[timouthy]

The following has happened to me so many times that it I think a little change is in order: I am declaring, and the rest of the hand is obvious, so I claim the requisite amount of tricks, (usually all of them, but sometimes less than all because of unavoidable loser/s). A defender denies claim. So I start playing it out and then they see that I was right, and often bark to me: "claim again". So recently I wrote out that defenders can also "claim" (actually concede all or most of the remaining tricks) and to my surprise one said "Oh really, how do I do it"? Now I have to spend more time writing out the procedure, and the hand that should have been over minutes ago is now longer than it would have been had I not claimed at all!
What can BBO do? As the man from Spishak says, "Well now you can" Put one more option on table only for defenders and don't call it a claim button. Call it the "concede" button. Once they press on it, they have the option of selecting the amount of tricks they want to concede, all or less than all.

yours truly,
timouthy

[barmar]

Are you suggesting that defenders should have two buttons, Claim and Concede? Or get rid of the Claim button when defending, and replace it with Concede? I think it would be confusing, or at least annoying, for the button to keep changing names.

I don't think the benefit is that great. Defensive concessions are not as frequent as declarer claims, and many players already know they can do it with the Claim button. I suggest that when someone says "claim again", don't waste time trying to teach them at that moment, just claim again. You can teach them after the hand is over.

[Bbradley62]

timouthy, on 2012-July-29, 16:17, said:

.. they see that I was right, and often bark to me: "claim again".

You can identify barking, as opposed to a polite suggestion that you claim again?

[timouthy]

barmar, on 2012-July-29, 22:19, said:

Are you suggesting that defenders should have two buttons, Claim and Concede? Or get rid of the Claim button when defending, and replace it with Concede? I think it would be confusing, or at least annoying, for the button to keep changing names.

I don't think the benefit is that great. Defensive concessions are not as frequent as declarer claims, and many players already know they can do it with the Claim button. I suggest that when someone says "claim again", don't waste time trying to teach them at that moment, just claim again. You can teach them after the hand is over.

I thought what I was suggesting was quite obvious. One button to replace the claim button for the defenders only. I have played bbo long enough to know that the vast majority of players at any skill level rarely use the claim button while declaring. And the usage of the claim button by defenders to claim/concede is virtually non-existent. Since no-one is using it to concede, it stands to reason that no-one would know that it can be used for this purpose. And this is borne out by what defenders have told me when asked, i.e. they didn't know they could use the claim button for this. So dumb down things a little and put a button there only for defenders in plain sight that says in big RED letters "concede".


timouthy

[timouthy]

Bbradley62, on 2012-July-30, 00:00, said:

You can identify barking, as opposed to a polite suggestion that you claim again?

Sir Bradley, I fully intended to use the word "bark" because in the numerous instances when this has happened to me, several, like the most recent had no polite adornments about them. It was a simple "claim again". In fact not once did I ever see it phrased even as humanely as "could you claim again". I don't even need a "please" in there.
So here I am trying to move the game along so we can get onto the next hand thinking I am doing everyone a favor and first I get a "claim denied" and then I get "barked" at. Reminds me of a phrase that starts "No good deed......."

timouthy

[Zelandakh]

I have a simple rule. If I claim and they decline then I do not claim again. If they write "claim again" then I will answer "I did", possibly adding something like "it is for you to concede if you agree." I also mark the profiles of regular opps who refuse to accept claims (only a couple) and simply do not claim against such players unless down to something like all trumps where noone could refuse. Of course, my favourites are players who leave the table upon a claim without waiting for their partner to accept, thus refusing the claim and leaving the hand unfinished. FWiiW, I claim as a defender all the time and would not be particularly happy if that ability was taken away.

[mycroft]

My response has always been to play until they claim. If they ask me to claim, I'll suggest they do it and keep playing.

If it was a claim that wasn't obvious - in other words, if they actually had to look at it (probably because I'm conceding a trick or two) - fine, I'll claim again. If it's an auto, and these guys just auto-deny, they can do the work.

I've been called passive-aggressive on occasion (but never for this habit, strangely enough)...

[timouthy]

mycroft, on 2012-July-30, 11:54, said:

My response has always been to play until they claim. If they ask me to claim, I'll suggest they do it and keep playing.

If it was a claim that wasn't obvious - in other words, if they actually had to look at it (probably because I'm conceding a trick or two) - fine, I'll claim again. If it's an auto, and these guys just auto-deny, they can do the work.

I've been called passive-aggressive on occasion (but never for this habit, strangely enough)...

Maybe it's just me, but............. Here we have this golden opportunity to play and learn bridge at a more rapid rate because of a number of factors: 1. you do not have to arrange for 4 people of similar talent to get together; if you spend a few seconds, you will almost always find them when you sit to play. 2. you do not have to waste time shuffling; its done instantly. 3. if you spend the small amount of time getting your bidding profile together, you do not have to have endless discussion sessions prior to playing, with a new partner; you can discuss while bidding/playing. 4. You can claim and avoid the time cashing out obvious tricks one-at-a-time. I could go on but I hope I am getting the point across. Essentially bbo is like learning bridge on steroids. The learning curve is intensely steep. I am a teacher and if I could design lessons for my students that have the same rate of learning and retention as what I have experienced here on bbo, I would be a rock star. I am assuming that the designers of this site are fully aware of these features and are therefore committed to enhancing them. Any new feature that could hasten the play would dovetail quite nicely with their rapid learning/play design especially with players on the lower end. BBO are you paying attention?

timouthy

[ArtK78]

In a recent ACBL pair game on BBO, I had two very slow opponents. On the second board, I had summoned the TD because of the opponents' slow play, and he had asked them to move it along. So, on the third board, with less than a minute to go in the round, I had summoned the TD again due to the opps slow play. The TD arrived at the table just in time for me to make a claim. And, with seconds left in the round, I saw the following two announcements appear on the screen simultaneously:

"Claim rejected"

"TD adjusts the score to 4S+1"

So, the opps rejected my claim but the TD awarded me my claimed result at the same time.

[diana_eva]

ArtK78, on 2012-July-30, 12:37, said:

In a recent ACBL pair game on BBO, I had two very slow opponents. On the second board, I had summoned the TD because of the opponents' slow play, and he had asked them to move it along. So, on the third board, with less than a minute to go in the round, I had summoned the TD again due to the opps slow play. The TD arrived at the table just in time for me to make a claim. And, with seconds left in the round, I saw the following two announcements appear on the screen simultaneously:

"Claim rejected"

"TD adjusts the score to 4S+1"

So, the opps rejected my claim but the TD awarded me my claimed result at the same time.

It's possible that the claim got auto-rejected by the software when score was adjusted.

[barmar]

timouthy, on 2012-July-30, 00:38, said:

I thought what I was suggesting was quite obvious. One button to replace the claim button for the defenders only. I have played bbo long enough to know that the vast majority of players at any skill level rarely use the claim button while declaring. And the usage of the claim button by defenders to claim/concede is virtually non-existent. Since no-one is using it to concede, it stands to reason that no-one would know that it can be used for this purpose. And this is borne out by what defenders have told me when asked, i.e. they didn't know they could use the claim button for this. So dumb down things a little and put a button there only for defenders in plain sight that says in big RED letters "concede".

As you say, most players don't use the claim button even when declaring. I think those players would rarely use it when defending, even if we changed it to say "Concede".

So I think the benefit of this change would be quite small.

[lalldonn]

I use the claim button to concede all the time on defense.

As declarer, when my valid claim is rejected I always immediately claim again. About half the time that one is accepted.

[barmar]

lalldonn, on 2012-July-30, 15:31, said:

I use the claim button to concede all the time on defense.

Me, too. But I don't think either of us is typical of BBO players.

Quote

As declarer, when my valid claim is rejected I always immediately claim again. About half the time that one is accepted.

How often are you playing against randoms, rather than your friends, who are also competent? I'll bet most of the time when your claims are rejected, it's accidental.

To the OP: when you make claims that are rejected, do you leave the explanation blank? If there's anything not totally obvious about a claim, you should fill it in (e.g. say "cross-ruff").