Bridgemates - show previous results of current board or not?
What are people's preferences for this?
I find the players like it, but it has its downsides. Apart from the time it takes as they discuss the results, and the risk of those discussions being heard at another table, there are the consequences or inadvertently seeing results from a board they haven't yet played because they've put the wrong board number in: 40-40 (White Book 2.8.2 footnote 5).
For some reason yesterday pairs seemed prone to putting in the wrong board number - I had to cancel 26 scores entered against wrong boards - despite regular reminders from me. Had they been able to see the previous results there would have been a lot of 40-40s and a lot of unhappy players.
Thoughts?
Jeremy
Comments
There is a sense in which players expect to see the other scores because they would have done with paper travelers.
But then with travelers they can't accidentally score against the wrong board.
;) :)
Alan
"But then with travelers they can't accidentally score against the wrong board. "
... but they can score on the wrong line, of course!
This really happened a few years ago:
"TD!"
"How can I help?"
"Someone's scored on our line. Oh, hang on - It's my handwriting! Oh! We have just played the same board twice!"
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
"For some reason yesterday pairs seemed prone to putting in the wrong board number ... "
This can happen if the bridgemates are set to automatically enter the first board of each round but you have tables sharing boards so that many tables don't play the boards in a round in ascending order. I always prefer to have the players enter the board numbers themselves.
Barrie Partridge - CTD for Bridge Club Live
I very much dislike having the board number automatically entered. It causes problems when sharing and can also cause problems when the previous table hands over the stack of boards out of order and no one notices. When the number is blank and has to be entered, players are more likely to look at the actual board number on the hand. When it's already entered, they often don't think to check, since it's already there in the Bridgemate.
As for showing previous results on the hand. We find that players expect to be able to see what other have done and grumbling ensues when they can't. It can be annoying when one is awaiting players from the previous table and one glances across to see them discussing their result rather than coming over to play.
The time when automatic board entering makes sense is when the rounds are very long, such as for the 16-board rounds of many trials or possibly the 7-board rounds of Swiss events. Even then I think the setting should require that the board number of the first board played be entered.
Strangely in PairsScorer if one clicks the "restore EBU Pairs defaults" the tick is taken out of the box "show previous results". However, if one does the same action now in EBUScore pairs the tick in the box next to "show previous results" is replaced. Just wondered if anyone knows what the change was based on and under who's direction it was carried out. Also when it was done.
I really don't like the scores from other tables being shown for the reasons as mentioned above. I see no benefit of reading the other contracts as it will never help in the following boards. If a bad board happens then in the majority of cases the board and contracts can be seen on-line, at home and in comfort, and a decision made as to whether the contract reached was optimum or well off the mark. If people get consistant bad boards worrying about it that night will not help, probably more of a hinderence.
CMOT_Dibbler
I really don't think it's up to the director to decide. Every club needs to have a policy here, which should be driven by the preference of the players themselves. If players generally want to see previous scores - which was of course always the case with paper travellers then that is their choice, and increases their enjoyment of the game.
Even before bridgemates people could and did accidentally look at the wrong traveller so this risk is nothing new.
As a player I feel I am entitled to see previous scores on the board, and it annoys me if someone chooses to withhold that information on the dubious grounds that they don't think I need to know.
+1
I do think it's odd when clubs who have several directors don't seem to have any interest in having all the directors take the same approach to particular situations.
At one of the clubs where I play there is a perennial problem with slow play. IMO not displaying results would help, but it's not even worth suggesting in practice.
Well, I usually want to play the next board rather than look too closely at the results, much of the time I don't really care to see the percentage, it's just depressing! But I'm in the minority, players like and are used to seeing the other results. And, as a director, sometimes I do get advance warning of a strange result.
As BGM says, it should come down to club policy anyhow. If the players want it, the directors should work round it. There are ways to reduce the downside, regular warnings about slow play or reading results too loud can have a small effect.