[diana_eva]

BBO Forums tourney posted for Sunday at 2PM New York Time (8PM Central Europe).

The tourney is open to all BBF members who have logged on the Forums in the past 12 months.

#3929 Indy BBO Forums Sun 2PM EDT (8PM CET)
Host: diana_eva
20 boards, MPs, clocked, barometer on

If you are on web or on the mobile app, the tourney will be displayed in the list of pending tournaments 2 hours before start time.

[mgoetze]

So I tried this for the first time today. I did not find it to be an enjoyable experience.

First of all, there were way too many names I didn't recognize. Not sure how to fix that. But it would be preferable, if we had a number not divisible by 4, to either fill up with robots, or cut the people with the least posts, rather than fill up with random subs. This may seem a bit harsh to the people who get cut but come on, you can do better than 0.06 posts per day.

Secondly, I cannot begin to express what an awful format 2 board rounds with 8 minutes per board is. It leads to more waiting around than playing. I mean, who cares if you didn't get to play with everyone ... come back next week. That's not nearly as bad as having to spend half the time twiddling your thumbs.

I would also prefer a slighlty lower time commitment overall. My suggestion would be 4 rounds of 4 boards each, 5 or 6 minutes per board.

[phoenix214]

I do not agree with your minimum post requirement, because for example, there are people who are quiet and do not post that much, but at the same time do read the forum and would like to play time to time(example: me), and i checked and i do have a 0,12 per day. The format as it is, is pretty okei as well, if you play a small tourney it gets also pretty booring over a longer time. I know I had played a what was it - 2 day teams event, where we where 4 teams, playing some short matches, had to do 3 round robins. That was pretty boring. If we have more players, it makes it more interesting.

[Wackojack]

Yes we all have to endure partnering subs who often hit you with a zero. What is annoying when you partner someone who apparently has some credentials and gives you 2 coconuts. First by going off in 3N when the winning and MP line is fairly obvious. And the second you are defending 3N and make the obvious lead and the only lead that gets it off and partner fails to do the obvious and when the contract duly makes, claims that the lead was not one that Bird Anthias would recommend.

OK rant over.

[hrothgar]

 Wackojack, on 2015-May-03, 16:46, said:

Yes we all have to endure partnering subs who often hit you with a zero. What is annoying when you partner someone who apparently has some credentials and gives you 2 coconuts. First by going off in 3N when the winning and MP line is fairly obvious. And the second you are defending 3N and make the obvious lead and the only lead that gets it off and partner fails to do the obvious and when the contract duly makes, claims that the lead was not one that Bird Anthias would recommend.

OK rant over.

All I know is that I couldn't get a hand right for the entire tournament.
Best thing I can say is that I gave out tops evenly and without distinction.

[nige1]

I missed it today. I played in 3 previous tournaments without success but I like individuals and I enjoyed them all. Players, like me, with slow flaky internet connections appreciate generous time-limits. Thank you Diana-Eva

A quibble: sometimes I'm unsure of methods, e.g. 2/4 transfers? RKC 1430/3041? Defence to 1N? and so on. Please would Diane-Eva consider specifying a simple FD system-card that we all play?

[diana_eva]

 mgoetze, on 2015-May-03, 14:18, said:

So I tried this for the first time today. I did not find it to be an enjoyable experience.

First of all, there were way too many names I didn't recognize. Not sure how to fix that. But it would be preferable, if we had a number not divisible by 4, to either fill up with robots, or cut the people with the least posts, rather than fill up with random subs. This may seem a bit harsh to the people who get cut but come on, you can do better than 0.06 posts per day.

Secondly, I cannot begin to express what an awful format 2 board rounds with 8 minutes per board is. It leads to more waiting around than playing. I mean, who cares if you didn't get to play with everyone ... come back next week. That's not nearly as bad as having to spend half the time twiddling your thumbs.

I would also prefer a slighlty lower time commitment overall. My suggestion would be 4 rounds of 4 boards each, 5 or 6 minutes per board.

There are a number of regular lurkers who play these tourneys. They're not all very strong players, probably people who read the forums to learn. I don't think it would be fair to restrict the tourney only to people who post a lot. All the forum readers and posters are one community in my opinion, and in time some of the lurkers will likely start posting too. I don't see any reason to cut them off forum activities, not everyone has something significant to say at all times.

As it happened, I wasn't online yesterday. When I am, I do my best to find good subs, either forumers who missed the start, or friends who I know are nice and pleasant players. Perhaps this time there were more randoms than usually. We do what we can. The software does not allow putting a robot as a sub at the moment, so this isn't a solution.


The time is generous because there's a lot of chatter. The point of these tourney is to socialize, IMO, not to make it a competitive event. If everyone plays fast, it's not going to be 8 mins per board anyway. And, more recently, think about kuhchung and gwnn who video record and comment while they play. They wouldn't have the time to do that in a 6 mins per board format, sometimes there's a lot to be said on a hand.

Not sure about the length. Several posters said they can't be online for so long, and others have said they wouldn't bother to come play for only 8/10/12 boards. Maybe something mid-way like 16 boards would be more acceptable to please everyone. Thing is, no matter what format I choose, there will be a few who will not like it - it's tough.

Perhaps we should make them shorter, or post two tourneys one after another, so that people can play one, or either, or both, without committing for the whole thing. I can do that if more of you like it. I just want these to be fun for all so the format is flexible

[diana_eva]

 nige1, on 2015-May-03, 22:52, said:

I missed it today. I played in 3 previous tournaments without success but I like individuals and I enjoyed them all. Players, like me, with slow flaky internet connections appreciate generous time-limits. Thank you Diana-Eva

A quibble: sometimes I'm unsure of methods, e.g. 2/4 transfers? RKC 1430/3041? Defence to 1N? and so on. Please would Diane-Eva consider specifying a simple FD system-card that we all play?

I'm not convinced that stating "everyone plays this" will solve the problem. The tourney is for fun mostly. I've always suggested people agree briefly what they play when the round starts, main club style. I'm also fine with just discussing methods in table chat. Maybe I'm too lenient though. If you think it's unacceptable to just ask in chat when you aren't sure what a bid means then we can choose a default CC (say 2/1 advanced). But my view was something like - Why not let acolites play acol, sayc people play sayc, or system freaks play some crazy stuff just for the fun of it, in case they bump into each other on one round.

[mgoetze]

 diana_eva, on 2015-May-04, 00:31, said:

I've always suggested people agree briefly what they play when the round starts, main club style.

Which is another problem with 2 board rounds, they provide less incentive to agree anything than 4 board rounds would.

[diana_eva]

 mgoetze, on 2015-May-04, 06:46, said:

Which is another problem with 2 board rounds, they provide less incentive to agree anything than 4 board rounds would.

Ah yes, good point

[KurtGodel]

I still think that perhaps something needs to be fixed, either with the subs or standardising the card. I played this and had Axxx ATxxxx x xx. I dealt and the bidding went P - P - 1D - (1H) - X - end, partner thought I was making a penalty double! Luckily I happened to have a heart stack and he a rather good hand, so we collected more than the value of game, but I could have had a completely different hand and he still would have sat. My partner wouldn't respond to any noises from my end so we couldn't agree anything.

[diana_eva]

 KurtGodel, on 2015-May-04, 09:46, said:

I still think that perhaps something needs to be fixed, either with the subs or standardising the card. I played this and had Axxx ATxxxx x xx. I dealt and the bidding went P - P - 1D - (1H) - X - end, partner thought I was making a penalty double! Luckily I happened to have a heart stack and he a rather good hand, so we collected more than the value of game, but I could have had a completely different hand and he still would have sat. My partner wouldn't respond to any noises from my end so we couldn't agree anything.

Well your partner was a legit lurker, not a sub... Dunno what to do. Would it really be fair to restrict to posters only? That means even less people will register. If he wasn't responding to your noises, it's quite likely he'd be equally unresponsive to my announcement that he's supposed to play a certain system

[helene_t]

4-board rounds would mean less waiting time and more incentitives to discuss system but it would also mean that some unlucky players would have to put up with a clueless sub for four boards. So you can't have it both ways.

Two short tournaments may be a good idea but then you are at risk of putting up with the same clueless lurker twice

Maybe it should be stated that you can make agreements on the fly. Don't discuss in advance whether system is on or off after double, or whether you play 1430 or 0314. Just discuss if it comes up.

[kuhchung]

Discussing the format of the indy is fine, but could we please not post things like "my partner was a total idiot, please ban him from this event because of his 0.04 post count"

Don't take the results so seriously.

[barmar]

Indies are a crapshoot, it's just the nature of the beast. The nice thing about short rounds is that they'll spread their mischief all around.

[crazy4hoop]

I am sure I could do better than 0.06 posts per day if I thought I had anything significant to add to the conversation. What happens often is that I simply enjoy reading the posts, and if the post has a question that I think I know the answer to, I try to answer it. But most of the time since I only log in to these forums once a day somebody else has already answered the question and I move on to the next post (no, I am not posting this to add to my daily average).

[GreenMan]

 crazy4hoop, on 2015-May-04, 21:13, said:

I am sure I could do better than 0.06 posts per day if I thought I had anything significant to add to the conversation. What happens often is that I simply enjoy reading the posts, and if the post has a question that I think I know the answer to, I try to answer it. But most of the time since I only log in to these forums once a day somebody else has already answered the question and I move on to the next post (no, I am not posting this to add to my daily average).

A lot of us don't let worry about adding anything significant stop us.