[mycroft]

skaeran, on Oct 8 2008, 12:24 PM, said:

mycroft, on Oct 8 2008, 06:21 PM, said:

I ran into Terje Åa (one of the opponents) the next day, and congratulated him on pulling off the win, and asked him two questions:
1) When did the game finish?  0200.  And remember, that was probably after a first session of 1300-1800 or later, then dinner, then start up again at 2000.
2) Is it always like this?  "Usually", he said, "at least after the first two rounds."

If I ever had wanted to be a bridge pro, that stopped it dead in its tracks.

Are you telling us that Terje Aa wasn't the slowest player at the table? That's got to be close to a record, he's one of the consistently slowest players I know.... Your description of his opponent fits very well with how most would describe Terje's tempo at the table.

Well, to give Mr. Skjæran his due, Mr Åa was dummy for 4 or 5 of the 8 hands I had the patience to watch...

[Gerben42]

Quote

To complicate matters, players who finish early almost immediately start bugging the next higher table for boards - even if the round isn't half over yet - with the result of usually slowing that table down. Then too, sometimes they turn the volume down on the timer, making it hard to hear. So if the next higher table is still playing, but hasn't heard the round called, we get upset people at both tables.

Sounds like you should put an automatic penalty on touching the timer, which is really no ones business. People who bug other tables get a warning first, then a penalty.

[jdonn]

blackshoe, on Oct 8 2008, 10:32 PM, said:

To complicate matters, players who finish early almost immediately start bugging the next higher table for boards - even if the round isn't half over yet - with the result of usually slowing that table down.

It is my biggest pet peeve in the UNIVERSE when directors don't let us start the next round early if we are all ready. Like slowing down that table by about 3 seconds to hand us a board (or not at all? I can usually get a director or passerby to grab it for us) compares to making us wait 5 minutes. Maybe that table is slow since their first board was very difficult, so by playing it a little early we PREVENT the game from slowing down since it will possibly be difficult for us too. Or maybe we are a slow pair who just had a passout or easy board and can use the time to get ahead. Players aren't automatically fast or slow - some of us are often fast, but need extra time on other boards.

As you can see this really aggrevates my liver Directors, if a table played a round quicky and is ready to start the next round, let them start it! They have earned it, it might prevent them from falling behind next round, and it avoids people just sitting there mindlessly wondering whether they left the oven on.

[blackshoe]

Gerben42, on Oct 9 2008, 01:11 PM, said:

Sounds like you should put an automatic penalty on touching the timer, which is really no ones business. People who bug other tables get a warning first, then a penalty.

My fault, I was unclear. It's the directors who are turning the volume down — usually because some player sitting close to the timer complains it's too loud.

[blackshoe]

jdonn, on Oct 9 2008, 01:34 PM, said:

It is my biggest pet peeve in the UNIVERSE when directors don't let us start the next round early if we are all ready.

You need to get out more.

If you (or whoever) is polite and courteous and shows due consideration for the North player (who is responsible for the movement of the boards) at the next table, then fine. If I am North (and I usually am) and I'm trying to deal with a difficult hand and the round has not been called, you can pound sand. If you annoy me in that situation I will call the director. Which will, of course, slow the game down more, and probably not solve the problem, because the <expletive deleted> directors around here will not sanction a player "just for asking for a board".

If the round has been called then I agree that passing the boards already played takes precedence over playing the last board.

[Echognome]

blackshoe, on Oct 9 2008, 12:21 PM, said:

If you annoy me in that situation I will call the director. Which will, of course, slow the game down more, and probably not solve the problem, because the <expletive deleted> directors around here will not sanction a player "just for asking for a board".

Have you asked yourself why this is? I don't understand the axe you have to grind with people asking for boards. Having the boards move along helps speed up the game and alleviate when play has fallen behind. So not only do you find this to be a problem, you make sure it becomes one by sitting North! Yuck.

[blackshoe]

I don't sit north in order to cause a problem - and most of the time there isn't one anyway. As for axe grinding, I don't think so. I object to rudeness, and players asking for boards are often rude. I have seen a hand an arm appear over my shoulder, and heard an imperious "boards please". I have replied "just a minute", hoping not to lose my train of thought, to no avail because the person ignores that and insists on getting his boards now.

If the round is called, I try to pass the boards already played immediately. If the round has not been called, I'll pass the boards if asked politely and I'm not in the middle of something, or if I am but it's not something that requires a lot of concentration. But when a request for boards comes halfway through the time alloted for a three board round, I have a problem - for one thing, I've directed too many games where this results in half the field being a round ahead of the other half. When the request is ahead of schedule (because the round has not been called) and the request is rude, I have a problem.

[jdonn]

blackshoe, on Oct 9 2008, 03:39 PM, said:

I don't sit north in order to cause a problem - and most of the time there isn't one anyway. As for axe grinding, I don't think so. I object to rudeness, and players asking for boards are often rude.

Glad to see you simply assumed I ask rudely. Dare I ask you what you would do if I actually asked politely?? Call the director on me for ruining your train of thought, when you freely admit he will do nothing about it?

I wouldn't pound sand. If you didn't hand me the board and no one was walking by to grab it for me, I WOULD yank it off your table. (Of course it has never come to that, since I've yet to meet a person at the next table that pigheaded.) I would probably bump into you "by accident" as I did it, because watching you get upset about it and call the director would make me laugh. You can explain to him how "I" slowed the game down by you not passing me the board and you calling the director which you know would accomplish nothing. Then I would laugh more as you tell the director what happened, he walks away, and him/her and I laugh about you after the game.

[blackshoe]

I had started a reasonable response to your post, Josh, but then I read the rest of it. I see that you're an ass, and we have no grounds for discussion, so I'm done.

[jdonn]

blackshoe, on Oct 9 2008, 05:03 PM, said:

I had started a reasonable response to your post, Josh, but then I read the rest of it. I see that you're an ass, and we have no grounds for discussion, so I'm done.

Lol. Did you read your first response? Your response was "If you ask for a board from me there is a good chance I will act like a dick. If you then take the board from me I will act like a bigger dick." Meanwhile, I need to get out more, I can pound sand if I don't like it, and if my request annoys you then you will call the director (who if he doesn't sanction me for wanting to play bridge instead of just sitting there is an <expletive>). Your next post showed I'm automatically rude for asking for a board.

So yes, I didn't reply to that very nicely at all. Sorry my reply didn't have a bunch of yellow faces in it and therefore I'm an ass! It's such a shame we didn't get to see your, um "reasonable response".

[mycroft]

You may be different, Josh, but most people do exactly what Ed says, and it is incredibly distracting. And the reason that directors don't let you do it is that after round two, you're a board ahead, after round 3, you're a full round ahead, and we have no idea whether to call the round (forcing the slow ones to catch up) or whether to delay a bit because 2/3 of the section is still playing (that would be your table and the table behind, on round 6, and the two tables in front of you, on round 5, plus ancillary stragglers). So we delay, because unless we go hover over your table, we can't see you're on the first board (and if you're on the second, yeah, we could work it out by sequence, but we are thinking about other things...) and now the rounds take 17 minutes instead of 15, and strangely enough, that means the speedies get more impatient...

Oh, and for other reasons, I had to unb0rk 4 rounds of a 2-board section a month ago. With the people that didn't fill in the boards on the slips, the ones that got the wrong pairs, and the ones that put the board numbers in the pair boxes and the pair boxes in the boards, it took about 20 minutes, counting calling the rounds, catching the stragglers, and answering director calls. And the scoring TD was twiddling his thumbs the whole time. "Why don't you have the hand records out?" (because most of the room hasn't moved into the last round?) "Why are we waiting so long for the recaps?" (see above). And you are making the caddies' jobs harder, trying to figure out movements from tickets, because they're not going to know when to pick stuff up, so you'll have two rounds of tickets on your table more often than once, which makes the chance of this that much higher...

If you're polite, and if you don't disrupt the other table unduly, and if you aren't disrupting the game unduly, fine, go ahead, especially in the last couple of rounds. Otherwise, expect "no", or "when I call the round", or something more forceful yet. Please note: as soon as the round gets called, the onus switches. Those who are perennially late who do not immediately pass what boards they do have done upon the round call are treated just as abruptly by me.

I do note, Josh, that in his first response, Ed said the equivalent of "if you are polite, and ask at the right time, and show consideration for someone who's clearly deep in thought, then fine". In other words, "if you aren't a dick, I won't be either." It's only if you think your request to start the next round early is more important than the current round at this table that he's going to be a dick. And frankly, someone who asks for a favour should both accept "no", unless it's clearly unreasonable, and do it politely.

However, I'm sure you are and do, so no problems, eh?

[jdonn]

I just wrote an extremely long detailed reply and accidentally lost it. I'm too lazy to redo it so you are spared, but I have to ask. What does it mean to unb0rk a round?

[mycroft]

So, for many reasons, not least a first-time caddy and a N-S sitout, I got drawn attention to the problem after being told by the scoring director that "it looks like I have bits of three rounds here, and I don't know what goes where. Can you figure it out please?"

Turned out in the two "rounds" of 14-table tickets he handed me, he not only had overcomplete rounds (14 tickets in each, rather than the 13 he should have), but there were elements of *4* rounds. Plus there were four entire tables missing. I have seen situations where two rounds get mixed up (usually over a hospitality break, where 3 tables play through it on the next, and get their break at the end of N+1, and one or two play through it to catch up), but this was ridiculous. Add to that the fact that there was an uncommonly large number of misprinted tickets - wrong pair numbers, E/W and N/S switched, no board numbers printed, and one where 5 was playing 11 and they played boards 5 and 6; the ticket read NS5 playing EW6 playing boards 10 and 11 - and it was a jam. And another round got called before a couple of the "missed" tables were resolved, so there ended up being *5* tickets on those tables.

It was amusing. Or at least it was amusing in the bar afterwards, after we finally got it all sorted out, and got the recaps hung, about 5 minutes later than usual (with, of course, everybody crowded around the scoring area bouncing numbers back and forth. While not as dangerous as when we used to hand-score and hand-add the sections, numbers at the scorer's desk cause higher-than-average miskey incidents, which are (usually) caught, but that takes even more time).

Could have been worse. *I* could have been scoring instead of on the floor.

[mycroft]

er, if you're confused by the vocabulary, "b0rked" = broken, from the same kind of terminak (hmm, where did that word come from?) operator error that produced pr0n.

If it's broken, it's broken. If it's broken beyond belief, it's b0rked. If it's broken beyond all repair, other words or acronyms are used. For some reason computer admins have a *lot* of words for "things not working right"...

P.S. I've always liked "BAD" = Broken As Designed.

[matmat]

mycroft, on Oct 10 2008, 06:16 PM, said:

So, for many reasons, not least a first-time caddy and a N-S sitout, I got drawn attention to the problem after being told by the scoring director that "it looks like I have bits of three rounds here, and I don't know what goes where. Can you figure it out please?"

Turned out in the two "rounds" of 14-table tickets he handed me, he not only had overcomplete rounds (14 tickets in each, rather than the 13 he should have), but there were elements of *4* rounds. Plus there were four entire tables missing. I have seen situations where two rounds get mixed up (usually over a hospitality break, where 3 tables play through it on the next, and get their break at the end of N+1, and one or two play through it to catch up), but this was ridiculous. Add to that the fact that there was an uncommonly large number of misprinted tickets - wrong pair numbers, E/W and N/S switched, no board numbers printed, and one where 5 was playing 11 and they played boards 5 and 6; the ticket read NS5 playing EW6 playing boards 10 and 11 - and it was a jam. And another round got called before a couple of the "missed" tables were resolved, so there ended up being *5* tickets on those tables.

It was amusing. Or at least it was amusing in the bar afterwards, after we finally got it all sorted out, and got the recaps hung, about 5 minutes later than usual (with, of course, everybody crowded around the scoring area bouncing numbers back and forth. While not as dangerous as when we used to hand-score and hand-add the sections, numbers at the scorer's desk cause higher-than-average miskey incidents, which are (usually) caught, but that takes even more time).

Could have been worse. *I* could have been scoring instead of on the floor.

isn't adopting 21st century score-entering hardware a solution to a lot of the scoring problems?

[jdonn]

I want to start a crusade against abbreviations that aren't much shorter than the original word, name, or phrase.

[han]

jdonn, on Oct 10 2008, 04:55 PM, said:

I just wrote an extremely long detailed reply and accidentally lost it.

Was your reply also reasonable?

[jdonn]

han, on Oct 10 2008, 06:47 PM, said:

jdonn, on Oct 10 2008, 04:55 PM, said:

I just wrote an extremely long detailed reply and accidentally lost it.

Was your reply also reasonable?

Entertaining anyway. But it's like politics or religion, I'll never be able to convince the wrong people of anything.

[matmat]

jdonn, on Oct 10 2008, 07:18 PM, said:

han, on Oct 10 2008, 06:47 PM, said:

jdonn, on Oct 10 2008, 04:55 PM, said:

I just wrote an extremely long detailed reply and accidentally lost it.

Was your reply also reasonable?

Entertaining anyway. But it's like politics or religion, I'll never be able to convince the wrong people of anything.

oh sure you will.
you just gotta use their methods.

pitchforks, torches and the occasional burning at the stake

[mycroft]

matmat: yeah, probably. At $150 a table, though, getting (for our unit) probably ~20 sessions a year out of them isn't likely going to be a cost the punters will bear. If we had $5K to spend on helpful things like that, we'd have a duplimate machine. At least that could be used for more than just the tournaments, and could be rented by the clubs.

If "abbreviations that aren't much shorter than the words" is aimed at borked and pr0n, jargon != abbrev. (necessarily). ISTR that casino culture is at least as jargon-heavy as Computers...