DenisO

Thank you Susan for very helpful reply giving this insight into broadcasting a difficult event. In particular your offer to help in logging next year's event is much appreciated. Hopefully by then Fred will have enabled player name logging for Pairs events so it will be easier to obtain the complete record. Nikos and I (and I think one other European nightowl) did manage to get nearly all of this year's event - even some of the extra table with Hamman/Zia :) For anyone interested it is all available at Nikos' site : http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/2005/2005-cav.html Lots of info on past Cavendishes on the site as well. Denis

Nice to see big improvement for the semi-finals - for segments 2 to 4 we have recordings of both matches in the vugraph archive :P A pity about seg 1 where one match has been overwritten. I hope that the improvement is not by pure chance and that the operators now realise the importance of naming their files correctly. It seems such a shame to put so much effort by operators and commentators into a broadcast and then to needlessly trash it :(

Agree with you mrdct - shouldn't have said that . One gets a different perspective from 4000+ miles away. I can appreciate on-site problems but I find it difficult to understand why different matches are given the same file name and why operators don't have the match data (team and player names +scores) ready on a piece of paper to type into their laptop - or are they only given a few seconds notice as to which matches are to be broadcast?

Thanks mrcdt for useful reply - perhaps Roland or Uday could convey the "don't panic" advice to the Houston operators because since I started the thread these broadcasts (as Nikos says) have become a fiasco - it shouldn't happen for such a major championship There is no record of either match for segment 7 in Bridge Library - I saw (just before going to bed) that there was a hand rotation problem with Seg 7 for the Ekeblad/Cayne match -was it not sorted out? And for seg 8 we only have half a match from presumably two which were broadcast - I suspect both matches had exactly the same file name so one has been overwritten :rolleyes:

In the USBF Trials we have just seen identical file names in the Quarter Final for the Mahaffey v Welland and Ekeblad v Cayne Matches. This means that the match which finishes last will overwrite the other match on members' hard disks (also probably in the Vugraph Library) and the first match is lost forever - unless someone is watching, who recognises the problem and is nimble enough to do some *very* quick file renaming. To prevent this happening (and it is a frequent problem where matches are shown simultaneously), would it be possible to introduce a feature in the Vugraph software which would prevent identical file names being used for simultaneous matches? This would force operators to think a bit more about proper identification of each match. Denis

Well Uday, these operators in Houston seem to have found a way to sabotage pretty well everything including the Save function. I'm watching boards 61 to 75 of the QFinals and they've just got about everything wrong that might be possible- wrong team names, wrong player names and wrong scores. On top of that, boards that I've just watched with bidding and play aren't being saved to my hard disk. I don't think it can get any worse :unsure: Surely with five or ten minutes preparation before the broadcast, they could get the data and file naming sorted out?

There seems to be a problem with recording the USBF Team trials to the archive in the BBO Bridge Library. The round of 16 is currently underway and we have nothing for session 3 or 4. There is also effectively nothing for session 2 (only a title - file is empty). Even the 1st session is flawed with lots of hieroglyphics in the file and the result bears no resembance to the score on the USBF site. I wonder if there is a software problem? or is it an operator issue as we have the same very experienced operator who did the Cavendish but there were also problems in recording that - see my post on that topic. Denis

Long time since this question was raised and I guess the answer is no. But there is a fairly good way to practise a system and that is buy to a good Bridge program - I would suggest Jack which I think is the best around. You can do lots of clever stuff to specify the partnership points and arrange purely constructive bidding or allow opps to interfere. There are lots of systems available (only glaring omission is Precision but that may come) and enough gadgets to satisfy even the most devoted gadget freak B)

Just had a look at the 1997 auction - total was $1,288,500 !! (60 pairs) WOW - significantly more than 2005 and there's been 8 years of inflation. More big money for Bridge then? Top prices were Lauria/Versace at $64K amd Helness/Helgemo at $62.5K

The Cavendish is a great event to watch live at your PC but there are two big problems when trying to record the matches. (i) The BBO software doesn't record any player names in the lin files - this is a known problem and is somewhere on Fred's "To Do" list. This can be overcome if someone like Nikos or myself (trying to log the broadcast) is actually at their PC - by writing down the player names and later editing the lin file. Even better is for the operator or a Yellow to give the player names (exact locations needed) at the start of each 3-bd round - this allows for sleep ;) (ii) Automatic logging is not working properly - all that is being saved to the BBO archive is the last round of each session. I suspect that this is because the operator (who is very experienced) is renaming the file for each round. This is great if you are actually watching a session because at the end of each round you just have to leave the Vugraph room momentarily and you have a nice file for each round of the session. But the downside appears to be that the operator would have to close the room momentarily to get the same effect, ie a log of each round, in the BBO archive. At the moment the session broadcast is left open for all 8/9 rounds and it would appear that each round is overwritten by the succeeding round. I don't know if this is a problem with the software or if it's an effect that the operator is unaware of but it's a pity that so little is being saved to the archive. Hopefully these problems can be resolved before next year's event. Denis

As this seems to have slipped by unnoticed - let me wish the Vugraph Project a very happy first birthday - even though I am a very small part of the team. Keep up the good work Nikos - you are doing a fantastic job in building this important tournament database and just like BBO it's all FREE for anyone who wants to study the bidding or play from past tournaments or even download files to pit their wits against such as Lauria/Versace or Meckwell using a program like Jack or GIB. Denis

There is a link to the results at : www.ebu.co.uk They are quite complicated so there is a page to explain the results :lol:

Yes I'm very pleased that the EBU have got on board at last. It's taken a long time. I wrote to them, as an ordinary EBU member, as long as Nov 2003 (after the wonderful Bermuda Bowl final) singing the praises of BBO and asking them to contact Fred. I must say there were times when I thought it would never happen - still better late than never :rolleyes:

On 3rd May for the first time BBO are broadcasating the Schapiro Spring Foursomes (semis and final) . This event is in memory odf the great Boris Schapiro and held in the beautiful town of Stratford-on-Avon. Many of Europe's finest players will be there - have a look at your Vugraph schedule for timings. further details are at: http://www.ebu.co.uk/competitions/springfours/entries.htm Denis

Maybe - and I was also thinking that might be the case :) - but I was really hoping for a response from someone who actually knows :D

Hi Marlowe Please see my reply to Inquiry - re Root and Pavlicek; They define the invitational cue bid to be the same sequence as the unassuming cue bid. ie your situation B Regards Denis

Hi Ben That's not the way it's played over here in UK - nor according to The Bridge World which defines the UCB as : "Unassuming cue-bid advancer's cue-bid to show a strong raise of overcaller's suit, but not necessarily the values to force to game." ie 1♥ - (1♠) -Pass -? if ?= 2♥, that is an unassuming cue bid ie by overcallers partner. The reason I asked the question is that Root and Pavlicek in "Modern Nridge Conventions" define exactly the same sort of sequence for the Invitational Cue Bid (I shortened that to ICB in my previous post). They define the ICB as a cue-bid of the enemy suit in response to partner's overcall. Unfortunately their excellent book doesn't include the unassuming cue bid [b)] Denis

Thx Marlowe - but I don't understand Situation A. Both the UCB and the ICB are supposed to be responses to partner's overcall, by bidding the opponents' suit. Situation A is different ie a cue bid of overcaller's suit to show support for partner who is opener. Is this a different convention or some extension of either the UCB or ICB? Denis

Are there are any differences between the Unassuming cue bid and the Invitational cue bid? Descriptions look pretty similar.

1. Bocchi -Duboin 2. Balicki - Zmudzinski 3 Fantoni - Nunes 4. Levin - Weinstein 5. Gitelman - Moss 6 Hamman - Zia

Couldn't have put it better - exactly my sentiments :D Denis

Just spotted on another thread that it was Gerardo - great work G! Denis

Thank you to whoever has designed the new Vugraph schedule page - the local time feature is a big bonus as are the options for ordering by event or time - well done :) A tip for Vugraph fans - keep a shortcut on your desktop. Denis

Why not adjust the time (in control panel) before your screen saver kicks in; or better still disable it completely as modern screens have no need of a screen saver. Denis

You can also get the Vugraphs later (without commentary if you prefer) by going to Nikos Sarantakos' excellent site : http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph.html You can even download the files to your own hard disk to watch any time at your leisure -even offline if not on ADSL. Denis