NigelatBM

In the UK Chiltern Bridge League we use multiple BBO teams-of-4 'matchlets' to run teams-of-8 matches. We have experienced a number of situations where one of the team-players hasn't received his/her invitation, despite being properly logged on to BBO and being at his/her keyboard. This happened to me for the first time last Thursday [17 February]. I use a modern Lenovo laptop. I wasn't hosting the match [obviously as I experienced the problem], but a very experienced host who was playing in the same match has seen the problem several times, and has reported it to BBO Support several times. The responses have ranged from this can't happen/user accidentally failed to accept/iPad problem to this is a known issue. My colleague has been advised by BBO to try restarting the match with the problem player removed [+private+ specified as an option], then to try and substitute him/her back in to the vacant seat. If this latter is the official work-around it would be good to see it spelled out somewhere. The alternative solution that I know has been used is to ask the problem player to logout and back in with an alternative BBO username [which is what I did last Thursday], but I think the issue needs a better resolution that this. Apart from other considerations, one result is that everyone sits around twiddling their thumbs for 15-20 minutes whilst the problem is circumvented.

I'm planning to use BBO to host some teams-of-8 matches. I'm aware that there's no specific support for these, but teams-of-8 matches operate as two or more teams-of-4 matches anyway. What I'm trying to achieve is to have each pair of one team play six boards against each pair of the opposing team, which is no problem, and I want each of my 24 boards to be played by all pairs of both teams, again no problem in principle, but ... I have a program which creates four Lin files from a 24-board pbn file, containing respectively boards 1-6, 7-12, etc. The Lin files include the correct board numbers, vulnerability, and dealer for each of boards 1-24. I import the Lin files into four separate folders in my Deal archive, and if I click on one of the boards, BBO displays the board with its correct number [1-24], dealer, and vulnerability. But when I specify one of these folders as a deal source when I'm setting up a 6-board match, BBO ignores the settings in the Lin files, and applies the settings as if we were using boards 1-6. Is there any way of overcoming this BBO split personality?