shoeless

Hee hee Rain you tricked me - a while back I created an 'inquiry factor' for viewing posts. If the poster's name was inquiry and the length of the post was more than 4 lines I knew I wouldn't understand it and skipped it. But you made me read this one to find out where the word difficulty was in the post - of course because I was on your post it was simplest to start reading Ben's post backwards for expediency sake - saves scrolling back to the top then through again. And of course it took all the way to the last (actually first) sentence to find it. So Rain in future could you say something like - you lost me after the word difficulty **which is in the first sentence from the beginning shoeless FYI** Thank you for your consideration of this matter. But I was comforted to discover that someone else got lost at precisely the same point I did. I don't feel lonely anymore. Ahh shucks you winked at him - you were just making a little joke weren't you.

I would never disconnect a person who is obviously in and out of a state of frozeness who manages to ask at some point "Am I here" but then not another peep from them for some time. In all seriousness, I will wait forever for that person. And if you have to ask why then you likely wouldn't understand the answer.

I have long been convinced that when I notice a commentator go silent for several boards, its because they are catching 40 winks. Richie uses the walk the dog line - sure - his dog's name is zzzzzzzzzzz

I set up a match recently and being a bit of a klutz I missed the barometer and no one complained and two players send messages about how much they were enjoying the match because of the absense of the barometer.

But I guess I would trade a forum barometer for a grammar and spell checker any day.

Good question - one I thought about quite a bit one day a few months back. Not sure it is so much a fascination as it is just habitual or customary. Simply it is part for the BBO culture hence sort of automatic to set matches up with a barometer. I also think there is an element or issue of psychological power and control factoring in here. For the most part it is human nature for people to feel most comfortable when they have control (also read information) of things - not being in control or having information about what is going on moment by moment can be anxiety producing for many. Do you remember the relief when comparing scores in a swiss match when you dicovered that the opps also went down in that cold contract or the stress in discovering they had made it and you didn't. the barometer gives one instant relief - good or bad result - its public, its out there, I don't have to sweat this. Without the barometer I think as you imply it's a diferent game entirely and more consistent with the face to face bridge world. Justin, I think generally the masses are here for a good time not a long time and it is the purists (for lack of a better word) who enjoy a match not knowing the result of the last board from the other room. And shortly some is going to give a simple answer to this question that is so obviously right and I am going to feel idiotic. Gee I wish we could have a barometer on this forum to know what others were writing at the same time or thinking about writing in the future.

3NT taking tricks 1 and 7 thru 14. X for me

3nt (down 3 or making) - next!!

Since the average person's small supply of politeness must last a lifetime, he can't afford to waste much of it on bridge partners. -Alfred Sheinwold

I like the X - what's your hurry? Show some values. lots of defense and let pard judge his/her hand further. Sawing off 5 clubs could be worth 1400.

Roland, you might listen to yourself and consider the future. I think it is realistic that the BBO vugraph will continue to grow in numbers of events broadcast, number of viewers, etc. In large measure the reasons for success of this thing might be attributed to two things: the great BBO facility for hosting these broadcasts and not the least, your co-ordination of the broadcast schedule and the commentators, nurturing the operators, getting broadcasts started, etc - not to mention your time spent commentating. You have been your own worst enemy in the sleep department, to good effect of course for us vugraph junkies. Because the future of BBO broadcasts appears to be more of the jam-packed schedules you have facing you this weekend - perhaps it's time to put on your strategic management hat and start considering some division of labor. You are a workhorse my man - but as organizations change, evolve and grow - the increased load usually requires more on the team to pull the load - it becomes a matter of quality or the risk of losing it. An example, Pacific-asia and Asia are waking up to BBO and with the time zone issues you face, perhaps you could add an assistant co-ordinator for that area of the world. Anyway regardless of what you do - bless you for doing this - I have enjoyed incredible bridge in the last year and am thankful for your part in making that available.

Hard to see a nexus between the word assume and word director. Or in fact the word director and 'my first reaction ... sour grapes'. Hmmm little vendetta thing here? Silly to double a freely bid slam here? - maybe - but if you don't start taking care of this failure to alert stuff these incidents are going to persist. Think AWM is all over this one.

Makes sense Fred - it's similar to when there is an unprocessed claim at a table in the club.tourney or match - until the claim is finalized one way or another the kib list isn't available. If people will leave me alone today to watch I will try to be more observant about the things Daivd has broached - heh his nick should be Mr. Vugraph - he sees all.

I too have been watching these occurences and trying to make sense of the problems they are having - the freezing certainly doesn't appear to me to be on-site related as the connection remains good to chat with others in the theatre and the commentary can continue during that freeze.

Amen Ritong - it is often hell!! It seems to me when the Aussies held team training here on BBO that used a chat room to gather and the organizer (mrdct) assigned seats at the tables, but not sure - maybe he can enlighten us.

Is anyone having trouble getting the BBO channel on their satellite dish these days or is it just me? Now I am usually adverse to talking about conspiracies but I wonder if those 45 million chinese bridge players have deliberately tuned in en masse and created some kind of sucking vortex that is stealing my signal. This debate is old and remains the same as some 25 years ago. For the life of me I don't understand why people aren't listening to what Bill Gates has to say about youth and bridge or why the ACBL hasn't given Grue and Lall et al free sports cars to drive while they are current world champions and hired them to teach bridge in schools across the country for that year or funded a big prize international on-line tournament for youth and put them on every TV show that talks to winners. Korean kids are the dominant on-line gamers in the world and they fill computer parlors in every small burg in this country everyday - know why? Money, fame, challenge, association with others that are alike. The old boys club can't think ouitside the box enough to capture young people and they are afraid to invest the currency to do so for fear they fail. I believe the barriers to growing this game are real but not where most people think they are - look inside, break the mold, take a risk.

I think it would be folly to assume there wouldn't be high interest in Swiss teams et al in the general BBO population. I am betting you will be very surprised at the instant take. However, I do find that the process for setting up and populating a team match with players might be smoother. I would love to have a facility that allowed me to have a seperate list for match players that I have placed on the list and be able to pm them as a group inviting them to a match - and then they can simply right click to grab an available seat in the match. I can dream. See you at the Sunday mroning BAM's

Damn I was away and missed a good fight. As far as BPO is concerned I found that isn't set up for the average joe. Early on I think I made some suggestions in the line of how things would work better for me - but the whole set-up just turned out to be burdensome for me to follow and I did what Elianna did - chose to walk. No problem - I think I could really enjoy BPO in a different format but if others are happy with the way things are - that's cool. I conclude my comments with one hope - that Whereagles is not doing work in any human relations field. And as a scientist one should look at the evidence presented on these pages - it clearly demonstrates that criticism is destructive. And if we criticize Whereagles - are we any better?

If we could filter what chat we wanted to get that would be great - I am often prepared to sub when I am kibbing - but I turn off lobby chat so dont get the messages.

I don't think this is the case. With lobby chat off I seldom receive briadcast announcements and when I do they tend to be pertinent. By the way, I appreciate getting broadcasts of the commencement of a vugrah session.

I think this is a very valid point - but I don't know if sending requests for subs messages that over-ride blocks of lobby chat is the way to go. I do not know much about programming but I wonder if we had a little box on the tool bar that lit up when subs were being requested and if we click on that box it could immediately register us as a sub for those that needed one. I also liked someone elses idea of a universal sub list where if one is interested in subbing - your name is so indicated and you are invited to sub when the call goes out.

As dummy you mean?

I love this new procedure - over time I think it will do much to influence peoples decisions about bailing and perhaps more importantly weed out the undesirables. For the most part players who are not bailers, but from time to time get caught in a situation but doing so with no intent, will never make it very high on a bailers list so as to draw attention to themselves. With this system, we will all have some small record (black mark), it is inevitable. One situation I can think of occurring is that a player has declared their intention to leave at the end of a hand and before they can do so there is a bid made to the next hand - again not likely to compile much of a record. I have seen a feature on another site that I liked very much - there was 'a stand at the end of this hand' button, which automatically had the player stand from their seat upon the last card being played but remain in the room to say their goodbyes through chat to table - the next hand was not dealt until the seat was filled with a replacement. It also simply had a 'stand' function that would work for the dummy as well to facilitate a changeover of the seat. I guess for all intends and purposes such a function would simply move the player from a seat to kib mode without leaving the table to the lobby.

Useful thread here for a TD - spelling issues, disconnects by TD, etc. Would be great if there was a Case Book for TD's compiled about all the problems and possible fixes and best practices for TD's, that have appeared in these forums over time. A single source easily referenced that could be indexed and added to as new issues occur. The concerned director would have a great resource at their disposal - of course in the BBO environment - translation into other languages would be a good thing too.

hrothgar to the rescue. I think that idea has more than a lot going for it - it's hot.