[ThymePuns]

How about this implementation?

1) No log required to do the main search (as before)
2) Instant and Robot Dupe show don't show the contract, result, or percentage.
3) Instead, it has a link to log in.
4) When logged in, it then shows everything filled in if it's your tournament, otherwise a note.

This might make things a bit better, though doesn't address all the concerns above. General principle here is to only protect what needs to be protected. Right now, it's authorizing too early and authenticating on a bit more than needed.

Also, another improvement would be to use longer cookies for authorization. For something as low risk as this, there's no reason to require logging back in frequently. Having it last a month would be quite sufficient and much more usable.

[Bbradley62]

 ThymePuns, on 2015-June-30, 15:20, said:

2) Instant and Robot Dupe show don't show the contract, result, or percentage.

Then what would they show? It sounds like the point of this exercise is to prevent people from knowing "if I hold this exact hand in an Instant Dupe, I will know where all the other cards are".

[Rain]

We plan on making some improvements to this, hopefully next week.

Longer session cookies is certainly important. Original plan was once you login, you won't notice much difference in your myhands experience (except the robot dup/IT results change).

And definitely plan on helping Bridge Captain too if he needs help modifying his script.

[42krunner]

So if 99% of my games are IT's and acbl robodups, my BBO skill will slowly go away?
I'm fine with that.

[lycier]

But sometimes I think It seems to be not so.I have a question.
Assume that a player own 2 usernames - A and B, while A is playing at bbo,he use B logging in MyHands,Likewise, he might get what he want. So even cheating,it seems A can have nothing to do with anything,how about ?similarly, you have no evidence to show his cheating.

[1eyedjack]

 42krunner, on 2015-June-30, 21:24, said:

So if 99% of my games are IT's and acbl robodups, my BBO skill will slowly go away?
I'm fine with that.

Have I missed something? I thought that BBOSkill stopped updating a year or so ago, maybe longer.

[ahydra]

I don't play in BBO tournaments, but something puzzles me when reading some comments in this thread. Why re-use hands at all rather than deal new hands afresh for each tournament? (Chances are I'm missing something about the way the tournaments work)

ahydra

[ArtK78]

 ahydra, on 2015-July-01, 08:18, said:

I don't play in BBO tournaments, but something puzzles me when reading some comments in this thread. Why re-use hands at all rather than deal new hands afresh for each tournament? (Chances are I'm missing something about the way the tournaments work)

ahydra

The instant tournaments use hands that have been played before so that the player can get an instant score on the hand compared to 14 other results.

[1eyedjack]

 ahydra, on 2015-July-01, 08:18, said:

I don't play in BBO tournaments, but something puzzles me when reading some comments in this thread. Why re-use hands at all rather than deal new hands afresh for each tournament? (Chances are I'm missing something about the way the tournaments work)

ahydra

The main attractions of Instant tourneys are

1) There is no delay between entering the tournament and commencement of play
2) There is no delay between completion of a hand within the tournament and a complete movement score
3) Likewise there is no delay at the end of the final hand to getting a tournament result.
4) There is a much longer "clock" before the tournament expires, should you wish to take a break in mid tournament for (say) food or whatever.
5) You are assured of 15 table comparisons where at antisocial hours (for most BBO-ers) you struggle at a live tourney to get players.

In order to benefit from these attractions it is evident that the complete set of tournament hands must at some time have been dealt and played by the other 15 tables prior to your registering, so it has to have been a historically completed tournament in which you have not yourself played originally.

The main downside to this arrangement is that the other tables are likely to have been played with a different version of GIB, and there is no guarantee that GIB will take the same action at your table as it did at other tables from an identical initial position.

[helene_t]

TBH I think these complaints are a bit over the top. BBO is under time pressure to comply with ACBL requirements and then they make some changes which require some minor changes by third parties also. It will probably be sorted soon. If not, the criticism may be better directed at the ACBL and/or at the third parties.

[barmar]

 ThymePuns, on 2015-June-30, 15:20, said:

Also, another improvement would be to use longer cookies for authorization. For something as low risk as this, there's no reason to require logging back in frequently. Having it last a month would be quite sufficient and much more usable.

It uses PHP's built-in session feature. I believe this uses normal session cookies, I don't know if there's a way to extend their life.

[Mbodell]

 1eyedjack, on 2015-July-01, 09:16, said:

The main attractions of Instant tourneys are

And note, in live play, there are instant matchpoint events too. They often use sessions from some other country from 30+ years ago, but you get instant results for each score. This isn't an online-only thing.

[Wayne_LV]

 helene_t, on 2015-July-01, 09:21, said:

TBH I think these complaints are a bit over the top. BBO is under time pressure to comply with ACBL requirements and then they make some changes which require some minor changes by third parties also. It will probably be sorted soon. If not, the criticism may be better directed at the ACBL and/or at the third parties.

You are right, the ACBL is stupid for allowing master points to be awarded with Robots at the table.

[ArtK78]

 Wayne_LV, on 2015-July-01, 11:10, said:

You are right, the ACBL is stupid for allowing master points to be awarded with Robots at the table.

That is certainly one opinion.

[1eyedjack]

 ArtK78, on 2015-July-01, 11:13, said:

That is certainly one opinion.

Speaking from a purely selfish perspective it is one that I share, and I doubt that Wayne and I are alone.
I am not, nor have any ambitions to be, an ACBL member, and as such ACBL masterpoints are of no interest to me.
So you will appreciate that it is a source of irritation *to me* that features which are of benefit to me (and to other players the world over outside of USA) are cast aside in order to kowtow to the demands of the ACBL.

I suspect that for all BBO's pretence at being a truly international organisation the lure of the ACBL revenue stream is just too tempting to resist. I perceive a risk that as ACBL exerts ever greater financial influence over BBO, so BBO will become ever more financially dependent upon ACBL, spiralling inter an ever closer union that provides ACBL with de facto power to dictate BBO policy.

[Bbradley62]

I think having ACBL Robodupes awarding masterpoints is an excellent idea; they award points to players who do better than other players under identical circumstances. It sounds like ACBL has realized that it's silly to award masterpoints to players playing with/against revised robots. If ACBL doesn't like the idea of instant tournaments using hands that players might have seen, then they shouldn't run instant tournaments.

[42krunner]

 1eyedjack, on 2015-June-30, 23:17, said:

Have I missed something? I thought that BBOSkill stopped updating a year or so ago, maybe longer.

That explains why I'm not improving!

[42krunner]

Is the ACBL upset by ACBL instant robo-dups? That would be rather silly, since it's a steady cash cow.

[hawkwind]

Reading through the thread I now understand your thinking behind this change but.............................

I am among those that download hands for analysis using "Double Dummy Solver" by Bridge Captain.

This is now broken.

While I appreciate that you cannot be responsible for third party applications, this particular app provides extra functionality permitting analysis across a quantity of hands which is a great help when trying to eliminate general weaknesses and "blind spots". I don't know whether you at any time integrate third party products into core BBO, if you do I would recommend DDS.

If I've read this thread correctly I understand that you are aware of the issue and are hoping to help resolve it.

That would be appreciated.

On a practical level it's a shame that this change was made without warning as I would have downloaded June to date (precautionary) if I had known in advance. I would also have suggested that you delayed this change a few days which would have allowed everyone using DDS to retrieve a full month's data prior to change.

A final thought given that your action appears inspired by the worthy motive of preventing cheating. Wouldn't the analysis available from DDS help you identify cheats?

[Wayne_LV]

What am I missing?

What is the difference between logging in and seeing the Robot tournaments and not logging in and seeing the Robot tournaments?