How can Vugraph be improved?

[barmar]

I assume when Fred said "anyone out there" he was referring to those of us in this discussion, not programmers in general. I hope he doesn't compare the complexity of BBO to something like the programs running the Space Shuttle.

 

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I have been a professional system programmer. I currently do technical support, but it's more because I prefer this task than dealing with marketing departments and such.

[uday]

IMO, this is an unproductive direction for the discussion. If you want to tell us how easy it is to change our code, lets use the watercooler. We'll do the same if we want to convince you that BBO saves hundreds of lives every day purely through software.

 

Then maybe this thread can revert to ...How can Vugraph be improved?

[JanM]

And in case anyone wants to see one way we're going to improve Vugraph for the USBC, take a look at http://www.openskywebdesign.com/vugraph/ht...sf8_scores.html

Click on a contract to see the hand, bidding & play. We'll be posting scorecards like this for each quarter of the matches from the Round of 16 on. Hopefully we'll post a couple of times during the session.

 

We're also going to have website pages with information on the players - pictures, convention cards, System Summaries, possibly some biographical information. Anyone who happens to have any good electronic pictures of people who are likely to be playing, please send me the URL :P . Or anything else you'd like to see on a "team" web page.

[mrdct]

That's fantastic news Jan. From the looks of the samples this seems just about world best practice for bridge tournament online reporting. I hope the ACBL can follow suit with their Nationals.

 

As for convention cards, why not simply make it a condition of contest that ACBL or WBF convention cards be completed electronically and be submitted to webmaster a few weeks before the event starts? I find it hard to believe that any serious pairs would be completing their convention cards by hand.

[cherdano]

Sounds great. What about travellers, current scores etc?

[JanM]

As for convention cards, why not simply make it a condition of contest that ACBL or WBF convention cards be completed electronically and be submitted to webmaster a few weeks before the event starts?  I find it hard to believe that any serious pairs would be completing their convention cards by hand.

Dream on :P . Having played in the event, I can promise you that there are in fact players who complete their ACBL convention card by hand (and often in pencil). We require the completion and submission of the System Summary Form and get very spotty compliance and lots of complaints. I've asked for electronic ACBL cards if they are available and hopefully will get a significant number. As for WBF cards, we'll link to them for those players who've submitted one recently for a WBF event, but the decision was made (after considerable discussion) not to require them.

 

Sounds great. What about travellers, current scores etc?

This is a team event, there aren't any travellers or score tickets - each team keeps a private score, they compare and report the result after the segment. I wish we could use Bridgemates to get contract and result for each board, but I'm afraid that isn't going to happen this year.

[cherdano]

Sounds great. What about travellers, current scores etc?

This is a team event, there aren't any travellers or score tickets - each team keeps a private score, they compare and report the result after the segment. I wish we could use Bridgemates to get contract and result for each board, but I'm afraid that isn't going to happen this year.

Well, there has been an excellent result service by a BBO competitor for similar team events (world championships etc.). It would be really great if BBO could provide a similar real time results service for the USBF team selection, once you actually start collecting single table results. After all, it's arguably the most exciting bridge team event after Bermuda Bowl, and deserves a good coverage.

 

Arend

[cherdano]

As for convention cards, why not simply make it a condition of contest that ACBL or WBF convention cards be completed electronically and be submitted to webmaster a few weeks before the event starts?  I find it hard to believe that any serious pairs would be completing their convention cards by hand.

Dream on :D . Having played in the event, I can promise you that there are in fact players who complete their ACBL convention card by hand (and often in pencil). We require the completion and submission of the System Summary Form and get very spotty compliance and lots of complaints. I've asked for electronic ACBL cards if they are available and hopefully will get a significant number. As for WBF cards, we'll link to them for those players who've submitted one recently for a WBF event, but the decision was made (after considerable discussion) not to require them.

Hmm. This is one of the world's best team events. Even the second highest league here in Germany requires electronic advance submission of CCs, and I don't think it would occur anyone to complain about that. Do you think it's too much to ask the paper-and-pencil fans to spend the 3 minutes on scanning and e-mailing the CC?

 

Arend

[JanM]

Hmm. This is one of the world's best team events. Even the second highest league here in Germany requires electronic advance submission of CCs, and I don't think it would occur anyone to complain about that. Do you think it's too much to ask the paper-and-pencil fans to spend the 3 minutes on scanning and e-mailing the CC?

We'll see what happens - I have asked for either electronic or scanned convention cards. Hopefully we'll get them. Note, I'm not disagreeing with you about how people should react, just not as confident as you that they will. And some of the players are frighteningly computer-phobic :D

 

Well, there has been an excellent result service by a BBO competitor for similar team events (world championships etc.). It would be really great if BBO could provide a similar real time results service for the USBF team selection, once you actually start collecting single table results. After all, it's arguably the most exciting bridge team event after Bermuda Bowl, and deserves a good coverage.

I think this is in the works, but may not have highest priority. Until it's available, we'll be posting the scorecards during the matches whenever we have a person available to do it.

[sceptic]

You could improve vugraph, by having one commentator for North /South and they can only view those hands and one commentator for East / West

 

or maybe two each I have no idea maybe that s better with more than one each team

 

Then at the table we can see all hands and and comments for play and def

[fred]

Sounds great. What about travellers, current scores etc?

This is a team event, there aren't any travellers or score tickets - each team keeps a private score, they compare and report the result after the segment. I wish we could use Bridgemates to get contract and result for each board, but I'm afraid that isn't going to happen this year.

Well, there has been an excellent result service by a BBO competitor for similar team events (world championships etc.). It would be really great if BBO could provide a similar real time results service for the USBF team selection, once you actually start collecting single table results. After all, it's arguably the most exciting bridge team event after Bermuda Bowl, and deserves a good coverage.

 

Arend

The BBO competitor you are referring to gets all of this data through the Bridgemate devices that Jan is referring to.

 

We are currently working on a facility that allows BBO to read from a Bridgemate-generated database and display tournament results/scores/standings in a similar (but superior of course!) way to how things work on our competitor's site.

 

But this won't be useful unless:

 

1) The tournament in question uses Bridgemate

2) The tournament in question agrees to allow us to access their data

 

This facility I describe will be used for the first time during European Championships that will take place this August in Warsaw.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[cherdano]

This is good news. I am sure 1) is satisfied for the USBF events, 2) won't be a problem. :D

[JanM]

This is good news. I am sure 1) is satisfied for the USBF events, 2) won't be a problem. :P

If you mean that "if" 1 is satisfied..., you're right. I'm fairly pessimistic about 1, though, at least for this year.

[Walddk]

This is good news. I am sure 1) is satisfied for the USBF events, 2) won't be a problem. :P

If you mean that "if" 1 is satisfied..., you're right. I'm fairly pessimistic about 1, though, at least for this year.

And why is that? Because you don't have the resources or because you can't make the players use Bridgemate? If the latter, I can assure you that it takes less than 5 minutes to teach them.

 

Quite a few of the Americans who will be taking part in the USBF Championships were also present in Tenerife last summer when Bridgemate was introduced. Fred was one of those and he can verify that it's not rocket science. Even I (and I am pretty clueless regarding technical devices) survived unscathed.

 

Roland

[uday]

Bridgemate has to be integrated into the scoring software (if and when it makes its way over to the US) before it can be used w/o pain. I assume that the scoring software is ACBLScore.

[JanM]

And why is that? Because you don't have the resources or because you can't make the players use Bridgemate? If the latter, I can assure you that it takes less than 5 minutes to teach them.

Actually both. USBF runs only 3 tournaments a year. We were hoping that ACBL would purchase Bridgemates and do the programming to integrate them into ACBLScore. Then we'd be able to borrow or rent them from ACBL, as we do the screens, bidding boxes, etc etc. I think that ACBL will eventually get and use Bridgemates, but not before August.

 

And although I completely agree with you that it's trivial to use Bridgemates, I'm afraid that there are a fair number of players who disagree (and that includes the significant number who used them in both Tenerife and Estoril). They'll come around eventually but not before this August :P .