Is there software to make this easier?

[willow23]

Hi all,

 

Our local club has decided to play teams on BBO and review the hands. I have volunteered to do the review but have realised that it is too time consuming.

 

First I used wordperfect but found that it was lacking interactivity.

 

So I tried to use notepad in combination with lin files to create the reviews with the hands, player names and insert my comments at the chat area in the bottom as the actual hands were played trick by trick.

 

It is more effective and the members enjoy it so much more..but sadly enough it takes too much of my time...

 

Is there software that I can install to make the process easier?

 

I think that the reviews help the players improve their bidding and play..and would even like to add intractive quizes...but want to reduce the hours each day spent to do it..

 

I want to take time to do the analysis, make recommendations and e-mail to everyone when it is ready...so the can just open a lin file offline if the wish and review the hands as they were played and play it again if they need to..

 

Please tell me I can get software to help me speed up the process...

[inquiry]

I am not entirely sure what you are looking for. Here are some hints.

 

1) Linconverter. With Linconverter, you can read in the full lin file, and output the results, complete with bidding and play, to a text file. My recollection, however is that the names of the players is not taken over. I do a similar thing with bridgebrowser, but you will not have access to recent hands in a timely fashion using that, but the bridgebrowser will output the results to plain text or html complete with the players names.

 

2) Download two programs from Richard Pavlicek's excellent utilities page (see http://www.rpbridge.net/rpbr.htm#11 ). The first one you will need is his Bridge File Converter. Convert LIN to his RBN file format. Then get his RBN to HTML converter and convert the RBN file to HTML. My memory is that keeps player names.

 

I have done some of this, for example in the homebase clubs All Star Reports, so if I can provide any hints, let me know. Of course, I did it all from within BridgeBrowser. It might be possible to arrange for you to get access to team event data in BridgeBrowser immediately after the match if you REALLY have a lot of problems with the two methods above. Will have to talk to S. Pickett about that.

[pdmunro]

Have you tried setting up a teaching table and using MOVIE?

 

When you are online at BBO in the Main Bridge Club, click "Start a new table" and make it a teaching table (and maybe invisible).

 

Now click MOVIE and then open your BBO hands.

 

Then click the "Annotate" button down the bottom of the Bridge Movie. This will allow you to add comments to both the bidding and the play.

[inquiry]

Ah... I get it. You want something akin to Fred's old "Deal of the Week" using lin files and freds netbridgevu.

 

I think here, you could run afowl of some copyright issues. Although fred does allow this type of reverse engineering if you are not trying to profit from it, he has to protect his intellectual rights by enforcing his rights.

 

My understanding is that there exist a program that fred sells/leases/provides to authors of the Bridge Base Online CD-rom content. No doubt that would help if you had it, but probably not enough. Analysis and comments take time, rather you put them in with notepad or with some editor tool from Fred. Sure, it would make the interactive part easier (quizes and the like), but you can do that with text asking the question and next page to show the answer.

 

You might try just annotating two interesting hands rather than all of them. If there was 10 hand is the set, you reduced your workload by 80% and the fellows can still replay the "uninteresting ones". I think stephen pickett is/was working on a program to add text to lin files automatically. This was to include the pre-analyzed hand text from HomeBase events to lin files for use at teaching tables (complete with the full traveller from the event the hand was played in). I am not sure how far that has gone, as we have not tried to implement the use of pre-played hands in teaching rooms. But sadly, you still have to do the hard work up front, that is, come up with the analysis etc to insert. It is easy enough in notepad once you are familiar with the format and commands to add it. Or you can use the movie suggestion above.