How can Vugraph be improved?

[mrdct]

A couple of people have mentioned the internet connection, and of course I agree. I have been told that for White Plains our only choice is the hotel's wireless network. I'm hoping that it is a good one and will be "loud" in the playing areas (which are individual hotel guest rooms). I will definitely be testing the connection in advance, but that isn't always adequate. I don't think that this hotel has hard-wired ethernet connections, which of course would be best. Having done a day of the Cavendish using a S-L-O-W telephone connection, I can tell you that that has its own problems - I'd think I'd sent a bid only to see it wasn't on my screen because the phone connection had still been working on the last one. The good news is that hotels are getting better and better with their wireless networks, so we can hope for a stable fast connection that way at most of our future events.

Don't rule out dial-up. If the playing tables are in individual hotel rooms it sounds particularly convenient to simply plug into the analog phone line. I've used dial-up several times and it's generally been OK - even when sharing the connection amongst three machines. From a cost perspective it should be way cheaper as you will just have a few local calls and half a dozen dial-up accounts that can either be pre-paid (if such a product exists in the USA) or just cancelled after a month.

[asdfg2k]

In most hotels, it would be far less expensive to arrange for the wireless broadband I mentioned in an earlier post.

 

The reason is that most hotels have gone to the "over an hour, pay a $1 a minute" rule. Unless you wanted to disconnect and reconnect every single hour in each room (maybe doable if short sets with frequent breaks), you'll find that dialup may cost more than any other option.

[asdfg2k]

Richard,

 

While I agree with you that it would not be an "ok" thing to try and set up a hotel-wide wireless network with unlimited access from anybody and everybody, I'm not so sure that a private network amongst a few computers would violate the hotel's rules. All one needs to do is ask. It could even be made a condition of the contract when deciding where to hold the event. Hotels are extremely accomodating when competing for business.

[Walddk]

Some are. Remember the Lady Milne at the Hilton in Newport, Wales? They wanted £2,000 for a weekend!

 

Roland

[the saint]

But not all commentators work well with each other...

I am a relative novice to commentary, but already I appreciate there are some people I commentate better with than others. Simply put, some commentators can be quite overbearing and dominant to work with, and it can also be intimidating working with somone who you respect as being a far better player than yourself.

 

I prefer to do Junior events as those are the ones where I can add some insight through first-hand knowledge of many of the players. There are some otherwise excellent commentators however, who I wouldn't want anywhere near that table with me (for any number of reasons). Equally, that same commentary team (myself included) would be entirely unsuitable for (say) a Bermuda Bowl semi-final.

 

Being practical though, I understand the difficulties Roland has with raising commentators with the increasing number of vugraph displays, and I have filled in on an ad hoc basis several times recently (never a chore). However much we would like our dream team for each event, in reality, it will only happen rarely through no fault of anyone concerned.

[JanM]

I'm somewhat surprised that accomodating social players is given such high priority.  In theory, the purpose of these events is to select National Teams for the US.  Personally, I'd like to Conditions of Contest that are

There's an enormous gap between "social players" and players who have a realistic chance of winning the event and qualifyint to represent the US in international competition. The USBC is a great event, it's geared to experts who want the opportunity to compete under outstanding conditions (top directors, private playing rooms, carefully considered conditions of contest, long matches). That some of those experts are not good enough to expect to win does not make them (all right, us, since I'm certainly one of them) "social" players. On the other hand, many of them prefer not to use a very unfamiliar convention card, both from the point of view of completing it and from the point of view of finding things on it. The committee charged with writing the conditions of contest for the event believes that its primary job is to structure the event in such a way as to select the best team, but that a secondary job is to make it an attractive event for all the players. Sure, my team may introduce some randomness into the Round Robin, but I seriously doubt that the best team in the event will fail to qualify for the Round of 16, and that would be the only way that random play in the Round Robin could affect the team that is eventually selected to represent the US, so I can live with it.

 

Incidentally, I believe that allowing anyone who wants to make the trip to the tournament and pay the substantial entry fee, to play in our USBCs helps to improve the quality of our future teams, by giving up and coming players the opportunity to compete against top teams under high quality conditions. It's not a question of turning this into a "social" event, but rather of providing an outstanding competition for our expert players, even those who aren't in the top 30 in the world rankings.

[nikos59]

I would focus on the main challenge: how to cover

adequately (and more than adequately)

the two premier events that coincide. Perhaps there

will be need to have more than 8 tables at a time. This

is one challenge for BBO. I very much appreciate

Jan's attitude and I think that this year's USBF will

be an excellent spectacle. As to the European

Championships, we have already

had very extensive coverage, so the standard is already

set quite high!

 

ns

[Walddk]

I would focus on the main challenge: how to cover

adequately (and more than adequately)

the two premier events that coincide. Perhaps there

will be need to have more than 8 tables at a time. This

is one challenge for BBO. I very much appreciate

Jan's attitude and I think that this year's USBF will

be an excellent spectacle. As to the European

Championships, we have already

had very extensive coverage, so the standard is already

set quite high!

 

ns

It's a fact that there will be a bottleneck in August. Look here:

 

August 12-26: European Bridge Team Championships in Warsaw, Poland.

August 18-25: United States Bridge Championships in White Plains, NY.

August 23-30: Pacific Asian Bridge Championships in Shanghai, China.

 

It doesn't take much imagination to foresee the "problem" we will be having on the 23rd, 24th, 25th and possibly also on the 26th because the USBF may have to include this date too.

 

Then add the tournaments we do not know about at this point in time. I know that Fred and Uday are aware of the software problems if/when every organiser would like to have 4 or 6 tables up. As I pointed out in an earlier post: we already have this problem next week. The organisers can't get all the tables they asked for because our current limit is 8 tables simultaneously.

 

This raises two other issues:

 

1. Is it desirable to have an infinite number of tables up?

2. Should there be a limit as to how many simultaneous broadcasts?

 

If your answer to 2. is a "yes" and we get too many requests, should we decide which to accept and which to leave out on a "first come, first serve" basis? Or should we look at importance of the event? If so, do you trust Fred and me to determine which broadcast is more important than another? Fred will likely tell me that it's my call, so would you be happy to let me judge? And if it turns out that you are not, will you accept our decision nonetheless?

 

No one wants to disappoint anybody if it can be avoided. All this was not an issue 2 years ago, but it is now. Your thoughts would be welcomed.

 

Roland

[Echognome]

This raises two other issues:

 

1. Is it desirable to have an infinite number of tables up?

2. Should there be a limit as to how many simultaneous broadcasts?

1. I think more selection is good, but if there is a limit due to resources, I cannot imagine this being a problem.

 

2. I think the only limit here should be the software and the resources for finding commentators. Given that there has to be a limit, I am completely comfortable with the vugraph organiser making the decision on what should be shown and what should not. Of course, like others, I am usually most entertained seeing the top players. But, with lots of good choices, what is chosen at the margin seems to be a judgment call that someone is going to have to make. I'm quite happy for it to be you or Fred.

 

I say this all in the context that to me, vugraph is a privilege not a right. So for whatever reasons those that run the site decide to show what they want is alright by me. I'm sure that at the end of the day, we're going to have lots of good choices of what to watch regardless.

[Aberlour10]

If your answer to 2. is a "yes" and we get too many requests, should we decide which to accept and which to leave out on a "first come, first serve" basis? Or should we look at importance of the event?

 

In my opinion definitely YES. For example,on 23-26 August will take place the

semifinals & finals of the European Championships and US Trials.

I think it's much more important to cover these final stages completely

than broadcast them partial, additionally with 1st or 2nd round in Shanghai.

 

Robert

[hrothgar]

Then add the tournaments we do not know about at this point in time. I know that Fred and Uday are aware of the software problems if/when every organiser would like to have 4 or 6 tables up. As I pointed out in an earlier post: we already have this problem next week. The organisers can't get all the tables they asked for because our current limit is 8 tables simultaneously.

 

This raises two other issues:

 

1. Is it desirable to have an infinite number of tables up?

2. Should there be a limit as to how many simultaneous broadcasts?

 

If your answer to 2. is a "yes" and we get too many requests, should we decide which to accept and which to leave out on a "first come, first serve" basis? Or should we look at importance of the event? If so, do you trust Fred and me to determine which broadcast is more important than another? Fred will likely tell me that it's my call, so would you be happy to let me judge? And if it turns out that you are not, will you accept our decision nonetheless?

 

No one wants to disappoint anybody if it can be avoided. All this was not an issue 2 years ago, but it is now. Your thoughts would be welcomed.

 

Roland

Coment 1: Yes Virginia, there might be a bottleneck in late August. Hopefully all three events will not be running concurrently (given the wide georgraphical spread - New York, Shanghai, Warsaw I'd be surprised if there was substantial overlap)

 

Comment 2: Looking to the long term, I don't see why there should necessarily be any effective limit on the number of Vugraph tables in play. Using the current architecture, BBO differentiates between different types of tables. Its unclear to me whether this needs to be true. (Back when I was working at Wind River we had a big re-architecture project for the Operating System. We expected to be spending lots of time working on timers and thread termination and the like. In actuality, it turned out that getting the messaging right was the most critical and time consuming part of the project). On a practical bases, a Vugraph "event" can be collapsed into a pair of "chat" channels. One channel is used by Clients and the Server to send information related to hand records/bidding/play. The second channel contains commentary. Objectively, this doesn't seem different from anything else that takes place on BBO.

 

Comment 3: Long term, I don't see any real benefits from a centralized system providing Vugraph commentary. Any Tom, Dick, and Harry should be able to create a chat channel where the provide commentary for any event that they see fit. The popular commentors will attract a loyal following. Unpopular ones will go by the way side. I agree that there may be some value in creating different "brands" and I expect that Roland's crew of of commentators will surive as one of these brands. However, it will be one among many.

 

Comment 4: I don't worry too much about the short term. I'm sure that any reasonable scheme will work out fine. If you are running into a hard stop regarding the number of Vugraph channels that you can support AND this stop is related to the server I'd use the following type system:

 

Look at the ethnicity of the players logged in to BBO at any given time. I'd make the reasonable assumption that players from North America are interested in North American results, players from Europe are interested in results from Europe, and players from Asia are interested in results from Asia. Allocate the Vugraph tables accordingly.

[JanM]

Just one other thought, as a viewer, not an organizer :(; if we do end up with too many tables at one time, I think a possibility would be to prefer the later boards of a match. For instance (and I'm very time zone challenged, so this is just an example), if the first quarter from Europe is starting just as the fourth quarter from Shanghai is ending, would it be possible to wait to let Europe come on until Shanghai has finished? So if anything is to be missed, it would be the first few boards of a match, not the last few. And perhaps there's a way to have the event being covered at the local site but not broadcast (having an "invisible" table I think would work) for those first few boards, so that when it comes up people could see the results in the movie.

[Finch]

1. Is it desirable to have an infinite number of tables up?

2. Should there be a limit as to how many simultaneous broadcasts?

This topic has widened rather.

I have some quite strong opinions on this, but I get the feeling I'm not in the majority. Never mind, I'll give them anyway and see if anyone agrees.

 

As far as I'm concerned, there's no need to have more than one table of Vugraph.

After all, I can't watch more than one table at a time. Yes, there is some benefit in offering a choice of events to watch and/or a choice of commentators, but I would much rather have less choice with a better presentation than more choice. There are a limited number of very good commentators available at any one time (however you arrange them), and I'd much rather 'listen' to 3 or 4 of the excellent ones at one table than have them distributed around the other tables.

 

You can already see that extra tables are to some extent unnecessary: if there are two tables from one event up, it's very common to have 80%+ of the spectators at one of them. What extra value have we added by offering a second table compared to the effort in organising it? (Slightly different issue: having multiple languages is a good idea, particularly the ones which have lots of people who don't usually know English e.g. Spanish, French, Italian)

 

To extend this slightly, I would rather have a choice of events to watch than a choice of tables at one particular event. I would rather that vugraph was available 24 hours a day than that 20 tables were available for 2 hours a day.

[Finch]

Just one other thought, as a viewer, not an organizer :(; if we do end up with too many tables at one time, I think a possibility would be to prefer the later boards of a match. For instance (and I'm very time zone challenged, so this is just an example), if the first quarter from Europe is starting just as the fourth quarter from Shanghai is ending, would it be possible to wait to let Europe come on until Shanghai has finished? So if anything is to be missed, it would be the first few boards of a match, not the last few. And perhaps there's a way to have the event being covered at the local site but not broadcast (having an "invisible" table I think would work) for those first few boards, so that when it comes up people could see the results in the movie.

Just to prove you can't please everyone: I would usually prefer exactly the opposite! In the majority of matches, it's over by the last few boards and/or people are tired and playing worse. Of course there are honourable exceptions (recent Bermuda Bowl finals come immediately to mind!) but very often it's the beginning of a match that's more interesting.

 

I would however prefer later stages to earlier stages of an event, and I would always prefer a higher standard of bridge to a lower one. So given the choice between the European Open championships and (say) a junior or women's event, I would take as many tables as possible of the Open over any of the others.

[Walddk]

So given the choice between the European Open championships and (say) a junior or women's event, I would take as many tables as possible of the Open over any of the others.

This is a delicate issue and would be a tough decision if we were to be in that situation where we must tell an organizer: "Sorry, but we don't have room for your broadcast".

 

As a matter of principle, I think the organizers of the 3rd league in Swaziland deserve the same respect and treatment as the ones in USA (no offence intended). They will all think that *their* broadcast is important, and who can blame them?

 

I would not tell the truth if I said that I don't mind whether we get Swaziland or USA if we must choose, but if we *can* accommodate everyone I think we should. I know perfectly well which event the majority of commentators would sign up for. Fred has said it on several occasions. Some need to nurse their big ego in front of a crowd.

 

Fortunately we also have commentators who think it's right to service other organizers and spectators too, and I have a lot of respect for these people. Personally, I will go where I am needed. I can't see the point of having 6 commentators at 1 table and none at another.

 

From a professional point of view there is no difference between commentating in front of 762 or 29 spectators. I wish that many more would see it this way, but it's probably a naive request.

 

Roland

[mrdct]

A recent idea I've had is to semi-automate some aspects of commentator procurement. What I have in mind is not intended as replacement of Roland, but as a tool that vugraph operators can use when they find themselves in a situation where they have insufficient commentators at their table.

 

I've operated a few "low-profile" events over the years and have often found myself short of commentators and I can tell you it is quite difficult to scrounge around for commentators and operate at the same time.

 

What I propose is that an additional class of member be added with, for example, a picture of a microphone next to their name to denote that they are "approved" commentators. Roland's mailing list would probably be the best place to start.

 

Vugraph operators would then have a button that they could simply click on that would automatically send invitations to all of the commentators currently online to join his or her table.

 

The concept could be extended to give operators the flexibility to send invitations to people from a specified country and/or skill level. In addition, anyone who is interested in commentating could click a button similar to "find me a game" or "register as a substitute" and then those people would be made available to the operator to ungag at his or her discretion.

[Finch]

Fortunately we also have commentators who think it's right to service other organizers and spectators too, and I have a lot of respect for these people. Personally, I will go where I am needed. I can't see the point of having 6 commentators at 1 table and none at another.

 

From a professional point of view there is no difference between commentating in front of 762 or 29 spectators. I wish that many more would see it this way, but it's probably a naive request.

My comments were from the point of view of a spectator, not a commentator. As a spectator I'd rather watch the Spingold or the Vanderbilt or some other big top class event, than a local event. I watch vugraph to improve my bridge, and I think the way to do that is by seeing what the really top class players do as they do it.

 

As a commentator I simply sign up for whatever happens to be on the schedule when I'm free (which is not very often) and go where you send me. And I will tend to take the English events because I know the people and their methods which I think makes me a better commentator.

[Walddk]

Fortunately we also have commentators who think it's right to service other organizers and spectators too, and I have a lot of respect for these people. Personally, I will go where I am needed. I can't see the point of having 6 commentators at 1 table and none at another.

 

From a professional point of view there is no difference between commentating in front of 762 or 29 spectators. I wish that many more would see it this way, but it's probably a naive request.

My comments were from the point of view of a spectator, not a commentator. As a spectator I'd rather watch the Spingold or the Vanderbilt or some other big top class event, than a local event. I watch vugraph to improve my bridge, and I think the way to do that is by seeing what the really top class players do as they do it.

 

As a commentator I simply sign up for whatever happens to be on the schedule when I'm free (which is not very often) and go where you send me. And I will tend to take the English events because I know the people and their methods which I think makes me a better commentator.

All valid points Frances. Spectators will obviously go to the rooms where they get more value for money (the money they don't pay, that is). Commentators on the other hand should go to the rooms where they are needed, and that is no problem at all for the vast majority.

 

Some have special wishes (a polite word for "demands"), and for obvious reasons I can't meet all of them.

 

Roland

[keylime]

I had a light bulb moment reading this.

 

Why not once the System Summaries are available, have FD-based files inputted to the pairing, so that once the tables are set, the basics are "pre-announced" in realtime?

 

BTW, what is the playing site? I'm thinking about volunteering (I'm overdue!).

[JanM]

Why not once the System Summaries are available, have FD-based files inputted to the pairing, so that once the tables are set, the basics are "pre-announced" in realtime?

 

BTW, what is the playing site? I'm thinking about volunteering (I'm overdue!).

I have to confess that I found it less than obvious how to create FD files for my own system, which I (hopefully) know. Is it really feasible to do it for someone else's system? It would be great if we could, I'm just wondering - and I certainly would want the FD explanations distinguished from what the operator is actually able to see that the players said about a bid (I know that can sometimes be spotty - hopefully players will start being better about showing us their notes as time goes by).

 

The USBC is being held in White Plains, NY. We need all the volunteers we can get for our ambitious Vugraph schedule!! Email either me or Joan Gerard if you want to volunteer. :D

[keylime]

Jan,

 

I was trying to refer to the playing site itself (which has been told to me thankfully) - the language skills isn't as sharp as usual due to variety of things.

 

Second thought: How long, in terms of boards, is the delay between open/closed rooms?

[barmar]

As far as I'm concerned, there's no need to have more than one table of Vugraph.

After all, I can't watch more than one table at a time. Yes, there is some benefit in offering a choice of events to watch and/or a choice of commentators, but I would much rather have less choice with a better presentation than more choice.

I'd like the choice.

 

I don't know about you, but I much prefer watching players I've heard of. I'll rarely bother with a Vu-Graph if I don't know any of the players -- I'll go kibbitz a set game at the weedo or grannovetter table instead.

 

So if they decide to display the Pacific Asian tournament on Vu-Graph and not the American game, they might as well not have a Vu-Graph at all as far as I'm concerned.

[JanM]

I was trying to refer to the playing site itself (which has been told to me thankfully) - the language skills isn't as sharp as usual due to variety of things.

 

Second thought: How long, in terms of boards, is the delay between open/closed rooms?

Sorry - in case anyone else is also interested in the site, it's the Crowne Plaza in White Plains. For more information about the tournament and other USBF events, see http://www.usbf.org/tournaments.html

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "delay between open/closed rooms." The boards are played simultaneously in the two rooms, so the only way there's a delay is if one table is faster than the other.

[keylime]

Ok, I understand now - didn't know if they were ferrying boards or if there were two sets of boards in play concurrently.

[mrdct]

So if they decide to display the Pacific Asian tournament on Vu-Graph and not the American game, they might as well not have a Vu-Graph at all as far as I'm concerned.

It must be wonderful to live in the centre of the universe.