[oryctolagi]

I post this with trepidation, I accept that I may get some stick for what I'm about to say!

I recently rejected an opponent's UNDO request and was promptly booted from the table for my 'sin'. Not a pleasant experience.

My judgement was that the situation arose out of careless play, not a mis-click as the opponent afterwards claimed. Is there a difference?

Was I mistaken? Should I allow all UNDO requests, no matter what?

Maybe BBO is not the place for me.

[barmar]

Some tables are very informal, and they expect players to be accomodating.

For instance, players in the daily JEC exposition games are informed that all Undo requests should be accepted.

[1eyedjack]

oryctolagi, on 2015-December-23, 11:44, said:

My judgement was that the situation arose out of careless play, not a mis-click as the opponent afterwards claimed. Is there a difference?

There is a difference. It is a question of fact and of faith.

It is quite possible that ultimately, for a given instance, agreement cannot be reached on whether or not it is a mis-click. In that event, someone is destined to leave the hand dissatisfied. In that event, the table host has some powers unavailable to others (all players have the power to leave, of course, but only the host has powers to boot).

Should recognition of that impasse be sufficient to justify a decision to leave BBO altogether? Not for me, but that is a personal decision that only you can take.

Personally I tend to allow nearly all undo requests whatever my suspicions, and those suspicions, however strong, do not drive me away. But I am not playing for sheep stations. If I feel that strongly about a particular opponent, ie for repeat offences, well I can flag him black and for most part BBO is big enough that I can avoid him in future without giving up on the site.

[billw55]

Accepting undo is pretty common, most people do accept. A largish minority refuse, or judge case by case.

In my observation/opinion, more undo requests are due to the player changing their mind, than for misclicks.

Personally, I accept if no further play has occurred. If it has, I make a judgement, and often refuse.

[oryctolagi]

I really don't want to quit BBO. I've been playing entirely in the Acol Club for two or three months, almost all the people I've played with are excellent company. I'm hoping to improve my skills (even at my age!) and this is a good place to do it. I don't want to make up my own rules, so it looks like 'go with the flow' is the way to go...

There have got to be some exceptions, of course. If someone loses a finesse, or suffers an unexpected ruff, I wouldn't expect an UNDO...

[barmar]

I think most requests for undoes are not because they took an action and discovered it turned out wrong, like misguessing a finesse.

I think most of them are just due to not paying attention, so they don't notice what an opponent has played. When people are playing in the MBC, most of them are not treating it very seriously, so they don't concentrate on what's going on on the screen as well as they should. They're also usually playing at home, where there are many distractions. The most common thing is planning to finesse, and not noticing that an opponent has played a higher card than expected, so you play a card too low to beat them.

If the player asks for an undo really quickly, most of us will allow it, because we understand that this is not just for fun, nothing is at stake. We've all been guilty of these lapses. It's not really the same thing as changing your mind.

I also think that there are some psychological aspects of online bridge that tend to encourage these lapses. Cards on the screen aren't as substantial as real cards. The pace also tends to be faster. When you're playing f2f, you can see a player starting to pull a card from their hand, and that catches your attention, so you'll take more notice of the card when it gets turned over and played.

These could be important factors to consider regarding using computerized bridge play to solve the cheating problems of f2f bridge.

[oryctolagi]

I accept this.

Nevertheless, I do hope that expelling someone from a table, because you don't like one thing they did, is not the sort of action that most BBO participants would take! I'll take my experience as a one-off.

[1eyedjack]

oryctolagi, on 2015-December-24, 12:36, said:

I do hope that expelling someone from a table, because you don't like one thing they did, is not the sort of action that most BBO participants would take! I'll take my experience as a one-off.

As to the first part, you are right. It is not the sort of action that more than 50% of BBO participants would take. As to the final sentence, I fear that you will be disappointed. It is bound to happen again, unless and until you develop a cadre of known friends and stick with playing with them.

Sorry but you are going to have to develop a thick skin and not let them get under it.

[oryctolagi]

Thick skin duly grown. Don't worry, I'm used to this sort of thing in other places - but other BBO players may not take it well.

Let me illustrate another point where I think the use of an UNDO call was questionable. This was not at the table which I referred to in the OP, but on a different occasion several weeks ago.

I passed as dealer, and my partner opened 1♣ or 1♦ - I forget which. RHO overcalled 1♠ and I passed, and so did LHO. Then RHO asked for an UNDO, and without thinking too much about it, both I and my partner accepted. So RHO retracted his 1♠ and doubled instead.

This seemed a bit irregular to me, since it now transpired that RHO had disclosed two lots of information about their hand: strength and spades, in a somewhat unauthorised manner.

Anyway, this now gave me room to bid 1♥ so I did so. This was passed around to RHO who now bid his spades at the second attempt. I passed but my partner took us into 2♥, the final contract. It was not a good contract and I went down.

I felt that, on that occasion at least, my opponents had not taken advantage of the retraction and RHO had shown his spades legally. And my poor result was my fault really. So no point in making a fuss. But since then, I've been wondering about the whole process of UNDOs. I shall go on being wary of them.

Anyway, enough said.

[barmar]

oryctolagi, on 2015-December-24, 12:36, said:

Nevertheless, I do hope that expelling someone from a table, because you don't like one thing they did, is not the sort of action that most BBO participants would take! I'll take my experience as a one-off.

Unfortunately, some table hosts can be power-mad. If an ordinary partner doesn't like something you do, they may either insult your intelligence (so you'll leave) or they'll leave, but a table host has the additional option of booting you. Everyone's anonymous on the Internet, they don't feel any compunction against acting like an A-hole.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2015-December-23, 12:19, said:

Some tables are very informal, and they expect players to be accomodating.

Often, table hosts have included this information their table descriptions, expecting players to see this before they sit. Of course, if you use the "take me to a table" feature, you never see the description, so you don't know what is expected of you.

[billw55]

oryctolagi, on 2015-December-25, 09:10, said:

I passed as dealer, and my partner opened 1♣ or 1♦ - I forget which. RHO overcalled 1♠ and I passed, and so did LHO. Then RHO asked for an UNDO, and without thinking too much about it, both I and my partner accepted. So RHO retracted his 1♠ and doubled instead.

If a player asks for undo after their partner has already acted, I usually refuse. Real misclicks can be recognized faster than this.