nikos59

Suggestions as to how it should be in the future are excellent but not really relevant. This is not going to happen any time soon according to Fred. It would be more interesting to hear what can/should be done as it is now. Tim did contribute, but most people did not. They are virtually all English speaking and perhaps can't see the problem. I realise that we won't get the views of the Poles, Turks, Chinese and Italians, but one could still voice one's opinion as to whether one should show consideration towards those groups or not. Or should they just learn English and make it a non-issue? Or to turn it around: should people from English speaking countries learn other languages? Just the basic stuff in order to get the gist of the commentary in a foreign language. Provocative perhaps, but isn't it a fact the we speak too few languages? Roland There is another angle. Not only there are many Italians-Frenchmen-Poles-etc. who can't grasp much of the English commentary, but the majority of non-English-speaking commentators are obviously expressing themselves much more richly in their maternal language. I, for one, find quite refreshing to watch the French or Italian commentary; moreover, the fact that commentators are more or less known to spectators and that they are rooting for their team adds spice. Even when Italy played England in the final, the English commentary in closed room was more or less impartial, while the Italian commentary in open room wasn't so -and I liked it, because it made for a more thrilling spectacle -mind you, I was a disinterested spectator, not rooting for any team.

Hi all Several visitors of my Vugraph Project site have in the past expressed the wish to be able to download all the Vugraph files of one specific year at one go. So far, I was rather reluctant, fearing that the traffic generated could exceed the limits set by my webhosting provider. It dawned to me, however, that the use of a service like Rapidshare may help to avoid this problem, hence I am posting here rapidshare links to big zipped files containing all the Vugraph files of one year (or of several years). 1955-1992 Vugraph data: http://rapidshare.com/files/121266821/1955-92.zip 1995-2003 Vugraphs: http://rapidshare.com/files/121266822/1995-2003.zip year 2004: http://rapidshare.com/files/121266824/2004.zip year 2005: http://rapidshare.com/files/121266826/2005.zip year 2006: http://rapidshare.com/files/121266827/2006.zip year 2007: http://rapidshare.com/files/121266828/2007.zip All the best Nikos Sarantakos

[hv=d=w&v=e&n=st73h9875da642c83&w=s6hkqj632dj97ckq4&e=sq4hat4dt853ct762&s=sakj9852hdkqcaj95]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] West North East South 1♥ Pass 1NT 2♠ 3♥ 3♠ Pass 4♠ Pass Pass Pass The auction comes from Japan v Germany for the Venice Cup (Round 11). At the other table, East raised to 2H and Auken-vonArnim went all the way to 5S, but stopped there. So the board was flat at 480. Actually, this was the _flattest_ board in the whole round robin: out of 66 tables, the score was 480 in 63 of them! Only two pairs bid the slam: the SouthAfrican women and the open pair of Trinidad (the other non-flat score was a 450). Still, the slam is laydown. Is it as unbiddable as it seems?

Thank you Jon for your suggestion; then, South thought 4H was pass/correct and North took it to mean "to play"? Anyway, yet another Multi disaster, this time against the perpetrators.

The biggest penalty registered in Shangai (so far at least) was 2300, in the Round 11 match between Canada and Poland. [hv=d=n&v=n&n=sqj7652hq97dqjt6c&w=sakt8h82dk98cqt52&e=shajt43da542cakj4&s=s943hk65d73c98763]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] West North East South Gierulski Klimowicz Skrzypczak Frukacz This is an interesting slam hand for EW. But Poland collected 2300 when South played 4H doubled and made one trick after the H8 lead. Incidentally, the Canadians managed to overcome this huge blow and they went on to win rather comfortably, 40 to 25 although they lost 18 imps here. Does anyone know (or can ask the players) how the auction went? TIA Nikos Sarantakos

I seem to remember in the past some concessions at high level events. For instance, US conceded to Poland before the last segment of 2000 Olympiad (they were down by 62). On the other hand, Brazil played until the bitter end the 2000 BB final although they were losing by triple digits. I am too unable to watch live the SAf-Italy match, SAf in front by 3.7 with four boards to go.....

The problem is that three out of four BB matches were effectively over after segment three, so interest would be minimal.

Ok Gerardo, many thanks, I made the correction!

Not having a blog, I will possibly post some hands from Shangai here: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/shangai.html For the moment there are two of them.

I will try (but no promises) to post the lin files at my page within the day: It is more difficult than usual because of the time difference and also because files tend to get corrupted with funny characters and they need an extra vetting which is done manually and is very time-consuming. For the moment (as round 2 is coming to close) Round 1 is up: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/2007/2007-wtc.html

Hi all I wanted to update my Vugraph Project site with the latest BBO transmissions and it seems that the URL where the unedited logs used to be stored, i.e. http://bridgebase09.bridgebase.com:81/vug/?C=M;O=D is unreachable. Any ideas? n.s.

The Vugraph Project team is proudly announcing yet another major offering from the past, the 1974 Bermuda Bowl final. You can find all 96 deals of the final between USA and Italy, at: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1974/1974-bb.html The 1974 BB final was held in Venice between Italy (the holders) and North America. Both teams had qualified via a double round robin of 32-board matches and a semi final of 64 boards. The round robin was topped by Italy with North America coming second followed by Brazil, Indonesia, France and New Zealand. The semifinals were easy wins for Italy against Indonesia and North America against Brazil. In the Final, Italy used only their big four of Garozzo/Belladonna and Forquet/Bianchi; these four had routed the Aces in the 1973 final. North America were strengthed from the previous year's Aces team by the addition of the strong Canadian pair EricMurray/ SammyKehela. In the final Murray/Kehela played five out of six segments as did Hamman/Wolff. The third pair Goldman/Blumenthal just played two segments. The first 64 boards were dominated by Italy who built up a lead of 48 IMPs with just 32 boards to go. However in the 5th segment North America fought back strongly and with 22 boards left had reduced the deficit to only 5 Imps. Italy then recovered a little and by the end of the 5th segment had increased their lead to 17 IMPs. The killer for North America came early in the last Segment - at board 83 Hamman/Wolff bid to a game in 4 spades making 11 tricks; in the other room Forquet/Bianchi found the double fit and bid the small slam in clubs to gain a further 12 IMPS. After a hard fought final segment Italy were the winners by 29 IMPs (195 - 166). Kudos for this offering goes (again!) to Denis O'Kane who did all the work and also offers several alternative formats (pbn, dup files, pf files). What are pf files, you may ask. It is a very interesting new twist. Using the so-called pf command, these lin files allow the user to depart at any time from the line of play followed at the table, to play out the hand all by himself and explore alternative lines of play. However, once you have departed from the original line, you cannot reliably revert to it unless you go back at Trick 1. Nikos Sarantakos www.sarantakos.com/bridge.html

I just uploaded the Vugraph of Cavendish pairs at the Vugraph Project pages: http://sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/2007/2007-cav.html Many thanks to all involved, first and foremost to Denis! Nikos Sarantakos

Hi all The Vugraph Project proudly announces another important addition, the 1996 Olympiad final between France and Indonesia in both pbn and lin formats. This was one of the first major event to be transmitted (in Bridgeplaza) but the resultant pbn files had many gaps and flaws, so Denis O' Kane had to use the official book to complete the data. The address is: http://www.sarantakos.com/bridge/vugraph/1996/1996-oly.html Nikos Sarantakos

Many thanks Gerardo -just a question: is Adolfo Andres younger or older than Agustin? nikos