DenisO

Barry Rigal has written two books in the Step by Step series : (1) Deception in Defence (2) Deceptive Declarer Play they are available from baronbarclay but I seem to recall you can probably get them cheaper direct from Barry. He posts on rgb so you could get his email address from there. Denis

I've been away, without Internet connection, so rather late coming into this thread. I think it's a great idea that Jan is canvassing opinions and I see a lot of excellent views have been offered and I'm sure she'll implement what she can. I'd just like to reiterate that its v. important to get the essentials right first, i.e. good internet connection and experienced operators. One important point that hasn't been mentioned is to ensure, after all the hard work that goes into a Vugraph presentation, that the broadcast is recorded or archived for posterity. Unfortunately the ACBL/USBF have sometimes fallen down here. To get it it right is just a simple matter of ensuring that, during the quarter and semi finals, each match is given a different name - it can be as simple as SF1 and SF2 but on several occasions I've had to contact Roland (who has more than enough to do) to get operators to do this - otherwise the match which finishes first get completely overwritten . Mrdct would give good advice on this aspect as he prepares a good file-naming structure for the broadcasts he organises.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this is going to work. I've just watched Session 1 which had 2 Tables being broadcast. 27 boards in the session (some problems with bds 1-6) but all that is recorded in the BBO archive is bds 25-27 from the second Table, which presumably finished later than first table. Maybe someone could suggest to the operators how this could be improved. I know that giving the tables different names would double the amount of info recorded but that would still be only 6 bds ;)

The "smart money" has a longer memory than BBO - winning the Cap Gemini World top in both 2000 and 2001 is not indicative (to me) of a lack of chemistry :) That's why they got my No1 spot.

The Vugraphs of the Teams event in the BBO archive are pretty poor. Normally SDoty is on of the best operators around but maybe her coordinating role for the commentary is affecting the archiving. There are no worthwhile records for Matches 1, 2, 4 and 8 - some missing completely!. There is something for Match 5 with Fred/ Michael Rosenberg playing in the OR but I don't think they are supposed to be there - well not according to the Cavendish web site. Hope they can do better for the Pairs event.

As many of you know the BBO software doesn't properly record player names in the vugraph records of Pairs events. I'll offer to edit the BBO archive files if I can get some help with the data and then post them on Nikos's site. I'm unlikely to be at my PC much over the next few days so I'll need some help. If you watch a session could you please record Session number and for each pair of bds: Bd nos and N/S followed by E/W in that specific order. You can post *any* data you get to this thread and I'll pick it up. The completed files won't be ready for about ten days as I'm on holiday all next week far away from any PC access B)

My picks this year : play well guys - I want to see that 2nd Golden Imp award on my sideboard :rolleyes: 1. Zia Mahmood – Andy Robson 2. Russ Ekeblad – Ron Rubin 3. Geoff Hampson – Eric Rodwell 4. Fulvio Fantoni – Claudio Nunes 5. Bjorn Fallenius – Roy Welland 6. Bobby Levin – Steve Weinstein

This is a very good tip. I've found that when GIB appears to be frozen, this tip gives me a result very quickly :P

A Google search for "baronised acol" gives some info including this BBO forum link http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:eEzZzc...uk&ct=clnk&cd=6 It seems to be Acol (of many years ago) with some elements of the Baron system added.

We will probably include this feature in future Bermuda Bowl Vugraphs - maybe even some we have published already ;) You know the tag - so you can always add it yourself to any VG with a text editor such as Wordpad. Just remember the limitations of using it.

Vandy vugraphs (semis and final) now available at : http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/2006/2006-vand.html

Thanks Roland - I'll get the edited files to Nikos early tomorrow :P Must watch the Masters now!

Anyone know the line-ups for the first 16 boards in each half of the final. I didn't get to watch these and the Vugraph "forgets" these names - only giving the players for bds 17-32. If you can remember them I will add the names to the .lin files and post on Nikos's site. Please give for each room N/S and E/W in that order. Thanks Denis

After 3 quarters in the Rd of 8, Hollman leads Nickell by 39!, Chang leads Baze by 28, Welland heads Robinson by 40. After 2 quarters, Shugart ahead by 41 against Moss. Will Nickell make another of their great comebacks?

At last :huh: Hope we get exciting matches !

Exactly - this was the point I made in the first post of this thread - if you look in the GIB Library some years ago for this event, you will find .pbn files of the round of 32. I don't what the technolog for the coverage was then but it must have needed volunteer operators to record the deals, bidding and play. Now we have better technology and the superb BBO software and we're down to the round of 16 and not a cheep from the ACBL - Seems to me they are going backwards. Is it run by dinosaurs who have no idea how to promote bridge and bring their major events , with really world class fields, to a worldwide audience - which obviously includes all the ACBL members who can't get to the NABC.

While we await news on the schedule, there is a good article on the history of the Vanderbilt in daily bulletin 3 on the NABC site : http://www.acbl.org/nabc/Dallas2006/bulletins.html All the previous winners and lots of photos with famous names from the past - unfortunately B&L are smiling out from the photo of last year's winning team.

I don't see any mention of a broadcast of the Vanderbilt (to be held early April) in the Vugraph schedule. Have the ACBL made any approaches or have they forgotten their internet audience? Availabiltity of NABC match records seems to get worse - not long ago you can find records (pbn files) covering matches down to the round of 32. Nowadays it seems to be a bit of a lottery whether we even get the final :rolleyes:

I've just checked and you can actually use the Windows XP file finder. Start>Search>file finder. This gives different criteria to search on, including Content.

What you need is something like Powerdesk - a free version can be obtained at: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_desc...fid,3491,00.asp I've got an old version and I just used it to search my 1975 Bermuda Bowl folder for files of type *.lin and containing text "garozzo". It worked a treat. It also gives you other attribute filters - I use it all the time for my hard disk searches.

Have you tried opening the .lin file with Wordpad - that should work as it is a text file. Denis

I'm retired now but spent nearly 40 years in the UK nuclear industry as a mechanical engineer/physicist - and really enjoyed it but not quite so much as my current job :).

I notice that this post has ben edited and the reference to gambling removed. I think it was a fair comment as I don't think the current BBO GIB is a good enough bidder to play for money with. I tried the same haned with my retail GIB and the bidding went the same way except that my GIB passed the 3SX (ie did not bid) 6D! My GIB was playing standard + gadgets which is the bidding system that Matt Ginsberg (and all the GIB beta testers) spent a huge amount of time working on and is GIB's strongest system. I believe if GIB is going to be used to play for real money, that some work needs to be done to allow the BBO GIB to use Matt's preferred system.

GIB DD analysis appears to freeze sometimes during play of a hand in a Vugraph broadcast. When I think this has happened if I switch DD off and then immediately on again, it works OK again. Anyone else see this?

You need to use V460. With this there is a GIB button and no DF button. The GIb implementation can be a lot slower than DF - may depend on CPU speed of your computer. I've just waited several minutes for one analysis on my 1.7GHz Pentium3. That was exceptional - result normally shows within 20 seconds.