[jillybean]

Are there any forum members competing in the D19 GNT at Vancouver Bridge Centre this weekend? (April 2&3)

[Siegmund]

Heh. My (former) club hadn't even had its unit game until last week. No chance of any of the qualifiers coming down. Strange to extend the unit qualifying period to the end of March, and move the district game to the first of April, in the same year.

I quite like that D18 is going to play its district finals on BBO rather than requiring people to travel. Second week of May IIRC.

[jillybean]

That is an interesting move, I think it's an ideal way to run these types of games.

[deleted] the rest of the rant

[jillybean]

Siegmund, on 2011-March-30, 20:54, said:

Heh. My (former) club hadn't even had its unit game until last week. No chance of any of the qualifiers coming down. Strange to extend the unit qualifying period to the end of March, and move the district game to the first of April, in the same year.

I quite like that D18 is going to play its district finals on BBO rather than requiring people to travel. Second week of May IIRC.

btw, will they have monitors for these games?

[mycroft]

Conditions of contest (and a bunch of other stuff) on the D18 site at http://wasumi.org/Pages/18GNT2010.htm .

Lots of answers (and a lot of questions) there; your answer is "yes, of course."

BBOs lack of inherent "team tournament" is making it much harder than it would be with that ability (not a slag on BBO, more of a round peg-oblate spheroid hole problem). It should work, but getting the kinks out of the procedure, and streamlining and errorchecking the manual parts of it, is taking about as much time and testing as this professional computer person expected (Remember the computer estimate rule: "determine how long the project will take, double it, and move to the next unit of measurement. Therefore, a two week project will take 4 months." and the 90-90 rule: "The first 90% of the project takes the first 90% of the time. The last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the time." They're only jokes (and 1960's era jokes, too) because they're true).

[Edit: Argh, sorry, fixed. Thanks, Ed. *Always* check links before posting, mycroft.]

[jillybean]

mycroft, on 2011-March-31, 15:31, said:

Conditions of contest (and a bunch of other stuff) on the D18 site at http://wasumi.org/18GNT2010.htm .

Lots of answers (and a lot of questions) there; your answer is "yes, of course."

BBOs lack of inherent "team tournament" is making it much harder than it would be with that ability (not a slag on BBO, more of a round peg-oblate spheroid hole problem). It should work, but getting the kinks out of the procedure, and streamlining and errorchecking the manual parts of it, is taking about as much time and testing as this professional computer person expected (Remember the computer estimate rule: "determine how long the project will take, double it, and move to the next unit of measurement. Therefore, a two week project will take 4 months." and the 90-90 rule: "The first 90% of the project takes the first 90% of the time. The last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the time." They're only jokes (and 1960's era jokes, too) because they're true).

Thanks. I'll be interested to read about it but the link doesn't work for me.

[blackshoe]

Try this.

[aguahombre]

jillybean, on 2011-March-31, 11:49, said:

btw, will they have monitors for these games?

I am firmly in district 18, and it spreads all over the place; so I understand why they are trying to use computers. But the conditions require people to have laptops, as they will be playing at a site where there is a director and monitoring. So, it doesn't work.

[jillybean]

aguahombre, on 2011-March-31, 21:41, said:

I am firmly in district 18, and it spreads all over the place; so I understand why they are trying to use computers. But the conditions require people to have laptops, as they will be playing at a site where there is a director and monitoring. So, it doesn't work.

They haven't run it yet, how do you know it doesn't it work?

I would assume the main reason they are doing this is to enable more teams to participate. Owning or having access to a PC seems to be less of a restriction than the cost and logistics of travel.

This initiative could allow more teams from D19 to participate in future events. Currently the GNT is held in Vancouver, Everett, Seattle-Tacoma on a 3 year cycle. This disadvantages players from locations such as all of Alaska, Spokane, Yakima, Vancouver Island or the Interior BC. By providing local online access a lot more teams could play.
Not that I am a contender to win but I doubt that I would be travelling out of Vancouver to participate.

[aguahombre]

Sorry, I meant it doesn't work for us. We don't have laptops, and even if we could borrow some, would be at a disadvantage because we have never used a laptop.

I know there are people who would prefer that all Bridge be played on computers. We just don't happen to be in that group. We are also in District 18; hence, for us it doesn't work.

Of course, travelling to Northern Siberia for the event wouldn't work for us, either --so what the heck. Qualifying for the Finals at a National, and then going there is different. We just have a geographically weird District.

This post has been edited by aguahombre: 2011-April-01, 09:57

[mycroft]

aguahombre, on 2011-March-31, 21:41, said:

I am firmly in district 18, and it spreads all over the place; so I understand why they are trying to use computers. But the conditions require people to have laptops, as they will be playing at a site where there is a director and monitoring. So, it doesn't work.

District 18, as you say, is Really Really Big. And it's had the issue where "the middle of the district" is Great Falls, Montana, which is, in fact, the middle of the district, but really difficult to get to from anywhere else (especially by air). Plus, 80+% of the teams that play in the GNT are Canadian (90% of *them* are from Edmonton, Calgary, Regina and Saskatoon). So, they'd try holding it in Calgary or Edmonton, where there are direct flights from those 4 cities (and SLC, and some others) (the NAP district qualifier is always at the SK regional) and get better attendance from the local teams, but zero - maybe one - team from the U.S. So, the states' representatives would vote to hold it back in the U.S. and...

They're trying online hoping for more attendance, especially from those who wouldn't normally travel (I've never seen a Utah team, for instance). Yes, they'll lose a few teams who don't want to play on computer or aren't comfortable or don't like the setting, but they're hoping it will pay (especially in Flight C. You want to compete in Flight C while you can in D18 - another thing about Really Really Big districts is that you don't get the big and frequent tournaments you get in more concentrated districts (okay, Penticton is an exception. But it's once a year.) and Flight B is tough to compete in for a new LM) in new teams.

Two small quibbles:

• the CoC requires a monitor on site, but not a director. All TD work is being done through BBO.
  
• You don't need a laptop - you need access to a laptop for a weekend.
  You do need a desktop computer; lack of BBO familiarity will decompensate for a *lot* of bridge skill. You do Really Really want a real mouse - trackpads, especially for people not used to them, are dangerous for BBO in a no-undo environment. But you don't need to own a laptop. And you have a month and a bit to source one, or for your location to source some spares (I expect that there will be about 6 or 7 "extras" available in Calgary, and that's if my "craptop scrounge" at work goes badly). There were three people using borrowed machines from my direct knowledge, out of 27 people, and there were I believe two more machines that went "spare".

[aguahombre]

As I said, the effort of District 18 to do something to solve the geography issue is admirable.

Since St. George lacks potential teammates in our category, we considered finding a pair who could play with us from Canada. They would have their laptops up there, and we could invite a monitor to our home in St. George; thus we could keep our towers, modem, and router in place and avail ourselves of the Bar as well while playing. (Don't tell the alcohol police. This is Utah.)

[bd71]

I'm not in District 18, but am very pleased someone is trying this to work out the kinks.

I strongly suspect this will work (or have only minor problems, which will be solved for) and that many other districts will adopt in the future.

Our district is not anywhere close to as large (District 4 is Eastern PA, Delaware, and parts of upstate NY and southern NJ), but even here some teams don't travel for GNT especially at the C level.

[jillybean]

We are through to the finals

edit: but we lost the final . Oh well, there's always next year.