[1eyedjack]

I should like to express my disappointment that BBO management has decided to disable the ability for the Double Dummy Solver software (provided by Bridge Captain) to download hands from the MyHands database for local review and analysis. This restriction severely detracts from my enjoyment of BBO.

Would the management care to comment on the reason for this decision?

In particular, I am interested to know

1) How this facility adversely impacted on BBO's business model or income stream, and
2) Whether BBO has made or intends to make available some alternative facility that provides similar functionality.

I am sure that if there is a good reason for this decision then I will be more sympathetic toward it, and for that reason alone it may be a good idea to make these reasons available in the public domain.

[paulg]

I don't need to know why BBO have done this, it is definitely their decision and nothing to do with me. However I am disappointed because this is a feature that I have used and it is has been very useful given that I exclusively use the BBO web client these days.

One of the big issues with the web client is looking at a session afterwards. The web client does not really provide any analysis tools and you can only export one hand at a time. This is one reason that the DD Solver is so useful for those of us who use the web client.

Paul

[1eyedjack]

I agree that I don't NEED to know. But neither is that a bar on them telling me.
Just as BBO don't NEED to know the extent of my disappointment. And yet it is settled good business practice in virtually any business model to solicit and place value on customer feedback.
It is most certainly "to do with me" as I am directly affected by the decision.
Of course I am not in any way suggesting that BBO are outwith their rights to impose this restriction, nor outwith their rights (should they so choose) to withhold from their customers the reasons behind it.
What is within their rights and powers and what is in their best interests are not necessarily coincident.
I would suggest that all other factors being equal it is in their best interests to have a happy customer base.
If convincing their customer base that this is a rational decision furthers that end then that would further their best interests. So far they have not (yet) refused to tell us the reason, so it seems premature to defend a decision that they have yet to take.

It might be worth adding that BBO seems generally to be encouraging its userbase to take the transition from using the Windows-based client interface to using the browser-based "Flash" interface. Given that DDSolver will load .lin files that are autosaved locally when running Windows-based interface, an option that is not available in the browser-based interface, this decision seems to provide an added disincentive to using the browser interface and in that regard appears to show an inconsistent approach.

It might also be worth adding that crippling this feature does not prevent a user from downloading hands from MyHands database and then analysing them in DD Solver. All that it prevents is the bulk downloading of several hands at a time. You can still click on the "Lin" link next to individual hands in MyHands, save that locally and then use DD Solver to open the saved Lin file. I have no doubt that it will be relatively simple to concatenate saved Lin files into a single file containing an entire tourney etc. So the end result of this policy is simply to put the user to some considerable inconvenience to achieve precisely the same end result as he could previously achieve with somewhat less effort but without in the end preventing him from doing so if insistent. That being the case, I find the justification for the policy hard to imagine. But I remain open to convincing.

[inquiry]

I also enjoy using DD solver's download feature. Sorry it is turned off as well.

[1eyedjack]

Well, since I started this thread, I think that it is only right and proper to mention that some information has since come my way to suggest that there are good reasons for what has happened. It is not my place to say what they are. I do hope it gets resolved and may only be temporary.

[uday]

I don't know (yet) why it isn't working. We'll sort it out and it will work again once we do.

U

[inquiry]

uday, on 2011-June-05, 13:58, said:

I don't know (yet) why it isn't working. We'll sort it out and it will work again once we do.

U

DD solver can download BBO hands once again. It still has troubles with hands from tournaments with a Ave assigned, etc, which causes it to fail and not download any hands. Supposedly the author of DD solver is going to address that in the next release.