[Gerben42]

Quote

Because this is a "national" event, we don't use WBF convention cards. The players are required to complete and bring with them to the table an ACBL convention card. We do this because the event is designed to be an enjoyable one for all of the players, including those who don't expect to win, and some of them are very unfamiliar with the WBF convention card.

The national organizations I've been part of (Germany and Netherlands) require the large NATIONAL convention card (which happen to be the same as the WBF convention card but in the national language).

Maybe now the System Summary forms will be better but I have commented a USBF match and in that particular match I found that the summary had very little information. Maybe this was just a problem that there were no penalties on not filling it out with ALL the relevant information, but that was my experience with them.

Quote

Many of us feel that the ACBL card doesn't provide all of the information an expert opponent wants to see. So we developed the "System Summary" which hopefully incorporates the good things from the WBF card without being so dificult to complete. 

Well in a way having something extra on top of your standard CC is very good, of course, the question is what. It's just that last time I was confronted with this "lack of information" from the summary.

[luis]

cherdano, on May 16 2006, 12:19 PM, said:

luis, on May 16 2006, 03:37 AM, said:

One small suggestion is to display the double dummy analysys of the deal on a side so you can see makeable contracts, this will help a lot the commentators and the kibitzers, for example if 4s is makeable we may discuss how to do it, if it is realistic single dummy etc.

I am against this Except for the very best, most vuegraph commentators make too many double-dummy comments already in my opinion.
Of course not everyone can be Michael Rosenberg, but I much prefer when the commentators try to figure out how the play in 4S should go, rather than telling how to make it double dummy, and then trying to figure out whether that line is realistic etc.

Arend

Precisely,
If we can see what is makeable double dummy commentors can focus more in the single dummy analysis of the deal which is a lot more interesting.
And sometimes it will help find nice squeezes or plays that are hard to see while doing many things at the same time.

Luis

[JanM]

Gerben42, on May 16 2006, 02:36 PM, said:

Maybe now the System Summary forms will be better but I have commented a USBF match and in that particular match I found that the summary had very little information. Maybe this was just a problem that there were no penalties on not filling it out with ALL the relevant information, but that was my experience with them.

There's always a learning curve with something new. Compare WBF cards from the first year they were introduced (1987 I believe) and now. Or if you don't want to go back that far, compare the Advance Submission forms for Brown Sticker bids from their introduction to now. Hopefully this year's System Summary Forms will be better than last year's.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on May 16 2006, 08:34 PM, said:

Because this is a "national" event, we don't use WBF convention cards. The players are required to complete and bring with them to the table an ACBL convention card. We do this because the event is designed to be an enjoyable one for all of the players, including those who don't expect to win, and some of them are very unfamiliar with the WBF convention card.

This is the second time that I've seen comments that the Conditions of Content for USBF events need to accomodate players who are pretty much competing for the fun of it. (The last time was during the HUM discussion where I suggested that USBF matches should use the same set of systems regulations and disclosure requirements as the WBF events that they mapped on to)

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

1. Designed to select the best team
2. Ensure that said teams are as well prepared as possible when they enter these events...

Accomodating social play really seems like an inappropriate design goal for the national teams trials.

I'll note that during the parent thread, Fred suggested that it was appropriate for the USBF to block players from using high variance methods that would be legal in WBF events but are banned in the North America. He justified this based on the need to select the best team.

I would argue that if its appropriate to prevent players from being able to use high variance methods you might want to also block under qualified social players from particiapting in these events. Surely they inject ever bit as much variance into the process as an Ekrens 2D opening...

[Walddk]

JanM, on May 16 2006, 09:11 PM, said:

Gerben42, on May 16 2006, 02:36 PM, said:

Maybe now the System Summary forms will be better but I have commented a USBF match and in that particular match I found that the summary had very little information. Maybe this was just a problem that there were no penalties on not filling it out with ALL the relevant information, but that was my experience with them.

There's always a learning curve with something new. Compare WBF cards from the first year they were introduced (1987 I believe) and now. Or if you don't want to go back that far, compare the Advance Submission forms for Brown Sticker bids from their introduction to now. Hopefully this year's System Summary Forms will be better than last year's.

This is an area where virtually all organisers can improve. They rarely give us system cards in advance (most of the time not at all), so way too often the commentators must guess and seek info among a few very knowledgeable spectators.

Maybe this could be included in Conditions of Contest, at least for major events. That will make commentating a lot easier, and it will surely be of significant service to the audience if one is able to explain bids and carding when they appear. One can always hope.

Roland

[mrdct]

JanM, on May 16 2006, 12:45 PM, said:

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]

inquiry, on May 16 2006, 02:45 AM, said:

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]

hrothgar, on May 16 2006, 04:21 PM, said:

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]

nikos59, on May 17 2006, 06:45 AM, said:

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]

Walddk, on May 17 2006, 10:24 AM, said:

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]

Walddk, on May 17 2006, 05:24 AM, said:

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]

Walddk, on May 17 2006, 01:24 PM, said:

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.

[FrancesHinden]

Walddk, on May 17 2006, 11:24 AM, said:

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.

[FrancesHinden]

JanM, on May 17 2006, 05:31 PM, said:

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]

FrancesHinden, on May 17 2006, 05:56 PM, said:

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