sdoty

Edit: I forgot that 16C2 is specifically excluded. (yeah yeah, I know it's only 2:30 a.m....) But the section that -does- apply (27B1b) accomplishes the same thing: 1. Not Conventional and Corrected by Lowest Sufficient Bid in Same Denomination <snip> (Law 16C2 does not apply to this situation, but see (b ) following). (b ) Award of Adjusted Score If the Director judges that the insufficient bid conveyed such information as to damage the non-offending side, he shall assign an adjusted score. Particularly in light of the player's comment at the table I think it's clear that the other pair could indeed have been damaged by the 'information conveyed.' In the scenario as given, I would overturn the table result if 3NT scored poorly for the non-offending side (i.e, the offending pair would have been set in their 'correct' contract of 4NT or higher).

You'll have to excuse me for mushing responses to various posts into one reply: 1. In Houston each of the vugraph computers was connecting to the hotel's wireless service independently. They didn't have much (if any) control over the signal strength/reliability; the tables were in individual rooms along a hallway on one of the guest floors, and they had to make do with whatever the signal was like in those rooms. When the connections turned out to be so spotty the first day, Fred thought that dial-up connections might be a better arrangement; unfortunately there wasn't really a head operator in place to implement that change. 2. The broadcast from the USBF Trials in Houston was staffed entirely by inexperienced volunteers (well, except for the first day when I was there). I don't say inexperienced in at all a negative way, I simply mean that for most of them this was their first ever broadcast. I believe there was a relatively high turnover rate since many individuals only worked for a few sessions -- and quite reasonably so, given that they were volunteering their time to do vugraph when they could have been playing at the concurrent Regional. One thing that it's important for us to keep in mind is that it's extremely difficult (some might say impossible) for people to anticipate problems that they are simply unaware of. Most people are blissfully ignorant (and again, I don't mean that negatively) of the technical side of the broadcasts... the hand logging, the file duplication, the ramifications of making an error when setting up the initial table specifications. Even an experienced Vugraph operator (I use that term loosely, since one can be in charge of organization/set-up and leave the actual play entry to other individuals) can run into problems; it takes quite a bit of knowledge to resolve anything more complicated than a lost internet connection successfully while a broadcast is in progress. The staff at Houston put in a great deal of effort and, in my opinion, salvaged an impressive amount given a) the cascade of problems they had to deal with and b.) their newness to the undertaking. At the Nationals the files go through one of the head tournament directors. I'm not positive that he checks the files beforehand, but I would say that at those events he's the one in a position to do so. That has certainly not been a responsibility shouldered by the operators. Anyhow, no, he was not working at the Trials in Houston, and there wasn't anyone else filling that position. Hence.... there were a few issues that might have been otherwise avoidable. I do regret if the USBF organizers were unaware of just how much goes on behind the scenes of a broadcast; hopefully there will be a trained chief operator in place at next year's trials. 3. QUOTE (uday @ May 19 2005, 10:08 AM) Would someone mind explaining the process by which the files with the hand records (the ones handed to the operator) are created? How is this tied into the duplication of boards? I think mrdct gave a good overview. The only difference is that here (if my understanding of the process is correct, which is a fairly safe bet but not 100%) everything stems from the same original .dup file; the hand records and board duplication (which the ACBL does 'in-house' with duplicating machines) are based on that file, and the vugraph broadcast loads the boards from that same file. As described at the end of mrdct's post. :D 4. In general no, the operators here aren't considered in the same light as tournament staff (unless of course they are actually a director). By and large the operators are charged with showing up a bit before gametime and broadcasting from their table, and that is the extent of it. Which is about right, since with the exception of me they're generally new each tournament. My point is that there has not traditionally been a dedicated 'chief vugraph operator' at ACBL events to handle all of the various aspects of organizing/running a broadcast. Susan

Hello, While I hate reviving dead threads, I thought I'd respond to a few of the comments/issues raised earlier this month (I was the operator at both the 2004 and 2005 Cavendish tournaments). For the pairs event, at the start of each round I receive a disk with the three boards to be played that round. At no point do I have access to all 27 boards; given the prize money at stake, this is an understandable security precaution and I can't imagine the tournament organizers changing this. Every time I get a new disk I have to 'reset' the table, specifying the board numbers that are going to be played that round so that the correct (new) hand files are loaded. I can accomplish this by closing down and opening a new table, but it can also be done without closing the table. (Uday was correct: this functionality was available last year.) When I reset the table information via the F2 function (in order to have the system pull in the new hands), it resets the movie and, evidently, the log file. This is why the movie only ever shows a set of 3 hands, and why the results from previous rounds aren't available at the table. If I -did- have all 27 hands at once (and could therefore specify boards 1-27 in the initial table startup, rather than '1-3', then '4-6', etc) all 27 hands would automatically log just fine. I suspect that for the majority of pairs events the operator will receive all of the hands for the session at once... so this entire discussion is really only relevant to a -very- few number of events. :) A record *is* generated correctly for each round if I close the table after each round and then open a new one. This is how we did things at the start of the 2004 Cavendish. However we decided that it was better to keep the table open continuously -- even though it meant that the deals were not logged -- because the constant closing/reopening of the table was very disruptive to the audience and commentators. In essense we opted to cater to the majority of the audience members who were simply interested in watching the event, rather than the relatively small number of us who are interested in viewing the log files afterwards. So, to address part of Denis' post: yes, I was absolutely aware that that log files weren't being generated correctly. It was regretable, but it couldn't be avoided without constant table hopping which wasn't an acceptable option. I can also say that the log files wouldn't have been generated correctly even if I had left the event title identical throughout the entire session. I began changing the title each round in an effort to be helpful, so that the files created upon leaving the vugraph theater didn't overwrite themselves (I believe it was Nikos who messaged me about that during the broadcast, and I did my best to accomodate). In retrospect, it wouldn't have been too irksome to manually save each round myself had I known in advance that it was needed, and that will be my solution for this problem at next year's Cavendish. :) I'm not sure that all operators would be able to employ this solution reliably (there's a lot to keep tabs on during a broadcast that has changing players) but I don't think that this problem even exists for any other tournament. :D Susan

I love the ability to load multiple hands into one "movie" -- it makes preparing (and using) 'predealt' hands for teaching sessions much easier. It's also great to to easily be able to add notes/lesson text to the hands. One thing that I have noticed though is that I can't set which player is the dealer on a given board. For example if I punch in a hand for Board 1 and have South make the first call of the auction, when I load the hand into a table North is still the first player to bid. I don't know that this is something that needs to be fixed, but it was convenient (at least for my purposes) to have the dealer determined by who made the first call of the auction that I entered. It is relative easy to work around (by only entering boards into the 3/7/11 slots when I want South to deal, for example) but I thought I'd mention it. Overall I think the improvements are fantastic. :huh: Susan

I offer comprehensive bridge instruction for novice and intermediate players in a unique group setting. The lesson plan includes 3.5 hours of playing time per week as well as structured, thorough coverage of SAYC or 2/1 bidding. Please contact me at bridge.club@dartmouth.edu or visit my website for more information! www.dartmouth.edu/~bridge/teaching.htm Susan Doty