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History function delays game restrict History use til end of round

#1 User is offline   awass 

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Posted 2020-August-04, 12:06

The History function is wonderful and I always use it at the end of games to review with my partners.
However, it is clear that many players check "Other Tables" after each hand which delays the game and is a real distraction.
(Truth in advertising; I sometimes am guilty of doing that myself.)

My suggestion is to disable "History" until the end of the match OR, if that is too drastic a measure, restrict "History" to the time between the end of the round until the start of the next round.
That is an incentive to play a bit more quickly and does interfere with actual play in any way.
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#2 User is offline   mycroft 

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Posted 2020-August-04, 14:34

You should search in the forums for all the people who have come on since the Great Closing that ask "how do we stop the next hand from coming up so we can discuss the previous one?" Oh, and never play with those people if you can help it. Trust me, I'm in your camp there :-)

If it distracts you, you can hide the side pane (I've actually suggested that for a couple of my partners, who internalize poor results, even if they're just unlucky poor results (or, more commonly, even if they're unlucky-in-their-choice-of-partner poor results)). If other people's delay is distracting, bid the next hand or, if you're not dealer and after a suitable time to read the traveller, ask for the next hand to start.

Be prepared to be overruled by the rest of the table's preferred pace of play (unless it's a clocked tournament, in which case, if there's too much talking and not enough playing, call the TD to get it to the end of the round).

Note: I have been playing some (relatively) high-level bridge recently. With discussions and a peek at the hand after, we still manage to run 2x12 board match in 2 hours give or take 5 minutes. It can be done.
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#3 User is offline   awass 

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Posted 2020-August-06, 14:11

View Postmycroft, on 2020-August-04, 14:34, said:

You should search in the forums for all the people who have come on since the Great Closing that ask "how do we stop the next hand from coming up so we can discuss the previous one?" Oh, and never play with those people if you can help it. Trust me, I'm in your camp there :-)

If it distracts you, you can hide the side pane (I've actually suggested that for a couple of my partners, who internalize poor results, even if they're just unlucky poor results (or, more commonly, even if they're unlucky-in-their-choice-of-partner poor results)). If other people's delay is distracting, bid the next hand or, if you're not dealer and after a suitable time to read the traveller, ask for the next hand to start.

Be prepared to be overruled by the rest of the table's preferred pace of play (unless it's a clocked tournament, in which case, if there's too much talking and not enough playing, call the TD to get it to the end of the round).

Note: I have been playing some (relatively) high-level bridge recently. With discussions and a peek at the hand after, we still manage to run 2x12 board match in 2 hours give or take 5 minutes. It can be done.


I am primarily thinking about timed tournaments. Players who dawdle over results on hands 4 and 5 and then get us timed out on board 6 are very annoying but if the resuts are there it is human nature to peek. A little bit of programming could solve the problem.
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#4 User is offline   paulg 

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Posted 2020-August-06, 15:11

I suspect you are in the minority and it would spoil the enjoyment of more people if they could not look at the History. Your request would be a difficult one for BBO :)

Personally I agree with you which is why team matches that I play in do not show the running score or History. However tournaments that I run are barometer because I know my club members prefer that.
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#5 User is offline   mycroft 

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Posted 2020-August-06, 15:12

That's where you call the TD. Look, quickly, comment, *and make your call*, please.

Again, history isn't terribly relevant - without the comparisons (which I did think weren't available in real time a while back, just end-of-round. Maybe I just didn't look before), they'll just argue about whether 3 was obviously forcing, or "You can make game" (because the trumps break 2-2 and two finesses are onside) or "doesn't the 6 obviously discourage?"

Local "tourist" event I play occasionally (which I will admit is one of the stronger club games in existence) is 9x3 IMP pairs. We are given 21 minutes per round; if it takes my table more than 15, we're almost always the last ones done. Finishes usually in 2h40. And yes, everyone looks at history, may even say something. But then we play the next board.

I absolutely agree with you, that we shouldn't give slow players something else to be slow about. But this isn't the quick fix you're hoping for.
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#6 User is offline   McBruce 

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Posted 2020-September-05, 03:50

I can report that I sent a player memo about an inept pair after several deals that screamed of foreknowledge of partner’s cards. My first clue was a deal in the middle of the game where it took almost three minutes for the player who had declared the previous hand (not a dummy stuck raiding the pantry) to open a 3-3-4-3 16 count 1NT. I assumed Table History was the culprit, but eventually was convinced that the lost time was spent transmitting illegal data...
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#7 User is offline   squeezergb 

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Posted 2020-September-06, 06:45

Paul G how do you know your members prefer Barometer scoring on? We have never had it on in my local club but people have seen it elsewhere. The chairman, the most vocal member, was convinced everyone would want it on so we had a secret vote which was decisively in favour of leaving it switched off. Perhaps you are only listening to your vocal members and ignoring the quieter ones who just want to get on with the game.
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#8 User is offline   Tagsybaby 

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Posted 2021-April-21, 00:36

Help. New problem. When I look at History quickly after playing, now the cards won’t load on the screen when I go back to Play for the next round. Same problem on iPad, husband’s iPad and iPhone but not Pc laptop.
Has anyone any ideas??
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#9 User is offline   barmar 

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Posted 2021-April-25, 20:03

This is a known problem on the mobile web version.

You can fix it by switching between landscape and portrait.

#10 User is offline   0 carbon 

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Posted 2021-April-29, 16:29

It does not matter why you are slow. DON'T BE SLOW!
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#11 User is offline   morecharac 

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Posted 2021-April-30, 10:54

View Post0 carbon, on 2021-April-29, 16:29, said:

It does not matter why you are slow. DON'T BE SLOW!

Define slow.

I know one director who thinks everyone should be early for their own funeral.
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#12 User is offline   mycroft 

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Posted 2021-April-30, 11:28

If you more than once aren't able to finish a two-board round in 15 minutes in a session regularly, you're slow. Sure, you might have had help, but not all the time.

If you're regularly not done when the director calls the round, you're slow (at least, you're slow for that game). If the director is calling the round from your table more often than not (because she's passing boards and making sure you finish), you're slow. If the director is calling too fast a game for the room, they will be speeding up different tables each round.

I'm one of those who will call the round when about 75-80% of the tables are done. Yes, that sounds like "early for their own funeral", but the first pairs have already refreshed their coffee and are running out of things to talk about that won't tell the other tables how to play the next round. And most of that 20% will finish by the time I finish calling the round. And those that, regularly, don't - let's just say that they feel no pressure to finish if the round *hasn't* been called ("What's your problem, we still have time?").

And given the choice between the slow players leaving because they're too frustrated and the *fast* players leaving because they're too frustrated, I know where I live.
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#13 User is offline   morecharac 

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Posted 2021-May-01, 10:12

View Postmycroft, on 2021-April-30, 11:28, said:

I'm one of those who will call the round when about 75-80% of the tables are done. Yes, that sounds like "early for their own funeral", but the first pairs have already refreshed their coffee and are running out of things to talk about that won't tell the other tables how to play the next round. And most of that 20% will finish by the time I finish calling the round. And those that, regularly, don't - let's just say that they feel no pressure to finish if the round *hasn't* been called ("What's your problem, we still have time?").

I was thinking of one specific director who would tell the room to hurry up about ten minutes into a fifteen-minute round, among other things. I often noticed him calling rounds several minutes early, with the wall clock in easy view to everyone but him.

At one newly formed club where I was directing I had to gradually wean players off slowness by lowering the time limits to ACBL standards and refusing to let players start boards with one minute left in the round. I know both sides of the equation, and I still consider the term "early for his own funeral" a good description of the director in question.
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#14 User is offline   pescetom 

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Posted 2021-May-01, 11:15

View Postmorecharac, on 2021-May-01, 10:12, said:

I was thinking of one specific director who would tell the room to hurry up about ten minutes into a fifteen-minute round, among other things. I often noticed him calling rounds several minutes early, with the wall clock in easy view to everyone but him.

At one newly formed club where I was directing I had to gradually wean players off slowness by lowering the time limits to ACBL standards and refusing to let players start boards with one minute left in the round. I know both sides of the equation, and I still consider the term "early for his own funeral" a good description of the director in question.


F2F, I don't let players start boards with less than *four* minutes left on a round (OTOH I will never interrupt a board once started, or tell the room to hurry up either). I also have no compunction about calling rounds several minutes "early", if the hands are such that almost every table has finished and people are getting restless. I'm not the kind who would be early for my own funeral, I just consider effective time management part of my duties. All but the slowest pairs seem comfortable with this and even they prefer it to the previous style of letting things run out of control every round and then screaming at them to play it out quickly.

Maybe that last point is the key - manners and consistency are probably more important than actual methods.
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#15 User is offline   mycroft 

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Posted 2021-May-01, 14:32

I was asked to run the Wednesday night Shark Tank game when the regular director had surgery. On recovery, she played in it once, and said "the game's too fast for me".

But that was the one where we played 13x2 in 2h45, 2h50 if it was slow.
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#16 User is offline   pescetom 

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Posted 2021-May-01, 15:03

View Postmycroft, on 2021-May-01, 14:32, said:

I was asked to run the Wednesday night Shark Tank game when the regular director had surgery. On recovery, she played in it once, and said "the game's too fast for me".

But that was the one where we played 13x2 in 2h45, 2h50 if it was slow.


Last week it was my club's turn to host a regional tournament online. When a senior director saw that I was regularly calling the round with 3-4 tables still playing, he urged me to ease off, because the the slow tables would never catch up. I knew what I was doing. We finished 20 boards in 2h15 despite many inexperienced online.
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#17 User is offline   paulg 

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Posted 2021-May-02, 01:27

View Postsqueezergb, on 2020-September-06, 06:45, said:

Paul G how do you know your members prefer Barometer scoring on? We have never had it on in my local club but people have seen it elsewhere. The chairman, the most vocal member, was convinced everyone would want it on so we had a secret vote which was decisively in favour of leaving it switched off. Perhaps you are only listening to your vocal members and ignoring the quieter ones who just want to get on with the game.

Sorry it's taken me more than six months to spot this!

We got multiple complaints when we turned it off, almost exclusively from the faster players who clearly get bored in the timed events. The slower players are the same ones who are slow in real life and they are monitored and it is not the history function that is the problem.
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