[ArtK78]

pran, on 2014-April-24, 14:57, said:

Am I the only person who has more important things to consider after a skip bid by my RHO than to also be responsible for seeing to it that the pause becomes approximately 10 Seconds?

My assertion is that a player who can comfortably use his brain to (approximately) measure out the required time really has no need for that time to select which call he will make!

You have a responsibility not to convey UI to your partner by the speed of your action over the skip bid.

[ArtK78]

Why is it that everyone seems to think that if you pause for 11 seconds you are a criminal? It is not that precise, people.

[aguahombre]

ArtK78, on 2014-April-24, 20:37, said:

Why is it that everyone seems to think that if you pause for 11 seconds you are a criminal?

You are wrong. Everyone knows the criminal cutoff is 13.8. I am retired law enforcement, and I know these things.

[ArtK78]

aguahombre, on 2014-April-24, 21:24, said:

You are wrong. Everyone knows the criminal cutoff is 13.8. I am retired law enforcement, and I know these things.

I bow to your superior knowledge, o wet one.

[Lanor Fow]

I'm able to count and think at the same time (I've never tried internally singing and thinking). I'm suprised Pran is unable to. My couunting might not be 100% accurate, but it's consistent. If someone calls the director, which has nto happened to date, I would say I always couunt to ten, which my partner can back up, or (given I do it over every skip bid), opposition if they have played more than a few boards against me. If i had to think longer I plan to tell the director where I got up to in my couunting, and would be surprised if they would rule against me if I said I got to 11 or 12

[pran]

Lanor Fow, on 2014-April-25, 05:51, said:

I'm able to count and think at the same time (I've never tried internally singing and thinking). I'm suprised Pran is unable to. My couunting might not be 100% accurate, but it's consistent. If someone calls the director, which has nto happened to date, I would say I always couunt to ten, which my partner can back up, or (given I do it over every skip bid), opposition if they have played more than a few boards against me. If i had to think longer I plan to tell the director where I got up to in my couunting, and would be surprised if they would rule against me if I said I got to 11 or 12

I am definitely not unable to attend to two different tasks at the same time. In fact my background as a commercial radio telegraph operator has probably made me more competent than most people in that ability. (We must continuously monitor radio traffic while doing other tasks as well.)

However, when I need to concentrate on a particular "problem" I prefer not having to split my attention to a different unimportant matter at the same time.

And I certainly do not fancy disturbing a player who is considering an important decision with such extraneous tasks as keeping track on how much of his allotted ten seconds he has left, when that can favourably be taken care of by his RHO.

[aguahombre]

pran, on 2014-April-25, 06:14, said:

And I certainly do not fancy disturbing a player who is considering an important decision with such extraneous tasks as keeping track on how much of his allotted ten seconds he has left, when that can favourably be taken care of by his RHO.

I don't understand this. Which player would you be? If the player who is doing the thinking isn't keeping track himself (ACBL), then his RHO would be. I don't fancy distracting myself or distracting the person doing the thinking.

[pran]

aguahombre, on 2014-April-25, 08:05, said:

I don't understand this. Which player would you be? If the player who is doing the thinking isn't keeping track himself (ACBL), then his RHO would be. I don't fancy distracting myself or distracting the person doing the thinking.

We have no problem with this in Norway: The skip bidder is responsible for maintaining the STOP card visible approximately (at least) ten seconds or to say "STOP" followed by "Continue" after an approximate (at least) ten seconds break.

The player in turn to call is free to consentrate on his call withouot worrying about the duration of the timing, and he is supposed to call without further hesitation when the STOP card is retracted or "continue" is spoken (provided at least ten seconds have passed).

For all I know everybody here are happy with this regulation and Director calls on BIT allegations are very scarce in situations where STOP is required.

Which player would I be? I assume that I would be called to the table as the Director in case of any problem. And as TD it is my duty to protect the interests of all players. This includes protecting the players from being distracted unneccesarily by extraneous matters.

As player I am happy to obey our STOP regulation. (But I would not be happy with the ACBL STOP regulation as I now have learned it!)

[akwoo]

Factoring in memory loss, I have never seen the ACBL STOP regulation actually followed.

The poor player doesn't pause. This is no problem because the poor player doesn't pause for any bid.

The average-to-pretty-good player pauses about 5-7 seconds. This is no problem because it will take them at least 20 seconds to think about anything that actually requires serious thinking about, and at most 5-7 seconds otherwise. (Frankly speaking, I'm in this class, and I usually pause about 5-7 seconds in STOP situations.)

Furthermore, if you actually try to pause about 10 seconds, some opponents will fidget or otherwise visibly get annoyed. Up to their memory loss, they've never thought for 10 seconds about a bid in their whole life, and the 10 second pause seems like a whole minute to them because they're just sitting there being bored.

[gordontd]

akwoo, on 2014-April-26, 01:03, said:

The poor player doesn't pause. This is no problem because the poor player doesn't pause for any bid.

This is a problem because they do pause, necessarily, whenever they have a problem that requires thought.

[akwoo]

gordontd, on 2014-April-26, 02:00, said:

This is a problem because they do pause, necessarily, whenever they have a problem that requires thought.

You misunderstand. For most of the poor players I know, there are no problems that require thought. At most, some of them are occasionally slightly curious why they don't do so well despite following rigidly all the rules they've been taught, counting trump correctly, and managing to keep track of the high card in each suit as the play progresses.

Maybe my definition of 'poor' is lower than yours.

[blackshoe]

We have a player here, one of the best in the area, in fact, who religiously puts out the stop card, makes her call, leaves the stop card out for (in her own words) "about six seconds", usually keeping a finger on it, and then picks it up. She gets upset when LHO calls before she picks it up. Why six instead of ten? "Six is long enough".

I put out the stop card, make my call, and then pick up the stop card. This is what the regulation says to do. I've given up complaining when LHO insta-calls, often before I pick up the stop card. I've tried leaving it out for a while. Doesn't matter. They stare at it, or at me, until it's gone, and then they insta-call or, in some cases, start their "thinking".

I once gave a "mini-lesson" at a local club on the why, wherefore, and how to of the stop card. That was probably two or three years ago. Those people have forgotten that lesson, if what they do at the table is any indicator. And if I gave the lesson again, the same C players would attend it - and thank me for it, and go on doing what they've been doing. The A and B players "don't need" such lessons. Just ask 'em. I think it's also a bit of "I'm not going to sit over there with the C players - that would be embarrassing".

The stop card regulation doesn't work. People don't follow it, and directors won't enforce it. Not to mention that many ACBL directors will tell you it's "optional". They may think so, and it may have been once upon a time, but the current regulation does not say it's optional - it says that failure to use it is an infraction. None the less, the myth persists.

[barmar]

akwoo, on 2014-April-26, 02:53, said:

You misunderstand. For most of the poor players I know, there are no problems that require thought. At most, some of them are occasionally slightly curious why they don't do so well despite following rigidly all the rules they've been taught, counting trump correctly, and managing to keep track of the high card in each suit as the play progresses.

Maybe my definition of 'poor' is lower than yours.

Hmm, the poor players I know often take time to think even when there's not really anything to think about, because they just generally aren't sure what to do. Very little is automatic for them.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2014-April-26, 10:52, said:

Hmm, the poor players I know often take time to think even when there's not really anything to think about, because they just generally aren't sure what to do. Very little is automatic for them.

But they often do know immediately that they won't be bidding after a STOP card, because in most of the world this follows a skip bid, so the auction may well now be uncomfortably high.

A lot of poor players I know rarely take any time at all, because they don't really think before taking a call.

[barmar]

I think the general point is that whether a poor player takes time to think has little dependency on what their RHO did. Either they have an obvious bid and bid quickly, or they don't know what to do and take forever.

[aguahombre]

pran, on 2014-April-25, 18:04, said:

As player I am happy to obey our STOP regulation. (But I would not be happy with the ACBL STOP regulation as I now have learned it!)

As a player I am happy to hesitate more than my normal tempo in your jurisdiction or in ours. As a player or as a director I am unhappy with any exact number of seconds or with any particular person's estimate of those seconds, including my own.

I will obey whatever "stop" rules are in effect as best I can, but don't have to be happy about them, and certainly don't think they are very good anywhere. I am not sure they will ever be any good if they involve counting seconds.

[mycroft]

pran, on 2014-April-25, 18:04, said:

We have no problem with this in Norway: The skip bidder is responsible for maintaining the STOP card visible approximately (at least) ten seconds or to say "STOP" followed by "Continue" after an approximate (at least) ten seconds break.

Repeating my question from upthread: what happens when that approximate (at least) 10 seconds break is what my opponents think is 10 seconds when they're trying to adhere to the stop regulation in the ACBL - about 5.5? "Yes, Director, I took about 3 seconds after RHO put the STOP card away before I made my call. However, I was still well within my 10 seconds - I know, because in this case, I *had* nothing to think about, and was 'Happy Birthday'-ing my way to 10 seconds"

Quote

The player in turn to call is free to concentrate on his call withouot worrying about the duration of the timing, and he is supposed to call without further hesitation when the STOP card is retracted or "continue" is spoken (provided at least ten seconds have passed).

Of course, that last. And that always works well does it?

Having said that, I expect the people who use their fingers here, or count aloud, are the ones staring at the STOP card, obviously waiting for it to go away, or the ones who have their fingers on the card waiting for the "Continue".

I don't disagree that this is a *better* solution to the problem than we have in the ACBL; certainly a much better solution than the one in the ACBL works out to in practise; just that it does have its own problems.

[pran]

mycroft, on 2014-April-28, 11:06, said:

Repeating my question from upthread: what happens when that approximate (at least) 10 seconds break is what my opponents think is 10 seconds when they're trying to adhere to the stop regulation in the ACBL - about 5.5? "Yes, Director, I took about 3 seconds after RHO put the STOP card away before I made my call. However, I was still well within my 10 seconds - I know, because in this case, I *had* nothing to think about, and was 'Happy Birthday'-ing my way to 10 seconds"

To repeat my comment: We have very little problems with stop durations in Norway, in fact I cannot remember having any such conflict since I (many years ago) educated players that had been sitting watching the STOP card until it was taken away and only then started thinking on what to Call!

Your player who claimed that the stop card was only maintained for 5.5 seconds - "I know because in this case, I *had* nothing to think about, and was 'Happy Birthday'-ing my way to 10 Seconds" would be ruled against by most Directors because if he had time to do extraneous activities instead of planning his call then the stop period as controlled by his RHO must certainly have been sufficient. And if he had obeyed regulations and called at the end of that stop period then nobody would have had any claim on UI being passed by that player.

mycroft, on 2014-April-28, 11:06, said:

I don't disagree that this is a *better* solution to the problem than we have in the ACBL; certainly a much better solution than the one in the ACBL works out to in practise; just that it does have its own problems.

Obviously problems that we generally do not encounter.

[mycroft]

Ah, but I *always* pause for 10ish seconds, whether or not I have a problem. If I pass immediately when they pull away the card, then I obviously didn't have anything serious to think about. Others - not so much maybe.

So it turns out that if I *do* need 10 seconds to think about things, then I've clearly broken tempo (because it took me longer to bid than the stop card was out); if I don't need that time, then I have to show that I didn't need that time by passing when RHO thinks "enough time" has passed. Seems like I've been impaled on a different-than-traditional Morton's Fork. Nice.

Because obviously there's nothing we can do to control RHOs who can't count time.

As I said, I know which regulation I prefer, but I also know that it isn't perfect, and it certainly can be gamed. And if it can, then [redacted], and those like him, will do it.

[barmar]

The aphorism that this discussion brings to mind is "The perfect is the enemy of the good".