[zielona]

Hi

In the last tourney that I ran today, BBO assigned AVE to one table. There would be nothing wrong with this but the tourney was unclocked and the table was not doing worse with time than several others.
Apparently players didn't even see the boards although I am not so sure about that. When I was called, the round status was completed, cards faced up, players sitting and waiting, no bids on the bidding pad and AVE assigned to all players.

Can someone please explain that?

I had problems explaining to one of the players why I was not willing to adjust the score. Had to apologize on behalf of bbo.

Regards

[uday]

No need to apologize on our behalf

Clocked:
When the round ends, boards in play are terminated and A-- assigned.
Whether the TD adjusts or not is up to the TD

Unclocked:
When a board is completed, remaining boards in the round are skipped (with A-- assigned) if there are fewer than minutes-per-board / 2 minutes left in the current round.
Whether the TD adjusts or not is up to the TD


You can increase the minutes per board to the max, whatever it is, if you want to reduce the incidence of skipped boards

[Mr. Dodgy]

uday, on Sep 19 2006, 09:55 AM, said:

Clocked:
When the round ends, boards in play are terminated and A-- assigned.
Whether the TD adjusts or not is up to the TD

Unclocked:
When a board is completed, remaining boards in the round are skipped (with A-- assigned) if there are fewer than minutes-per-board / 2    minutes left in the current round. 
Whether the TD adjusts or not is up to the TD

Actually for unclocked it's A==

I don't think you could legally adjust a board that is completely skipped, except perhaps as procedural penalty for deliberately or excessively slow play.

Also note that even in clocked tourneys, boards are skipped A== if there is insufficient time left on the clock to start them. A little oddly, when there is a board terminated and there are still unstarted boards in that round, those remaining boards are SKIPPED and they are assigned the 'terminated' automatic A--.

[zielona]

Thank you

I didn't realize that, may be because I usually run one board per round tourneys. Will follow advise and increase time.. or stick to one board per round.

[jillybean]

Mr. Dodgy, on Sep 19 2006, 07:57 AM, said:

I don't think you could legally adjust a board that is completely skipped, except perhaps as procedural penalty for deliberately or excessively slow play.

Legalities..


If a board is skipped and one pair obviously at fault for holding up the play in previous board(s) I will adjust the skipped board, following law 12C1.

A+ for pair in no way at fault, A= or A- for the other pair depending on circumstances, usually A=

This is where it is important for the players to call TD and let them know there is delay in the play. No need for the innocent pair to rush bidding and play to try to finish a board. If they have called the TD they are then protected and will either get an actual result or A+

jb

[rigour6]

I actually use this very feature to keep tourneys moving. I generally run "unclocked" tourneys, then set the timer quite low. This means that if you dawdle on the first three boards of a four board round for example, zip! you just skip the fourth and take your average. Of course, you have to deal with the "why ave?" messages, but if you explain it in the tourneys rules, that cuts those down a teensy bit.

It seems that with tourneys, you're darned if you do, darned if you don't. If you "clock" tourneys, people play the clock, if "unclock" them, the tourney slows.

My solution:

1) Call your tourney "Fast" something or other and include in the rules a description of the board skipping
2) Unclock the tourney
3) Set the timer at a low level, maybe 6 minutes/board. Psychologically, even if people know the clock isn't on, they watch the timer.
4) Do not have more than 3 rounds. This is key. In a four round game, the slowest table will grind at least two and probably three other tables to a halt and they can sit for 10 minutes waiting for the 4th round to start.
5) When your slowest group has finally started the last round, set the timer to 4 minutes. This means they will probably not play the last board.

Under this system:
1) People can't "Play the clock". Slowing play only means you play fewer boards, taking an average on the unplayed boards. Any board you start, you finish so there's NO incentive to slow play on a bad baord.
2) The faster players zoom along and don't have to wait between rounds.
3) No matter how slow your turtles are, you have some prospect of the game ending on time. In fact, unclocked tourneys with this format end SOONER than clocked tourneys, while allowing people to play at their own pace.
4) Even though the computer is auto-adjusting the slow players with aves to keep things moving, at least they are aves, and the field is protected.

[barmar]

One problem with assigning AVE to unplayed boards is that this may actually pull UP some pairs' scores. Can't the unplayed boards simply be tossed out? In MP tournaments this is equivalent to computing your percentage on the remaining boards and assigning that to the unplayed ones. In IMP tournaments, you assign the average IMPs per board to the unplayed boards.

[rigour6]

Unfortunately, you do that (and the players know it) and you will get the lead teams delaying and trying to skip the last board. Whereas I don't think a team which is having a disastrous round is going to feel a 50% on Board 12 is worth them running the clock.