on judging damage just because of a wrong explanation (for example).
What if TD doesn't respond to your protest immediately?
purshi some time td doesnt repond to our protest ,then? You dont keep pressing the buttons... tds are sometimes extremely busy
and taking care of other tables. Always note the nickname of one of the TDs and ask them in private a little later.
How many tables should a TD run to ensure a quality tourney?
DDoing this sort of an analysis to restore equity can be time consuming. Do you have any thoughts on what an appropriate ratio of directors to players should be for online bridge? At most 25 tables per TD for a quality tourney. A very good td can do a little more, but if there are 3-4 calls at a same time it takes a lot of discipline to sort all of them out.
What to do in the case if a partnership has no agreements?
If there is no agreement the good explanation is "no agreement". West may be polite to say "there is no agreement but I mean this or that" but he is not required to do that.
Q:Many times partnershipos are last min pick up...and your partner has no idea what you mean you tell ops what you mean your p interprets different and you are now at disadvantage .
A: That is a fact of life.
Psyches
I got a question about psyches. Psyches are a part of bridge. I would refer you to the WBF notes on psychs... They are very well written.
Misclicks and Undoes
Q: If a player misclicks a bid what should he do if he meant to say " a club" and instead bid "a diamond"
A: Because ops will call director later when they see u had only 1 diam. Misclicks... The organizer can start the tourney as "no undos"... in that case, nothing to be said or done, however siilly the misclick is. If the organizer starts as "undos allowed", important The undo should not in any case be used to convey information and they should not be allowed if they match a change of mind the undo should be only a slip of finger and never a slip of mind. For example, a player opens a spade with 5sp and 5 clubs and then wants to change to 1C... no can do. The players when they have any doubts about allowing an undo, should call the TD that will allow it or not on a case by case basis.
| West | North | East | South |
| - | - | - | 1  |
| 2NT | X | pass | pass |
| pass |
|  K 9 3 A K 10 5 2 5 3 2 K 7 | ||
| 8 4 A K J 9 8 Q J 9 8 3 2 |  | Q 6 5 4 2 J 9 6 3 10 10 6 5 | |
| A J 10 7 Q 8 7 Q 7 6 4 A 4 |
(SOUTH) is the opener, both passes up to now are fake 2NT is just explained as UNUSUAL nothing else. Up to now, there is a misexplanation in the sense that unusual is hearts and clubs in this situation. North and South got the wrong info on the hand...
What is the correct agreement of the system of the players? Something to be investigated by the TD. If the TDS cant get to a conclusion if it shows C+H or C+D (the lowest always), then he should assume wrong explanation. The code states that a player is entitled to know the good explanation of the *system* and not of the cards of the players. This "of the system" creates difficulties to many tds... Suppose a player opens a weak two in D when in fact he agreed to play multi... There is no infraction at all... the player simply misbid. What would constitute an infraction would be for example in live bridge for him to hear partner explain it as "weak two in D" and use that (unauthorized) information. So on this example letīs assume the worst for EW .Wrong explain (the good explanation of the syst would be D+C). And North will keep attacking D... assuming W was short there. At this point North had pretty much forfeited any right to redress. At the first trick, it is clear to North that West has as much as 3 cards in one of his 5-card supposed suits. So North should know by now that the explanation is not ok and can ask (directly, privately, not on public chat) something about the meaning of the bid. West simply thought "unusual" to be the lowest, and not the lowest unbids., West created an involuntary infraction, but North was not damaged because of the infraction, but simply because he stopped thinking... And we as TDs should not give players points for not thinking. What if North is novice? Why does mean exactly? If N is a novice, we can have some leeway. But I think it will be good for a N novice to understand that he needs to think on the hands,,, and in this situation also. (novices should be able to count to 13) North doesnt need to be smart, we are in a bridge tournament, and players are playing bridge and not throwing random cards so if north is absent, throwing random cards, he can get a bad result with or without the infraction. The damage was self inflicted by North, not caused by West.
Q: It is also rather lazy by west just to say "Unsual", especially when there can be doubts as to what it means? He should have said "!clubs and diamonds, minimum 5-5" or "could be 4-5" or ... whatever he/she plays?
A: If the explanation is correct according to the system, nothing can do. If West corrects the explanation and N commits suicide nothing can do. If N only asks after continuing D knowing W can have only 3 hearts nothing can do. We should protect novice players somehow. But we should also instill in them the good principles of thinking, and I think this is quite easy in that matter
Q&A about the example hand
Players should explain the following way: I as a player dont see ANY of my partners explanations, remarks, whatever For example, I open multi and my prd explains as Weak 2... My partner bids 2H (pass or correct) but i know my parrter is bidding 2H forcing because he thinks I have a weak two in D. If I have a normal pass over a 2H from p in reply to my multi, I should PASS because I can NOT know that my partner mistakenly explained.
silvia44 So mine questions is, when people not alert when you have made it clear to alert anything even when you are not sure, what then?
silvia, if the no alert causes no damage, why should be opponent benefit from that?
rwylee If pairs continuously refuse to alert/explain, or even announce their system? what should we do? penalty? what kind? or just remove them? Many countries have laws which have changed in regards to giving avg+/avg- type scores. should we avoid those as well?
yes, I mean try to avoid some sort of automatic penalties for anything. I dont mean that if there is some damage that you should not do anything... You should.
echognome since split scores are not possible, should we then use avg+/- as our approximation?
fot ok warning would be good but as pointed out what if pair constantly fails to alert? WHen they refuse to explain... they explain. if they dont explain there are subs available
aylaofclan what do you mean by "no possible result"
I mean that players cant get to the end without having the board compromised. av+av- is +3 -3. For example you see your cards and the kib says "7 is down"... And it is, because trumps are 2-0 with K offside. Then you cant allow the board to be played until the end so players cannot get a result.
MitchS what good is any online ruling without recourse to an appeals process ?
If a TD is very good you will rarely need an appeal And we are trying to make better TDs. If the decision is bad, the organizations should be able to provide some sort of referring comittee, namely in the $$ tournaments.
MishoVnBG Hi! Playing vs random players with my partner, I didnt receive alert about jump 2NT bid by opps after 1!d-(P)-1!h-(2NT)... When I asked about bid opp told me "I dont have any agreements with partner, so you know exactly what he knows". Your comment please?
If the opp said to you "we have no agreement", you take what you expect from bridge common sense. I would take it as a black two suiter And call the TD (and ask privately for the TD to ask the other player the meaning of the bid before they talk at the table about it
(so that TD can establish if that is probably true or not. This is an important point When you go to a table, if needed ask them to stop playing and ask questions privately to players (and ask them to reply in private so that you dont make more info appear at the table than needed, and you can extract the information from players a.s.a.p. (before time passes...) Now at the real bridge table sometimes players cant go to full disclosure, or are tired or pressed. We agree they should... I am addressing what we should do when they dont.
Never penalize them automatically, because a lot of times it is not the "un-full disclosure" that creates the damage, but something else.
deniseb in sayc there is no more alert only in 2/1 and others. Why is there no more alert in sayc? Is it engraved in stone anywhere? -) I mean...
Each sponsoring organization does whatever they want with the alert policy And the tourney follows the sponsoring organizationīs request on that subject. Just dont say "in sayc there is no"... You should say "in these tourneys those conventions do not require alert".
Post je objavljen 17.03.2006. u 23:09 sati.