[campboy]

jh51, on 2011-May-31, 14:10, said:

If the possibility exists that you might yet play the boards you are kibbing, I would hope that the director would prohibit this. I have played in some single session pre-duped Swiss events and in some cases, the boards were not played by all teams at the same time. For example, in one case there were 5 teams for a 4 match event. (Yes, I know that this became a round event since we played everyone.) In the course of play, each team played a 7 board match against each team, and it was arranged such that exactly 35 boards were used. I don't recall the details of the movement, except that each team played the next higher and next lower numbered team in the 1st 2 rounds, then compared, and then repeated this against the other 2 teams. The board movement was such that each team missed one set of 7 boards. Obviously, it was most undesirable for a table that finishes their either of their first 2 sets early to kibitz another table, as they were more than likely to see those boards as one of the last two sets.

That only happens in round-robin events; you can't really organise a pre-duped swiss with the same boards played by different people in different rounds because you don't know in advance what the later round matches will be.

[mrdct]

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 10:54, said:

I mean honestly all I keep hearing about is how awesome bridge in every non american country is

Everywhere you go there will be good things and bad things about the way tournaments and club games are run. I think there are some great things about the way American tournaments are run which I wish would be implemented in my country, but there are a few sub-optimal things also. We can all learn from each other, but economics will generally rule and if the demand for pre-dealt boards isn't sufficient to justify the additional cost then organisers and club owners are probably quite right to avoid it.

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 10:54, said:

you admit in your post that some clubs in Australia don't have pre-dealt boards

I'm not actually aware of any, but I assume that a few of them must exist somewhere (Australia is quite a big place) but I could be wrong. If a club here was in a competitive environment (e.g. in one of the major capital cities) I think they would really struggle with numbers if they didn't provide hand records.

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 10:54, said:

if clubs bought a dealing machine and bridgemates, even if they were small, the only way they could make money (clubs are not ACBL run and are FOR profit) is to charge a higher entry fee

That isn't entirely true. To recover the additional costs the club would either need to charge higher table fees (and hope that the players aren't overly price-sensitive and reduce the amount that they play) or increase their attendance. It's really no different to any decisions a club owner makes about a wide a range of equipment and facility options: cheap chairs or comfortable chairs, better lighting, rigid tables, coffee machine, new bidding boxes, new playing cards, new boards, more cleaning, expert talks, website, timely detailed scores, etc. It all comes down to a cost/benefit analysis.

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 10:54, said:

Maybe the reason Australia or [random european country] would always have preduped boards is because your events are never that huge.

Obviously we don't have the same volume of major tournament that America has, but our major events such the Gold Coast Congress are up around 8000 tables these days.

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 10:54, said:

If you preduped the huge NABC events, or a regional knockout, the directors would need to be paid more money since they do more work.

Board duplication for major tournaments here is usually contracted out to people/organisations that do it in fairly high volumes and in cases where physical boards are being recycled during an event, a relatively low-paid person is brought in to do that. There's definately a cost, but the directors aren't usually involved unless it's a really small event and the director is doing the lot (caddying, scoring, directing and dealing) which is often the case for weekend congresses with 20-30 tables in play each day.

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 10:54, said:

But keep going on about how bridge in America sucks, and as a bridge player you would much rather be on the other side of the pond, since you get to play multi in pair games and have preduped boards in non-serious swiss team events. I am sure you're right.

I think you are being a bit harsh. I never said anything critical about American bridge and merely outlined the way things are in my country. I'm not saying having pre-dealt board ubiquitously is necessarily superior, it's just that once a country has gone down that path the players rapidly develop an expectation that they will get always get pre-dealt boards and most people here do find it a better bridge experience to walk away from any session with a hand record whether it's a local club duplicate or a national event.

[mrdct]

Phil, on 2011-May-31, 11:39, said:

Our club pays $17 per set for pre-duped boards. It is done by the son of our former unit president and it takes him around 3 hours to put together 16 sets.

That's $90 per hour - not bad coin for a task that an unskilled person can be taught in a few minutes. Although I guess if it's all rolled up with the capital costs of the boards, cards, cases and dealing machine and they print your hand records and schlep everything around it's not too unreasonable.

We are lucky at my local club (a not-for-profit, two-session per week, unpaid playing director, set-up and pack-up operation at the senior citizens centre) in that we own our dealing machine and apart from some minor maintenance the only cost is the guy who deals gets his table fees waived.

[gordontd]

Phil, on 2011-May-31, 11:39, said:

I've finished my match early; whats to stop me from kibbing my friend in the same event?

The regulations.

[Phil]

mrdct, on 2011-May-31, 15:11, said:

That's $90 per hour - not bad coin for a task that an unskilled person can be taught in a few minutes. Although I guess if it's all rolled up with the capital costs of the boards, cards, cases and dealing machine and they print your hand records and schlep everything around it's not too unreasonable.

We are lucky at my local club (a not-for-profit, two-session per week, unpaid playing director, set-up and pack-up operation at the senior citizens centre) in that we own our dealing machine and apart from some minor maintenance the only cost is the guy who deals gets his table fees waived.

Right, they handle everything. In addition, we have had some problems getting the machines to work, using the right type of cards (playing cards, believe it or not, are not universal in thickness or even dimensions), making adjustments, maintenance, etc..

We haven't been able to find anyone else reliable.

[f0rdy]

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 10:54, said:

Almost all of the boards in our nationals a preduped, however some aren't. Do you really know the cost of preduping huge events like NABCs here? It would probably cost a lot of time and money, because those tournaments are really big! Most NABC events do have preduped boards, all pair games, the main events starting from the round of 32+ etc, and the swisses on the last day (for the 2 day events, only the top 10 teams or so get them). So basically, the boards are not preduped when the event is still huge. Maybe the reason Australia or [random european country] would always have preduped boards is because your events are never that huge. America has shown that when the event is not super huge, we always predupe at our nationals.

This I don't understand. Unless I'm massively misunderstanding something about movements, surely the number of duplicated boards you need scales at worst as the number of participants (for a given length of time played), and I would expect as a somewhat lower power of participants? You have a lot more boards to duplicate, but you also have more entry fees?

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 10:54, said:

The ACBL is not a for profit organization. We have full time directors who are competent and paid, and I appreciate that, I've heard some horror stories from other countries with volunteer directors, but you get what you pay for. Bridge is already expensive. If you preduped the huge NABC events, or a regional knockout, the directors would need to be paid more money since they do more work. Or more would have to be hired. This would cause a rise in the prices of entry fees. Perhaps this is not what the membership wants.

This looks like it's the difference. Do you have paid directors all the way down to club level? I would assume this is a big chunk of the costs involved in a small-ish club evening?
As you say, seems like it's mostly a culture difference; the ACBL cares about having paid directors, some british/australian players care about having hand records for club games.

To mrdct, do you have pre-made boards for local teams matches? Other than the university club, I only rarely play at club nights without hand records, but I've only played one local-level teams match with pre-dealt boards that I can remember. That was at one of the larger clubs with its own venue, so perhaps this is a big club/small club divide in the UK?
UK players from larger clubs, is it common to have pre-dealt boards for private matches?

[Phil]

gordontd, on 2011-May-31, 15:36, said:

The regulations.

Oh yes, the Regulations...thank god we have those to curb cheating.

I would feel sorry for the directors in a ballroom full of players to actually know who is playing in the event and who isn't. Our national swiss finals don't even use screens. That may be a bigger issue than the lack of pre-duped boards.

[jeffford76]

JLOGIC, on 2011-May-31, 13:09, said:

I don't think club games are really the issue since you'll see Phil (LA area), me (Dallas, NYC, Vegas), etc all have preduped hands at our clubs. The clubs basically have these if they are a big area in USA, I think it is only smaller clubs that don't (though most clubs in USA are probably smaller clubs). Of course most club games rarely have anything other than pair games, maybe an occasional swiss, this is contrast to tournaments here which are mostly teams (though pairs are always offered, they are always smaller). In tournaments there are never preduped hands for the team games AFAIK below the national level. Tournaments here are non profit and run by ACBL, club games are private and for profit. For example, clubs are allowed to have whatever system regulations they want, so they can allow midchart conventions for example if they want.

I don't know how common it is, but the Tacoma, Washington unit has had partially pre-duped hands for their sectional tournament Swiss team events for about two years now. They don't remake boards during the event, so it's only the last 5 rounds and only for as many tables as they can cover with the pre-mades, but all the teams in contention play the same hands. Seattle pre-duped the hands for all the pairs games for the first time at our most recent tournament. I don't know whether they did anything for the Swiss because the A/X event was a BAM instead with pre-duped boards. Almost all the clubs around here have pre-dupes and hand records for their club games including some of the club Swiss team games.

[Vampyr]

f0rdy, on 2011-May-31, 16:50, said:

To mrdct, do you have pre-made boards for local teams matches? Other than the university club, I only rarely play at club nights without hand records, but I've only played one local-level teams match with pre-dealt boards that I can remember. That was at one of the larger clubs with its own venue, so perhaps this is a big club/small club divide in the UK?
UK players from larger clubs, is it common to have pre-dealt boards for private matches?

Sorry that I am not mrdct, but I can relate my experience, which is that we never have pre-dealt boards for matches unless the match is held at a club. When the match is at a club even our small weekly one, the boards and hand records are provided.

[Vampyr]

Phil, on 2011-May-31, 16:51, said:

Oh yes, the Regulations...thank god we have those to curb cheating.

I would feel sorry for the directors in a ballroom full of players to actually know who is playing in the event and who isn't. Our national swiss finals don't even use screens. That may be a bigger issue than the lack of pre-duped boards.

If you have finished a match what difference does it make if you go watch someone else play the boards?

[mrdct]

f0rdy, on 2011-May-31, 16:50, said:

To mrdct, do you have pre-made boards for local teams matches? Other than the university club, I only rarely play at club nights without hand records, but I've only played one local-level teams match with pre-dealt boards that I can remember. That was at one of the larger clubs with its own venue, so perhaps this is a big club/small club divide in the UK?
UK players from larger clubs, is it common to have pre-dealt boards for private matches?

In Australia we don't really have a league teams scene that bears any resemblance to what you enjoy in the UK and what I've also seen in some scandinavian countries, which is a shame, but we are of course a much bigger country geographically so the logistics are much more difficult here; for example in my case the nearest bridge club other than my local is 90km away. As it happens, we do play an annual challenge match against that club and as both clubs have dealing machines we do use pre-dealt boards.

When I used to live in Melbourne there was a league teams competition involving perhaps a dozen clubs, but I think it died-off over the years. It might be something I'll try to reinvigourate if and when I move back to Melbourne.

I'm no doubt a bit of an exception, but I use pre-dealt board for home games with my kids and anyone I can rope in as a 4th (my wife doesn't play). I usually grab a dup file from a large swiss pairs event from 5+ years ago that I didn't play in and get the guy at my local bridge club to deal a set for me with my own set of boards and then we have datums to score-up against and hand records to discuss the hands. Of course, we also use screens for all of our home games as I've made over a 100 of them in my garage for various state associations in Australia and kept a couple of "not quite rights" for my own use. We have a nice big family room where we have a bridge table permanently set-up.

[shintaro]

Vampyr, on 2011-May-31, 18:01, said:

If you have finished a match what difference does it make if you go watch someone else play the boards?

Stephanie as I Quipped "Nothing in Theory as long as you dont interfere with play"

Gordon (ACTD) however points out that the Regulations might/would

[WellSpyder]

mrdct, on 2011-May-31, 18:20, said:

I'm no doubt a bit of an exception ...

I think you can safely assume that using screens and pre-duplicated boards for a friendly game at home with just one table is the exception rather than the rule!

[mrdct]

WellSpyder, on 2011-June-01, 03:22, said:

I think you can safely assume that using screens and pre-duplicated boards for a friendly game at home with just one table is the exception rather than the rule!

Well the thing is we like to keep score which is pretty hard with just one table unless you just run with total points which isn't really satisfactory; and the screens are just great to pretty much eliminate all of the stray UI situations. My screens are solid MDF, but I've also made some pretty good screens from a plasma TV box that you can fix to a folding card table with cable ties; so home screen play is within reach of anyone who can get their hands on a big cardboard box and a sharp knife.