mrdct

Vugraph matches for the first four matches of the second round robin have been advised to me as follows (times are Shanghai time which is GMT+8): Sunday 27 August 2006: RR2-1: 10:00 Seniors: Chinese Taipei vs Australia-Krochmalik RR2-2: 14:00 Ladies: Indonesia vs China Hong Kong RR2-3: 17:15 Open: Indonesia vs Chinese Taipei Monday 28 August 2006: RR2-4: 10:00-Seniors: China-G vs Japan-Naito For about the last 20 hours I've been unable to access BBO through my ISP (optusnet if you are thinking of who not to use) so I may or may not be around to help ungag commentators. If you want to commentate, please ask a yellow.

Vugraph matches for the first four matches of the second round robin have been advised to me as follows (times are Shanghai time which is GMT+8): Sunday 27 August 2006: RR2-1: 10:00 Seniors: Chinese Taipei vs Australia-Krochmalik RR2-2: 14:00 Ladies: Indonesia vs China Hong Kong RR2-3: 17:15 Open: Indonesia vs Chinese Taipei Monday 28 August 2006: RR2-4: 10:00-Seniors: China-G vs Japan-Naito For about the last 20 hours I've been unable to access BBO through my ISP (optusnet if you are thinking of who not to use) so I may or may not be around to help ungag commentators. If you want to commentate, please ask a yellow.

The series from which the vugraph matches come are denoted in my previous post as "Open" or "Women". There is no coverage of the New Zealand Open team in the first round-robin, but Australia will be shown twice. The second round robin vugraph matches will be selected at the conclusion of the first round robin, so if New Zealand are doing well they may get some coverage in the second round robin. So for MOSCITO fans, potential opportunties to watch Marston-Grosvenor are as follows: RR1-2 (Japan v Australia) RR1-9 (Australia v China) Obviously I can't predict who is going to sit in which room, or indeed who is going to be playing in each match, but I'd expect there's a reasonable chance that there will be some MOSCITO action in at least one of these matches.

Vugraph Matches for First Round-Robin (Shanghai Time GMT+8): Wednesday 23/8 RR1-1: 1000 Open - China v Macau RR1-2: 1400 Open - Japan v Australia Thursday 24/8 RR1-3: 1000 Women - Indonesia v China RR1-4: 1400 Open - Singapore v Thailand RR1-5: 1715 Women - Australia v New Zealand Friday 25/8 RR1-6: 1000 Open - Hong Kong v China RR1-7: 1400 Women - Japan v New Zealand RR1-8: 1715 Women - Korea v Hong Kong Saturday 26/8 RR1-9: 1000 Open - China v Australia RR1-10: 1400 Women - Philippines v Thailand RR1-11: 1715 Open - China v Chinese Taipei Where possible the closed room commentary will be Asian language. I still have quite a few vacant commentary spots available if anyone wants to volunteer. Please email me at mrdct@amontay.com with PABF in the subject.

It was initially reported by Jan Martel in the recent thread "Unauthorised Information During Vugraph" (Link): It obviously wont be the be all and end all in terms of identifying time wasters, but if operators have silent clickers and enter bids and plays more or less in the same tempo as the table it should provide some pretty interesting evidence. It will also make it difficult for the following gamesmanship technique that I have personally observed when vugraph operating at a World Championship. Basically, for the first half of the match one pair plays extremely slowly and gets the table into time trouble, a monitor gets assigned to the table with 5 boards and 20 minutes to go and then the slow pair all of a sudden starts playing at speedball pace. Two possible outcomes occur: 1. the pair that has been suffering the slow opponents for 15 boards speeds up and makes a few mistakes, thereby throwing away 20 imps or so; or 2. the innocent pair continues to play at a normal pace and then get a slow fine due to the perception of the monitor that they were the "slow" pair.

I was just wondering if the new BBO feature to monitor the time taken by each pair during vugraph had been deployed. I caught a few boards earlier this morning and there didn't seem to be any clocks anywhere. If and when it does get deployed, I sincerely hope the information is made available to the vugraph audience as it could provide very interesting and useful data for bridge administrators the world-over who are dealing with the cancer of slow play. It will also provide another topic of discussion for commentators! I assume chess matches broadcast on the internet or in live auditoriums include the clock.

With the timezone being inhospitable for Europeans, together with the plethora of other BBO vugraph on at the same time, Roland has handed me the keys again to organise the commentators for the PABF Championship starting on Wednesday 23 August 2006. With so much going on at the same time, the "usual suspects" will probably be hard to come by, so this is a great opportunity for any budding commentators out there to put their hand up and give it a go. If you are interested, please email mrdct@amontay.com with "PABF" in the subject line. To streamline things even more, have a look at the BBO schedule (sorted by event will make it easier) and tell me which matches you are available for. Coverage details aren't confirmed yet, but I'm expecting 2-table coverage. For most matches I expect to run English commentary in the open room and an Asian language and/or languages in the closed room similar to how we did it from Korea last year.

Wrong. Refer Law 9B(1)(a): "The Director must be summoned at once when attention is drawn to an irregularity" Please take careful note of the word "MUST" which is defined in the Scope and Interpretation of the Laws in the following terms: Prior to the 1987 Laws words such as may, should, shall and must were used without much discrimination. In 1987 they were rationalised, and the practice is continued in the current Laws. When these Laws say that a player "may" do something ("any player may call attention to an irregularity during the auction"), the failure to do it is not wrong. A simple declaration that a player "does" something ("....dummy spreads his hand in front of him...") establishes correct procedure without any suggestion that a violation be penalised. When a player "should" do something ("a claim should be accompanied at once by a statement..."), his failure to do it is an infraction of Law, which will jeopardise his rights, but which will seldom incur a procedural penalty. In contrast, when these Laws say that a player "shall" do something ("No player shall take any action until the Director has explained...."), a violation will be penalised more often than not. The strongest word, "must" ("before making a call, he must inspect the face of his cards"), indicates that violation is regarded as serious. Note that "may" becomes very strong in the negative: "may not" is a stronger injunction than "shall not", just short of "must not."

It is impossible to work out which room is the open room and which room is the closed room because the open/closed part of the match description is cut-off. Please use something like "EC2006" and we will be able work out what's going on. I think it would also be useful if the event name differentiated that tables, i.e. "EC2006 Match A", "EC2006 Match B", etc.

It didn't seem to be populating with data in real time during round 1. I went to bed so didn't see round 2. I would've expected that if electronic scoring units were being used at the table the results would be available within a couple of minutes depending on how quickly the website gets updated.

I strongly believe that it is completely ethical, honourable, gentlemanly and the only fair thing to do for the field to take absolute maximum advantage of any leads out of turn, bids out of turn, penalty cards, etc. The laws of the game are quite clear about what the penalties are and if you don't enforce them, you might as well throw the rule book away. The non-calling of the director is idiotic and unfair to the field. If the director had been called, dealer would've been informed by the director that if he passes, LHO would be compelled to bid 1♥ and the auction would proceed without penalty, whereas if dealer makes a call of 1♥ or higher, LHO gets one bite at the cherry, RHO is barred from the auction and if LHO doesn't bid ♥ there will be lead penalties against RHO. Starts to make a fairly compelling argument for you partner to open 1♥ or perhaps a weak 2 in something. Depending on the vul, if dealer opened 1♥, LHO will probaby work out that he is playing funny-buggers and either bid 4♥ or 3NT. Finally, in Hobart remember that I am in charge of calling the director and speaking to the director! (note to self: insert this in the system notes with Nick).

Much as we all like to claim that we play every hand on its merits and don't let good or bad results affect our play on future boards, the truth is that momentum is a real dynamic at the bridge table. Personally, I invariably have a strong session if I can pull out a few good things in the first couple of boards of a session (say a thin vul game where I guessed a 2-way finesse or correct squeeze layout). In fact, in long matches (16+ boards) I generally try to be really tight in all aspects of my game on the first 4-boards and then settle into a rhthym. If there are 4-boards in a set that are well suited to my strengths, I would much rather those boards come up early in the match to give me some momentum. The fatigue factor could also be relevant. For example in a 20 board match late into the evening lets say that boards 19-20 contain complex problems for North-South (maybe a defence that requires particularly close attention to the pips and a declarer problem requiring some deep analysis of some esoteric inference to be drawn from the auction and play in the mid-game). With teams of similar ability, I would expect the team that had the problems at the end of the match rather than the beginning of the match to be disadvantaged.

It's quite common for supplementary regulations to require that boards be played in the same sequence at both tables. This is certainly a requirement in a number of Australia's major events. I think it creates a more "pure" result as it means that both tables will get the awkward hands at the same point of the match which if played in a different sequence may affect the "state of the match" mentality that a player may apply to a board. In answer to Jan's initial question, I actually have a strong preference for choice and would vastly prefer to be able to watch the match I want to watch with one table than not have the opportunity to watch that match at all. In the World Youth last year we did single-table coverage of three separate matches each round, which meant on average each team had about six appearances on vugraph during the round robin, with leading teams getting as many as a dozen appearances on vugraph. We had a 4th operator entering auction, lead, result and (if time permitted) play details on a single machine so that the final LINs had good (although not complete) comparitive info that could also be referred to live during the broadcast.

alcohol, hash, etc I know of several players who would be completely ineffective unless under the influence of alcohol and have major difficulties being competitive when playing in tournaments where alcohol is not allowed at the table.

Quoting Eric Cartman "Sweeettttt........." Totally Sweeeeet! Will this fuctionality be available for BBO vugraph generally, or just for the USBF? I would strongly suggest that the clock only start 30 seconds into the auction as that is the period during which the operator is most likely to be doing other things, but I am coming around to believing that even with a bit of inaccuracy it will be monumentally more accurate than arbitrary notes taken by a monitor (who often isn't assigned to the table until after some serious time wasting has already occurred). Also, this would be really handy for BBO Tournaments where the information captured would be extremely accurate as to exactly how much time each player/pair has taken when deciding whether to issue A-, A= or A+ to unfinished boards.

An ongoing concern of mine when operating is potential passing of unauthorised information to players. Such UI situations primarily arise from: 1. Players hearing the clicks of the mouse and therefore getting the tempo of bidding even though screens are in use. 2. Players seeing the operator peering at written notes and therefore becoming privy to the fact that explanations have been sought on the other side of the screen. In relation to (1) my former strategy was to religiously only enter bids when the tray passes under the screen. This gives the impression to the audience that North and South are taking all the time in the auction as the tray only passes under the screen after East and West have made their respective bids. Part of my rationale was that both of my laptops had quite noisy clickers. However, when I had a chance to play on vugraph earlier in the year, I can honestly say that I could not hear a thing from the operator even though he was using one of my noisy laptops. I'm now of the view that provided you have reasonably quite mouse or touchpad clicker, it's OK to enter bids in realtime. In relation to (2) the UI created is generally only passed to West and North (as South and East have their backs to the operator). Whilst suboptimal for the audience the safest approach for an operator is that if he or she can't read a written explanation without overtly peering, don't peer and just leave the bid unexplained. Most of the time, particularly for major events, there will be a commentator or two quite familiar with the bidding methods that can explain what's going on. I note with interest the plan of the USBF to use vugraph tempo as an indicator for slow play assessment at the upcoming USBF Championships. In theory this isn't such a bad idea, but the data will need to be taken with a grain of salt as the tempo you see isn't necessarily accurate, particularly early in the auction when operators often attend to other tasks (comparitive scores, making sure tables are still in sync, cross checking against a player's score card or simply just taking a mental breather or a minute or two). A few times when operating, a pair has been able to give me a spare convention card which is really useful for entering what opening bids and first round responses are. It would be nice if tournament specifications required players to bring three completed convention cards to the table which should be fairly easy given that most are prepared electronically.

I watched the last two segments of the semis and the final and thought the quality of the operating was outstanding. I particularly enjoyed the "colour" comments added by the operators as to table chat and player mannerisms. Well done.

Of course I was 10,000km away at the time, but I think that an important distinction to make between Istabul and Sydney is that when the internet connection went down in Istanbul it generally meant no more online vugraph for that session even when it was evident that the internet was back up at the playing venue. Whereas in Sydney when the internet went down, once it was back up again (usually within a few minutes) or when we switched over to dial-up, the broadcast was always resumed (except for round 9 where we only resumed coverage of the match from table 1). This is what leads me to my distrust and dislike of the onsite server approach. Although I recognise that the inability to the resume the online broadcasts may also have been affected by problems with the local LAN in Istanbul, the message remains the same, venue specification must require high quality broadband internet.

The road map to peace: 1. WBF venue specifications must require broadband internet access as a core non-negotiable requirement. 2. WBF event specifications must contain at least an equal emphasis on the online vugraph as they do on the onsite vugraph. 3. WBF to have a serious look at its personel requirements at major events, many of whom clearly don't need to be onsite in this age of mass communication. 4. BBO software to be upgraded to support multi-channel commentary and some degreee of automation of the commentary assignment process. 5. To the extent to which it is still considered necessary to support an onsite server approach, BBO software to be modified to reduce or eliminate the logistical and security problems, presumably by building-in such functionality to the standard BBO client so that adopting the onsite server approach can be undertaken by any reasonably proficient operator. The automation I suggest under (4) above would be along the lines of having commentators sign-up as to their availability for sessions via a website or within BBO and then continue to have someone like Roland make the assignments. In addition, operators should be able to quickly issue requests for commentators when they are short by bringing up a list of "pre-approved" commentators who are online and/or issuing invitations to people by country, skill level and/or star status.

Now I am outraged! Are you calling me one of Roland's pets? For the record, the FOUR directors in Sydney were: Richard GRENSIDE, Marc van BEIJSTERVELDT, Laurie KELSO and Chris DIMENT. Whether or not Chris was an "official" director is moot as he was in the SINGLE PLAYING ROOM (there were not separate open and closed rooms in Sydney) at all times during play and I personally observed him making rulings and conferring with the other directors on rulings. Perhaps we should move this discussion to a "Fotis is a #$%@head" thread.

A little birdie has told me that FSKOUL is in fact a fellow called Fotis Skoularikis who was in Sydney to do the web-layout for the WBF website (not to be confused with the local website that had realtime scores and other timely information). This role was, of course, in addition to the bulletin layout editor, bulletin editor and bulletin co-editor. Can anyone tell me why you need to have the WBF web stuff done onsite? The other thing I can't work out is why Greece is so disproportionately represented amongst the WBF staff at the World Youth?

This is offensive and uncalled for. Never, and I repeat never, have I put myself before the cause, and I did not do it here either. I let other decide if I do a good job or not! Roland It was YOU that clearly implied that the commentators in the onsite Vugraph were not good enough, not me. Just read your post. You are on shakey ground FSKOUL (whoever you may be). The main point Roland was making was that people should be free to choose how, who, when and where they watch their vugraph. Obviously, if Zia was in the theatre more people would be in there listening to his sage words, but that neither belittles the actual commentators in Sydney nor overstates the abilities of the online commentators. At the very least BBO had two more matches to offer and was clearly a viable choice for spectators onsite in the internet cafe for such reasons as: 1. On a computer you can watch the match you want rather than than the one the WBF have picked for the theatre. 2. On a computer you can chop and change between the different matches as and when you feel like it. 3. On a computer you can chat with your friends and make obscene comments and gestures without getting into any trouble. 4. On a computer you can tune into your favourite commentators which may, on occasion, be more to your personal taste than the commentators onsite. 5. On a computer in an interent cafe setting (in Sydney 12 computers in a ring) you can peek at the machines on either side of you and keep track of all three matches.

No I am not. Having an onsite server perpetuates the head-in-the-sand attitude that the quality and continuity of the onsite vugraph is more important than the online vugraph. The WBF remain ignorant of the reality that 99.5% of vugraph spectators at major events are watching on the internet. Moreover, the demographic watching online are the very people that the WBF needs to promote the game to. The WBF specifications should explicitly ban onsite servers as they clearly represent a risk to the quality of the online presentation. If sufficient resources are put into the online presentation, both the online and onsite vugraphs will be first-class. Conversely, if more resources are put into the onsite vugraph, there is high risk that the online coverage will suffer (as was the case in Istanbul). As an aside, it's ironic that the WBF harp on about events like the World Youth not being run for BBO's benefit, but were more than happy on a number ocassions in Sydney to enjoy the convenience of being able to switch the onsite theatre match from the originally schedule match to another of three matches being covered on BBO when it looked like a different match was a bit more interesting. I'll respond to your inaccurate comments about WBF staffing levels tomorrow when I get my hands on the tournament magazine which I can't find at home at the moment. In the meantime, why don't you identify yourself FSKOUL as you are beginning to sound like one the WBF freeloaders.

Let me get one thing straight, I do not work for or represent BBO in anyway. In my planning for the vugraph coverage in Sydney I investigated a number of different providers and choose BBO as it had, in my opinion, the best product and clearly the best market reach. I was "hired" by the convenor of the 2005 World Youth Teams Championships to produce both the onsite and online vugraph. After much deliberation, correspondence and testing, the mode of coverage, which was AGREED to by the WBF was: - BBO would be used to cover three matches per round; - BBO's servers in the USA would be used; - Onsite vugraph would use BBO over the public internet. Given that mode of coverage, if the online vugraph is working properly then the onsite vugraph will too. So obviously on the few occasions when technical problems arose my immediate focus was getting the online vugraph sorted out. The inherent risk of relying on the public internet was made clear to the WBF months before the event. The risk came to bear and there was MINOR disruption in a few evening matches, but in only one round (round 9) were problems bad enough to cause the abandonment of any coverage. Perhaps if one less WBF freeloader wasn't along for the ride, there would've been ample funds available to have a more reliable internet connection. For example, do you really need 4 tournament directors for 18 tables in one room? As for the impact on "the players, for whom their federations have PAYED money" virtually all of these players did their vugraph watching in the players' internet cafe (ironically sucking bandwidth away from the onsite vugraph theatre) so given that is their preferred mode of watching, having the online show working properly was clearly the priority of that cohort. As for the impact on the onsite commentators, the WBF should be more concerned about the commentators usually outnumbering the spectators. The learning point is that the WBF need to revisit the standard tournament specifications to require a high-quality high-speed interent connection at all playing venues and to require convenors to provided comprehensive online vugraph coverage (through whatever platform they choose and which is acceptable to the WBF). The standard specs still include "pit matches" for goodness sake, which I don't think have been seen for several decades.

Nonsense. I visit Bangkok every year or so and have never found transport much of a problem. The new elevated rail is very efficient and there are plenty of cheap taxis and tuk-tuks to get you around. The venue itself, the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, has plenty of 2-star to 5-star hotels within a few blocks to suit any budget.