[A2003]

On-line players should be informed about this feature.
Place the mouse arrow on the card to be played without clicking.
The card pop-up slight ahead of the layout, ensure the card you want to play and then take 0.5 to 1 sec delay and click to play the card.
This is a double move. This minimizes misclicks if practiced enough.

Video presentation in BBO news may be helpful.

[blackshoe]

The host, as I understand it, can say whatever he likes. "My rules, or I take my ball and bat and go home". Doesn't mean you have to play in his game. Of course, there's no way to enforce "must accept all undos" as the software is written. Again, as I understand it; I'm no expert in the mechanics of online play.

[kenberg]

Playing f2f yesterday I did something that was technically wrong. Rho opened 1NT, I passed, Lho bid 1S. I said no, he looked in shock at the 1S card on the table, and I said "If you want to bid 2S just go ahead, otherwise we need the director because I don't know all the rules". He bid 2S, alerted as a trf to clubs. Indeed this was the intent of the 1S bidder and the final contract was 3C. Of course I was in the wrong. Players are not supposed to make rulings and in this case I think the director would have allowed my partner to accept the bid. So the bidding maybe could have gone 1NT-1S-1NT-2S-3C. Big deal, but mea culpa.

Anyway, the relevance here is that I don't particularly want to punish mechanical errors but I do think it is reasonable to expect players not to lean too much on my indulgence. By using the technique suggested by A2003, or some variant of their own choosing, most players could manage. I acknowledge the existence of nerve and muscular disorders but the vast majority of my errors are errors of thought and I believe this is true for almost everyone.

Btw, we had a 65% game. If we held the 1S bidder's feet to the fire, say we might have insisted that their convention card did not show that 1NT-1S-1NT-2S was a transfer, perhaps we could have made 66%. I prefer doing it my way.

[ArtK78]

kenberg, on 2011-July-15, 07:45, said:

Playing f2f yesterday I did something that was technically wrong. Rho opened 1NT, I passed, Lho bid 1S. I said no, he looked in shock at the 1S card on the table, and I said "If you want to bid 2S just go ahead, otherwise we need the director because I don't know all the rules". He bid 2S, alerted as a trf to clubs. Indeed this was the intent of the 1S bidder and the final contract was 3C. Of course I was in the wrong. Players are not supposed to make rulings and in this case I think the director would have allowed my partner to accept the bid. So the bidding maybe could have gone 1NT-1S-1NT-2S-3C. Big deal, but mea culpa.

Anyway, the relevance here is that I don't particularly want to punish mechanical errors but I do think it is reasonable to expect players not to lean too much on my indulgence. By using the technique suggested by A2003, or some variant of their own choosing, most players could manage. I acknowledge the existence of nerve and muscular disorders but the vast majority of my errors are errors of thought and I believe this is true for almost everyone.

Btw, we had a 65% game. If we held the 1S bidder's feet to the fire, say we might have insisted that their convention card did not show that 1NT-1S-1NT-2S was a transfer, perhaps we could have made 66%. I prefer doing it my way.

Sorry if this is a hijack, and I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that if the correction of an insufficient bid by making it sufficient results in a conventional call, then the usual rule permitting the bidder to make his bid sufficient without penalty does not apply. Having said that, if it is obvious that the intent of the bidder was to make the conventional call, perhaps it should be allowed. I just do not know if the laws allow that correction without penalty.

If the error was truly a mechanical error, then a correction of the mechanical error should always be allowed without penalty.

[semeai]

ArtK78, on 2011-July-15, 08:29, said:

Sorry if this is a hijack, and I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that if the correction of an insufficient bid by making it sufficient results in a conventional call, then the usual rule permitting the bidder to make his bid sufficient without penalty does not apply. Having said that, if it is obvious that the intent of the bidder was to make the conventional call, perhaps it should be allowed. I just do not know if the laws allow that correction without penalty.

If the error was truly a mechanical error, then a correction of the mechanical error should always be allowed without penalty.

Law 27B1a says that it's fine if both bids are incontrovertibly natural. If not, then 27B1b says it's fine if the corrected bid has the same meaning as or a more precise meaning than the insufficient bid.

What the "meaning of an insufficient bid" like 1♠ here is was the subject of a recent lengthy discussion in the laws forum. I think one opinion was that it is whatever the player who bid it intended, as far as the director can determine. With this interpretation, if the director thought the player intended to transfer to clubs, the correction to 2♠ would be fine.

Beware that I'm not a laws expert.

[kenberg]

Both comments above are interesting and are things I didn't know. But I don't want to be organizing a hijack, so probably I should try to backpedal a bit and just repeat that I am fine with correcting mechanical errors but I think that players should take some responsibility for keeping the undo requests, in bidding or in play, to a minimum. I have seen games where it just gets silly. We do our best, we all make mistakes, we move on and try to make fewer of them. The world does not end if you make a bad play or call, whatever the reason for it.

[Zelandakh]

That may be so in the card view A2003, but I simply cannot visualise my hand thus and instead use the diagram view. Luckily I rarely misclick on the cards (more commonly in the bidding) but occasionally a misclick does happen.

[billw55]

I was involved in a very similar situation at a sectional swiss last weekend. LHO opened 2♣, partner bid 2♠, RHO bid 2♠. Director informed me that I could:

1. accept the bid and continue with no further penalties; or
2. refuse the bid, in which case RHO must chose a different call, and opener must pass throughout. (this because RHO's call was conventional)

Of course I chose option 2. RHO took a stab at 3NT with no spade stopper. Opener tabled the stiff ♠A, there were nine cashers, and there was no swing. Next hand ..

[shintaro]

billw55, on 2011-July-15, 09:52, said:

I was involved in a very similar situation at a sectional swiss last weekend. LHO opened 2♣, partner bid 2♠, RHO bid 2♠. Director informed me that I could:

1. accept the bid and continue with no further penalties; or
2. refuse the bid, in which case RHO must chose a different call, and opener must pass throughout. (this because RHO's call was conventional)

Of course I chose option 2. RHO took a stab at 3NT with no spade stopper. Opener tabled the stiff ♠A, there were nine cashers, and there was no swing. Next hand ..

lol thats just 'bridge' or rub of the green as we call it

[barmar]

billw55, on 2011-July-15, 09:52, said:

I was involved in a very similar situation at a sectional swiss last weekend. LHO opened 2♣, partner bid 2♠, RHO bid 2♠. Director informed me that I could:

1. accept the bid and continue with no further penalties; or
2. refuse the bid, in which case RHO must chose a different call, and opener must pass throughout. (this because RHO's call was conventional)

Before the last revision to the Laws, that was the rule for corrections of insufficient bids -- if either the original or replacement is conventional, partner is barred.

The 2007 Laws changed this as described above. So either there's more to this situation than you've described (perhaps there was no replacement call that fit the new criteria), or your Director has not kept up to date (it's been several years, he should have learned the new law by now).

[billw55]

barmar, on 2011-July-16, 09:44, said:

Before the last revision to the Laws, that was the rule for corrections of insufficient bids -- if either the original or replacement is conventional, partner is barred.

The 2007 Laws changed this as described above. So either there's more to this situation than you've described (perhaps there was no replacement call that fit the new criteria), or your Director has not kept up to date (it's been several years, he should have learned the new law by now).

The director consulted with opener away from the table, so there may well have been some additional information on the circumstances that I was not made aware of.

[bbutcher85]

Free, on 2011-July-13, 08:40, said:

Basically I don't really see the point of allowing undos. Only in a friendly game where I know my opps and know they wouldn't abuse the function I'd allow one.

People use misclick as a reason to allow the undo, but like many others I get the feeling that this argument is abused. There are way too much undo requests while I never have a misclick myself. Some people blame their mousepad for their many misclicks. Well, they should just buy a mouse imo, it's not like it's a huge investment...

Some of us use a Kindle or similar small screen device, and it is very easy to click on the wrong card or bid since the finger is 2-3 times the width of the point on the screen. In ACBL tournament play and sanctioned club play the director will permit changing of a mistaken bid as long as the players partner has not bid. This is not to say you can change your mind, but you pulled the wrong card from the bidding box.

[barmar]

bbutcher85, on 2013-December-11, 21:29, said:

Some of us use a Kindle or similar small screen device, and it is very easy to click on the wrong card or bid since the finger is 2-3 times the width of the point on the screen.

When I use the mobile app I usually enable the "Confirm bids" option because of this. I don't do it for plays, though, because it would be too annoying to do it for every card.