[morganwilk]

For a small, friendly club running two tournaments a week of around 11 tables, I enable the 'undo' facility. However, over the last few weeks issues have arisen. The current policy is to either immediately allow an undo or to call the director for a ruling. However, some are denying requests without recourse to the director, whilst others appear to be using the undo for a change of mind rather than a 'mechanical error' -both issues cause ill-feeling.

I am changing the policy to:

a) requests for undo must be made immediately (allowing for time to find then click on the undo request)
b) for bidding, a change of suit or level is permitted but not both, or adjacent buttons (eg Pass and Double)
c) for cards, near-adjacent cards are permitted to be undone.
d) the director must agree any denial of an undo request.

It would seem a shame to have to not enable the undo facility as misclicks do occur.

Does anyone else running tournaments for small clubs have any thoughts or advice?

[TonyOct57]

We are a similar club, and I agree it seems more friendly to allow Undos. But we have had a few issues, and have been having some discussions about this. Currently we say:

· It is possible in the event of a misclick to request an Undo. This should not be used if you have changed your mind about a bid or a play. You also should not request an Undo of a bid if your partner has already bid. Otherwise opponents should normally just accept an undo, but you can ask the director to take a look at the hand again, if you think afterwards that this may not have been a legitimate misclick.
· To prevent misclicks you can change your BBO settings via: Account->Settings->Confirm Bids/Confirm Cards.

[Gerardo]

It is your tournament.

It is up to you to set up the policy.

[kenjay]

Gerardo, on 2020-August-10, 11:27, said:

It is your tournament.

It is up to you to set up the policy.

We are thinking of disallowing them altogether. As Tony said above, change settings which will make it very difficult to misclick, or live with the consequences.

[pescetom]

We are a similar (even smaller) club and I have simply never allowed Undos.
I do allow the use of bid confirmation which I retain is adequate protection for those reluctant to accept responsibility for misclicks.
For cards I see no question, the laws clearly exclude any kind of undo even after a mechanical error.

[morganwilk]

I hadn't thought of suggesting people use bid confirmation -particularly useful for iPads with their issues of delayed response.

[peterb001]

When we first started to play online as a club, and all sessions were 'friendly' (not counting for anything), we allowed all undos. Once the players became more experienced, and we became a virtual club under the EBU, which has issued their default online regulations (Sky Blue book) which prohibits undos in pairs tournaments, we have moved over to this, and there have been no complaints. And as a director, there are no issues of trying to find out whether it really was a misclick rather than a change of mind.

[pescetom]

morganwilk, on 2020-August-11, 11:10, said:

I hadn't thought of suggesting people use bid confirmation -particularly useful for iPads with their issues of delayed response.

I would hesitate to describe the current mechanism of bid confirmation as useful, it certainly could be better implemented.
Nevertheless, the fact that it exists removes any justification there might be for allowing undo, IMO.

[patr1cks]

In GCBA games in Gloucestershire, we have always allowed UNDOs but there was some controversy about UNDOs this week; in the spirit of "we play this game for enjoyment" we have issued this guidance to our players

• The default is that they are allowed but in a head-to-head match, if both captain agree, they can be switched off.
  
• You can cut the need for UNDO by using the setting to ask for confirmation of each bid or play, but some people do find that tiresome.
  
• If UNDOs are on, please only ask if you really did mis-click; you cannot ask for an undo because you played or bid too quickly and didn’t notice what the last player had done.
  
• If someone asks for an UNDO, please trust them and accept.

[Edge_]

patr1cks, on 2020-August-19, 02:12, said:

In GCBA games in Gloucestershire, we have always allowed UNDOs but there was some controversy about UNDOs this week; in the spirit of "we play this game for enjoyment" we have issued this guidance to our players

• The default is that they are allowed but in a head-to-head match, if both captain agree, they can be switched off.
  
• You can cut the need for UNDO by using the setting to ask for confirmation of each bid or play, but some people do find that tiresome.
  
• If UNDOs are on, please only ask if you really did mis-click; you cannot ask for an undo because you played or bid too quickly and didn’t notice what the last player had done.
  
• If someone asks for an UNDO, please trust them and accept.

I'd add a small qualification to this, which is: except where material information was been revealed that is of advantage to the undo-er's side.

Particularly, for example, when the next player has already played and in doing so may have revealed whether finesses or drops will or will not work, or can be inferred to do so.

[pescetom]

Edge_, on 2020-August-19, 05:55, said:

I'd add a small qualification to this, which is: except where material information was been revealed that is of advantage to the undo-er's side.

There are several other useful qualifications listed in the OP of this thread.