Undo by 4th Hand
I know that undos may be allowed in bidding where analogous to mechanical error.
But what about 4th hand.
I have reported to me a 'pass' being made when clearly some bid was warranted.
However because it was the 4th hand BBO just swept on to the next board!
Assuming the opponents accept that 'pass' was 'mechanical error' what should happen?
Comments
For the moment, we have to accept this as a limitation of the BBO bridge experience. The result (passed out) stands.
If this is in a game where, otherwise, undos are allowed in clear cases of misclicks (& supported by Law 25), then I think that it would be wrong to let the Pass Out stand. Since we cannot, presumably, assign an actual bridge result, I would be inclined to adjust to an average.
You would have to be careful there though to ensure that a player in 4th seat can't take advantage of some sort of double chance. If you hold a normal 13-14 point opener, for example, and "misclicked" a pass, then you can see your partner's hand, see if the opponents would find a spade part-score or not (again as an example), and then ask for a TD adjustment only if it would be favourable to you. The opponents would never be in a position to argue their case so the player would get 50% or the pass out score if better.
While again I strongly believe that 99.9% of EBU members wouldn't exploit it in that way, it would be wrong to open an unnecessary loophole of this kind. It is an interesting point, but perhaps a 40/60 result would be more appropriate since one side is clearly "at fault"; As Robin says, it is a limitation of BBO and I suspect most clubs would just expect the pass out to stand. In an EBU event, there is much more of a case for an adjustment.
Maybe a 25 HCP hand, oops passed out. Does not seem right to limit the implementation of the rules due to technological limitations.
I have played on BBO for many years, mainly socially so who cares about the result? When playing in a 'proper' competitive game however, this could change the whole outcome for the placements of people not involved in that hand. That is not why I want to play competitive bridge.
Well with a 25 HCP hand then a 50/50 for a misclicked pass in 4th seat (or another seat I suppose and the other players pass it out before they get round to asking for an undo) doesn't seem unreasonable. I was just pointing out the potential damage to the opponents in specific circumstances (let's face it, a misclicked pass out is presumably pretty rare, let alone with a marginal open).
As you say, BBO has always been more for the social side of bridge than the competitive side so BBO has tried to do all it can to deal with the sudden surge in demand for both. Similarly, not all clubs are as competitive as others and many people would just laugh it off and take advantage of the time at the end of the round to chat about something completely different. Given that EBU pairs sessions don't permit undos as per the new Sky-Blue regulations, I would infer that an adjustment for a misclick is not appropriate in those anyway, whereas many clubs are coming up with their own rules on how to treat undos, director involvement etc.
Interesting responses.
Not sure there is a consensus here, though.
This happened in a League Match (Club not Lockdown).So in accordance with EBU Guidance, I advised it was up to the Team Captains to resolve.
They decided to treat it as a flat board.
(And therefore I suppose it was a seven, rather than eight board match, but since we use the discrete scale : no change.)
I think if it had happened at Pairs (where we do allow Bidding undos) Av-/Av+ would be reasonable.
Certainly the pair in 1st & 3rd have been denied the chance of a good result: and the action of 4th, albeit inadvertently, has led to the situation.
Am I the only one who believes that in a system which can be set to confirm a bid or confirm a card played, to fire off a "Pass" is a definite decision?
I reckon that to say you meant to bid 1 prune instead of Pass is a change of mind.
However, that gets tedious very quickly so I don't know anyone that does this. I just click once to play a card or to make a call.
The simple solution is no undos in any games except social/casual games?
Almost everyone I know who plays much online bridge does this.
I find that so interesting. I don't, but then I don't tend to misclick either. But I suspect that's because I'm used to playing computer games.
One other thing perhaps worth mentioning is that you can enable keyboard entry for bidding/play. There will be some people who don't have the dexterity to reliably handle a mouse, but for whom a keyboard might be more forgiving.
That is really interesting - I too have been used to playing games on my computer and laptop. I am also very IT literate and have used computers all of my working life - so I don't misclick at bridge (I much more frequently misclick playing 1 minute chess games, as speed is of the essence).
If I were to play serious bridge on a touchscreen device, I probably would enable the double click to play option, but never with a mouse.
I noticed Ian tends to ‘ave’ the board in this situation. But doesn’t that spread the error across the field? Isn’t marking the board as ‘unplayed’ an option? I realise it isn’t strictly speaking a spoiled board but online bridge does cause some oddities.
When this occurred in a match, the board was scored as 'Pass out' - the score obtained at the table.
I don't think you can mark a boards as unplayed, so when a board is disallowed and the system gives AV/AV I load the results into EBUScorePairs and delete that score and that goes to the club website as the official version, and that gives the fairer result.
As is always the case with club bridge, it's all about weighing up strict adherence to the laws with what is right for your club environment. The laws here would say that an artificial score i.e. 50/50 or 40/60 would have to be awarded, or instead require the result "Passed Out" to stand if undos are not permitted. "Not played" is not a valid resolution under the laws as the board was started and couldn't be completed due to an error on the player's part and, to a similar extent, a software limitation. A "Not Played" outcome may be "fairer" to one side or another, or both, but isn't technically permitted under the laws.
I had a similar situation in a club session this evening; One player, not familiar with the claiming process on BBO, knew that time was quickly running out and proceeded to misclick the third last trick. They requested an undo but this was rejected, and the Sky-Blue Book says that such an undo is not permitted in any case. The player in question called me as the director within a few seconds of the incident occurring. The laws would say that the table result stands, while the club bridge adaptation of the laws (as I like to think of it!) would permit the intended "claim" to stand as this was their intention. As has been mentioned elsewhere on this forum, clubs are able to make specific adaptations to the laws as they see fit to cater for their members while still ensuring that a session meets the minimum requirements as set out by the EBU - this is ultimately essential for the success and popularity of the game, though unfortunately doesn't make the director's role any easier!
Clubs do still need to follow the Laws but are free to make their own regulations that don't conflict with them.
Yes, sorry that was a bit sloppy of me. I believe I'm correct in saying that clubs are free to make their own regulations that may conflict with the White, Blue, or Skyblue Books (if they wanted to) as these are EBU "regulations", but that the Laws of Duplicate Bridge cannot be overridden. This in normal times might include an Acol-only bridge club for instance (or in my case, rulings in university bridge clubs for when pairs seem to randomly turn up and leave in the middle of sessions!)
I suppose what that in mind, Law 12 would suggest that "Not Played" cannot be entered as in the example above. In the case of the undo and claim situation, that (in my interpretation) is a matter for the Skyblue Book as opposed to the laws directly... I should emphasise that I think the EBU regulations are fantastic as general guidance, especially page 43 of the White Book which seems to come up a lot at my club :) I was just taking the view that in more local events, the enjoyment of members may require specific adaptations, especially as many club players are still unfamiliar with the features of BBO.
I don't think we are really disagreeing with each other very fundamentally, but I wanted to avoid anyone else misinterpreting what you said. You are correct that regulations in the Blue, White and Skyblue books do not need to be followed by clubs, though I would advise them to use those as the default until they meet a situation where they actively want to draw up an alternative regulation for their own use.
There is an online game run by a Netherlands group, translates to stepbridge. They have a button to change bid, the director is called and makes the decision.
Thanks. See https://www.ebu.co.uk/node/3886