shoeless

Hey Profmom and WCB1944, Thanks for sharing your story. I am tickled pink for you.

My first instinct on this hand was to win the diamond and play the Q!h to the ace and chase hearts.

Thanks for that Paul - wonderful little story about the nature of one world class player. Too bad Jan is such a pro - a response of "Yes, several, can't you find them?" would have been delicious.

In other threads about vugraph, there are discussions about how viewers can get more, how players have a responsibility to give back to the game and so forth. I have not thought this concept through much, but I think an intriquing idea would be to have a real time show featuring moderators, world class players and the audience interacting over a particular match (played or upcoming) or event or even a specific hand of interest. Scenario 1 (vugraph theatre) - semis match of the Spingold just completed and a 2 imp win for *insert team name - player A from the victorious team steps to the operator's computer and chats about the match or a particularly critical hand which could be redealt to in order to talk about the auction, play etc. Scenario 2 (lecture theatre) - Roland moderates a panel where a couple of players fresh off a big win talk about the win and a few of the critical hands of interest. Just ramblings

Can't argue with your assessment Gerben - but on the other hand - customers are customers. I really like the idea of posting the link in a commentators profile - that could help. I also wonder if the link could somehow be posted in either the vugraph lobby or as suggested in the chat area or even somewhere in the title of the match.

Well that is true. Don't get me wrong if there is an easy fix to this - I certainly like the idea of being able to easily identify who the commentators are

Help me out here. Not sure I understand the issue. Commentators are the ones who are commentating. I don't mean to sound stupid in my comment - but when I join a broadcast - it is clear to me who the commentators are, by who is presenting the analysis and color. Granted in a perfect world, we might have the commentators highlighted in the list of specs, but I really don't think on a cost/benefit approach that this would warrant much investment. Adding the scheduled commentators to the vugraph schedule might be enough. Fred's idea of having the commentators listed in the vugraph lobby seems to be good if it is easily doable.

I hadn't noticed, but that is a good idea. Any number of inquiries cut down by doing that can only be good. BTW - must credit Larry Mori for the cultural observation made during the last PABF

As an operator, it has been my experience, that players on vu, are generally very co-operative in trying to help the operator make a good presentation. Confirming results, showing cards, even holding up explanation notes of alerts and bids. However, there is a danger that vugraph operations at the table can be invasive to the competition - creating isues in normal game tempo or interrupting psychological processes. I, for one, cannot agree that an operator should ask to see a card that was played in the middle of the play of a hand. On balance, I think that the BBO vugraph presentations are pretty good - perhaps we need to control and develop that which is left to us - being better commentators and being better spectators. How about a 'Spectator's Guide' to watching BBO vugraph?

Great idea Molva, commentators also don't always remember to reaffirm these links when they are caught up in the action so this would easily put the power in the specs hands. In South-east Asia spectators tend not to bother commentators with information requests - it's largely cultural but also maybe a language issue - having such a facility would provide them the autonomy to get the info they want.

LOL Caren - you say what I think! My favorite professor used to say "If you think you have an idea and can't explain it to a barmaid - you don't have an idea!"

China Net - the chinese on-line program has about twice the players (10,000) as BBO comparing their respective peak times - so they are rather well organized - I don't know if China Net will be broadcasting from Estoril however. The point is not whether there will be Chinese broadcast from the closed room for their matches - Uday and Roland nicely facilitated that at the 43rd PABF in Seoul by the way - rather the point is - if the Russian and German women's teams are being featured in a BBO match - a group of Chinese players can open a room to chat about the match in Chinese and in fact arrange their own commentators for that - all the while the main broadcast might proceed in English and Russian. I understand fully that the vision for BBO and it's strategy for development are solely in the hands of the owners and they have to decide what gets done next based on what they deem the priorities to be. But in their wisdom they have opened up these forums to let people talk around the vision and the strategy - so I use the opportunity to put forward my case. As for knowing for sure that people will use such a facility - don't think one can ever be certain in advance - but I can assure you that if it isn't made available - no one will use it. Seems to me if new subscribers to BBO is a goal - this may well be a potent avenue to let the non-English speaking bridge community know that BBO is interested in their business. The pay-back may not be significant immediately but I am guessing it will come.

Gee let's see if I can get a handle on this - we ask (IN ENGLISH) if those who don't speak English would like to enjoy the premier event in the bridge world in which the greatest diversity of languages are present of any bridge event. 45 million bridge players in China - some of whom will be watching. You know I just bet if you did this and let people know they could watch the BB, VC and SB and chat about it in their own language - you might have a few more people watching. Some local experts are likely to log in to these rooms and give some pretty sound commentary too. Terrible idea - stick to the important stuff!

I agree there was no foul here - however I also want to say you have my respect for posting this and asking - you obviously care alot about doing a good job.

South: Alert! East: Yes? I'm requested to further misdescribe my hand. A player who can't defend accurately should try to become declarer (or dummy). -Alfred Sheinwold We play forcing hesitations.

"If you have the slightest touch of masochism, you'll love this game." - dunno source "The trouble with women is that they treat bridge as a game. They do not realize it is a war." - Kantar After dummy is tabled, George Mittelman tabled his hand as declarer and told the opponents: "Take what you want, I refuse to play this mess."

1S

"Raptor Overture' by the Ritongs "Walk the Dog" by the Reisig Trio "Smother" by the Peekers "Drop It" by the Spearchuckers "Unintentional Squeeze" by Lucky "Sorry pard" by the BBO Choir "Next!" by Joey

Sorry Roland think you missed my point. I shall not pursue it. Will say that I believe having you on-site will make a positive difference to the quality of the broadcast. Also hear that BBO's strategic plan doesn't include doing that - I respect that. My earlier comment about sending you as a 'reward' was misplaced - I didn't have enough information. I am outta here.

The word 'might', not "will", in the statement you are referring to, seems to imply the author isn't making an assertation to a fact.

1. Clinch - I guess I saw your question imbedded in mine. Sorry I didn't make it clearer. 2. Roland will never be underappreciated by me. If we had to start paying for the value this guy contributes, we might go broke. Whereas operators and commentators are on and off the job and have some options to take a break - he is pretty much in the barrel on an on-going basis, except for when he is off somewhere and he relies on the good graces of some others to pinch hit (I remember Ritong jumping into the breech once). He has chosen to do this work voluntarily and he has done a remarkable job. In no way do I mean to imply by my question anything about appreciation - purely going for more information. 3. I co-ordinated the vugraph on-site operations for a Zone championship (similar to what Herve is lined up to do at Estoril) and I certainly see a big difference from my job description for that and Rolands. However I do not fully know his job and his role (and how that might look on-site as opposed to off-site), so that is why I asked the question.

I have had the privilege and pleasure of playing on-line alot with a very highly ranked player in the world. One of the things that has been instructive for me is that it appears she only claims at the moment in play when she is sure the opps can see the line - to her credit, she appears to target her assuredness to about an intermediate level - regardless of what is on the opps profile for level. If she gets a refusal of the claim she will play out the hand completely if there aren't many tricks left or if it is early in the play of the hand she will play it out to a much more obvious position and claim again. She never comments on a refused claim - she plays immediately to the next trick. Another thing she does is if an opp rejects a few claims in succession, she stops claiming and plays them out.

Help me out folks. I have a sincere question to ask. "How does Roland being on-site in Estoril make him more effective for this broadcast, in his capacity as BBO vugraph co-ordinator?" I genuinely can't get it.

I was wondering when someone was going to say this. Right on!!!

I am often in awe of the symbiotic relationships that have developed around the BBO vugraph facility. Seems to me no one stakeholder is all give or all take, including the spectators and in some respects I think we will only see it broaden and deepen over time. The ecological balance in symbiosis is always delicate even when the products from it are robust and hardy. Since it doesn't seem to be broken - we likely don't need to be fixing it. My read on Booze's post is simple - he contributed a heartfelt sentiment of respect and admiration for one man's significant contribution to this world we share. I don't really think he was trying to fix anything.