[McBruce]

Just played in an individual tournament and on the final board a player opened 1NT and my partner overcalled 2♥. RHO bid 2♠ and opener raised to 4♠. Both opponents had said nothing since arriving at the table. The dummy came down and was a 4-2-3-4 18 count. Partner immediately made a comment that not announcing non-standard notrump ranges was unethical. I refrained from letting partner know that this seemed awfully minor to me. The opponents made twelve tricks and to my surprise, partner continued to make his case to me privately in the lobby. I repsonded by saying that the NT opener had perhaps miscounted, and then taken a shot by bidding game which might have been quite wrong. My partner's next salvo was that it was maddening to make a overcall which (s)he wouldn't have made knowing the 1NT opener was stronger than 15-17. Apparently that 18th point is huge. I nearly asked partner if (s)he thought this Poland-Denmark combination were a trans-Baltic pair who had a whole system: one presumably that they spent so much effort not disclosing that they missed slams. Anyway, predictably, the scores came out and we had scored 88.5% for -480, most bidding slam.

The point here is that there is a very unfortunate suspicion of foul play in tourneys by many players. One idea I had some time ago might work in Indys: remove the names of the players! If you sit down and you do not know the name or the stats of your partner, it would FORCE you to type at least one message to agree on a system. Too many players refuse to communicate at all in Indys. And of course, if you cannot tell who your partner is, you cannot use ICQ or the telephone to make sure of a good result. And you can't claim that the opponents are doing so. You have to sit down, agree on a system, and play the best bridge you can play. Isn't that what we all want?

To implement this option would require a tweak in the software to allow for Blind Indys, and then replace the player names with compass positions, and disable the stats screens. It might be a good idea to re-enable all this when all of the boards in a round have been played and there is time left to chat. Of course, you could still chat to the other players without knowing for sure who they are, but I imagine Blind Indys would have to have a rule against a player giving away his identity.

Comments?

[Gerben47]

I don't like your idea. The whole point of Individuals is to play with people you would not normally play with. If you do well with someone you can play with them at a regular table.

In your situation I would call director against your partner. Both players probably silently agreed BBO standard by default. Then the Polish player considered his 18 HCP as 1NT because that's normal in Poland. They don't have 18 HCP, it's either not enough for a strong variant of Polish Club or it isn't. This one wasn't so 1NT came out.

[Rain]

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The whole point of Individuals is to play with people you would not normally play with. If you do well with someone you can play with them at a regular table.

Quote

It might be a good idea to re-enable all this when all of the boards in a round have been played and there is time left to chat.

I think this is a very interesting idea. I'd like to see it happen, and when all boards are played, you'll get to see who you partner, so you can make a note then if you like that partner.



Rain

[Gerben47]

Giving away the names after the boards have been played does not solve the problem, McBruce's partner would still make trouble at the moment the names would be revealed. This is a situation where the cure is worse than the problem.

Knowing your partner adds significantly to individuals. Besides, people would just say: 'Hi, I am <add your name here>'.

Often you can tell more from the information in the profile than would have been possible with just chatting. Country, playing level and the way people present it tells you what kind of person is playing. This is important!

Also, people are not forced to write a message even if they are anonymous. Just like now some will just assume partner plays SAYC and act accordingly and say nothing. This will not change.

Another thing: Cheating in Individual is nearly impossible. If 2000 people are online, how many of those would you be able to reach outside BBO? And if you get 10 random partners, it would be already rare if one of them is in your contact list...

You are focussing on the wrong problem. The problem is not cheating, it's people accusing others of cheating. That should be dealt with. Let the TD and the BBO staff know of this person's (in this case your partner) bad behaviour, regardless of his position at the table.

[Rain]

I would say a blind indi. tourney will have little or nothing to do with cheating, although it would alleviate certain obvious cheating problems. It is a new idea to me (as applied to bridge), and I think the concept is cool. If implementation is easy, then why not? Ideas start out this way. If it works out and blossom into a new online craze, why not? If not, at least we tried to inject an element of fun and originality.


This idea appears difficult to implement in real life tourneys, I wonder why.



Rain

[etherwiz]

I like the idea of blind indy.

Msybe a bit too complex to make real, for the small gain it would provide.

But then lately I think I would be in favour of a blind anything. Doubly so blinding the dealers. But they are blind allready arn't they? Well then mabe just for the pain . . . . .

[Trpltrbl]

I would tell your pd to take a chill-pill. He gets a good result, and that 1 lousy Jack really will not make a difference. But I have seen people whine and cry over about anything in bridge, let them, if it goes too far, we do have Zero Tolerance. It is just a game, people from different countries play different styles, enjoy it. And if they can't I hope they go somewhere else and bother people there.

Mike

[blackbikin]

hi all

i came to bbase after 4 years playing in yahoo.i remeber well, once we all got the same id (incognoto1...2......and so on), it was great fun, and we loved it ,but when they have done it for 4 th time we got fed up with it.
i think we all find in indy people we do not know, or normaly not play with, we make friends, as every second round it's a new player.
with all wininng and trying to win it's nice that some players play, to meet people also, to make friends and later meet them in real life.
i would hate to direct incognitos.
players do report rude p/opps, but if you are not at the table it's hard to make a decision, what was said.
if all players would have filled the description of the play, it easier, usually playr wsays, my profile pls...and that solves the problem.
but i'm just dumb blondie.
love
barbara

[McBruce]

OK, let's get off the original example and move on to how blind Indy's would work.

When you begin the tourney, you see no names, only compass positions. An auto-generated message (in your language maybe) tells you that player names will appear after the eleventh trick is completed or a claim is accepted, and you should agree on a basic system with your partner now. No profiles can be viewed.

After the deal, if unclocked, the system might allow for 30 seconds to a minute of extra time to allow players to chat now that they know who they are chatting with, before changing for the next round.

Kibitzers would not see names or profiles either until the players do.

Advantages:

--forces players who never talk to agree on a system at least instead of looking at a profile and guessing
--no ICQ or instant message or telephone cheat chat possible
--people who grumble about replays in unclocked indy tourneys would not know they were in a replay until the end of the round

[Karma]

Interesting idea, McB.
This would be very useful for any Indy Championship, for several reasons.
The most useful would be the ability to publish the 'system' for the event and have confidence that everyone is playing the same system.

Nothing can ruin your day like one opponent making a non-system bid and the other opponent fielding the bid. A Blind Indy should prevent this problem.

For example, a player is thinking of making a psyche bid and/or a response bid on a 3 card suit. In fact in some systems and countries, this is very common and players will automatically make this bid. If the bid was made in a Blind Indy it is unlikely to be understood. Thus, to do well in the Indy, a player must spend at least some time to understand the bidding system. A player can get lucky once or twice, but in the long run that player will not score well making 'random' bids.

As for the examply hand, I don't believe a Blind Indy would have helped. The whiners will still whine, and the bounders will still bound.

[McBruce]

Nothing can ruin your day like one opponent making a non-system bid and the other opponent fielding the bid. A Blind Indy should prevent this problem.


Actually, in the Alphabet Points tournaments, this sort of thing livens up my day. All you need do is message me privately, tell me which board and I can look it up. If there is a non-standard bid that is fielded, and the fielding side gains, I adjust. Simple. Haven't done it yet, but have had several ask. And I have actually banned two players after getting repeated complaints that they were not playing sayc--a quick look at the boards they played revealed that on any hand in which they held decent or better cards, like about 10 out of 15, they would either try a psyche or double/redouble whatever the opponents ended up in.

[sdols]

I like the idea, but i see some problems. And 1st of all - the problem with adjustments. For now we use board number AND player name to adjust. Thing is that noone (1% maybe) remember the table number.

[McBruce]

I have found that when someone asks for an adjustment I usually ask for the board number and check the complaining player's result, instead of the players being complained about.

It's like geometry: table number, board number, name of any of the four players. If you have any two of those three you can find the movie.