Do we want a delay?

[Walddk]

May I draw your attention to the editorial in the October issue of Bridge World. As one way to avoid cheating the editor writes:

 

"We highly approve of the availability of contemporaneous displays of important events, but we'd like them even better if the public did not see a deal until it had been completed at all active tables; surely that small delay is a pittance to pay compared to the risks run by literally real-time presentation".

 

I strongly disagree. The risk of cheating is tiny and well worth risking in order to get a real-time broadcast. It's so much more exciting when you know that this is happening right now! I much prefer a live broadcast of whichever sports event that's on offer, rather than watching a recorded broadcast, regardless of how small or large the delay is.

 

What do you think?

 

Roland

[mikeh]

When I was playing in the CNTC (our team trials) in Montreal in June, the event was held in a building used by a university and it was fully equipped for wireless internet. I was playing (and failing) in the Pairs event run opposite the Finals, having been soundly thrashed in the semis. At least one person was sitting in the open area outside the playing rooms with a laptop, watching the vugraph. As people do, players in the pairs event would walk out of the playing area (a different room from those in which the finals were being played) and cluster around the guy with the laptop. Some would call out a question as they walked by, and others would answer. Unfortunately, this was all taking place in an area through which players in the finals would walk to get to, for instance, a washroom.

 

I do not think that any UI was actually given out, and the players in the final would have drawn the director's attention to this if it were a problem: all of them are outstandingly ethical players.

 

The potential was there, and I can well see, in today's world, how that could become a reality. My wife has a cell phone with Bluetooth capability: if she grew her hair just a touch longer or changed the cut, you might never know she was wearing an earpiece. Devices will get smaller and smaller.

 

But, having said that, I agree. I do not know why watching a live event, even on a computer or television, is better than the same thing on a delay, but it seems to me to be so.

 

Accordingly, I agree with Roland, while recognizing that the organizers of events now have to be alert to the problems posed by technology. Unfortunately, at least here (from my limited experience) most of the organizers, while possessed of great good will and intentions, are not techno-geeks and thus may not even be aware of some of the risk factors.

[nikos59]

I agree with Roland.

To draw an analogy: duplicated boards do offer some scope

for cheating -but no one has ever suggested abolishing

duplicated boards because of this. Apparently, the

benefit they offer is deemed much more important

than the eventual risk. Same with real-time Vugraph.

 

nikos

[barmar]

What surprised me when I was operating the Reisinger Vugraph this week was that live kibbitzers were allowed into the playing areas. We had a ballroom where people could watch the Vugraph presentation, and I'd always assumed that this was the only way that spectators could watch these important finals.

 

But once you allow kibbitzers at all, there's not much difference between simultaneous Vugraph and allowing kibbitzers to wander from one table to another when they're all playing the same boards.

[mrdct]

May I draw your attention to the editorial in the October issue of Bridge World. As one way to avoid cheating the editor writes:

 

"We highly approve of the availability of contemporaneous displays of important events, but we'd like them even better if the public did not see a deal until it had been completed at all active tables; surely that small delay is a pittance to pay compared to the risks run by literally real-time presentation".

Security for vugraphed events is quite simple to organise if you apply the following protocols:

 

1. Players not allowed to have any electronic communication devices on their person during session time (irrespective of whether or not such devices are switched off).

 

2. Players can only leave the playing area to go to the toilet under escort of a tournament official, neutral kibitzer or opposing player.

 

3. Kibitzers cannot move from table to table, cannot enter the playing area after play has started and cannot re-enter the playing area if they leave.

[Chamaco]

2. Players can only leave the playing area to go to the toilet under escort of a tournament official, neutral kibitzer or opposing player.

Yes and the escort is bound to unzip the player's pants and checkout whether he has an electronic device under the pants .... :rolleyes:

 

Do we really want such a cold-war atmosphere ? :rolleyes:

[Gerben42]

I strongly disagree. The risk of cheating is tiny and well worth risking in order to get a real-time broadcast. It's so much more exciting when you know that this is happening right now! I much prefer a live broadcast of whichever sports event that's on offer, rather than watching a recorded broadcast, regardless of how small or large the delay is.

 

What do you think?

 

I agree with this. Bring it to us when it happens.

[joker_gib]

Yes and the escort is bound to unzip the player's pants and checkout whether he has an electronic device under the pants .... :rolleyes:

LOL

 

Is this why escort girls are made for ? LOL

[mycroft]

While I agree in principle with Roland - especially on the difference between live Vugraph and replay later - I, for one, in the interests of security, wouldn't mind a 5-minute "tape delay" of the event. However, it must be a consistent delay! It must not be a replay; some of the best action takes place in the pauses when the commentators are arguing what's the best move, what the (much better than I) player is thinking about, ways others have to not have this problem, and so on.

 

Frankly, from here and through BBO, I can't tell if the game that was supposed to start at 1300 MST actually started at 1305 or 1310, and apart from live kibitzers running out of the room, powering on their cell phones, and screaming at me in jubilation when I haven't seen the end, I'd probably never notice.

 

A "random delay" would just totally annoy me, however.

 

Michael.

[inquiry]

These days there is very little "live" broadcast in the US anymore (thanks to crazy FCC rules). Now "live" football games and "live" talk radio shows are on a few seconds delay so a censor can stop the feed if something in violation of obsenty laws were to happen (no more Janet Jackson like events at the superbowl, for instance).

 

While watching a live broadcast of a game, which is actually delayed a few seconds or so, we will never notice it. I suspect if the commentators were off site there would be little difference in the enjoyment factor as a kibiitzer if you saw the hand delayed by 5 seconds or 5 minutes. The trick would be to make it virtually live. That is, the person at the table enters the bids/etc as they happen, but the vugraph shows it after an appropriate delay.

 

Having said that, however, I prefer live. There is one big reason. The vugrpahs are interactive whereas a TV broadcast is not. The "vugraph operator" makes mistakes, and if there was a five minute delay before the commentors could see it, well, it would be way to late to fix it (he has moved on to the next hand). Even if the operator was flawless, the commentors sometimes ask the operator for clarification (did he REALLY lead the JACK, what is "so and so doing now", should that bid be alerted, has the director showed up at the table yet, etc, etc). All of that would be problematic with any delay of signficant proportions. Also, some tables just play faster, sometimes much faster, than others. Would the delays have to match the slowest tables? So, live seems the only way to go.

[fred]

Last week at the ACBL Nationals in Denver I attended a meeting of the United States Bridge Federation (the organization that runs the American Team Trials among other things). One of the subjects on the agenda was the concept of delaying vugraph broadcasts for security reasons.

 

I am pleased to report that the overwhelming consensus was in favor of keeping these broadcasts live and, if necessary, finding other methods to deal with security concerns that result from these broadcasts. More good news is that the people who make these kinds of decisions for the major ACBL events we broadcast (Spingold, Vanderbilt, and Reisinger) were also at this meeting and were in favor of keeping the broadcasts live.

 

Furthermore, I am quite sure that our coverage of the World Championships will remain live. A high priority for the WBF is have a high-quality vugraph show for live audiences at the physical playing site. Having a delay in the action would not be acceptable to them and, as long as the audience vugraph is live, they might as well keep the Internet vugraph live as well. It turns out that BBO is used for both of these purposes, but even if this was not the case, there would be the same security exposures in a live audience vugraph show as there would be in a live online vugraph show.

 

It is true that some respected voices have been calling for delays in our broadcasts, but my prediction is that nothing is going to change is this area in the foreseeable future (although, in the unlikely event that someone is caught using BBO vugraph for cheating purposes, then all bets are off).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Walddk]

Good points Ben. As a commentator it is definitely more exciting when you can have a live dialogue with the operator about various aspects while it's happening, here and now, and not 5, 10, 15 minutes later!

 

It's also better for the audience when the commentators have time to comment on possible bids, play and defence while a player is in the tank. What is going through his mind now? Why is it likely that he will choose this option rather than another? Pauses are part of the game, and they should surely be "shown" too.

 

I don't know about you, but I have a vivid picture of how the players are feeling after a hand. The joy, the agony, all the emotions although you are not physically present. In a way I feel I am even if I am 6,000 miles away from the venue. It would not be the same if I knew there was a delay.

 

All that and much more will be taken away if we were to show a hand that has been played already. It spoils the fun, and that would be a shame. Most of the times I share the views of the Bridge World editor; this time I do not, and I doubt that he will have much support among the vugraph spectators worldwide.

 

Roland

[Al_U_Card]

To quote a popular song, "Live is Life!" Don't replace it by sterile left-overs.

[inquiry]

It's also better for the audience when the commentators have time to comment on possible bids, play and defence while a player is in the tank. What is going through his mind now? Why is it likely that he will choose this option rather than another? Pauses are part of the game, and they should surely be "shown" too.

Well. the pauses will not be lost if the play was delayed. If a player took two minutes (from minute 1 to minute 3) to make a play, and you delay the broadcast five minutes, the commentors would see the same delay, just happening from minute 6 to minute 9. They could make the same speculation, etc. Nothing lost (we are not taking about flipping through a file like in the vugraph archieves where this time issue is mostly lost). So I don't see this as an argument one way or the other.

 

But the ability to probe the on-site opertor in real time for tasty tidbits (or yes, to inquire about the correctness of some play or bid) seems MUCH to important to me. That can't be replaced, as we all agree.

[queequeg]

I was vugraph operator in Bologna last week and in Salsomaggiore few months ago. In my opinion the security system used by italian federation was very valid.

 

The TD Massimo Ortensi told us we were allowed to do the vugraph only if

- when playing with the screens we clicked the bid only AFTER the two players from one part of the screen had both bidded. In fact by the click sound the other two players could have understood who from the othe part of the screen had already bidden and who was thinking hard and getting informations from the long thought (knowning by the click sound who was the thinker). To copy the bid only when the two screenmates had both bidden resolves this problem. Of course this is a delay but usually when many time is passing a spectator (if informed about the necessary delay in bid) looking at the vugraph should understand easily who is the player thinking.

 

- No one had access to our monitors, included no-TDs members of the staff.

Also in the opened room no one was allowed to walk near the monitors.

 

- Players who needed to use toilet were conduced to the bathroom by the director.

 

In my opinion with the new version (which shows a blank board and not the first board immediately when you open the vugraph) is very useful too and gives the operator more time to write down names and so on.

 

Using these attentions in my opinion there is not the need of a delay.

It is true that someone from his own home could send some messages with the telephone to the players, but in my opinion this is a still far possibility, and maybe it will be more useful to consider the really nearer possibility that screens are not enough to cancel the risk of not legal signs between partners...

[han]

If a player took two minutes (from minute 1 to minute 3) to make a play, and you delay the broadcast five minutes, the commentors would see the same delay, just happening from minute 6 to minute 9.

Keep up your counting pratice Ben! ;)

 

 

I do agree that is nice to have the broadcasts live.

[Walddk]

Well, a delay of 5 minutes is nothing compared to the 1995 BB Final (USA vs Canada) Pseudo-live Broadcast we are getting soon ;)

 

"What's Another Year", as the Irish singer Johnny Logan put it in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980.

 

Roland