mrdct

That was kind of the way it used to be with early Bermuda Bowls only having 4-6 teams competing. All of Italy's previous Bermuda Bowl victories were at time when 6 or less teams competed. It wasn't until the 1980s that the field started to expand with multiple teams from Europe and few additional zones taking part. I think the number of teams and spread of zonal representation is about right at the moment. Interestingly, at one point or another throughout the qualifying rounds this year, teams from all but one of the eight zones were in the top eight at some point and the quarter-finalists included teams from Zones 1 (Europe), 2 (Nth America), 3 (Sth America), 4 (Asia/Mid-East) and 8 (Africa).

They do in my experience.

Wrong. In many jurisdictions there are aspects of property law that do give certain people the right to use or take property belonging to other parties. Concepts such as "squatters' rights" come to mind. You could also examine the process by which entire continents have been taken from indigenous peoples for European settlement. Wrong. He would be in serious breach of anti-discrimination and human rights laws in many jurisdictions in which BBO operates.

There is bridge game called "Omar Sharif Bridge" that seems to have a GUI that is workable for PDAs. There is a screenshot at: http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=5627 I appreciate that the demand for a PDA version may not be huge at the moment, but it would be nice to be able to do things like review LIN files of vugraph, etc. when you're on the bus without having to fire up your laptop.

If you have played more than 10 hands on BBO, have reasonably good eye-sight and moderate computer literacy (not completely essential) you are qualified. You just need to email fred@bridgebase.com to get a vugraph operator ID and some basic instructions and you are ready to go. Why not give it a try for your next club teams championship final or similar? Being a vugraph operator is quite a buzz. You have the best seat in house and are right at the heart of the action.

It was great that technical problems that were causing the drop-outs in the first few days seemed to disappear. For planning of future events, I would very much like to know how this problem was resolved as it may be helpful for organisers of future events. The other comment/plea I would like to make is for BBO fans to try to get involved when a major event (or even an interesting local event) comes to your part of the world. Producing BBO broadcasts is definately a "many hands make light work" affair and it would've been nice to have had coverage of few more tables at this event.

For USA1, Freeman-Nickell have only played in the 2nd set. Meckwell have played throughout so far. For Italy, Lauria-Versace have been unchanged with Bochi-Duboin playing the 1st set and Fantoni-Nunes playing the 2nd & 3rd sets.

I'm just about to take delivery of an Ipaq 6365 running Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC. It would be pretty cool to be able to play bridge with it on the road. Has any thought been give to developing a PDA version of BBO?

It's still in play right now.

That's a fair point and I certainly wont be mentioning Swan in any commentary until this directive is (hopefully) relaxed. I respect the house rules, even though I strongly disagree with them. That's also a fair point, although one could take the view that by its nature BBO is somewhat of a public place with stakeholders that go beyond its owners. The danger is that we start off with simply not being allowed to mention one of BBO's competitors, then we might be encouraged to mention particular parties who serve the commercial interests of BBO, then we might be encouraged to put forward particular views that are aligned with the views of BBO's owners, then we might be prohibited from putting forward alternate views and before you know it journalistic integrity is out the window. Given the lack of operators in Estoril, over the next three days there will be world championship finals and playoffs receiving no BBO coverage, not to mention a Transnational Teams Event boasting a myriad of international stars. The progress of some or all of these matches will be of interest to many and I hope sensibilities will prevail and the vugraph audience can be directed to the best place to follow those matches whilst continuing to enjoy the feature BBO match, whatever it may be.

The commentators, operators and organisers also offer a free service - all for the betterment of the game we all love. I provide all three of these services on a regular basis and at considerable personal expense. I do so for the bridge fans not the owners of BBO. Don't lose sight of the fact that BBO vugraph would not exist without these people who have made a significant contribution to the value of the BBO brand. When I commentate I try to offer the best viewing experience I can complete with typos, misanalyses, beer cards and my personal views on a range of bridge and non-bridge matters. I firmly believe that the viewer experience is significantly enhanced by providing regular links to websites of interest to the event being broadcast. To one extent or another, such links will inevitably conflict with the commercial interests of BBO as virtually all bridge-related websites either directly or indirectly link to products and services that compete with BBO. Even without actually providing the link to viewers, commentators are relying on Swan to provide progress scores from other matches and details such as contracts and leads from other matches. I believe that it is most discourteous to not acknowledge Swan's contribution to the broadcast. Swan's running scores have gone a long way to filling the void of there being generally only one match broadcast each session, which appears to be a significant step backwards from the extent of coverage of other major WBF events in past two or three years.

Of course it's censorship. Commentators are being directed to not say something that they would otherwise say. I believe it was closer to an hour into the match (around board 6 or 7) when I gave a link to the running scores. Even if I had received the directive quoted by Roland, I wouldn't have expected that giving the link at that point would've been classed as "too often". I was immediately jumped on by multiple commentators including the word "furious". Swan have done a fantastic job with the running scores and the more people that know about it the better in my view. Note also that Swan's running scores include every table in the Transnationals with more than 100 teams which translates to thousands of friends, relatives and interested parties. It would obviously be very disruptive and inappropriate for commentators to be giving lots and lots of running scores from that event; so clearly the best thing to do is give the link a few times each session so spectators can follow which ever running scores they are interested in. I did go off and watch Swan's coverage of the Italy-Sweden match where there were around 380 spectators, which was a bit better than the usual 20-1 advantage the BBO enjoys. As it happens, I find Swan's vugraph virtually unwatchable as the interface is terrible, but diversity is good for the fans. I think Uday's analogy of the Audi dealer promoting BMWs is silly. A more relevant analogy would television broadcasts of football. In Australia, like many countries, football broadcast rights are divied up amongst multiple TV stations. Obviously the respective stations do their best to promote their own matches, but they certainly don't ignore the existence of the other matches and will give progress scores and show highlight grabs (complete with the competiting stations' watermarked logo). A constructive suggestion that has been made many times before is to have a button that spectators can click on to bring up a pop-up with all of the relevant links for the event they are watching.

I was staggered to be told during a match I was commentating on this evening that I'm not allowed to give a link to the website from which spectators can get the live realtime scores. How petty. We all know that BBO's vugraph is superior in every respect and its spectators outnumber Swan's by at least 20 to 1. So what are Fred & Uday worried about? The reality is that Swan are providing an absolutely outstanding real-time scoring service that is the perfect viewing companion to have on a second screen or a background web-browser while watching BBO. It's quite simple. BBO are the best in the business for vugraph whilst Swan are the best in the business for real-time scoring. The operators, commentators and coordinators are giving freely of their time to provide the best service they possibly can which surely includes telling spectators where to go for live scores. It would be like a TV station pretending that a major sporting event doesn't exist during its news bulletins for fear of promoting another TV station coverage of it. Should commentators also avoid mentioning the official WBF site? Who knows a spectator might accidentally see a Swan banner or download a bulletin with Swan's vugraph schedule. During the round-robin in particular I was relying heavily on Swan for the board comparisons to make comments about what contracts, results, leads, etc. were made at other tables. So why shouldn't Swan receive credit for that? Of course they should which is why I always thanked Swan in my wrap-up. But now I'm gagged.

I agree. Perhaps as a user-configurable option. It would also be nice to select the sort of cards being displayed. It would be nice to be able to display symetrical cards like the ones used in World Championships, or non-English cards with the different letters for A, K, Q, J (ie. 1, R, D, V).

Italy had 1st choice of opponents with their options being: India (-2,3); Argentina (+10.5); Egypt (-4.3); or Brazil (-7). It seems Italy perceived Argentina to be at least 12.8 imps stronger over 96 boards than India. However, there may have been a broader strategy to not give USA2 the option to pick India against whom USA2 would've had +16 carry-over. USA2 had 2nd choice of opponents, with their options being: Argentina (-4); Egypt (+9); or Brazil (+9.5). Again, it seems that USA2 perceived Argentina to be at least 13 imps weaker than their other two options. They may also have been seeking to impose a stronger opponent on USA1 (who would've had +9.5 carryover versus Argentina). USA1 were then left with a choice of Egypt (+9) or Brazil (+9.5) and looked to have gone for the higher carryover. Interestingly, by picking Brazil, USA1 ensured that Sweden would get Egypt against whom Sweden has 16 imps of carryover (c.f -2.3 vs. Brazil).

Whilst the local server may be beneficial for the handful of people in the vugraph auditorium, it is significantly inconvenient for the thousands of online spectators - many of whom are the very demographic that the WBF is seeking to promote the game to. The thinking should be that BBO and its army of volunteer operators and commentators provide a service to thousands of bridge fans all over the world and, as a bonus, local organisers (if they are clever enough to pick a venue with a decent internet connection or even a stable analog phone line) get to use the BBO vugraph feed for their onsite auditorium presentation for free! Even with a few expected internet outages, of which there seem to be about two or three per match in Estoril, if the "normal" broadcast model of using the main BBO server was used, reconnection is fairly straight-forward without any loss of data. If the WBF can't source a venue with a reliable internet connection, that is unequivocally the fault of the WBF. What can be done in the immediate term to improve the quality of service to the online audience? Obviously the infrastructure and other technical issues will need to be looked at by someone onsite, but the sorts of things I would look at are: 1. Continue to use the local server approach, but revert to a dial-up internet connection for the connectivity to the outside world. 2. Have a look at the extent of sharing of the venue's internet connection during match times and perhaps look at enabling rate limits on non-critical ports on the venue's router to channel a decent amount of dedictated bandwidth to BBO. 3. If a local wireless network is being used, do a mini-site survey with NetStumbler or similar to make sure you aren't getting cross-channel interference with other nearby networks. In my experience, wireless is only reliable for BBO if you have direct line of sight to the access point. Consider going out and buying a box of computer cable and hard-wiring the BBO machines. 4. Get on to the venue's ISP and see if you can move to a plan with higher bandwidth and/or better service continuity. 5. See if we can find some volunteer operators anywhere in world who would be willing to replicate Swan's coverage which will have the dual effect of delivering an extra match to the BBO audience and keeping a vugraph show of some description happening as and when problems arise with the local coverage.

It is entirely the WBF's fault. The venue selection criteria must surely include a high-quality, high-speed broadband internet connection with a 99.98% uptime guarantee. If the host country and/or convenor can't commit and deliver to the event specifications, they should hold it somewhere else. In Sydney, I was quite strongly opposed to having a local server (which was the WBF's initial preference) for a number of reasons: - hassle to setup; - unfamiliarity with that type of configuration; - distorted emphasis on quality of service for the onsite presentation at the potential expense of the online audience which will hundreds of times larger; - known track record of uptime for BBO's USA-based server (including it's own support structure); - expected high-quality broadband connection on-site with dial-up back-up. I don't know the full technical details of how the local server interacts with the main BBO server to present the vugraph to the online audience, but it's apparent that correction of problems and resumption after interuptions seems very problematic. Sydney was not, however, devoid of problems with the 3rd match of the day on several days experiencing some connection problems as the venue was on a wireless link being shared by other subscribers. The back-up dial-up connection was brought into play a few times and used throughout the final, but I think overall we provided pretty good coverage. BBO works fine over a dial-up connection as the amount of data involved is quite small. I've successfully run three table coverage with a single dial-up connection in the past without any problems. If the venue's broadband in Estoril is sub-standard, I'd suggest giving dial-up a try.

I must say this worries me quite a bit. The coverage to the online audience from Istanbul was less than successful under this model and, from discussions with Uday prior to Sydney, when a similar approach was considered but eventually dismissed, it seems to be quite a hassle to set up anyway. The only possible justification I can think of is if the internet connection in Estoril is dodgey. If that's the case, the WBF really need to take a good hard look at themselves and put high-quality broadband internet high on the list of venue criteria for future events. Multi-table coverage is hard and takes quite a bit of planning and preparation together with a least two or three experienced operators and a supportive convenor.

Betfair responded to my email query overnight and have advised that they will get a market up for the Bermuda Bowl in the next 24 hours. I hope that gives the bookies enough time to frame a market. I checked out Pinnacle per Justin's suggestion, but nothing as yet there.

I note that Betfair haven't opened up a market for the Bermuda Bowl yet. They covered it last time in Monaco with reasonable turnover. If are so inclined, you can contact Betfair on the following numbers to give them some encouragement: UK 0870 0110 444 Ireland 1800 944 000 Australia 1800 759 354 International +44 20 8834 8060

Interestingly, the Australian Bridge Federation has today published a remuneration policy for "helpers" including data entry people which I presume includes BBO operators. http://www.abf.com.au/about/helpers.html A$80 (about US$60) is the specified per diem for data entry which for someone living in the same city should be enough to pay for petrol, parking and a couple of meals with bit of spare change to spend at the bar after play is finished. I think it's fair enough, particularly if travel and accommodation can be neogiated with the convenor for out-of-towners.

I've caught this thread a bit late, but having done the on-site coordination for the World Youth this year and also provided remote support/coordination for the PABF championships and some other events - I have a few thoughts: For the World Youth, the vugraph coordinators were appointed about 12 months before the event and several coverage scenarios were developed based on the extent of operator availabity. Detailed planning and rostering was finalised about 4 months prior to the event. As with many things, if you invest in thorough planning and preparation, good results will follow. The structure that I like for major events is having an experienced operator with the ability to trouble-shoot technical problems and fairly good IT skills overseeing the coverage and perhaps a few sessions into the event doing some operating also. We were fortunate in Sydney to have a convenor supportive of vugraph who was willing to provide food and accomodation to operators which was a nice lure to offer out-of-towners (some of whom came from the other side of the planet). For the PABF championships earlier this year, we had a relatively inexperienced local coordinator onsite (who is now a complete guru) and an experienced operator (me) in another country (but similar timezone) available for telephone support. Around four or five issues arose during the course of the event that were all able to be resolved over the phone. I'm not sure what the coverage plan is for Estoril, but I know Herve knows his stuff and will put on a good show. Let's just hope we get a more reliable internet connection than what we had in Istanbul!

DealMaster Pro

There have been a few technical problems with the curreent vugraph presentation from Indonesia. Whilst there have been some reports of viruses, etc. on some of the local machines, the way some of the problems have been manifesting themselves appear to me to be software or server related. The most common and obvious thing is when a closed room table syncs to an open room table doing "O" coverage, the names of the open room players and the title "open room" appear until the operator redeals. There have also been a few freezes during which period viewers can't hover their mouse over the table indicator in the top left corner to see who's in the room.

I did conduct a survey (of sorts) when broadcasting from two separate matches from the Australian National Championships last year at the same time. One match had a forcing-pass pair and the other match was all natural. The table with the HUM system had about 500 spectators and the table that was all natural had about 200 spectators. I think it's a complete myth that vugraph spectators prefer natural systems. With HUM methods so heavily restricted in many parts of the world, vugraph is just about the only chance many people get to see such methods.