[uday]

I just barred the 1st batch of tourney bailers. Since this was the 1st time, i was relatively light.

The ban applied to people who

- Entered more than 8 tourneys (as either a sub or a player)
- Failed to complete 4 or more ( 50%)
- Did this over a span of 2+ days


I used data that was no more than 4 days old (ie, a few days after the Warning was posted in the lobby).

The ban will last for 1 week. During that time, these players will be able to use BBO as always, except

- They will be notified that they are banned from tourneys when they login
- They will be prevented from registering for tourneys
- They will be prevented from signing up as subs for tourneys


"Failing to complete" means that a player sat down (either as a registrant or as a sub) and failed to complete the tourney ( because he lost his connection, logged out, or was subbed out). Yellows, tourney hosts, TDs are exempt. Data for a tournament is discarded (does not count) if a tournament was canceled before completion.

Starting in a few days, this process will be automated. I will probably leave it at these conservative settings (50%) for a while, then eventually drop it down to 30%



Here is a list of the "bail percentages" of this first batch of users


+----------------------------+
| Abandoned (percentage |
+----------------------------+
| 92.31 |
| 72.73 |
| 71.43 |
| 70.59 |
| 66.67 |
| 64.71 |
| 61.54 |
| 60.00 |
| 60.00 |
| 58.97 |
| 57.14 |
| 57.14 |
| 56.52 |
| 56.25 |
| 55.56 |
| 55.56 |
| 55.56 |
| 54.55 |
| 54.55 |
| 53.85 |
| 51.85 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |
| 50.00 |

[inquiry]

I did some quick and dirty math to see what these numbers reflect. The top four spots on this limited group surely were "active"

Someone failed to complete 92.3% of tourneys in four days? Guys, this means that person entered 13 Tournments and finished ONE... that is right, one. That is an astounding number (could be 26 events and finish two of course).

Number two on the list probably finished three events out of 11 (the long decimal points make it easy to figure these out), and number 3 guy looks like he finished four events out of 14.

The interesting guy is the one that failed to finish 70.59 events. He played in 17 tournments and only finished five.

Wow, these guys entered a lot of EVENTS over a four DAY period. I doubt I have played in 17 tournments total, much less in a four day span. This top group in four days played in 11, 13, 14, and 17 tournments. IF they played in this many and were getting "disconnected" common sense would have told them to STOP playing until they got a better connection. And if the were quiting these on purpose? Well, common sense will not help them, but uday will :-)

These numbers are an eye opener... and a week ban from tourneys seem very fair.

Ben

[Mirjam_3]

tx very much uday!!

i see now players are more inspired to keep their connection and finish tournaments so this might be a great help to make tournaments faster.

8 minutes a board and in some tourneys even 9 minutes a board is too long imho.. it must be possible to run 3 boards in 21 minutes and now we make a move forward that!!!

[spwdo]

hi,



lets thank uday, this will decrease our work, lesser subs, this will increase fairness1.nomore cowboy bidders hoping for a max, if not they bail(finisched now) 2. those never finding the right partner till the day they coud play with themselves(finisched also)

this will increase ethics, rude players against partners tds, just boot them guys/girls.If they want to change thier attitudes welcome again

for those with the terrible connections and cant seem to finisch a decent percantage, i agree with ben on this on

for the time period the tournament ban stands for agree in sofar that this is new , lots are unaware but in time when this comes generally know i think there is room for longer periods or perhaps seeing the same names doing that again after a week ban, maybe some xtra encouragement

thx uday for providing some numbers, unfortunaly we tds where aware of this besides those not wanting to see that problem

[Frosty]

Peeps - we are so fortunate to have this backup that Uday has put in place. Thanks UDAY!!!

I agree with Ingrid on the time per Boards. Now that Uday has this tracking in place I have become rather hardnosed about giving extra time. 8 and 9 minute Boards are too long - even with thinking and deliberate play there are still only 13 cards in every hand and 13 tricks to be played. I think this screening of intentionally discourteous players will give us the opportunity to tighten up the time limits.

Frosty

[newmoon]

Mirjam_3, on Apr 7 2004, 07:45 PM, said:

8 minutes a board and in some tourneys even 9 minutes a board is too long imho.. it must be possible to run 3 boards in 21 minutes and now we make a move forward that!!!

If I run 2 or 3 boards per round, I have no problems with 7 min per board. Even in Survivors.

In a clocked event, 1-board-per-round, I allocate 8, but 7 min if unclocked.

Works for me...

Only in the last round, do I give extra minutes to obviate adjusting boards before they finish.

Newmoon

[Gweny]

Thanks Uday!

It is with great happiness I report SIGNIFICANT drop in need for subs. Now it is basically people who is away from computer at start of match and people with bad connections.

Of course we still seeing people who suddenly forget they important thing they MUST do at this very instant. tee hee (translation... i hate my partner or i hate my results)

My reaction to reduce need for subs is reducing survivor cut or eliminating it in some rounds.

[uday]

Second batch (43 users) barred for one week.

[chaitanya]

i love bbo. honestly i didn't read the notification in the lobby about suspension. i fully endorse the view that deliberate slow play must be sicouraged. but the, the speed of the ystem response is not in control of the ardent bridge lover !

this also must be kept in mind before taking any punitive action against that player if it can somehow be determined that it was deliberate. second and perhaps more important is that he / she can be warned progressively that they r not playing the tournaments the hv registered in. this way one wd know that one shd be careful in registering in a tourney.

for example, i register one hour before the start of the start and tell myself i l return to bbo in , say, 50 minutes and alas! i need sometimes fifteeen - twenty minutes to get connected!. fine u warn me but suspension may be after a couple of warnings. next time i l return 25 minutes earlier. this may be considered. afterall we love the game. one more thing -- some people don't resond when u ask them to pair up. they can simply respond by saying NO. instead of not RESPONDING. before i hang up pl lift suspension for all the guys since they hv suffered anyway for two days. next the l be all more careful.

[Gerardo]

But you don't start a tourney just by registering in it, you must be present at start time. There is no penalty if you register but fail to start.
Now, once you started a tourney you are supposed to play it through. Sometimes you just have to bail out because something important comes, BUT that should be the exception, and not the rule. (certainly MUCH less than 50%, hopefully that bar will be raised in the future).
This treates people with bad connections the same as people who leave tourneys purposedly, and that's maybe not fair, and the latter should receive heavier punishment

[spwdo]

hi,


aldough not perfect but what is i think the general idea is that players for whatever reason cant finisch+50% of thier tourneys dont belong in tournaments, if you always pair up with the "bad" partner, u always have "emergency", u connection "always" seem to fail, i feel u better of playing in main with players that can understand that.


With great pleasure we changed our format in the climb of the matterhorn from survivor 0% cuts to swiss again , 50/60 tables , only a handfull subs needed in 12 baords.



spwdo&friends

[uday]

Third batch barred - another 53 users.

This time, I tourney-barred users who , over the past 7 days, bailed from 35% of tourneys that they entered, provided they entered at least 14 tourneys in that period.

[Mirjam_3]

Tx Uday,

I see tournaments gets faster and faster and that is good.. Sorry for those with bad connections but we need to be able to finish tournaments in reasonible time.

And i think we sd go to a 'normal' situation... if you enter you finish unless yr house is on fire...

[McBruce]

House on fire may be a bit of a stretch. At least now we TDs can simply remind everyone that leaving tournaments often, whatever the reason, may have consequences, and then we need not worry about people who ask to leave. If someone wants to leave because they claim an emergency, that is fine with me, I don't need to know the house is burning down. If they leave to join another tournament, they haven't gained anything, since this practice will now increase their incompletion percentage and get them barred.

Another fine solution from Uday. Bravo!

[Frosty]

Just briefly - I too see some relief in the nuisance that tourney jumpers and the subbing associated cause.

I don't see a huge drop in the need for subs - perhaps because my subbing is most often for poor connections or complete disconnects.

I don't want people to think we don't need subs ..... I'm running around 12-15 subs per tourney with 50-60 tables. Part of the continued need may be because its a fast game and we can't wait as long to see if people come back.

Frosty

[uday]

I'm now settling in on this set of paramters:

People who abandon more than 40% of tourneys over the past 6 days and have entered at least 6 tourneys will be banned from tourneys for 1 week.

This week's batch was 160 users.

I am about to automate this and run it daily.

[Frosty]

Where ever we shut a door, someone will discover a window. A frequent tournament player who was recently banned in Uday's sweep has already figured out that using a different computer was all he had to do to get around the ban. This player made the mistake of boasting to me of his crafiness :-(. No telling how many others he bragged to.

My question to Uday is - Am I correct in assuming that you want us to report this if we are aware that it has occurred? And to the general audience - are there other ways to get around these bans?

Frosty

[Mirjam_3]

Hi Frosty,

Sure, send uday flowers!!

[uday]

Nothing terribly wrong with this: we ban computers, not usernames, when tourney banning.

If a player has 2 PCs and one has a poor connection, i'm ok with letting the good pc in.

Once we get past the blatant abuse , i might also log how the player left (sub? disconnected by accident? Intentional disconnect?) and use this info as well; maybe 2 Interntional disconnects in a week could be sufficient for a ban.

And in the long run, i think we will get more aggressive than repeatedly banning PCs. Our first thought was to BBO-Ban anyone who was tourney-banned more than once. Maybe we will do that in the future, though i dont think i see the need now.

[inquiry]

Question of Sub's

I got this question today, which I don't know the answer.

If you sub into a tournment and then leave before it is over (say replaced by original player, for instance, who returns), does that count. (IE do you have to be one of the starting players?

A related quesiton, if you leave a tourney, but then sub back into it (presumably getting your original seat back, as my recollection is you should not come back replacing a different original player), does this count as you finishing the event (that is, if you are there for first hand and last hand?).

Ben