[Chamaco]

Hi all,
let me start this post by stating first one thing.
If anyone will reply to this post with a message stating "what are you complaining of ? You got all this for free, accept it or just ignore the downsides", he/she sure has some points.
My intention is not to criticize destructively anything, and I apologize in advance if in the follow-up it may seem so.

And let me repeat out loud how grateful I am to the people who organize Vugraph shows !
These Vugraph shows are just great ! Thanks a lot to all the folks who make this happen !

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Having said that, the topic of this post is the vugraph chronicles.
I loved the first vugraph shows, not only because of the possibility of viewing the deals themselves, but especially for the comments.
Some early commentaries were done by Fred himself, and these were obviousluy awesome (although it is unrealistic to expect him to do it again frequently).
Yet, also others made a great job in commenting the hands: among them, I especially liked "ghinze" 's comments, and also Cascade's were nice.

Why did i like them ?
I liked them because they were giving to the audience an analysis of the critical points of the hands.
Those things that an intermediate player may easily miss.
They were pinpointing for each hand if there was a critical decision (even hidden), and, for each decision, what would be their mental process to cope with it at the table - without seeing all 4 hands.

So, things like:
- LEAD:
*what to lead after the given bidding: trying to explain to the audience what they would lead without seeing all 52 cards
- BIDDING:
*what would make them choose between two different contracts (partscores, games, slam, and maybe the strain in which to play it)
* bidding or doubling
* sacrificing or defending
* preempting or not (or how high)
- CARD PLAY
*something like "usually this card combination should be played that way for XXX tricks. However here declarer has to think of this proiblem (can be entries, dangerous opponent, trump control, modified odds due to bidding/play, etc etc)
* false cards, unblocking plays, etc.

In short, anything that involves a non-trivial decision that involves expert judgement.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, during the last 4-5 months, the quality of commentaries has dramatically dropped, in my opinion.
Nowadays, many of the commentators will at most say something like:

"I bet that the final contract will be 5♠. Anyone up for betting a coke ?"
or
"when i try such finesse they always go wrong".
or
"Bidding a slam with 55% odds is way too conservative for me, I usually bid them at 30%"...

Not to mention all other cases in which most of the comments are referred to the kind of drinks, or of food they like...

In short, most of the comments are jokes, intended to entertain people watching, which is always good (we also want to have fun watching bridge).
And I agree that a chronicle which is *only* technical will be boring in the end, there is the need to relax the atmosphere.

But it is very frustrating, at least for me, to watch bridge deals where expert commentators deal only superficially on the problems of the hands, but rather dwell in several entertaining chat with their buddies.
Most of these chronicle just have nothing technical about the play of the hand, except the pure description of what everybody can see.

You do not need an expert to do that.
I would expect (as in the early vugraph shows) experts to point hidden falsecard possibilities, differentiate between various percentage plays according to different situations, and other things like that.

And I have to say that I spoke with many BBO players who agree with me.

Yet again, I am aware I have no rights to complain for anything, since the service given is for free.

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I suspect that the gradual change of the commentary style is due to the fact that now the audience cannot make direct questions on the hands to the commentators.

In fact, the quality drop of the commentaries started more or less after the feature of allowing questions by the audience was disabled.

When the audience was allowed to ask questions, the commentators were automatically more aware of what the audience needed to know.
Closing the direct feedback between commentators and audience left the commentators alone with their own idea of commentaries, and it is easy to go adrift in a direction which is not the same expected by many intermediate players.

I also understand that it is now unfeasible to give any player in the audience (thousands nowadays) the authorization to write publicly or privately to commentators in the BBO client.
That would clutter the chat console, and it would be a mess.

Yet, there is an in-between solution.

There could be enabled a different log file or a console only devoted to questions.
This could be , for instance, a chat console on yahoo or msn messenger (or anything). This would continually log the questions, and commentators could, once in a while (during idle moments or uninteresting play/bidding) just have a quick look to one or 2 interesting questions (out of the many), and respond publicly on BBO.

If anything, this would allow the commentators to see what are the info that the audience needs (without cluttering their BBO chat console).
After all, I suppose the commentators decided to give their availability in order for the audience to better understand the play, or am I wrong ?

ciao all !

[anssibragge]

A bit irritating is, that we can't comment to the commentators that they are plain wrong.

In the match france against someone else, might well have been italy, I got...err... nerved of the commentators of having no idea of bridge nor the real world.

Might be my opinion, I am not world class, but hey, we should be able to somehow give live feedback. As we can't message the commentators direct...

abe

[anssibragge]

...and please, not to nerve the whole world, not all of the commentators were that what I wrote.

But 2 of them were. Sorry to say that loud, but it simply was so.

abe

[Rado]

Hi all friends,
Thanks for your complaints, which I will strongly disagree:-)

Having a chance to watch some of the first BBO Vugraphs, moreover, having a chance to comment some of them ( the first ones) I may say that you all have only 1 right suggestion above.
YES Mr. Fred Gitelman is terrific commentator (aside his all other bridge and social qualities), but we have a real pleasure to see Mr. Michael Rosenberg. Mr. Chris Willenken as a Vu commentators, who hardly have made a "non-useful" comment. Besides the above many long term top players like Mrs and Mr. Carol and Tommy Sanders, Mrs Sabine Auken , Mrs Debbie Rosenberg and Mr Chris Larsen, have spent many of their own time with us to comment what the bridge is in real. Sorry to miss some more very nice and strong players (including one of my 1st BBO friends and partners Ghinze (Mr. Greg Hinze) and commentators), but I will never accept somebody to throw unprooven statements to the audience that commentators just joke. If you feel somebody was joking please name him/her. If you feel somebody is DEAF to the audience please ask the audience about my comments (which are hardly the best but I always mention the help from the audience). And in last but not least if somebody feels he/she is able to present better comments, our "Colonel" Roland "Walddk2" on BBO will surely appoint her/him as commentator.

Furthermore,
writing +++ in the profile enables the commetnators to receive questions/private chat form all
:-))))))))))))))

Usually with Kind regards
Rado

[Rain]

I agree mostly with what Chamaco wrote. I appreciate very much the time of all commentators, but several seem to just be quoting DF when they analyse.

Perhaps Fred and Junior, two of the earliest commentators were so good they've raised my expectation, but I don't know. I think commentating is a lot more than just saying "He can make this", "He needs to play a spade now", etc. Its also a lot more than just free advertising for cokes.

I appreciate humour and insights into the lives of experts. But I also think we need to remember why some experts were invited to talk during vugraph matches.

I don't like the idea of having to put experts as "Enemies", just so I can ignore chat and avoid cluttering up screen, but it is the only way now.

The portions that I don't agree with? Its the part about how he suspects commentator standard is because most audience can't communicate with them. Not true at all. Most do enable audience to talk to them privately.

This is my opinion, and shouldn't be taken as BBO's opinion in any way.

Rain

[Rado]

Hi Rain,
Nice post of You.
Still cannot see the "names" you are not agreed with:-)))))))))))
Adding "Junior" next to "Fred" in Top commentators' list is a real breakthrough for the Vu-criticasters
Rado

[Rain]

I prefer to list the people I think are great commentators. But that'll also be slightly crass. So I prefer not to list the rest of commentators I am fans of.

Discussion isn't really about who is good and who isn't, though. I would prefer to use this discussion to come up with suggestions about how to improve commentating, and the general vugraph experience for bboers.

Experts, like you Rado, have put in a lot of time and effort to BBO, especially in the early vugraph stages. But are we going to remain stagnant, and be satisfied with current vugraph experience, or improve? =)


Rain

[Rado]

Dear Rain,
Thanks for your sincere comments,
anyway, I have the feeling that you were afraid to point the problems (if any) but you prefered to use common words just to be in the discussion.
For your guidance the forum is not the only possible place of evaluation ( I have +++ on my profile and receive many true comments , whether + or - but made just on time). Yes at BBO you may mark "black" but in forums still noway :-)
Rado

[inquiry]

There are good and bad commentators. And some good ones, have bad days. I suspect that maybe they are multitasking while providing "Free comentary" for the masses.

The complaint, I think, is not so much about the coke bets and banter back and forth between the commentators. I think the problem is that is being raised is the commentators fail to realize the level of bridge "sophistication" of their audience. As a writer (or public speaker), you need to tailor your content for the audience. I think what Fred does remarkably well is he "dummy-downs" his comments, explaining the details of each hand for the "average" BBO member. I suspect the top players, who with their gold stars play only with other gold stars or their friends, may not realize how much help and guidence we need (yes, some gold stars go out of their way to help the rest of us. Rado is a wonderful example, he volunteers in BIL and plays with novices and experts alike).

I believe all the commentators could explain the hands in a manner similar to Fred, if they would just make comments suitable for the beginners and intermediates who are watching, and then throw in a wonderful indepth analysis for the better players every now and then. They seem to wait for the entry shifting squeeze to get excited about talking about the hands.

ben

[Chamaco]

inquiry, on Jun 21 2004, 04:42 AM, said:

I think the problem is that is being raised is the commentators fail to realize the level of bridge "sophistication" of their audience. As a writer (or public speaker), you need to tailor your content for the audience. I think what Fred does remarkably well is he "dummy-downs" his comments, explaining the details of each hand for the "average" BBO member.

I think Ben hit the nail right on top.

Some commentators sometimes go adrift because they fail to realize what the audience needs.

And it is not by chance that this happens mostly with those who do not have "+++" in profile.

Ler me repeat once more that enabling direct feedback with the audience will help these commentators, who indeed do have the technical skills required for a good analysis, to stick to the technical points needed by the audience, with benefits for both sides.

[uday]

I stick my nose in here only to say that I would be unhappy to see people list names of commentators that they did not like.

[mrdct]

Feedback, good or bad, is always useful to improve the way you do things.

Commentating is not (at least for me) as easy as it looks. It's quite hard to analyse what's going on, interpret unfamiliar bidding systems and keep the commentary both entertaining and informative all at the same time; but I can assure you we are all trying our best. Analysis errors are not infrequent as commentators seek to make an early prediction as to what may or not be achievable on a hand. This often leads to interesting discussion which I'm sure some spectators enjoy.

I guess like all commentators I have received personal feedback ranging from "who the hell are you?" to "thank-you for providing a really entertaining session".

I have "+++" in my profile and welcome most comments and analysis that spectators provide me as it makes my job easier. Even if I don't respond or deal with every comment I receive, they are valued.

Remember, the BBO commentators are all unpaid volunteers who are giving of their time for the love of the game. With the volume of BBO vugraph available these days, I'm sure Roland Wald would welcome new additions to the commentary panel if you think you are up to it.

[Erkson]

inquiry, on Jun 21 2004, 04:42 AM, said:

The complaint, I think, is not so much about the coke bets and banter back and forth between the commentators.

It is, for me.
I hope commentators will, at last, freely forbid to themselves those not so funny jokes and empty chitchat.

That would leave room for their more interesting comments.

Please, give me bridge. Bridge only.

Erkson

[1eyedjack]

I should like to pick up on the point about disabling private chate from spectators to commentators.

I can understand that if the commentators were being inundated with chat from the spectators, to such an extent that they could not follow the conversations that interested them because of the background noise, then something needed to be done. I wonder however whether there might have been a solution that did not involve disabling communication entirely.

I have in mind a possibility of spectator comments being sent to a separate window, which commentators could scroll through and respond to if and when they have the time, but would be free to ignore otherwise.

[Chamaco]

1eyedjack, on Jun 21 2004, 06:26 AM, said:

I have in mind a possibility of spectator comments being sent to a separate window, which commentators could scroll through and respond to if and when they have the time, but would be free to ignore otherwise.

Yes, that is definitely one of the points of my posts.

[rona_]

Great post chamaco and a big thank-you from people like me who don't have the guts to post their views. Some commentators are great and we all appreciate their hard work. However, others feed us with information we aren't really interested in. i.e. In the course of ten minutes, one of the commentators mentioned her partner's name twice! There are a lot of good recommendations and ideas above on how to improve the whole experience, and I am sure that, others will come forth with new ones.

Rona

[hrothgar]

Quick note:

Anyone organizing a VuGraph is faced with a very fundamental problem:
The audience for VuGraph presentations is very diverse.

Take me for example:

Some days, I would very much prefer a relatively "dry" presentation focusing on bridge. Other days, I'm in the mood for the chattier, more social commentary.

I don't see any way to please the entire audience without creating multiple "channels" for commentary and allowing customers to subscribe to the ones that they find most interesting. One channel might focus on dry "technical" analysis. As second channel would be include more social commentary. [Some people like the Today Show, others prefer C-SPAN]

Unclear whether the benefit would be worth the development cost.

With this said and done, if a decision was made to create multiple channels, I'd recommend integrating the Bridge Bucks payment system into the structure. Creating a market is probably the best way to ensure the appropriate services are efficiently provided.

[42]

Hi all!
I agree with Chamaco's posting. It is great of the experts to spend their time on commenting and I cannot thank them enough!! But sometimes -for me (and friends said the same)- less would be more. I try to focus on bidding and play, and when I notice that there is a comment, I am curious about what the expert says. I like intelligent joking, no question, please take this only as constructive criticism, nobody shall be offended!
Yours,
Caren

[guggie]

I started my life on BBO on the Vuegraph. Most commentators do fine for my level (advanced is a friendly way to put it). Sabine Auken always find some new angle to ook at a hand, while also being amusing. I like the coke chit-chat, as long as some serious analysis is being done too. I ilke to option to be able to ask something (make use of it one of 10 )

[Chamaco]

guggie, on Jun 21 2004, 01:38 PM, said:

I started my life on BBO on the Vuegraph. Most commentators do fine for my level (advanced is a friendly way to put it). Sabine Auken always find some new angle to ook at a hand, while also being amusing. I like the coke chit-chat, as long as some serious analysis is being done too. I ilke to option to be able to ask something (make use of it one of 10 )

I had promised to myself not to mention names about commentators, but I will break my promise since this involves making compliments )

Yes, I agree, Sabine Auken does a great job, and I have to say that I liked also the commentators mentioned by Rado in his post here the few times I had the occasion to view them.