An introduction to tournaments on BBO

By uday
Wednesday, June 25, 2003

BBO now supports tournaments 

Any authorized user can create and run a duplicate tournament.    An authorized user is simply a BBO customer in good standing who has been granted the appropriate permissions within the system.

If you want to run your own tournaments, please drop us a line -  support@bridgebase.com   - we'd like your real name, if you don't mind.

 

Running your own tourneys

We're pretty relaxed about letting people run their own tournaments. Some ground rules, though

1. You and your customers are still bound by basic BBO rules
2. You have to provide reasonable service to the players in your tourney
   1. You can't play unless the tourney is tiny and players know that the director is really only there for substitutions
   2. You have to monitor the tourney - you can't bail partway through the tournament
   3. You should limit the number of entries to a manageable number.  40 pairs per director is reasonable. Your mileage will vary with the time of day
3. If you ask for and receive authorization but don't use the facility we'll revoke the authorization (and grant it again when you need it)

Running a tourney is work. Not a lot of work, but work. It is not for everyone.

How does a tournament work?

Someone - you - the host -  creates a tournament. In order to do so, log in  and click the yellow TOURNAMENT button in the lobby. You will notice a new button labeled "Create Tournament".

1. Director.   Here, type in the name of the director. At a minimum, your own user name.  You can specify multiple directors by using this syntax director1~director2~director3   and so on.
2. Maximum number of pairs.  I'd suggest about 40 per director. Up to you. You should make this a smaller number - maybe 20 or 30 for your first tourney unless you have help
3. Clocked.   if checked, each board is assigned a fixed number of minutes.  When the clock runs out for a round, boards in play are terminated, and average minuses assigned to both pairs.   If not checked, each pair can take as long as they like per board, and tables that finish are matched up with each other. Playbacks are normal for unclocked events.

 

Once a tourney has been created, it cannot be edited. If you must make modifications, delete it and start over, or ask a yellow for help.

The moment the tourney is created, it is visible to all BBO customers via the TOURNAMENT button in the lobby.

A customers can click on this tournament from the list of tournaments, then click on REGISTER, and enter his partner's name.  BBO checks with his partner, and if the partner is agreeable, the pair is registered.

More pairs register. Eventually the starting time of the tournament rolls around, and BBO starts the tourney.  When the maximum number of pairs (specified at tourney-creation) is reached, further registrations are refused.

At this point, any pair that is not online is discarded from the tourney (that is, a pair is only allowed to play in a tourney if both members of the pair are online when the tourney starts).

BBO creates as many tables as are needed.  If an odd number of pairs is registered, BBO creates a SITOUT pair.  A sitout pair is presented as Sitout playing with Sitout.  In this case, the director now finds a substitute pair and replaces the Sitout pair with the substitutes.

All pairs are then swept into the tourney. Whatever they were doing on BBO is terminated, and they find themselves sitting at the proper table in the tourney. They cannot leave the tourney table; if they log off and login again, they are returned to the tourney table.

Each table plays the first round. Eventually (exactly when depends on the type of movement selected) the pairs at the table are assigned new opponents for the next round and are swept away to the next table.

When the last round has been completed, the tournament tables are closed (some movements close down tables individually, others all at once at the end).

Participants can now look at the leader board (TOURNAMENT RESULTS button) to see how they did. Their individual MOVIE buttons will bring up a recap of their results and IMP/MP scores. They can use www.bridgebase.com/myhands to look at other results for any board.

 

 

 

 

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