I meant open this subject to discuss in admin / TD section, but I am glad Ian now brought it here, so we can hear what players, non-TDs think. I do not think any of us current IAC TDs are certified, specially not ACBL approved. But among our members we have quite few that are, or were official f2f TDs and they can help us with their opinions.
I only lately figured AVERAGE, and I dislike very much how it is handled in BBO, also unsure if it is same in f2f. I foolishly assumed that I can use AVE- to "punish" a pair in Survivor trny, for refusing to alert or for speaking in language other then english, even after warning. We, as TDs, never know what result table will have until round is over. In BBO MP, AVE+ gives 60% and AVE- gives 40%. We need be extra careful to not gift pair that we wanted punished by handing them 40% if their actual score was say 28%, we will make serious prejudice to opping pair that was not guilty at all. But when board is not finished, we have no clue what they could be really getting, and 40/60 seems very unfair to me.
Other day in IMP IAC trny, with 5 tables one table run out of time. EW were red against white and in slam contract. 3 tables made and 1 failed. TD decided leave AVE for that board, and guess what happened? Pairs that made got 5,33 IMPs, one that failed went down -16 IMPs. Both pairs that stayed AVE received then 0 IMPs. Is it fair ? Specialy coz declarer was just 2 tricks short of finishing the board. I am not sure how many IMPs it would be given for Ave+ and Ave-.
This happens very rarely, if ever, in team matches that are not clocked; but it's quite common in trnys. Those that use premade hands, usually give plenty of time to finish the board, even to the slowest players. But normal 7min board often is not enough with connection issues, need for subs etc.
As TDs we have a number of tools available to manage these issues
A. Add time to clock
B. Adjust hand using GIB result or manual judgement
C. Choose to allow the default 'Average' score to stand
D. Punish players by adjusting against them
E. Verbal warning at table when play is too slow
Having in mind that timely play is
responsibility of every player at the table, and when they realize they are slow, it's their duty to call TD timely. Not wait for last 2 mins while they are still bidding and call us, coz by then we won't have many possibilities to fix it.
And I think Ian's list should be:
a) Verbal warning at table when play is too slow
b) Add time to clock - if possible, we do not want annoy whole trny coz of one slow pair
c) Adjust hand using GIB result or manual judgement, when possible, can't do it when only 1 or 2 tricks were played unless it's super obvious how game will go, which is super rare
d) Choose to allow the default 'Average' score to stand, only when no other alternative.
e)
Punish players by adjusting against themThanks Ken for bringing up the time stamp, I never bothered look close into it. Fact is that longer the round bigger the wait. From time stamps i see that first pair finished 4boards round at 19:32, and last at 19:46. That's 14 mins wait for many tables, and it is way too much imho. We risk people wander away and will need subs for next round.