[hrothgar]

in an earlier thread A2003 posted the following:

"ACBL Director does not recognize Full disclosure convention card and its explanations.
It is required to alert and explain in ALERT BOX in spite of what it says in Full disclosure convention card. This is in addition to what it says in Full disclosure convention card explanations.

ACBL Director Gweny ruled against me for ave- for not doing this on couple of occasions."

I'd like to see some clarification regarding the offical policies of BBO's ACBL affiliate about the use of the FD application.

[uday]

FD is a perfectly acceptable alternative to the original (older) convention card.

For that matter, you could post a link (to the table) to your personal convention card and that would also be acceptable.

[barmar]

Since FD displays something for just about every bid, whether they're standard or unusual, it's easy to understand how players might not pay close attention to every one of its popups. So I think it's a good idea to require clicking the ALERT button when you make alertable bids, to call the opponents' attention to that bid.

But if the explanation in FD is complete, I don't understand the justification for requiring you to retype the explanation.

[Gerben42]

yes you should press the alert button when you make an alertable bid, also with FD. NOT JUST IN ACBL TOURNEYS!!!

[jocdelevat]

So I see as a non sense to use FD if I still have to explain. It will be more like a memory help for partner.

[hrothgar]

uday, on Dec 29 2006, 06:53 PM, said:

FD is a perfectly acceptable alternative to the original (older) convention card.

For that matter, you could post a link (to the table) to your personal convention card and that would also be acceptable.

Hi Uday

If possible, I'd like to see the TD's who are administering the tournaments comment

I've often seen deviations between the laws on the books and the laws that are actually being enforced

[uday]

I can't speak for non-acbl tourneys on BBO, but I can speak for the acbl-tourneys on BBO. As long as alerting rules are followed ( ie, ACBL-in-memphis want you to alert this and that and you have to do so) there is no issue with using FD instead of a CC

But perhaps Gweny will comment.

[pigpenz]

uday, on Dec 29 2006, 05:56 PM, said:

I can't speak for non-acbl tourneys on BBO, but I can speak for the acbl-tourneys on BBO. As long as alerting rules are followed ( ie, ACBL-in-memphis want you to alert this and that and you have to do so) there is no issue with using FD instead of a CC

But perhaps Gweny will comment.

yes i thought originally the goal was to get the FD card to replace the old style cards.

[DrTodd13]

FD is just not a replacement for the old-style CC. The old-style CC would not automatically show the description of a bid. I wish that Fred and Uday would do two things. First, make some sort of announcement and verify that people have read it before continuing. This announcement would say that FD exists, what it does, how to see explanations, etc. In other words, the basics of how FD operates. Next, when a bid is alerted and FD has an explanation, have the software automatically insert a statement to the effect of "hover your mouse here and you'll see the explanation in the upper right-hand corner." There has been a failure to communicate as people who alert a lot and use FD like I do will tell you that people don't know they need to hover over the bid nor do they know where to look should they do that. This seems like something you could do and internationalize it to do away with the language problem.

[Gweny]

Our policy from the start on the Full Disclosure card is that you STILL must alert your bids via the alert box. Partially this is/was because of incorrect/incomplete FD cards that do not match what players were playing leading to unintentional misinformation.

Using the alert box eliminates this problem.

[the hog]

Gweny, on Dec 31 2006, 01:15 PM, said:

Our policy from the start on the Full Disclosure card is that you STILL must alert your bids via the alert box. Partially this is/was because of incorrect/incomplete FD cards that do not match what players were playing leading to unintentional misinformation.

Using the alert box eliminates this problem.

So what happens if their explanation does not match what they are playing? You either have FD or you don't.

[blackshoe]

Not sure what you means by "the eplanation doesn't match what they're playing" but if you mean it doesn't match the CC (FD or otherwise) you have the same problem you do in f2f bridge - which is the correct explanation. TD has to decide on the preponderance of the evidence. What you don't do is look at the player's hand - not while the deal is still in play.

[hrothgar]

Gweny, on Dec 31 2006, 06:15 AM, said:

Our policy from the start on the Full Disclosure card is that you STILL must alert your bids via the alert box. Partially this is/was because of incorrect/incomplete FD cards that do not match what players were playing leading to unintentional misinformation.

Using the alert box eliminates this problem.

Hi Gweny

I wish that you'd reconsider this position. I'll be the first to admit that the Full Disclosure application is far from perfect. However, its still a damn good application and one that deserves to be supported. Your decision to neuter the application is going to have a severe impact on its adoption rate. FD is intended as a tool to make people's lives easier by elimininating the requirement to manually type in announcements. If you force people to retype all the same information using the "old" alert system you take away any/all incentive to use the FD application.

I recognize that the FD application can expose some problems, especially when a partnership loads an FD file that deviates from one or both players concept of their system agreements. However, as I've commented in the past the Full Disclosure application isn't creating this problem, its merely making it explicit.

Most of these problems occur because one or both of the players doesn't know the bidding system that they claim to play. For me, the classic example is seeing a SAYC bidding sequence like

1♣ - 1♠
2♥

and the 2♥ bidder tables a 2=4=3=4 13 count. The 2♥ bid has a defined meaning in SAYC and it sure isn't a flat 13 count. The problem occurs because people don't know how to bid, not becuase the FD application is exposing this.

Personally, I want folks using the FD application because their is a greater chance that they might recognize their mistake before bidding. Admittedly, the folks who don't know SAYC are also the ones least likely to know how to use the new technology, but still....

As a final point: The Laws have established proceedures to deal with these types of issues. I'd prefer to see a situation in which the TDs enforced these Laws rather than banning new technology.

[1eyedjack]

I am not an ACBL member and do not play in ACBL events, or any other pay-2-play events, so you can judge the value of my opinions in that context. That said:

In my opinion FD shows promise but has a way to go before it can be regarded as a finished product that is more than just a plaything for the particularly computer literate. That is an opinion that I have expressed before in these columns, I know.

The question that Hrothgar raises is whether the ACBL insistence that reliance not be placed wholly on an unfinished product will adversely affect the further development of the product and/or the take-up rate.

As I see it the development of the software into something useable by the masses is a higher priority than trying to get large numbers of users of the product in its current unwieldy state. Indeed it is possible that the current shortcomings in the software actively contribute to the occasions when it mis-discloses partnership methods.

It may be something of a chicken and egg problem, but my gut feel is that the ACBL policy will not adversely affect the future development of the product, although it may have a measurable impact on the take-up rate in its current raw state. It may even have an opposite effect: If those developing the product appreciate the backswell of opposition to its current state it might even accelerate change.

As a learning tool, in the hands of a pair who actually succeed in preparing an accurate FD file, it seems as if FD is a valuable asset, if it assists in stopping pairs from reversing with a balanced 13 count. On the other hand, I am not convinced that an ACBL pay-2-play tourney with master points at stake is a proper venue for artificial aids for preventing poor bridge judgements.

As has been pointed out, there are legal remedies where the FD explanation does not match the partnership agreements. Even so, an environment that minimises such transgressions has to be a better environment than one which relies solely on punishing them.

So, were I to be playing in any of Gweny's events I would (currently) endorse the decision to require alerting via the normal BBO method. Furthermore I would not expect the policy significantly to impact on the adoption of FD, which currently will remain attractive to the geeks who can cope with it, although as I mention above I recognise the possibility.

[hrothgar]

1eyedjack, on Dec 31 2006, 05:07 PM, said:

In my opinion FD shows promise but has a way to go before it can be regarded as a finished product that is more than just a plaything for the particularly computer literate. That is an opinion that I have expressed before in these columns, I know.

I think that its important to clarify a couple points about the FD application:

1. From my perspective, the main short comings with the FD application are related to the editor which is used to create new FD convention cards. It takes a fair amount of time and some technical sophistication to learn how to use the editor well. I've played with this quite a bit and I'm far from expert with the application. At some point in time, I'm hoping that we'll see an improved version of the editor released.

2. Its unclear to me how significant this problem is for most partnerships. In my experience, most players in ACBL tournaments don't spend much time discussing system. They state that they are playing SAYC or 2/1 and hope for the best. BBO has pretty good FD files documenting BBO Basic and BBO Advanced. My hope is that these FD files will serve as seed crystals and promote greated standardization amongst for these two systems. In short, I don't consider the lack of an editor to be a crippling problem.

What we really need are better mechanism to teach people a standard and effective mechanism of bidding. I see the FD app as the best tool available for this...

[Gweny]

Dear HR,

The problem is very simple - we have fits getting the majority of the population to post any convention card let alone one that needs a degree in computer science from MIT and twenty five pages of manuel. <kidding> Most have a hard enough time filling out the "old" one let alone the "new" one.

It is a very true case that the majority of our players are not that sophisticated/not sophisticated enough computer types to fill out a full disclosure card.

I have asked for a convention card wizard or perhaps a better thing would be a convention card room, much like the partnership bidding room where two partners could sit down and hack out a card. What would be wonderful would be a pre-tournament "room" that would seat the partners and they could do nothing but work up their convention card - both could "see" it and in real time click buttons to fill it. There would also be a choice once seated as to who is doing the filling in. As soon as card was filled it is autosaved and put in use for that tournament. This could maybe happen when the partnership was formed or do it all at the same time when a tournament started


For the ACBL application it would greatly help our ACBL community if the convention card physically looked like the ACBL convention card. <see teaching old dogs new tricks>

Until FD is more non computer literate friendly it is not going to be widely accepted/used. It is a lovely tool I agree but it is used in the minority not the majority and until that changes our policy will remain the same.

[glen]

Gweny, on Dec 31 2006, 10:52 PM, said:

The problem is very simple - we have fits getting the majority of the population to post any convention card...

Since the cc defaults to sayc, 100% of the partnerships have a cc. However the % that has a cc which actually reflects their agreements is sadly not so high (in addition some partnerships actually are using disagreements, but don't know it yet). For example recently against our 3NTs we have had standard/4th best leaders lead J from AQJxxx and 9 from KJ9x. What is really missing from the drop-down choices under carding are "random" and "variable" options

Gweny, on Dec 31 2006, 10:52 PM, said:

For the ACBL application it would greatly help our ACBL community if the convention card physically looked like the ACBL convention card.

Exactly! Full Disclosure needs skins*!

* this is not a joke (or attempt at one) - "skins" are the presentation layer of the content

[DrTodd13]

Gweny,

A couple of questions. We all know that people need to alert if their bid is alertable whether they are using no-CC, a "standard" CC or a FD CC. Is the format of the presentation of the alert using FD acceptable to the ACBL? Is the issue with the ACBL that if I want to see the opponents system in overview that this is more difficult with FD than with the standard CC? Are there really people that would know how to get a system overview using the old CC style but not the new CC style?

Todd

[Gweny]

The main problem is incomplete/inaccurate FDs. Yes there is a system overview in FD and there is not one in the "old" cc but often the fd overview is not filled out or is not clear to mere mortals what is being said. As we all know the name of a bid is not an explaination.

The alert box is where people look for alerts. they click on it and query bids. The fd card does give explainations but that does not relieve the user from clicking ALERT when making a bid because the fd card does not highlight ALERT when an alertable bid is made. I know it is hard to understand that some people could not see a FD explaination but it does happen.

[DrTodd13]

I agree. Some people think they don't have to alert if they have an FD explanation. There are explanations in FD even for non-alertable bids so it is still important to alert bids that are alertable. What was unclear to me was something that happens to me occasionally. I will alert a bid whose explanation is provided by FD. An opponent will then click on the bid that I made to ask for an explanation. I tell them to hover the mouse there and look for the FD explanation. Some people will then demand that I re-type the FD explanation into the alert box. I'm not going to do that because it is a waste of time and sometimes impossible because FD explanations can be much larger than what you can fit in the alert description. Also, some people are incredibly lazy about reading alerts even once they know how. It has happened several times where I make some transfer opening (not an ACBL tourney) and the opponent keeps trying to bid my suit naturally. His partner is actually paying attention and interprets all these bids as cue-bids and a disaster ensues. Later the lazy guy will acknowledge he didn't bother to read the provided explanation. This is worth a classic Todd <sigh>.