[0 carbon]

Often bad players play slow against good players in unclocked tourneys.
Sometimes the AVE they get when they run out of time are the best scores.

It would be fairer to adjust unplayed boards not to AVE, but to their average vs the same opponents in the tourney.
Or perhaps, something between AVE and their score vs those opponents.

Then players would have a reason to hurry up!

-- tom

[pilowsky]

I think it is unnecessary to characterise players as 'good' or 'bad'.
Your suggestion is a completely reasonable one.
On Stepbridge where there are frequent connection problems, Directors can adjust the boards to 'not played' or examine the cards played and assign a score appropriate to the field.
The Directors have access to which pair is consuming more/less time - to the millisecond. Impossible to argue with.
Deliberate slow play will automatically get a 40/60 adjustment or -3 IMP's.
Appeals are possible if players are refusing to provide explanations: I'm new and don't know how to use the chat - is a common cry that gets you nowhere.

The Stepbridge interface seems to me to combine the best elements of online play and FTF.

I feel as though I am in a Club but playing behind screens.

Directors are helpful and responsive and can be easily contacted (email/phone/Facebook).

There are no coffee-housing behaviours although conspiracy theories about behaviour still abound.

Directors regularly check players who are obviously at the same house and ensure that results are not 'out of the ordinary'.

I don't know how much of this type of monitoring is available in BBO tourneys.

[mycroft]

well, bad players would. Good players, or ones that got lucky on the first board, would have a reason to slow down and hope to get a fraction of their 170% on the first two boards.

And anyway, those that are consistently slow get their second and third ave=/= reset to Ave-/+, if the director notices and cares about it.

The question is, do you want to speed up play, or ensure the bad players get all the bad scores they deserve? If the former, don't do the latter. If the latter, why?

[pilowsky]

I want to avoid potentially pejorative words such as good and bad.

They have different meanings to different people and create the potential for offence where none is intended.

From a players perspective, I believe that a Director should adopt a clinical (neutral) standpoint to avoid the perception that they favour one player over another.

Using terms (no matter what you actually think) such as 'good' or 'bad' creates a sense of partiality.

By taking a neutral approach where things just 'are', there cannot be any belief that a player is being 'judged' or worse, discriminated against.

Suppose for example you classify a player as bad, and coincidentally they are female, Jewish, disabled or black - or all four at once.

You are opening yourself up to a world of pain.

The rest of my post simply describes the way another platform handles this. On Stepbridge there is no possibility that a Director's views could affect their judgement - the computer does the timing.

[mycroft]

I would agree, but the complaint was, and it's a very common complaint, that players who "deserve" 40% [optional: against us] can do better by [doing something that isn't bridge], and that's Not Fair - even if it doesn't result in the complainers' score going down. And for that matter, I've even agreed with them sometimes (I still think the ACBL's decision in the previous law set to make Average Minus be "40% or 100%-the opponents' score, whichever is lower" (Oh good, I can limit my loss to Levin-Weinstein to 40% on this round. I'll take it!) rather than "40% or *their score*, whichever is lower" (which just seems punitive). The new Laws seem to have removed this possibility. Not that the software ever handled it automatically, which probably means it never was done, except possibly in NABC+ events.)

The "solution" offered this time, however, just opens up loopholes for different unscrupulous players to gain. And as much as I want to see players in general stop playing games other than bridge at the bridge table, I *really* want the players who can win playing straight up to do so, rather than take all their "little edges" to do even better. The regular 40%ers that aren't massively punished for their own transgressions *come back*; the 40%ers that get 35%ed by the 60%ers "little edges" eventually don't.

I've seen what happens when the weaker players are nailed to the wall by the strong players for every little transgression, versus what happens when everyone gets to play games because the opponents, the directors, and sometimes the game-players don't know what the problem is. I don't like either of those situations, but the latter get 50-60 tables in three games Friday afternoon (granted, it's "open in one club, 0-2000 in another, and women's pairs in the third"), and 30-40 in two every other day; the former gets 8-12. A very strong and very ethical 8-12 tables, mind you, but 60 tables keeps the lights on and the directors fed.

And, as I said in my previous reply, BBO allows (and good club directors do) review of hands and assignment of results. And while not all directors have access to full timings, if the TD doesn't know who the problem players are (whether just perenially slow or deliberately gaming), then they should spend more time wandering their tables and looking. That's their job.

[D Hawkins]

A great idea. I agree wholeheartedly.

[TrialBid]

This thread reminds me of a very real problem tha BBO still to the best of my knowledge does not support in the software and it has nothing to do with relative merits of players or their motives.

Suppose a pair is having a blockbuster set and encounter UI exchanged that really cannot allow play to continue and the director rules A+ for the nonoffending side.

Here is the problem: if that side is having a 72 percent game then receiving A+ will *lower* their. ACBL tournament directors do not automatically adjust A+ to their 72 percent average but they understand the concept and will make the adjustment if asked to. BBO has many directors who do not have that level of experience nor do that many players actually know to ask for that adjustment when it would help them. Thus I think it would be a great service to fairness to build that into BBO's score processing.

[Crawley107]

Why can’t BBO duplicate the functionality of other Bridge scoring systems and allow TD’s to assign a “not played” score to a board?

[pescetom]

 Crawley107, on 2021-November-07, 06:57, said:

Why can’t BBO duplicate the functionality of other Bridge scoring systems and allow TD’s to assign a “not played” score to a board?

I agree, but I don't think this choice should be left up to BBO and other platforms: the Laws of bridge should assign "not played = your average in play" for all boards not played without fault, in general. The idea of assigning A+ was presumably born as the least of all evils when computer scoring was not available, but nobody scores a tournament by hand any more.