mrdct

In Australia whilst barometers in club games are fairly rare, the overwhelming majority of clubs would use predealt hands for their duplicates as the punters would simply go elsewhere if they weren't getting a hand-record at the end of each session. You don't need to be a bridge player to duplicate a board, particularly if done with a dealing machine, and I guess in a volunteer-run club the best bet would be to get someone's non-playing spouse or child to do it. It only takes about 15 minutes to deal a set of boards with a machine, so it can be done quite efficiently if you are doing a few sets in one sitting. I really like the model that Trinidad described of retired folk running a board duplication machine in their garage; presumedly servicing a number of clubs and tournament convenors. In a market like the USA where a lot of bridge is still played with hand-dealt cards, I smell business opportunity! I'm fairly sure I haven't played a hand dealt board since 1995 as I stopped playing between 1995 and 2000 for work and family reasons and by 2000 most clubs, and certainly all of the clubs I played in, used predealt boards.

What a joke. I can't remember which Amendment it is, I always get confused between the one about carrying guns and the one about free speech, but isn't freedom of speech and freedom of the press a fairly fundamental part of the Amercian legal system and culture? I'm surprised that the person preparing the reports rolled-over and acquiesed to the Flight-B player's request. Surely some sensible compromise could've been reached to ensure that the offended Flight-B player had a few good plays highlighted in and amongst his howlers, which is sort of how bridge journalism is meant to operate with written-up hands in daily bulletins generally focussing on brilliancies rather than stuff-ups and with vugraph commentators (usually) focussing on the good stuff and down-playing the errors. I'll just add that curiousity got the better of me and I Googled "ACBL District 25" and found the relevant Flight A match report. Quite an entertaining read about players that I've never heard of in a long head-to-head match that came right down to the last board. I felt the author was quite fair in his report and obviously put in a huge amount of work to write the report for which he should be commended. The author of report commented at the end of his report: "I hope these reports are accurate snapshots of the state of the art in New England. If I report might-have-beens as well as the facts, it's only to make points we can all learn from. I can't promise to gloss over mistakes, but I don't write about them to denigrate anybody. I hope these players are still my friends, even when in my opinion they made questionable bids or pulled the wrong cards. Like all bridge players, I do the same myself and so I suppose, dear readers, do you." These GNT District Finals look ideally suited for BBO broadcast and they guy who records and reports on them may even find it easy to do his recording as a BBO operator.

Control of kibitzers is a Sponsoring Organisation issue, usually dealt with through designating open and closed rooms. I don't think the Laws themselves have ever had any provision allowing for a player to object to a kibitzer who is otherwise following all of the rules (being silent, watching only one hand, not stradling the screen, etc.).

Quite a common situation that I see is where the players claim and agree a number of tricks that doesn't coincide with the actual play. Usually it's just for an overtrick, but I recall one hand where a player claimed one-off in 3NT when he'd already taken 9 tricks (he had a card turned the wrong way) and the opps (presumedly innocently) accepted it and moved on to the next hand. As Roland said, in these situation the operator just shuts-up and moves on. Somewhat off-topic, but still on the theme of BBO operators getting involved in the outcome of bridge events, on two occassions in my BBO operating career I've been called to give evidence at an appeals committee as to whether or not a hesitation had occurred. The most recent of these was at the Yeh Bros Cup and I found it quite an awkward situation as it was in the KO stage with quite big money at stake and one of the players involved was a close friend and former bridge partner (which I disclosed to the appeals committee). At the time I tried to be as honest as possible (possibly to the detriment of my friend) and qualified my evidence through pointing out that when operating you have a lot of things going on and won't necessarily be paying attention to the tempo anyway, but I found the whole experience quite unsatisfactory and have since adopted a personal policy of politely not cooperating with any requests by directors or appeals committees as to perceived hesitations.

Perhaps a way to keep both camps happy would be to run a teams trial where the winner becomes USA1 and the runner-up earns a right to contest a play-off against a team determined from a pairs trial to become USA2. Given that you have a safety net of the runner-up from the teams trial (likely a very strong team of people who want to play together with a playing sponsor) you could get away with a relatively short pairs trial - probably 5 days would suffice comprised of 2 days of qualifying/seeding (perhaps on a weekend so non-qualifiers can fly home on Sunday night) to come down to a field of, say, 12 pairs to play an 11-round butler over 3 days (probably 16-board matches) and then the top 3 pairs form a team to play-off against the runner-up from the teams trial. Despite the economics of top-level professional bridge, I would expect that once the pros have discharged all of their obligations to their sponsors through the NABCs and the teams trial, those that didn't make the top 2 in the teams trial would still have a little bit of fire in the belly to have last-ditch effort to get to a world championship. Scheduling might be a bit of an issue and will probably require the teams trials to be played a little bit earlier in the cycle, but I'm sure all that could be worked out. This is not dissimilar to how my home state of Victoria (a bridge jurisdiction of about 5000 players so comparable to a medium-sized European country) selects its team - basically the winner of the state teams championships plays-off against a butler team selected from a pairs trial. Not surprisingly, the state teams champion usually (but not always) wins but at least pairs that couldn't organise themselves onto a strong team still get a chance to represent their state and it adds another good quality bridge event to the calendar.

<oops - double posted>

Depends on whether or not screens are in use. Even in jurisdictions where doubles, redoubles, cues and bids over 3NT are self-alerting without screens, when screens are in use any conventional call is alertable which is also how people should approach alerting on BBO.

It's been a long time since I've hand-scored a matchpoints pairs event, but iirc you get two matchpoints for each result you beat and one matchpoint for each result you equal. If a top on a board is two matchpoints, that means there are only two tables in the field; so I'm not sure why my quote was edited to three tables rather the correct two. In your example where you thought you were booked for a top with your +1100 in a field of 20 tables, where ordinarily you would get 38 matchpints for beating 19 results, you would get something less than that due to an average being taken at one table. In my old hand-scoring days, the pairs getting the average would get 19 matchpoints (exactly 50%) by taking one matchpoint off each of the other tables, so you would get 37/38 (97.4%). With avg+/avg- I would assume those results would still reciprocate each other and the pair with the +1100 would still score 37/38.

If top on a board is two MPs doesn't that mean that there are only two tables in play? A top is a top and is worth 100% no matter how many tables are in play. I don't quite understand your post.

For leads out of turn you just enter the cards that each player contributed to trick, albeit in a different order, and advise the kibitzers what is going on. I've only ever had one revoke when operating and simply stopped following the play, advised the kibitzers that a revoke had occurred and then waited for the director's ruling as to the awarding of the revoke penalties before entering the claim. I think it would be quite tricky to have the software allow for revokes and they are so rare (and presumedly even more rare in events that are covered by BBO) that I'd be surprised if this was much of a priority for Fred and his team.

The way I've dealt with situation in the past is to hit undo a couple of times and change 2♦ to 1♦ and alert it as "actually a 2♦ opening" and then alert the 1♥ response as "insuffient bid accepted by south". The auction then proceeds normally and the LIN file will accurately record what actually happened at the table.

Nigel, I read your review. I don't understand your point. From the above it sounds like your review is evidence that the accusations are based on flimsy evidence. In the first three examples, there are clear standout leads, or at least clear standout alternatives, and the lead chosen at the table is not among them. If this was a hand on vugraph, and you asked me for a bet, I would have given 15:1 odds against the lead chosen at the table. In the last hand, there is very good bridge logic supporting the lead chosen at the table. I am happy to bet that it would be the majority choice among all expert BBF posters here, if you make it a poll. The heart lead on #4 was clear. The actual leads on #1, #2, and #3 are hard to believe. Leading is not an exact science as we all know and there can be all sorts of authorised extraneous information floating around that can influence one's selection (e.g. state of the match and opponents' tempo/mannerisms). Sometimes people of all skill levels feel inclined to try something a bit different. As all of my partners will testify, I'm generally quite a poor opening leader, but fwiw on the three hands where the Blue Team opening leads were considered questionable by John Swanson, the Blue Team lead was my 2nd choice lead on each occassion (although on #3 it would be fair to say that it was a distance 2nd). I can also say that I tried to be as objective as possible in ranking my top 3 lead alternatives and was not purposefully trying to include outrageous or massively contra-indicated leads). If one were to go through all of the hands for the event in question where the Blue Team was on lead, I would be very surprised if an analyst couldn't find three hands where the Blue Team selected the non-preferred lead (for argument's sake let's define that as the lead selected by 9 out of 10 "world class" experts) and it worked out poorly for the Blue Team. Finding an anti-percentage lead that happens work three times in an event of several hundred boards is not proof of cheating. Some of my non-world class analysis of the three questionable leads: #1: ♣ looks totally wrong and I tend to avoid doubleton leads so it's between ♠J and a ♦. ♠J is what I'd probably do at the table but if I had some doubt in my mind as to the merits of a ♠ lead the ♦8 would be hitting the table as a perfectly defensible passive lead. #2: I don't want to lead a trump and pick-up that suit for declarer, so a passive middle ♦ is my first choice, but if I'm going to try to get on the front foot with a black suit lead I'm probably going to try a ♠ as I hate it when I lead from QJ9 and find LHO with A10 and RHO with K. Also, the opps didn't explore the possibility of a ♠ fit so I think that increases the chances of partner having something in that suit. #3: ♥9 would probably hit the table without too much thought, but if I was going to lead something else it would be motivated by a desire to get a look a dummy and still keep my options open to either switch a ♥ to get my ruff or diagnose a minor shortage or cashing minor King. So as to reduce the chances to killing an entry to partners hand or having my own Ace picked-off at trick one, if I was going to lead a minor Ace it would be the ♣A.

This really should be something that is explicitly spelt-out in conditions of contest so there can be no argument in the event that someone who doesn't want to play on vugraph winds up at a broadcast table. The relevant regulation in the Australian Bridge Federation Tournament Regulations is: 23.4 The players themselves shall not be permitted to decide whether or not they should appear on BBO. Notwithstanding, in a teams event where BBO is to be presented from one table only, if a particular team’s total masterpoints (top four players) numbers less than 1000, the captain of that team has the right to decide which of the two tables should appear on BBO.

I lead the ♠A and switch to a low ♣. I think it's quite unlikely that partner has 5 in either major for his non-action over 1NT (particularly if he was aware of the agreement that my 1st double promised both majors) so the ♠K isn't going to run away and partner might have a stiff ♣A and need ♠K as an entry back to my hand for a ruff. It kind of feels like he's doubled at favourable colours with something like JXXX XXXX QJXX A, but this gives RHO a pretty dodgey hand for his actions - so who knows? If partner happens to have 5♥ and no ♣A, then I haven't been given enough info about how bad the takeout double of 1♣ can be.

The only honest answer is I don't know and therefore in the absence of proof I'm going to stay in the innocent until proven guilty camp. Having said that, if the alleged contents of the Burgay Tapes coincides with what the Wolffs have reported and an authenticated transcript of same makes its way on to the public record, I would probably be persuaded to switch camps - but even then people have been known to make up stories and talk to people on the phone about falsehoods so I'd probably still like to see a bit more corroborating evidence. Again you do not answer the main question in the link....you avoid! Do you lionize the Blue Team? I do not see you use that word so I assume you agree with Judy. :) I have to admit I that I needed to find an American dictionary to look up "Lionize" as it wasn't in my vocabulary and nor was it in any English dictionary I could find. I see that it is defined as: "To look on or treat (a person) as a celebrity" American Heritage Dictionary 4th Ed. I think it would be quite silly to suggest that within the fairly narrow bridge community, a team that won a dozen world championships by whatever means, would not attract some degree of celebrity status. By any reasonably definition, Garozzo, Belladonna and Forquet, et al are clearly bridge celebrities. They are written about in the gossip pages, people like to get their photo taken with them and people like to buy and read their books. As it happens I'm reading the gossip pages right now, had a photo of myself taken with one of them earlier this year and Forquet's Bridge with the Blue Team is one of my favourite books - so shoot me I've just lionized them I guess. Now that doesn't mean there aren't a few (if not many) unanswered questions about how they achieved all of those world championships, but nobody has been able to put forward any credible evidence of cheating so I will continue to give them the benefit of the doubt.

lol - are you sad that you have to agree with me (a fate worse than death in the minds of some) or sad that some top-class players exhibit unprofessional behaviour? As it happens, Joe Grue was the very player that I was referring to. I will again stress that in the 100 or so hands that I've BBO operated with Joe at the table I've never seen anything remotely unethical, but the little bugger just cannot sit still!

The only honest answer is I don't know and therefore in the absence of proof I'm going to stay in the innocent until proven guilty camp. Having said that, if the alleged contents of the Burgay Tapes coincides with what the Wolffs have reported and an authenticated transcript of same makes its way on to the public record, I would probably be persuaded to switch camps - but even then people have been known to make up stories and talk to people on the phone about falsehoods so I'd probably still like to see a bit more corroborating evidence.

I might have to vary my own practices lest I be branded a moron, but I use a few different card holding techniques with some regularity although possibly I can avail myself of Fred's disability defence as I am quite severely short-sighted so with glasses-on I tend to hold my cards under the table as if I hold them too close to my eyes my glasses create a bit of a double-vision effect. But sometimes during the auction I take my glasses off (particularly if I'm experiencing eye-strain or the onset of headache) and then need to hold the cards within about 3 inches of my nose; and I probably fan them out a bit more in that configuration too. If I'm reasonably confident my opponents aren't slotting, my third technique would be just to hold the cards fairly normally at chest height, usually leaning back in my chair a bit. I would consider myself ambidextrous as far as which hand I hold my cards in is concerned, but I generally hold them in my right hand and pull cards with my left hand - but during the auction when I usually have a pen in my right hand (written bidding fairly ubiquitous in Oz) or need to keep my right hand free for the bidding box, I probably hold them in my left hand more often. If I have a glass or water or Coke or something in progress the position of the side table might also influence how and in which hand I hold my cards. It might be a nervous habit thing, but I think I completley fold my hand up between just about every bid and play as I often like to think about things without actually looking at my hand. But I guess that might make me a moron also. It's been over 16 years since I played in a World Championship (and juniors at that) but I've physically kibitzed several world class event in recent years and whilst I wasn't particularly looking for it at the time I'm sure that I recall seeing several elite players at the very least switching between the below-table and the above-table technique and one American superstar (for whom I wouldn't even entertain the possibility of anything dodgey going on) being one of the most fidgetty players I've ever seen such that I'm sure conspiracy theorists could have a field day with some carefully selected still shots and hand-records.

The ♥J that has been lead has no official status as it is not a card from the actual board that we are playing, so I would simply instruct the offender to put their erroneous hand (including the ♥J) back into the correct board, get their correct hand out of the current board and make an opening lead. I think information that declarer holds the real ♥J is authorised information for the defenders as declarer should not have made such a comment as it would've been much easier to point at the board and say "hey! look at this - your cards are still in the board". I would inform the partner of the offender that it is unauthorised information for him that partner passed throughout the auction looking at the wrong hand (i.e. until other evidence comes to light during the play of the hand, he needs to frame his defence based on the assumption that partner has a hand that would've passed throughout the auction). Similar to Case 1, the manner in which attention has been drawn to the irregularity is inappropriate. Again, I would tell the offender to get the correct hand and find a new opening lead, but now the info that the offender's partner holds the ♥J is unauthorised info for the offender but is authorised info for declarer. As with Case 1, the offender's partner must be careful not to use UI that partner passed throughout looking at the wrong cards. This makes life easier, but all the same UI issues from Case 1 and Case 2 would still apply. I would instruct the offender to take great care not to take any advantage from having seen dummy in selecting their new opening lead and if they happened to find a superior lead when an inferior lead was a logical alternative, I would adjust the board to the likely outcome on the inferior lead. Of course, the same UI issues noted above would still apply.

As this is the "offline bridge" discussion, I think live scoring in teams matches would have a few problems in face-to-face: - it would probably increase the extent of port morteming and slow the game down even further; - unauthorised information could potentially emerge from the tempo of play at the other table (I've seen this happen in BBO matches where you read in quite a bit from how long it's taking a score to emerge from the other room); - tournament organisers would probably need to duplicate more boards to ensure that everyone is playing their boards in the same sequence at more or less the same time; - it would take the fun out of the post-match score-up.

For years I've been of the view that the vugraph commentator assignment process should be semi-automated. We can still have the Rolands of this world pre-organising commentators as when they have the time and inclination to do so, but in other cases a semi-automated process would be really handy. The way I see it working is: 1. A panel of pre-approved commentators exists, perhaps denoted by a microphone icon next to their name. This panel would initially be Roland's mailing list, but would obviously need some ongoing maintenance to add and remove people. 2. When a vugraph presentation is live, any person who is interested in commentating (whether or not they are on the "panel") can register as being available to commentate by clicking a button similar to the substitutes button in tournaments. 3. When a vugraph operator finds themself short of commentators, they simply click the "find me some commentators" button, enter the number that they desire and then the system automatically begins issuing invitations (perhaps 2 or 3 every 30 seconds) starting with: panel commentators currently kibitzing vugraph; panel commentators not in a teams match or tournament; non-panel people who have registered interest in commentating; stars currently kibitzing vugraph; experts/world class from the operator's country currently kibitzing vugraph; etc. 4. When an invitee accepts an invitation to commentate, they are transported to the relevant table, ungagged and an automated welcome messsage goes to the room. 5. To avoid unwanted requests if you are a potential commentator but currently unavailable, people should have something similar to the BRB setting called "ignore commentator requests".

I find that on the iPhone it's really only feasible to kibitz or watch vugraph. Basically all you need to do is run a VNC server on your PC at home which is also running the windows version of BBO and then use MochaVNC on your iPhone to take control of it. Helps if you have a static IP address at home and you will need to map the VNC port on your router to the local IP address of your PC.

It sounds to me like you need a bit more playing space. I find that really bizaare. It would have to be a good 15 or 20 years since I last played a session of bridge where cards were shuffled and dealt manually. In Australia most bridge clubs use predealt hands for club duplicates and there certainly wouldn't be any tournaments which don't provide hand records. How to players at ACBL tournaments discuss the hands at the pub after play if they don't have hand records?

By my count there are 27 current or former world champions in the field. I've set a little task for myself to get a photo of myself with each of them during the course of the event!

I understand that the vast majority (if not all) of BBO's software development effort at the moment is focussed on the Flash version but I think it would be prudent for some attention to be given to the netbook and sub-netbook space as these are rapidly gaining market share and it won't be long before they surpass conventional laptops. With that in mind, it would be very handy in the BBO Flash version to have some more screen layout options to optimise the view on a 9 inch or smaller screen. For example it would be useful to be able to make unseen hands really small but seen hands (mine and dummy's) a bit bigger. It would also be useful if the bidding pop-up size was user-adjustable. Bridge hasn't made it to the iPhone yet (other than back-dooring it via VNC) but poker certainly has and a very user friendly interface has been developed by Live Poker (zynga.com) with 9 players which all fits into the iPhone screen nicely with room for 18 player cards and 5 community cards which isn't too different from the number of cards you would need to display on the screen in bridge. There is talk that iPhones might become Flash enabled at some point in the near future so I guess it's possible that BBO might work out of the box then, but I think it will only be good for watching vugraph in its current form as you really will need a pop-up to bid if you are to avoid a dozen undos per hand.