[Bbradley62]

Posted in the BBO Today news section said:

Express - Automated Fun is a fast-paced, 6 board, fully automated individual tournament. We have now added more Free Express - Automated Fun tournaments for regular players with at least Tournament completion rate (TCR) of 80%.

This TCR80% tournament is in addition to all the other free Express tournaments new BBO version users can enjoy. BBOers with at least TCR of 80% are encouraged to join this one instead of the usual free Express - we think this restricted version would provide a smoother experience for those who qualify.

Tournament chat said:

rain→Tournament: gl everyone. This is the first official free Express with a TCR filter. Which means only those who have completed at least 80% of normal tourneys they play in can join. Which hopefully means a better quality experience for you.
→Tournament: how often will these be run?
rain→Tournament: Right now, 1 an hour

This game was run at xx:52. It had a player limit of 80 (double the limit of the regular FEAF games). 24 players started and, surprisingly (well, to me anyway), only 18 completed the 6 boards.

Thank you for this game, BBO Staff!

[matmat]

 Bbradley62, on 2011-June-24, 21:38, said:

This game was run at xx:52. It had a player limit of 80 (double the limit of the regular FEAF games). 24 players started and, surprisingly (well, to me anyway), only 18 completed the 6 boards.

Thank you for this game, BBO Staff!

80% TCR is way too low for a tournament, imo. if you want to discourage people from bailing you gotta set that to 95% at least.

[Bbradley62]

Now, if we could get people to understand that "no transfers" is not acceptable when the rules state "every player agrees to play 2/1".

[Bbradley62]

Having played a few more of these, it does appear (with an admittedly small sample size) that there are fewer dropouts and fewer uncompleted hands. 8 of 8 completed one tournament, and 30 of 32 another.

[Bbradley62]

These are definitely an improvement over the "open" games. Since these are once per hour, would it be possible to open registration for the next game once the previous game is completed, instead of waiting 20 minutes to give only a 10-minute window?

[chasetb]

I have a question. What does it take to be able to enter one of these tourneys? I have played in 5 ACBL tourneys, finishing them all for 100%. This doesn't even take into account all the free tourneys I have finished.

[Bbradley62]

 chasetb, on 2011-June-26, 22:19, said:

I have a question. What does it take to be able to enter one of these tourneys? I have played in 5 ACBL tourneys, finishing them all for 100%. This doesn't even take into account all the free tourneys I have finished.

As of this past November the situation was that you had to have played 10 tournaments in the past 30 days in order to have a TCR, although there was a lot of conversation about possibly changing that. I don't remember seeing anything saying that the requirement had changed. Hopefully staff members can confirm this.

[diana_eva]

 Bbradley62, on 2011-June-26, 22:47, said:

As of this past November the situation was that you had to have played 10 tournaments in the past 30 days in order to have a TCR, although there was a lot of conversation about possibly changing that. I don't remember seeing anything saying that the requirement had changed. Hopefully staff members can confirm this.

Same conditions AFAIK. minimum 10 completed tournaments during the past 30 days. Robot tourneys don't count. Team matches don't count. You can play some of the open Express until you have 10, or offer to sub. Tourneys completed as a sub also count.

[roblh2]

 diana_eva, on 2011-June-27, 05:26, said:

Same conditions AFAIK. minimum 10 completed tournaments during the past 30 days. Robot tourneys don't count. Team matches don't count. You can play some of the open Express until you have 10, or offer to sub. Tourneys completed as a sub also count.

I understand the reasoning for having the qualifications be very restrictive but it seems ridiculous to me for them not to count robot tourney's. Either one completes them or they don't. Are the powers that be saying that they cannot track who actually completes the robot tourney's then? I have played in well over 50 tourneys (probably 85% bot tourneys) and am positive that I have a 100% completion rate. Heck I have a 100% completion rate for regular play let alone tourney's and yet the TCR listing in my profile is "unknown" and has ALWAYS been unknown when it should absolutely be 100%. They need to come up with a new formula because they are excluding alot of consistent, quality players who might give some of these promotional tourney's a try.

[Bbradley62]

 roblh2, on 2011-June-27, 17:17, said:

I understand the reasoning for having the qualifications be very restrictive but it seems ridiculous to me for them not to count robot tourney's. Either one completes them or they don't. Are the powers that be saying that they cannot track who actually completes the robot tourney's then? I have played in well over 50 tourneys (probably 85% bot tourneys) and am positive that I have a 100% completion rate. Heck I have a 100% completion rate for regular play let alone tourney's and yet the TCR listing in my profile is "unknown" and has ALWAYS been unknown when it should absolutely be 100%. They need to come up with a new formula because they are excluding alot of consistent, quality players who might give some of these promotional tourney's a try.

I think they're saying that quitting robot tourneys is not disruptive, so they don't want to penalize people for doing it, so they don't include those statistics.

The Free Express Tourneys, without restrictions, run every 10 minutes on the xx:x7.

[barmar]

 Bbradley62, on 2011-June-27, 18:07, said:

I think they're saying that quitting robot tourneys is not disruptive, so they don't want to penalize people for doing it, so they don't include those statistics.

It makes sense for quitting them to not count against you, but completing them should count FOR you. So they should just ignore robot tourneys that you quit, but count robot tourneys you complete towards the 10 tourney minimum.

[Bbradley62]

 barmar, on 2011-June-27, 18:32, said:

It makes sense for quitting them to not count against you, but completing them should count FOR you. So they should just ignore robot tourneys that you quit, but count robot tourneys you complete towards the 10 tourney minimum.

So, if someone plays 30 robot tournaments, quitting half of them, only the 15 he completes count, and his TCR=15/15=100%? Or do you mean that the computer tourneys shouldn't count at all toward TCR but only toward meeting the 10 minimum?

[Bbradley62]

 diana_eva, on 2011-June-27, 05:26, said:

Same conditions AFAIK. minimum 10 completed tournaments during the past 30 days. Robot tourneys don't count. Team matches don't count. You can play some of the open Express until you have 10, or offer to sub. Tourneys completed as a sub also count.

 roblh2, on 2011-June-27, 17:17, said:

I have played in well over 50 tourneys (probably 85% bot tourneys) and am positive that I have a 100% completion rate.

Remember the "during the past 30 days" part...

[diana_eva]

 Bbradley62, on 2011-June-27, 18:07, said:

I think they're saying that quitting robot tourneys is not disruptive, so they don't want to penalize people for doing it, so they don't include those statistics.

...

Right. The purpose of TCR and BCR is to track frequent bailers. Since completing or quitting a bot game has no effect on other people, these do not count.

FWIW i have unknown TCR as well, so i didn't have a chance to try the new Express formula yet. Just taking Brad's word for it that it's better than regular Express

[Bbradley62]

I just got booted from one of these tournaments, in the third round of bidding on the first board, with no warning.

[diana_eva]

Is it possible that you missed the start? The warnings are fading away after a while, so you cannot tell whether there was a warning or not if you're not in the BBO window.

[Bbradley62]

 diana_eva, on 2011-July-14, 14:06, said:

Is it possible that you missed the start? The warnings are fading away after a while, so you cannot tell whether there was a warning or not if you're not in the BBO window.

As I thought I clearly stated, it was the third round of bidding: I had already bid twice and was about to make my third bid when I was removed.

[diana_eva]

ok we'll try to replicate. cd be a bug. ty for announcing it.

[Bbradley62]

The rules say we still get 60 seconds per decision, but it appears that the warnings are for shorter periods than before. For example, one opp got his first warning that said he would be replaced in 8 seconds. Has this been changed?

[diana_eva]

No, I dont think so. The clock has an error margin of a few seconds and maybe it becomes more obvious when the time interval is very short. Dunno of any intentional tweaks as far as the clock and error messages are concerned, but now that you've signaled it we'll try to check if all works as intended.