[aguahombre]

Note Justin's post within a half hour of the segment start time. Even if he might be on the bench to start, this is impressive. More on his "class act" during these trials later.

[Tomi2]

helene_t, on 2011-May-17, 10:33, said:

Slow play on vugraph is a luxury problem.

You are watching in on the computer rather than your TV so if you really lose patience you can always play tetris for a minute. Or chat with your bbo friends who are watching the same match. Discussing "how would you have bid/lead/played as South?" with your regular partner while watching vugraph together is one of the coolest way of working on your partnership.

Compared to the commercials that you have on TV, surely delays in play is a much smaller nuisance. For one, slow play gives the commentators time to discuss and even to think before they write. Believe me, it is extremely hard to be a commentator when the players are playing fast. The slower the play the better the commentary.

Time limits have some merits in pairs events where dozens of other pairs are waiting for a single slow pair. In teams events it should only be enforced in extreme situations. IMHO yesterday's match came nowhere close to that point.

totaly agree to this - there have been lots of very interesting deals this week and I have spend lots of time skyping with some of my reg partners during the vug, every time the auction/play took longer, we had time to discuss the boards (how would have the auction gone for us, what cards would we play, what signal would we give..."

[chudecek]

You misinterpreted my proposed time rule. The "90 seconds per hand" is an AVERAGE.
One could take 30 minutes for a single bid or play, as long as he consumed less than
18 minutes on ALL of his other bids and plays in 32 boards.

A total time of 48x4 = 192 minutes is 3 hours and 12 minutes for a 32-board set.
Far more than adequate for most players. I have seen 28 boards played in Cayne
matches in less than 90 minutes (HALF of the time limit I have proposed).

To have some of the players dawdle, to the detriment and irritation of others
is not right and is not fair. Ninety percent of the best players currently and
historically would find my time restriction more than adequate, and the 10% would
learn to speed up, or play well enough to accept a penalty of a few IMPS.

Awarding a trifling bonus for beating the time limit would have "educational"
benefit for the slowpokes. After all, some alacrity is part of the game, and is
indicative of what bridge tournaments are supposed to measure - bridge skill.
Slow play is the reason chess clocks were invented, and why we have time limits
on most competitive sports such as football, basketball, boxing and even golf.

inquiry, on 2011-May-17, 10:27, said:

Carl,

Welcome to the forum. I suspect this, your first post here, will generate a lotof comments, many negative (well, mine below included).

Let me start with the concept that all participants play the same system. For individual event, forced system is of course fine. For other events forget it.Who cares if spectators understand the bidding. The participants are not bidding/playing the hands for spectator enjoyment, but rather to meet personal goals. They use whatever legal bidding systems that make that most likely for them. This is not a bridge world bidding contest where all the experts bid the same system that you are VERY familiar with being an expert panelist for many years. Also, system develop is very important part of bridge since its beginning. I don't suspect that will change anytime soon. Improvements to bidding methods, as tested at the table in the heat of battle, is something that many players and spectators enjoy about the game.

The timing suggestion suffers the very SAME problem. The participants are not playing the hand to make the spectators happy. We are guest who get the"pleasure" of watching them play without cost. They play at whatever speed to maximize their chances to do well. I will admit the timing rules donot apply very well due to a lot of problems, some of which include getting explanationsof the opponents' methods (bidding and carding) during play. But a 90 secondrule per hand (so all hands have to be finished in six minutes is non-sense.Even the careless speedball tournaments on BBO allow 7 MINUTES per board ( 17%more time per hand than you suggest). Increasing the time might alleviate some of the concern, but then "Gamemanship" would enter. Players who havea lot of time remaining would play out hands to add time to the opponents' clock rather than claiming quickly. Or play a complex line in a simple straight foward position to force their opponents to waste time in an effort to maximize time rewards for them.

I suspect a better solution for "spectators" is to look at thevugraph record "AFTER" the event is over. This removes the "slow play, slow bidding" from the equation. You can see the bids and plays at whatever speed you want. This also could handle the unknown system stuff,especially if someone add useful comments to the vugraph file -- perhaps even after the play is over. If Bridge is ever to be a TV sport, it will not belive, but rather tape-delayed with such time editing, and afterwards addition of commentator input. This also solves the director calls and appeal stuff. When a hand which goes to committee shows up, because of the delayed nature of the "broadcast" the commentators can give the result of the appealetc at the time the hand is played. So it seems the solution to your problemsas "spectator" is not draconian rule changes on the players, but better use of existing technology (vugraph achieves or perhaps in future, timeedited TV broadcast). For me, time is not a great issue, because I can multitask while waiting for a bid or play and often do.

[Phil]

Carl, a standard amount of time for a pairs event is 7.5 minutes / board. At a 90 second average per hand per player that is still 6 minutes per board. Your suggestion consists of making the trials to determine our national team to be played at a faster pace than a regular club game. I hope you realize how ludicrous this is, and how difficult it is for anyone to take you seriously.

Let's get past this idea of 6 minutes per board. What is reasonable? Is there a fair amount of time?

In the 3rd segment yesterday, one of the tables took 110 minutes to play 9 boards (I was timing it). That equates to 12 minutes per hand, which is beyond anyone's measure of timely play.

I like the idea of sensor pads or scanners to determine who is at fault. I also like the idea of gauging the time not as an absolute of the table, but relative to the pair holding the same cards at another table.

[awm]

Something really should be done about this, at least to more strictly enforce the time regulations already in place.

The same problem comes up in the Spingold and Vanderbilt, and even in some of the top-flight pairs events. The people who play slow all to often end up gaining an advantage, as their opponents are unused to this pace and either have trouble concentrating during the long delays (it's easy to forget what's going on in the hand when your opponent takes ten minutes to play a card) and/or are unused to having the director at the table telling them to play faster (even though penalties are almost never handed out). It also creates problems in long events, since if one team plays slow opponents and finishes at 3 AM, they are at a disadvantage the next day against a team that finished at a normal time and got more rest.

Bridge is officially a timed event, and I don't think the winner should necessarily be the team that would play better if given unlimited time, if the same team is unable to play comparably well within the officially required time limits.

With that said, chudecek's solution seems draconian and ridiculous, and I'm not sure we'd call such a game bridge any more once no one is allowed to play even the methods commonly allowed in club games, nor allowed to take the time per hand commonly permitted in club games.

[chudecek]

I think 3 1/4 hours for a 32 board session is MORE than enough, but if someone
wants to increase the allocated time to 105 seconds average (adding 32 minutes to a
session), I would not quibble. Remember- these pairs are SITTING at the same table for
16 to 32 boards, so time is not lost in moving (or reviewing systems).

awm, on 2011-May-17, 12:45, said:

Something really should be done about this, at least to more strictly enforce the time regulations already in place.

The same problem comes up in the Spingold and Vanderbilt, and even in some of the top-flight pairs events. The people who play slow all to often end up gaining an advantage, as their opponents are unused to this pace and either have trouble concentrating during the long delays (it's easy to forget what's going on in the hand when your opponent takes ten minutes to play a card) and/or are unused to having the director at the table telling them to play faster (even though penalties are almost never handed out). It also creates problems in long events, since if one team plays slow opponents and finishes at 3 AM, they are at a disadvantage the next day against a team that finished at a normal time and got more rest.

Bridge is officially a timed event, and I don't think the winner should necessarily be the team that would play better if given unlimited time, if the same team is unable to play comparably well within the officially required time limits.

With that said, chudecek's solution seems draconian and ridiculous, and I'm not sure we'd call such a game bridge any more once no one is allowed to play even the methods commonly allowed in club games, nor allowed to take the time per hand commonly permitted in club games.

[qwery_hi]

awm, on 2011-May-17, 12:45, said:

Something really should be done about this, at least to more strictly enforce the time regulations already in place.

The same problem comes up in the Spingold and Vanderbilt, and even in some of the top-flight pairs events. The people who play slow all to often end up gaining an advantage, as their opponents are unused to this pace and either have trouble concentrating during the long delays (it's easy to forget what's going on in the hand when your opponent takes ten minutes to play a card) and/or are unused to having the director at the table telling them to play faster (even though penalties are almost never handed out). It also creates problems in long events, since if one team plays slow opponents and finishes at 3 AM, they are at a disadvantage the next day against a team that finished at a normal time and got more rest.

Bridge is officially a timed event, and I don't think the winner should necessarily be the team that would play better if given unlimited time, if the same team is unable to play comparably well within the officially required time limits.

Yes, either allocate more time officially or enforce the existing rules. It looks like the directors are intimidated by the players to enforce time penalties.

[AlexJonson]

I noticed it was a bit slow, and went to bed when I might of stayed up if it was faster.

But, if I was competing to represent an expected favourite in the BB, I might not care who
went to bed while I was thinking.

Mostly I watch Chess live, especially right now, but a one on one game is much easier to control
with clocks.

[barryallen]

awm, on 2011-May-17, 12:45, said:

Something really should be done about this, at least to more strictly enforce the time regulations already in place.

The same problem comes up in the Spingold and Vanderbilt, and even in some of the top-flight pairs events. The people who play slow all to often end up gaining an advantage, as their opponents are unused to this pace and either have trouble concentrating during the long delays (it's easy to forget what's going on in the hand when your opponent takes ten minutes to play a card) and/or are unused to having the director at the table telling them to play faster (even though penalties are almost never handed out). It also creates problems in long events, since if one team plays slow opponents and finishes at 3 AM, they are at a disadvantage the next day against a team that finished at a normal time and got more rest.

Bridge is officially a timed event, and I don't think the winner should necessarily be the team that would play better if given unlimited time, if the same team is unable to play comparably well within the officially required time limits.

With that said, chudecek's solution seems draconian and ridiculous, and I'm not sure we'd call such a game bridge any more once no one is allowed to play even the methods commonly allowed in club games, nor allowed to take the time per hand commonly permitted in club games.

You either do nothing or you apply penalties. To me this is all about the players and it should be their decision upon how this is handled. But a slow player can affect concentration levels in others and that can be an unfair advantage. Officials have to have discretionary powers taken away from them and a set scale of penalties applied should players fall short, that way you get consistency and officials are just applying the rules, not making an interpretation.

If you do apply penalties you should make allowances for items out of the players control and times set per event or by agreement. Then once you have decided to penalise slow opponents, you have to devise a fair method. Personally I would go with something like a percentage of the difference in points between the pairs over the session in question.

This will never effect me or my enjoyment which ever way things turn out. But if the authorities decide something should be done, take the pressure off the officials with the rules so there are no arguments / inconsistencies and the players know exactly where they stand.

[paulg]

chudecek, on 2011-May-17, 13:07, said:

I think 3 1/4 hours for a 32 board session is MORE than enough, but if someone
wants to increase the allocated time to 105 seconds average (adding 32 minutes to a
session), I would not quibble. Remember- these pairs are SITTING at the same table for
16 to 32 boards, so time is not lost in moving (or reviewing systems).

Have you played with screens?

[FrancesHinden]

All the top events have time regulations. The trick is to enforce them. 10 minutes over one card is fair enough if it's an important card, it's when it happens over and over again that it's really frustrating to play against.

If (e.g.) Justin finds it off-putting when his opponents are taking longer than they are supposed to be, then that's not fair: as others have said time limits are enforced in the BB, so they should be here too.

p.s. bridge does take longer with screens. The EBU trials give you 2 hours 50 minutes for a 20 board set, exactly the same as the European championships (deliberately). This equates to about 2 hours 10 minutes for 15 boards I think.

[qwery_hi]

I have. What's your point?

All the talk about bridge taking longer with screens is a red herring. Longer than what? A pair game where every pair has to move between hands and learn what new system their opponents are playing? I don't think so.

paulg, on 2011-May-17, 14:14, said:

Have you played with screens?

[benlessard]

The best examples for intelligent and diverse time controls come from Japan. My estimate is that Go is twice as complex as shogi (japanese chess) and shogi is twice as complex as bridge/chess and they have every format from 15min each players to 2 days games.

The majors titles in Japan each players has 8H(go) + nap/lunch and 6H(shogi). Today there is no adjournement (sealed moves)(in chess computers killed adjournement but in go computers are not good enough to help but it will come)

Anyway an interesting read

http://gobase.org/re...ia/?id=thinking

IMO Time controls serve many purpose

Most important is to teach beginners/intermediates to play quicker. Before a certain point players improve faster if they just play and learn rather than think too much. I know some will disagree with this but im 200% sure of this.
2- If you want to make a show/get sponsors you have to have time controls no choice.
3- To protect against super slow/deliberately slow players (mostly for slow games rather than bridge/poker/backgammon)

In chess modern and faster time controls (2/2.5H) per players are being the norm, people were sceptic hated them at the start but now they are accepted, more mistakes, more agressive games & reduced draws it also allow 2 games per day for tight schedule amateur tournament.

[matmat]

I think Carl is onto something, but his proposed changes simply do not go far enough. I would propose the following changes:

1) I would recommend that all participants in an event be given the same final score in order to avoid feelings of shame, inferiority and inadequacy.

2) I would mandate that all participants wear the same shade of clothing, that way nobody will stand out or offend anyone's sensibilities

3) All two way finesses must be taken into one's RHO,

4) All 9 card fits with the AK must play for the drop,

5) No falsecarding, no signalling. You must always follow suit with the lowest spot card available if you cannot win the trick.

6) No smoke breaks. No hospitality breaks. You must sit through the entire session.

I'll try to define some more rule changes later.

[glen]

I really enjoy watch football games as shown on the NFL Network's NFL Replay - this is 1 1/4 hours per game before I fast-forward past the ads. They edit out all the huddles, timeouts, coach's challenges etc. to produce a fast-paced and highly entertaining show. Imagine if the US finals were recorded live, but shown on vugraph with a start time an hour later than actual, and giving one of the commentators the ability to fast forward during the many slow spots, and if necessary, say when somebody fails to take their 9 tricks in a 3NT or makes a clever squeeze to bring in a contract, then a quick instant replay for all those watching who like to watch big hits and touchdowns.

[ggwhiz]

I'm not interested in system restrictions but slow play is a big drag on the game.

Similar to Zero tolerance, lack of enforcement of the existing rules is what bugs me. Train the Directors and if they don't follow suit hire ones that will.

[awm]

ggwhiz, on 2011-May-17, 17:00, said:

I'm not interested in system restrictions but slow play is a big drag on the game.

Similar to Zero tolerance, lack of enforcement of the existing rules is what bugs me. Train the Directors and if they don't follow suit hire ones that will.

I agree with this.

However, before we all blame the directors, consider that the current system is quite hard on them. First, the director often will not know who is at fault for slow play. He notices when a table is behind, but he's not actively timing each bid and play. The players usually aren't helpful in this (slow players tend to deny they are slow). The director might have outside knowledge of a particular pair's history, but if he allocates a penalty based on that he is subject to charges that he's ruling based on "who the people are" and that his outside knowledge might be quite subjective. Second, the penalties to be assessed are often "director's judgment." Suppose a director assesses a penalty that ends up changing the result of a match. Since there's no formal policy, there will be all kinds of questions as to whether the penalty was "too big".. whether the director would've allocated the same penalty against a "famous" team or whatever. It's a very tough situation to be in.

Some sort of electronic monitoring combined with specifically proscribed penalties for slow play would help quite a bit.

[nige1]

Welcome Carl.

• I agree with Carl that it would be a good to set time-limits but
• I think a slightly better protocol would be to insist that a player must make each bid or play after a specified time and before another specified time. (say 5 and 10 seconds. (A general rule -- there would be some specified exceptions). This would eliminate most tempo problems and speed up the game. As in chess, each player would soon learn to use the other players' thinking time.

• I agree with Carl that there should be some competitions, especially individual tournaments, where all must use a standard system. At world championship level, this would make it easy for commentators and spectators and help to popularise the game.
• I think, however, that most competitions, including most world championships, should have no system restrictions.

[Quantumcat]

chudecek, on 2011-May-17, 09:03, said:

he is punished one IMP per minute overtime, and rewarded 0.2 IMPS for every minute under his allocated time.

If I were playing in this tournament, my partner and I would agree to always open 3NT in 1st or 2nd seat, no matter what. We would get swings from hard-to-bid and hard-to-defend games, plus all our opponents would lose some IMPs from having to spend extra time thinking about the defense, and we would earn about 5+ IMPs each from quick play. If our teammates would do it too, I estimate about 10 IMPs per match from the swings(some big wins and mny small losses), and an extra 20-30 IMPs per match for our quick play and their slow play. I don't know the VP scale off by heart, but I'm sure that's at least 20 VPs per 32 board match.

[chudecek]

The computer program would take care of delivering the TWO bids in a timely fashion at each turn. Say after a 5 second minimum wait, as you suggest. If there are huddles longer than that, the calls would be delivered when they are made.

nige1, on 2011-May-17, 18:01, said:

Welcome Carl.

• I agree with Carl that it would be a good to set time-limits but
• I think a slightly better protocol would be to insist that a player must make each bid or play after a specified time and before another specified time. (say 5 and 10 seconds. (A general rule -- there would be some specified exceptions). This would eliminate most tempo problems and speed up the game. As in chess, each player would soon learn to use the other players' thinking time.

• I agree with Carl that there should be some competitions, especially individual tournaments, where all must use a standard system. At world championship level, this would make it easy for commentators and spectators and help to popularise the game.
• I think, however, that most competitions, including most world championships, should have no system restrictions.