Pairs claiming to be bounced from Tournament by BBO just before Tournament starts
A pair who entered and played last week claimed this week that they were registered and watching the count down when just before the start they got bounced from the tournament whilst still both logged on to BBO
Has anyone else experienced this? I know it was a problem months ago but I thought it was long fixed
Thanks Peter
Peter Bushby Suffolk
Comments
Were they both in the Competitive area at the time? Had either of them spent money and run out of BB$ after registering?
Not sure Gordon. I will find out. Thank You
Peter Bushby Suffolk
Those, together with one of them losing connection, are the most common explanations of this as far as I know.
Do you use the +allavail+ "descriptor string" ? This would delay the start and give the host some indication what is going on. Very helpful if your players suffer random disconnections.
Thanks Gordon and pg10003. We did use +allavail+ and it is useful. I'm going to record the run up tp tourney start on Zoom next week. This is a fairly new Virtual Club and it's not happening at any others I work with.
Peter Bushby Suffolk
I know that they are already overworked, but the BBO administrators do have access to the system logs that will tell them what happened with these particular userids at the start of the tournament. So if they have problems in future, then you do have a way of finding out what happened. Of course, it will almost certainly be one of the causes already mentioned by Gordon earlier.
I had that happen to me in the first event I was directing. They phoned me. Fortunately, there was a half table. I muttered a prayer, put in two robots, and asked the bounced pair to volunteer as substitutes. As soon as they appeared I put them in instead of the robots. The problem was solved.
Interesting ... I've had difficulties trying to sub a pair of robots (added to fill a half table) directly when a human pair become available.
Thank You! (and to everyone else for your help)
Peter Bushby Suffolk
I'm told you need to sub in the human and then immediately substitute them again with themselves. The reason the robots come back is because they were the original players in a paid game.
I'm aware that repeating the substitution process (sub user1 with user 1) "fixes" them in place ... it's getting rid of the robots that is problematic. Having subbed Sitout with Robot (x2) ... trying to sub Robot with user1 gives an error message. I realise BBO system may see this as a loophole to get players in without paying, but this isn't the motivation, just some players with relatively poor internet connectivity.
Like pg10003, I have founding dislodging robots to be impossible!
But it would be useful if I could do it.