[Walddk]

I have some news regarding the 50th European Team Championships in Ostend, Belgium, June 22-July 3. A complete vugraph time schedule is now listed at ...

http://www.bridgebase.com/vugraph/schedule...?order_by=event

All information about the event to be retrieved from ...

http://www.eurobridge.org/competitions/10O...Information.htm

At this point in time it seems like we will be broadcasting from five matches (ten tables) in every round.

1. A match involving the Italy open team.
2. A match involving a French team.
3. The official vugraph match at the venue.
4. Two extra matches for BBO.

The above is of course subject to operator availability. Things may change when we get closer. I will pass on all info as I get it.

I am sure you have noticed that the 2010 Open Team Trials (USBC) in Chicago, Illinois, will take place more or less simultaneously. Due to the time difference, the two events will not clash too often, but there will be overlapping sessions.

What can I say other than what a treat for all vugraph fans? Enjoy the shows!

Roland

[JanM]

Hijacking a little (sorry, Roland!), but I'm interested in opinions. Do you think that being on Vugraph for every match gives the Italian team an advantage?

[paulg]

JanM, on Jun 14 2010, 03:56 PM, said:

Hijacking a little (sorry, Roland!), but I'm interested in opinions. Do you think that being on Vugraph for every match gives the Italian team an advantage?

No, it's a disadvantage for the team but good for Italian bridge followers.

All teams who consider that they can beat Italy will be frequently found on vugraph and used to the experience. Teams who do not generally beat Italy have bigger problems than vugraph to worry about, but even these are unlikely to be vugraph newbies nowadays.

In addition, theoretically every bid and play is recorded at the championships and displayed on the tournament web site. In practice, auctions are there and some of the play. Whether on vugraph or not, there is nowhere to hide.

The disadvantage for the Italy team is that every board will be easily accessible by (future) opponents to analyse ... some of whom may be Italian given the team selection. Of course the USBC will also generate a lot of information like this.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on Jun 14 2010, 05:56 PM, said:

Hijacking a little (sorry, Roland!), but I'm interested in opinions. Do you think that being on Vugraph for every match gives the Italian team an advantage?

I doubt that anyone has enough information available to offer an informed opinion.

I can offer a myriad of conflicting hypotheses regarding how playing on vugraph might effect results. Here are a few possible theories (I'm not claiming that I believe any of these).

1. Playing on Vugraph is much more stressful than not playing on Vugraph. The Italians are forced to play each and every match on Vugraph, therefore their results during the RR are artifically low. As a result, the Italian's seed in the KO phase is biased downwards and they get harder draws in the KO than they should.

2. Playing on the Vugraph is much more stressful than not playing on the Vugraph. However, the Italians get more practice than any other team playing under Vugraph conditions. Therefore, the Italians have an artificial advantage during the KO phase.

3. Vugraph operators have "tells" just like card players have tells. World champion level players are very good at reading opposing card players. Given enough practice, they're going to get just as good at reading Vugraph operators. The Italians always play on Vugraph, therefore, they are going to master this new skill faster than their opponents.

4. The Italians are running a "wire".

In theory, one might be able to design a statistical test for any of these hypotheses. In practice, testing any of these is difficult. Testing all possible hypotheses is impractical.

IM(NS)HO, it would be useful if you could offer a specific hypothesis that might explain a casual link between

The Italians are always on Vugraph
The Italian scores are better than they should be

[paulg]

hrothgar, on Jun 14 2010, 04:33 PM, said:

1.  Playing on Vugraph is much more stressful than not playing on Vugraph.  The Italians are forced to play each and every match on Vugraph, therefore their results during the RR are artifically low.  As a result, the Italian's seed in the KO phase is biased downwards and they get harder draws in the KO than they should.

There is no KO phase.

The format of the competition is that the teams are split into two (seeded) groups, in which they play a full round robin. The top nine teams from each group go forward to the second round, carrying forward their VP scores against the other qualifiers. Then they play all the qualifiers from the other group.

[ahollan1]

Convention cards for all participants [and other useful info] are available online under

http://www.ecatsbrid...end/default.asp

At that level there are zip files of CCs for all teams within a specific event

Open
http://www.ecatsbridge.com/Documents/files...s/OpenTeams.zip
Women
http://www.ecatsbridge.com/Documents/files...WomensTeams.zip
Senior
http://www.ecatsbridge.com/Documents/files...SeniorTeams.zip

If you want to drill down by Event then Country

Open
http://www.ecatsbridge.com/documents/docde...;files\May

Women
http://www.ecatsbridge.com/documents/docde...;files\May

Senior
http://www.ecatsbridge.com/documents/docde...;files\May

[JanM]

hrothgar, on Jun 14 2010, 08:33 AM, said:

IM(NS)HO, it would be useful if you could offer a specific hypothesis that might explain a casual link between

The Italians are always on Vugraph
The Italian scores are better than they should be

It was suggested to me when someone asked whether we would cover all of their matches in an NABC event if they paid the cost of the extra operators, that that would be an advantage for the team always on Vugraph because their opponents would be either nervous or uncomfortable on Vugraph. I wondered what other people thought about that.

I found your comment about Vugraph operator "tells" interesting - the first time I was an operator in a match with a well known player who thinks he's good at reading people, I noticed that he and his partner sat in the opposite seats from normal, so he could face me. In later segments, they didn't do that . But I'm sure you're right that operators have small "tells." That's why I try to avoid having a "significant other" as a Vugraph operator at the table where their partner is playing.

[Tomi2]

JanM, on Jun 14 2010, 04:20 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Jun 14 2010, 08:33 AM, said:

IM(NS)HO, it would be useful if you could offer a specific hypothesis that might explain a casual link between

The Italians are always on Vugraph
The Italian scores are better than they should be

It was suggested to me when someone asked whether we would cover all of their matches in an NABC event if they paid the cost of the extra operators, that that would be an advantage for the team always on Vugraph because their opponents would be either nervous or uncomfortable on Vugraph. I wondered what other people thought about that.

I found your comment about Vugraph operator "tells" interesting - the first time I was an operator in a match with a well known player who thinks he's good at reading people, I noticed that he and his partner sat in the opposite seats from normal, so he could face me. In later segments, they didn't do that . But I'm sure you're right that operators have small "tells." That's why I try to avoid having a "significant other" as a Vugraph operator at the table where their partner is playing.

you need to take care of two things here:

1)tells: once we played on vugraph my teammate made some "spectacular" falsecard
http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer...tch.php?id=5713
deal one, he pitched ♠K under ace to avoid a spade ruff in case lead was s aingleton

the operator (inexperienced it seemed) then asked the table "did you realy play the king?"...


there are of course less obvious tells, so it can be dangerous...


2)cheating: while everything is done to avoid cheating, I can't understand, why players aren't allowed to bring their mobile phone with them but they may have their own vugraph operator sitting one meter away, seeing all cards...

Don't know how big the danger of cheating here is, but I am sure most teams would prefere a neutral operator doing this job...

[mrdct]

BBO vugraph is so ubiquitous now that it is extremely unlikely that any players in the European Championships would not have played many times already on vugraph so I really don't expect it would be a new experience for anyone.

I think the potential anxiety that players may develop is more to do with playing Italy than playing on vugraph.

If the operator is competent there shouldn't be any tells. In any case, in the thousands of boards that I've operated I can't recall any player intentionaly looking at me to get a read on what's going on. If I did see such behaviour, I would go straight to the recorder after the match.

[gwnn]

mrdct, on Jun 16 2010, 12:05 PM, said:

If the operator is competent there shouldn't be any tells. In any case, in the thousands of boards that I've operated I can't recall any player intentionaly looking at me to get a read on what's going on. If I did see such behaviour, I would go straight to the recorder after the match.

That means only that they accurately read you as someone who'd go to the recorder so they turned down their evil cheating ways to less detectable levels.

[mrdct]

Operator tells would really be no different to kibitzer tells so I don't think it's fair to conclude that BBO vugraph increases the risk of a player cheating in this manner as they are probably equally as likely to cheat by getting a read off kibitzers if that is how they choose to play the game.

There are existing controls in the laws and regulations around kibitzer behaviour which operators should also be following (except the one about looking at more than one hand of course) which I think are adequate.

[Walddk]

I now have our fixtures for Wednesday (day 1) in Ostend. All matches are from the open series.

Round 1
Iceland v Italy
Wales v France
Finland v Norway
Russia v Sweden
Greece v Belgium

Round 2
Italy v Turkey
Norway v Croatia
Sweden v Denmark
Netherlands v Spain
Portugal v Poland

Round 3
Serbia v Italy
Iceland v Norway
Finland v France
Russia v Netherlands
Ireland v England

[Walddk]

Our matches Thursday June 24 (open series unless stated).

Round 4:
Lebanon v Italy
France v Croatia
Hungary v Germany
Netherlands v Denmark
England v Spain

Round 5:
Italy v Lithuania
Iceland v France
Russia v England
Poland v Israel
Germany v Bulgaria

Round 6:
Italy v Scotland
France v Turkey
England v Denmark
Sweden v Austria
Belgium v Germany (women)

[Walddk]

Our matches Friday June 25 (open series unless stated).

Round 7
Norway v Italy
Serbia v France
Netherlands v Sweden
Romania v England
Germany v Austria (women)

Round 8
Italy v Slovakia
Lebanon v France
Austria v Netherlands
Israel v Ireland
Denmark v Sweden (women)

Round 9
France v Italy
Ireland v Poland
England v Sweden
Croatia v Bulgaria
Poland v France (women)

[Walddk]

Saturday June 26 is a little unusual.

1. Only 2 rounds.
2. No Open and Women in the second.
3. The seniors join the action.

Round 10
Italy v Cyprus
Scotland v France
Israel v Russia
Bulgaria v Iceland
England v Germany (women)

Round 2 (seniors)
Austria v England
Turkey v Poland

[jallerton]

Does anybody know why the start times are so irregular? According to the schedule at:

http://www.eurobridg...end/Results.htm

the action start(ed)(s) at 10.30 CEST on days 1,4,5,7,8,9, 10 but at 09:30 CEST on days 2,3,6 and 11.

It must be awkward for the players not being able to get into a routine.

[Kaapo]

I think it's because of other activities (ballet etc) at Kursaal. They need to throw us out earlier if there's a show coming in the evening...

[Walddk]

Sunday June 27 at 10.30, 14.15 and 17.35 CEST. Open series unless stated.

Round 11
Switzerland v Italy
France v Norway
Iceland v Germany
Russia v Poland
England v Netherlands

Round 12
Italy v Latvia
Slovakia v France
Sweden v Belgium
Poland v Denmark
Wales v Iceland

Round 13
Hungary v Italy
Serbia v Germany
Russia v Estonia
Poland v France (seniors R5)
Netherlands v Bulgaria (women R12)

[uygar]

Hi there, I have a question!
What is special about French and England teams?
10 BBO vugraph total and
French team gonna be on BBO vugraph 9 times
England team gonna be on BBO vugraph 6 times

According NBO OPEN TEAMS RANKING (2004, 2006, 2008)

FRANCE with 80points being 9.
ENGLAND with 80points being 10.
They usually play for around 100 spectator.

Yours sincerely,
uygar

[helene_t]

France and England are both "big" countries in terms of bbo membership.

OK so are Italy and Turkey.