[USViking]

Today I have had several deals disappear at various
intervals from prior to the start of bidding to during play.
Redeal requests would have been inappropriate in all
cases, and in any event there were no redeal requests,
or at least none visible to me. No record of these hands
appeared in the Movie section.

In the past this has been an uncommon occurrence of
less than daily frequency, which I have attributed to
momentary computer glitches.

The sudden dramatic increase in disappearing deals today
makes me think there is a problem in need of a fix.


In this vein, but a separate issue: I recently became aware
that if one defender makes a concession the other defender
not only has no say, he may not even be made aware of the
concession offer. For him the deal just suddenly disappears,
although it does appear in the Movie record.

On several occasions I have been the "other" defender, and
I have been quite certain I had more tricks than my partner
realized.

I wonder if a fix might be possible by which the "other" defender
must also agree to a concession for acceptance to take effect?

[USViking]

A followup: I have just noticed that when using the
"Help me find a game" option, the hand originally
at the table I am taken to disappears in about one
second, and is replaced by a brand new hand.

Another member told me today that this sequence
of hand disappearance and replacement seems now
to take place whenever a new player joins a table.

[hotShot]

I guess that is a feature, to make sure, that if a kib takes a seat, he does not know the hands.

[USViking]

hotShot said:

I guess that is a feature, to make sure, that if a kib takes a seat, he does not know the hands.

If by this you mean that hands are programmed to disappear
whenever any new player joins a table, then it is a new feature,
and I really it is reversed as soon as possible because it is
leading to a very frustrating deluge of tanked deals.

[Mr. Dodgy]

This also happened to me a LOT last night.

Every time a player joined the table, even as dummy, the board in play was instantly redealt. After it happened for tenth-or-so time, with only a few boards actually played to completion, I simply gave up and left in annoyance.

I know this can (and should) happen if the player joining has already seen the hands, but for it to happen EVERY time is either an extraordinary coincedence, or a software issue.

Is this a bug, or a new 'feature'?

[uday]

It is a new behaviour.

Whether it is a feature or a "feature" depends on whether you are

a. The declarer about to find out at trick 10 whether RHO is capable of breaking up your squeeze, or

b. The sap who manifests in that seat via Help-me-find-a-game, and is looking at 4 cards and has no idea how the play went to get to this state, but has to play a card.


More rigorously, the change is:

"When someone uses Help-me-find-a-game(play) and is seated, redeal at that table after seating the player"

I'm not convinced it is a pure gain. Lets see what people think.

[USViking]

I have just been informed by a kind playing site monitor
that the recent increase in redealt hands is the result of
experiment by adaministration to curb effects of kibbitzers
joining a table after seeing the hands.

IMO this is a classic example of the fix being worse
than the problem it was meant to correct.

The old method, whatever it was, was better than having
something like one quarter to one third of all hands dealt
disappear into thin air.


PS: I guess I should by now, at long last, finally learn
how to spell "kibitzer".

[USViking]

uday said:

It is a new behaviour.

Whether it is a feature or a "feature" depends on whether you are

a. The declarer about to find out at trick 10 whether RHO is capable of breaking up your squeeze, or

b. The sap who manifests in that seat via Help-me-find-a-game, and is looking at 4 cards and has no idea how the play went to get to this state, but has to play a card.


More rigorously, the change is:

"When someone uses Help-me-find-a-game(play) and is seated, redeal at that table after seating the player"

I'm not convinced it is a pure gain. Lets see what people think.

Me and probably 100s k other bridge players truly appreciate
all your efforts to make BBO the best bridge playing site in
the world that it is.

But I do not believe you thought out section b. above: you are
assigning priority to the percieved feelings of ONE new player
(the "sap") at the expense of the possible feelings of THREE players
already at the table, and that does not seem at all fair to me.

If any one of those three players wants a redeal let them say so.
Otherwise let the "sap" live with a few minutes of blind leads.

Now that I know the "Take me to a table" feature is part of the cause
of this problem I will stop using it.

I aways seem to wind up with 8hcp hands when I use it, anyway.

[DK55]

Hi,
As of this evening I came across this problem that whenever a player leaves the table, the system automatically re-deal the cards.
I found it annoying. So did other around the table.
Is there a way to avoid it?
Thanks
DK55

[USViking]

The problem was raised earlier in this thread:

http://forums.bridge...showtopic=37254

Maybe it will soon be corrected.

[mrdct]

I don't think I've played in the Main Bridge Club since this was implemented, but with the frequency with which opponents generally turn-over I'm pretty sure I'm going to find this quite annoying.

Perhaps a better idea would be for there to be a system-generated redeal request that needs to be agreed-to by a player from each pair such that a bit of human judgement can be used as to whether or not play can continue.

If a new player has arrived at trick 2 or 3, it's usually possible to brief the new player on what's happened for the first few tricks, and if it's a few tricks further on most of the time declarer can claim.

[fastfwd]

I ask you to PLEASE PLEASE reverse the change you have made to BBO. The boards redealing for no reason is not fair to the declarers when an opponent leaves because they see they have misbid............and then a new player comes in, and the board redeals. Humans bid the board, and it should be played out. It does not affect the statistics of the newcomer...............PLEASE PLEASE reverse this change.

[good4u]

wHAT HAD HAPPENED TO OUR WONDERFUL SITE, bbo???? The boards are redealing automatically even during play of the board. WE HARDLY GOT TO COMPLETE ONE BOARD TODAY BECAUSE THE OPPONENTS WERE LEAVING WHEN THEY MADE A MISTAKE IN BIDDING OR PLAY, AND THE BOARD REDEALT. This is totally unfair to players.

We tell the new opponent what has been played, etc....and their stats are not affected by the bad board they will receive...it registers to the player who left. And we also reset the score following the board's completion.

I don't see it being a problem for newcomers.....except maybe for the one deal they joined.............if they stay, all the others will see them thru the entire play. But now, even if the newcomer's pard leaves, the board redeals..........

THIS IS A TERRIBLE procedure...............please don't do this to the wonderful site, BBO.

[babalu1997]

amen

that is truly disconcerting, so now the loonies at the mbc can take control and leave me in the dust

i want to finish playing my hand and i want the serve to record the redoublers

now when people realize they are going -1100, they leave and i cannot get my rightful penalty double scores

[uday]

When someone who is about to go for 1100 leaves, you can't get your rightful score regardless ( the guy responsible has just left ).

Sure, of course you want to collect 1100. From whom? Would a bot do ?

[babalu1997]

uday, the dummy leaves and there is a redeal.

there are ethical declarers out there who will play out the hand.

maybe it was declarer who bid badly and dummy left.

maybe the guy leaves to join a tournament and the hand is redealt before my very eyes

the dummy loses connection, i lose the right to play out my hand.

sorry, my tables mates were upset too and i just had 3 hands change before me because people left the table.

i do not thin there will be games at the mbc for me anymore.

sometimes i join a table with a pair known to me but did not bring a partner, so some random leaves the table and we cannot finish the hand with someone else.

i am sorry you sound cavalier and dismissive of the issue.

[okarito]

i completely agree - sitting today was VERY frustrating - we were dealt it felt like about twice as many hands as we actually got to play. whenever the dummy left, the three who stayed got dealt a new hand for NO reason at all. Please please PLEASE reverse this change.

i LOVE BBO but todays session was a nightmare.

[TimG]

I noticed the redealing today and appreciated it.

[matmat]

i don't like it at all.

in addition, the vulnerability doesn't stay the same as the redeal happens, which i think is an error.

[uday]

The change has been in effect for less than a day.

We deployed it (thanks to Ari G's insistence) in such a way that we can roll it back easily if we want to.

I'm not convinced yet that the many negative votes are representative of a large percentage of people.

I'd say let it sit, let us collect more data. It will be easy to reverse it immediately if thats what the majority opinion is.

So far, we've heard from (say) a hundred or two people saying they don't like the effects of the change, and that the old way, warts and all, was better than this.

We've heard from one person who likes it.

But even a 1,000 negative votes would represent less than 10% of the people who used HMFAG today.

Babalu, I'm not trying to sound cavalier. My Q is real: the incoming guy doesnt want to play out some disaster that he didnt cause, does he ? And he certainly doesnt want to do it starting at trick 7 ( he can't, even if he does - he has no idea what has happened ).

So far I'm learning that:

1. Replacing dummy should not be considered a big event and should not trigger a redeal.

and

2. Replacing during the bidding might not be a big event and should perhaps not trigger a redeal.

and

3. For the worst case: replacing a nondummy during the play -- I think the hand can't be played out by an incoming human (it is just too painful to try). We can't let the incoming guy suffer. So either using a bot to wrap up the hand or redealing seems reasonable.


So lets wait and see, ok ? I'll be able to tap Fred for an opinion in the AM as well. A day or two of this, if it turns out to have been a mistake, won't kill us.

U