[Vampyr]

gordontd, on 2020-October-21, 00:42, said:

I like to think he may have intended to say EBU.

Maybe. The EBU use trained directors, and perhaps uniquely on BBO they are paid, so the quality is better than others.

However, if the directors get things badly wrong, the EBU do not impose disciplinary or even educational measures. They will back up the directors, no matter what.

[gordontd]

Vampyr, on 2020-October-21, 08:10, said:

Maybe. The EBU use trained directors, and perhaps uniquely on BBO they are paid, so the quality is better than others.

The ACBL pays directors and so do many of our virtual clubs.

Vampyr, on 2020-October-21, 08:10, said:

However, if the directors get things badly wrong, the EBU do not impose disciplinary or even educational measures. They will back up the directors, no matter what.

I'm not sure what "disciplinary measures" you would suggest, but we try to support our TDs while listening to valid concerns and seeing what can be learned from them. "Impose" doesn't seem to be the right approach to maintaining a happy and productive group of TDs.

[weejonnie]

Vampyr, on 2020-October-21, 08:05, said:

I do not direct 300 people, but the games I direct charge a fee, so no one would leave voluntarily. Besides, if they did they would have to start looking for a new partner. That is, if they were not barred from the club.

I would be interested in playing in your tournaments. Are they open to all?

The EBU events are open I believe to anyone $2.00 entry fee. Note that there are some variations.

Daylong individual
11.00am (UK time) : relaxed 9 high event - aimed at beginners/ improvers so no strong players.
12.00 noon (UK Time) : Speedball variaton - 5 minute/ board
14.00 Open event: No Robot
15.30 Open event : No Robot
19:30 Relaxed 9 High
19.30 Open event
21.00 Open event.

UK Time (BST) is 5 hours ahead of EST - so since this is being typed at 10.00am it is 5.00am EST.

All events are 12 boards. Open events are 7 minutes/ board, relaxed events are 8 minutes a board.

Select a tournament that has EBU in the name (NOT vEBU, which are club games): examples (and results) of previous tournaments are available at https://webutil.brid...ebu&d=ebu&md=90

[barmar]

hrothgar, on 2020-October-19, 13:26, said:

The ACBL doesn't even use certified tournament directors to run their games.

These aren't tournaments, they're club games. The policy is the same on BBO as at f2f clubs: the clubs hire the directors and they can do whatever they want.

The OP's complaints don't see very dissimilar from complaints I've heard in the past about f2f club directors. Many are simply not interested in learning the Laws fully, they take shortcuts.

[blackshoe]

"I've been asked to do a job. I'm going to do the absolute minimum it takes to muddle through, and if somebody doesn't like it, screw 'em."

[Vampyr]

weejonnie, on 2020-October-22, 03:06, said:

The EBU events are open I believe to anyone $2.00 entry fee. Note that there are some variations.

Daylong individual
11.00am (UK time) : relaxed 9 high event - aimed at beginners/ improvers so no strong players.
12.00 noon (UK Time) : Speedball variaton - 5 minute/ board
14.00 Open event: No Robot
15.30 Open event : No Robot
19:30 Relaxed 9 High
19.30 Open event
21.00 Open event.

UK Time (BST) is 5 hours ahead of EST - so since this is being typed at 10.00am it is 5.00am EST.

All events are 12 boards. Open events are 7 minutes/ board, relaxed events are 8 minutes a board.

Select a tournament that has EBU in the name (NOT vEBU, which are club games): examples (and results) of previous tournaments are available at https://webutil.brid...ebu&d=ebu&md=90

EBU events? Yes I have played in quite a few of these, but I can’t get my favourite partner to play because he says it is no fun when people are cheating (which some, at least, will be doing).

[BudH]

I have spotted a few times when the BBO system with four to five tricks to go awarded a certain result, but I disagreed with it.

Usually this happens when the defense will get one trick if the defender who is about to play plays one specific card. If not, then declarer scores the rest. And often this means discarding an honor in a short suit and keeping all the cards in another suit - which means the defense gets their deserved one trick.

So the double dummy result is not the result the BBO system gave for the adjusted score.

The problem is I sometimes when directing don't catch which table had the BBO system adjusted score. Or there are three of them and I can't quickly jot them down because the Director call disappears.

Not sure of a solution for this issue. Unless the Director call stayed visible, like it does when there is a sit-out.

[gordontd]

BudH, on 2020-November-14, 20:47, said:

I have spotted a few times when the BBO system with four to five tricks to go awarded a certain result, but I disagreed with it.

Usually this happens when the defense will get one trick if the defender who is about to play plays one specific card. If not, then declarer scores the rest. And often this means discarding an honor in a short suit and keeping all the cards in another suit - which means the defense gets their deserved one trick.

So the double dummy result is not the result the BBO system gave for the adjusted score.

The problem is I sometimes when directing don't catch which table had the BBO system adjusted score. Or there are three of them and I can't quickly jot them down because the Director call disappears.

Not sure of a solution for this issue. Unless the Director call stayed visible, like it does when there is a sit-out.

Usually the players will draw your attention to this.

[lamford]

BudH, on 2020-November-14, 20:47, said:

I have spotted a few times when the BBO system with four to five tricks to go awarded a certain result, but I disagreed with it.

Usually this happens when the defense will get one trick if the defender who is about to play plays one specific card. If not, then declarer scores the rest. And often this means discarding an honor in a short suit and keeping all the cards in another suit - which means the defense gets their deserved one trick.

So the double dummy result is not the result the BBO system gave for the adjusted score.

The problem is I sometimes when directing don't catch which table had the BBO system adjusted score. Or there are three of them and I can't quickly jot them down because the Director call disappears.

Not sure of a solution for this issue. Unless the Director call stayed visible, like it does when there is a sit-out.

At a recent Woodberry BBO tournament, the software awarded 3S-1 to a (strong) player even though all defensive plays at this point led to -2, and the "Show Double Dummy" had a complete set of -2s as well. Apparently there is a bug in the allocation of a likely result by the software when there are more than 3 tricks to go. I happened to be watching at the time on a night I was not playing and we were able to correct it, but there was nothing to trigger that, and the opponents might not have been strong enough to notice and complain. I think that all incomplete hands should be scored by the TD, not by software, especially as an unscrupulous declarer can delay until the software gets it right for him or her, three tricks or fewer from the end.

[scarletv]

gordontd, on 2020-November-15, 01:32, said:

Usually the players will draw your attention to this.

Unfortunately the system provides a message that the tournamend director adjusted the board. We rarely have complaints about adjustments and we announce at the beginning of almost all our tournaments that players should check the adjustments. But when we check ourselves we see quite a number of wrong adjustments.

I would very much prefer only boards would be adjusted where there is no variation of the last trick(s). And let the director check the rest. This might be challenging for the director in a speedball event.

[barmar]

lamford, on 2020-November-16, 07:02, said:

At a recent Woodberry BBO tournament, the software awarded 3S-1 to a (strong) player even though all defensive plays at this point led to -2, and the "Show Double Dummy" had a complete set of -2s as well. Apparently there is a bug in the allocation of a likely result by the software when there are more than 3 tricks to go. I happened to be watching at the time on a night I was not playing and we were able to correct it, but there was nothing to trigger that, and the opponents might not have been strong enough to notice and complain. I think that all incomplete hands should be scored by the TD, not by software, especially as an unscrupulous declarer can delay until the software gets it right for him or her, three tricks or fewer from the end.

That's not really practical for large speedballs where at the end of the round there's often dozens of incomplete boards, many of which are only a couple of tricks short of complete and there's little doubt how it will go.

It doesn't use double dummy analysis to automate this. It puts robots into the seats of declarer and defenders, gives them the bidding and play so far, and has them play out the rest of the hand single dummy.

If you think the automatic result was unfair, you can ask the TD to adjust it.

[McBruce]

In a typical ACBL online club game of 7-20 tables it is not difficult to check with a few minutes to go the tables that are still playing and make a quick visit. Doing this every round gives you an idea of who might be playing for the computer adjustment that may prevent their own mistakes. Once or twice a month I see this move in action and they are quite surprised when I adjust in the opponents' favour. Example:

Dummy: ♠ 9 7 ♥ void ♦ 5 ♣ Q 6

Declarer: ♠ 4 2 ♥ 8 ♦ void ♣ 9 7

Declarer needs three of the last five in 3♥ and the 8♥ and Q♣ are good but the 5♦ is not. There are two spades to lose, plus the T♣, which might be in either defender's hand (♣T843 still out). After being specifically warned that two minutes had already been added to the round and there were only two left, declarer took a full minute at this point before leading a spade; the defenders cashed two spades and RHO led a third, forcing declarer to ruff as LHO pitched a small club. Before declarer could start the next trick, the time ran out.

The remaining club position was 8x with LHO, ten-singleton with RHO. I ruled down one, citing as a possible play running the 9♣ and playing RHO for the singleton eight. Mean? Declarer deliberately wasted half the remaining time and could easily have sent a private message to me saying "if forced to play clubs, I will lead low to the queen" but chose to let the robots decide. I could have asked declarer how they planned to play the clubs but the hand pops up in the history pane the second the time runs out and nobody ever misguesses under these conditions.

[mycroft]

Heh, I figure they'd be even more surprised when, after the second time they try that, they magically don't find your game next week :-)

Speedballs are different, the BBO ACBL club is different, but "if you don't want me to guess how you'd play it, don't waste time and time out the hand. Since you're clearly a better player than I am, you can't afford to let me play it."

[McBruce]

naskippy, on 2020-October-19, 12:55, said:

On BBO, a lot of the "Director Calls" are eliminated due to the way BBO software is setup. This would be things like there is no more Lead Out Of Turn, Two Cards Played At Same Time, Play Out Of Turn, and various other Laws Of Duplicate Bridge that BBO has build in them of which a Club Director need not be worried about making rulings on.

Since coming back to directing online I have had two players phone me claiming a revoke online. I patiently tell them that this is impossible, but some of them believe what they think they saw like the folks who think Trump won re-election. Luckily, myhands is the final arbiter, and is 2-0 so far....

[blackshoe]

I don't think anybody really knows who won our recent presidential election — but it is pretty clear that Biden is going to be sworn in on 20 January.

[gordontd]

blackshoe, on 2020-December-11, 11:21, said:

I don't think anybody really knows who won our recent presidential election

Really?

[blackshoe]

Practically speaking if Trump's right we'll never know. OTOH, if he had any actual evidence, he'd have IMO presented it by now.

Someone asked me why I don't trust our electoral system. It's not a matter of trusting the system. We have to trust that people won't try to manipulate it, or at least that they won't be successful if they do. I'm not sure I have that trust any more.

[pran]

blackshoe, on 2020-December-11, 17:02, said:

Practically speaking if Trump's right we'll never know. OTOH, if he had any actual evidence, he'd have IMO presented it by now.

Someone asked me why I don't trust our electoral system. It's not a matter of trusting the system. We have to trust that people won't try to manipulate it, or at least that they won't be successful if they do. I'm not sure I have that trust any more.

Observing US from outside I have long felt very worried by the way you seem to be heading.
The last (unanimous?) ruling in the Supreme Court restores my trust in your legal system.
I only hope that I shall be able to extend this trust to include also your political system.

US politics is none of my business? Sure, but that doesn't prevent me from worrying.

[blackshoe]

Nor should it.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on 2020-December-11, 11:21, said:

I don't think anybody really knows who won our recent presidential election — but it is pretty clear that Biden is going to be sworn in on 20 January.

Do you actually believe that there is more uncertainty about the results of this election than 2016 or 2000?