[lamford]

A couple of times I have tried to lead a spade against a suit contract, and just as I am clicking on the leftmost card, the trumps move to the left and I end up leading the top trump, both times disastrously, and undos are not normally allowed in the play in the competitions I play in. I cannot find a way to stop this happening, other than waiting for the trumps to move, of course.

[sfi]

You can switch to using the hand diagram rather than pictures of cards. Or you can wait until the cards move around. Neither is a great option I agree.

[lamford]

 sfi, on 2020-June-24, 04:31, said:

You can switch to using the hand diagram rather than pictures of cards. Or you can wait until the cards move around. Neither is a great option I agree.

I assume that the trumps do not move to the top in the hand diagrams! There should be an option "(don't) move trumps to left" as a toggle. It would be a trivial programming change. But thanks for your help!

[sfi]

 lamford, on 2020-June-24, 04:46, said:

I assume that the trumps do not move to the top in the hand diagrams! There should be an option "(don't) move trumps to left" as a toggle. It would be a trivial programming change. But thanks for your help!

No, they don't move in the hand diagram. You can also turn on confirmation of cards to avoid misclicks, but that seems worse than the original problem to me.

There are other ways to improve this part of the interface - not letting someone click for a second or so after cards are moved would also catch most of the misclicks. This issue was raised quite some time ago and even showed up in a high profile situation discussed on BridgeWinners a couple of months ago. So for now we seem to be stuck with it as is.

[shyams]

 lamford, on 2020-June-24, 04:29, said:

A couple of times I have tried to lead a spade against a suit contract, and just as I am clicking on the leftmost card, the trumps move to the left and I end up leading the top trump, both times disastrously, and undos are not normally allowed in the play in the competitions I play in. I cannot find a way to stop this happening, other than waiting for the trumps to move, of course.

It happened to me as well until I forced myself to wait for trumps to move. I would add that it happens to other suits as well i.e. if you pick the (e.g.) sixth card from the left as the opening lead, it would have moved once trumps shuffle around.

[pilowsky]

Learning to wait is also known as delayed gratification. You should be able to manage it by the age of about 7. Maybe later depending on which system you play.

[lamford]

 pilowsky, on 2020-June-24, 05:13, said:

Learning to wait is also known as delayed gratification. You should be able to manage it by the age of about 7. Maybe later depending on which system you play.

The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.” ― C.A.R. Hoare

[pilowsky]

That is true, but there are users and there are users... - PM Pilowsky

[pilowsky]

That would be the same Hoare that invented the null reference?

[nige1]

 pilowsky, on 2020-June-24, 06:37, said:

That would be the same Hoare that invented the null reference?

Tony Hoare is a genius, who wrote an early Algol compiler, many algorithms (including QuickSort), and made seminal contributions to Computer Science.

[pilowsky]

How can I put this without seeming snarky. Basically, the complaint is equivalent to saying that you are upset because you were hit by a car even though you stepped onto the road without taking the simple precaution of looking both ways before stepping out. Or, caught COVID-19 after going to a Trump rally in the middle of a pandemic, even though he specifically warned you that he was not going to be liable if you caught the virus. Or, if you failed to get immunised against seasonal influenza and then complained when you got the 'flu. The complaint is, well not that of a genius.

[Vampyr]

 sfi, on 2020-June-24, 04:59, said:

This issue was raised quite some time ago and even showed up in a high profile situation discussed on BridgeWinners a couple of months ago. So for now we seem to be stuck with it as is.

You mean an issue was raised and the BBO staff refused to do anything about it? Surely not!

[pilowsky]

VAMPYR: sarcasm! I don't believe it!

[sfi]

 Vampyr, on 2020-June-24, 17:45, said:

You mean an issue was raised and the BBO staff refused to do anything about it? Surely not!

In their defence they've been busy and it's not the most serious issue. After you do it once or twice you start to subconsciously wait a beat. They have fixed some of the more significant problems recently - some of the functionality for directors is a huge improvement over even a month ago.

[Vampyr]

 sfi, on 2020-June-24, 18:37, said:

In their defence they've been busy and it's not the most serious issue. After you do it once or twice you start to subconsciously wait a beat. They have fixed some of the more significant problems recently - some of the functionality for directors is a huge improvement over even a month ago.

OK, but are you saying that they had no idea about the need to fix functionality for directors?

Anyway, directors cannot see the results, cannot use a drop-down menu with a list of players if a score adjustment is needed. They also cannot assign (non-artificial) adjusted scores, weighted scores, and I have never tried to give a PP or DP, but I have read on these forums that these are impossible too. Unless these things are some of the things that got fixed.

[sfi]

This is getting off point.

I'm not trying to say everything's perfect, so I'm not sure why you're trying to pretend I am. I'm just saying that I appreciate the things they've fixed recently. You're right about adjusted scores, but I have ways around that so I'm not too stressed (we download the results and have the opportunity to make adjustments before they become official). I get that other people don't have that capability and BBO has been told these things are issues. For what it's worth, I don't care about results, but I would like to be able to see what everyone else did on a board.

However, they did change it so I can use robots when required, subs are easier, director calls make a noise and I can set it up to automatically delay when the session starts and players are missing. Now I can ring them up to see if there's an issue and they don't miss their evening's entertainment. Yes there are other features we would all like but these things make my players happy. So I like them.

[Vampyr]

I have wondered if they were directors running games before the lockdown. I had thought that BBO were running tournaments. If so, I guess they didn’t have what one would really call “directors“, because then the functionalities that didn’t and don’t exist would have been in place.

[miamijd]

 pilowsky, on 2020-June-24, 17:27, said:

How can I put this without seeming snarky. Basically, the complaint is equivalent to saying that you are upset because you were hit by a car even though you stepped onto the road without taking the simple precaution of looking both ways before stepping out. Or, caught COVID-19 after going to a Trump rally in the middle of a pandemic, even though he specifically warned you that he was not going to be liable if you caught the virus. Or, if you failed to get immunised against seasonal influenza and then complained when you got the 'flu. The complaint is, well not that of a genius.

I don't view it as a complaint but rather, an invitation for proposed solutions to a small, but rather annoying (at least for me) problem. Your analogies are not apt.

There's nothing that can be done about auto traffic and pedestrians. Each needs to look out for the other.

Likewise, there's not a lot that can be done if Trump holds an indoor rally. Yes, you can wear an N95 mask, but even then there is some risk. You either accept the risk or else you stay home and watch it on Fox News.

But here, there is something that can be done. My solution is simple but, I think, very effective. BBO should just delay rearranging the suits in all hands until JUST AFTER the opening lead has been made. Then you get the best of all worlds.

What do others think?

Cheers,
Mike

[gbb483]

I think that by the time I've worked out where declarer is in relation to me, the cards have finished their dance anyway. I fail to see the problem.

[Gazumper]

Did it once when I was trying to play fast and it hurt. Never again.