[USViking]

As I said in another thread: I have recently discovered BBO tournaments
and would like to thank the owners and developers for providing the feature.
The experience is worthy of a grade of 99.9/100 and any comments I may
have are only meant to see if it might be possible to nudge it another
few 1/100ths of a grade-point upward.

Prior to a tournament I played in yesterday 6/22/11, out of several dozen
tournament deals this month where time expired TD has corrected all but
1-3 to some result which looked fair to me. In those 1-3 an “Ave” 50% was awarded.

A sudden occurrence of 2 apparently defective results in 6 deals in tournament
BBO #4436 Express makes me wonder if there could be a bug somewhere that
needs to be looked for.

(1) On deal #2 Partner made a good claim at trick 7 but the opponents did not
respond, and the round clock expired. We were I think first given 50% for an
“Ave” score, and now it appears that our result has been completely removed;
either way we deserved credit for 6NT= and a score of 87.50.

The issue might not have arisen if the round clock could be programmed to stop
running after a claim is made until the claim is resolved either by opponents'
reply or opponents being removed for taking too long. Would this or another fix
be possible without going to a lot of trouble?

(2) In deal #6 of the same tournament time expired during trick 7 with the opponents
headed for a 4Sx-1 at best, and a score for my side of 62.5% at worst. Again I think
my side was first given an “Ave” 50%, and then the result was completely removed as
in deal #2.

[Bbradley62]

In Express tournaments, the key is that you either finish 8 full tricks or you don't. If you do finish 8 full tricks but you do not finish the whole hand, GIBs will finish the hand for you and your score gets "adjusted" to their final result. If you do not finish 8 full tricks, everyone gets 50%.

[Bbradley62]

USViking, on 2011-June-23, 14:40, said:

The issue might not have arisen if the round clock could be programmed to stop running after a claim is made until the claim is resolved either by opponents' reply or opponents being removed for taking too long. Would this or another fix be possible without going to a lot of trouble?

The clock cannot stop at your table because all tables in the tournament are on the exact same clock.

[USViking]

Bbradley62, on 2011-June-23, 14:48, said:

In Express tournaments, the key is that you either finish 8 full tricks or you don't. If you do finish 8 full tricks but you do not finish the whole hand, GIBs will finish the hand for you and your score gets "adjusted" to their final result. If you do not finish 8 full tricks, everyone gets 50%.

The clock cannot stop at your table because all tables in the tournament are on the exact same clock.

Thanks for the information.

I am still not sure why no result rather than 50% was awarded for the two deals, but I guess
neither is a much better or worse a procedure than the other.

Scoring aside, I have played enough to know that I personally would prefer a longer clock to
having play interrupted, and would not mind subsequently waiting longer for final tourmanent
results to be posted. Perhaps that issue had been discussed in the past, and what we have now
is the best combination of player consensus and owners' business needs.

[Bbradley62]

The final standings for that tournament were: http://webutil.bridg...4436-1308781681 .

As you can see from this display: http://online.bridge...time=1308888000 your scores were 37.5%, 50%, 33.3%, 50%, 100% and 50% for the six boards. These scores average 53.47%, which is the score shown for you on the standings. If Boards 2 and 6 were omitted, and you were scored only on the other four, your score would have been 55.21%.

The software is a little weird about how it displays these boards, but they are always included as 50% in the final standings.

[USViking]

Quote

The final standings for that tournament were: http://webutil.bridg...4436-1308781681 .
As you can see from this display: http://online.bridge...time=1308888000 your scores
were...

Thanks, I do know how to navigate to these pages. What I was going by was
another archive page accessed on the newer (Web?) version: My BBO>Hands
and results>Recent tournaments>#4436 Express>My Hands. There the two 50%
scores are omitted. (I tried to provide a link by copy-paste from the address
bar, but that didn't work)

Quote

37.5%, 50%, 33.3%, 50%, 100% and 50% for the six boards. These scores average 53.47%, which is the score shown for you on the standings. If Boards 2 and 6 were omitted, and you were scored only on the other four, your score would have been 55.21%.

I also performed this exercise and the small difference between the two scores
above is what I meant when I said earlier that one was not much better or worse
than the other.

If my side's fairly earned scores of 87.5% and 62.5% were included then my 6-deal
score would have been 61.8%

Quote

The software is a little weird about how it displays these boards, but they are always included as 50% in the final standings.

One thing I greatly appreciate about BBO is the better than first class overall attention
to display and detail including that of archived deals. I will still be happy if no change
is ever made. That should not prevent me from making proposals which might increase
BBO's grade as a site from 99.90 to 99.91

[Bbradley62]

USViking, on 2011-June-24, 13:37, said:

I also performed this exercise and the small difference between the two scores above is what I meant when I said earlier that one was not much better or worse than the other.

The difference is small because your scores on the other four boards averaged somewhere near 50%. If your scores on the other four boards had all been 80%, I think you would be right to be unhappy if the two 50% scores were included, reducing your score to 70% and likely moving you down from 1st place.

[USViking]

Bbradley62, on 2011-June-24, 19:08, said:

The difference is small because your scores on the other four boards averaged somewhere near 50%. If your scores on the other four boards had all been 80%, I think you would be right to be unhappy if the two 50% scores were included, reducing your score to 70% and likely moving you down from 1st place.

I am right to be unhappy any time a fair score is nullified.

So is any contestant in any game. You gotta problem with that?

And in case you are wondering I really do mean "fair" as in I
would rather be awarded a zero than anything else if zero is
what I earned.

I am not so unhappy as to wish to belabor the point any more.
Nor do I wish to continue listening to someone who began by
providing useful information, but now appears to intend to give
speeches. Good bye.

[chasetb]

USViking, on 2011-June-25, 12:21, said:

I am right to be unhappy any time a fair score is nullified.

So is any contestant in any game. You gotta problem with that?

And in case you are wondering I really do mean "fair" as in I
would rather be awarded a zero than anything else if zero is
what I earned.

I am not so unhappy as to wish to belabor the point any more.
Nor do I wish to continue listening to someone who began by
providing useful information, but now appears to intend to give
speeches. Good bye.

Well, since it is FREE, they aren't too worried about those AVE boards. I know I have gotten screwed more than a few times by the AVE, both by opponents and even by partner. Conversely, you can do the same thing if your partner screws up (because you NEVER screw up, obviously). The fact is, it's free and is pretty good. Unless BBO becomes a multi-billion dollar business, I doubt they will mend that problem (not to mention the bad 'basic' GIB play on defense).

[Bbradley62]

My last two posts were intended to convey the information that (a) incomplete boards are scored as 50%, not "unscored", regardless of what some of the displays might look like, and (b) 50% and "unscored" don't necessarily produce similar results. I'm sorry if either of those posts sounded like lectures.