[joker_gib]

As I'm a big fan of vugraph and as I see that Roland is more and more on the forums I would like to profit from this opportunity to thank him for all the work he constantly does for the broadcasts !

Very much appreciated !

Thank you !

See you tonight in Cartagena !

Alain

[hrothgar]

Agreed...

I've always felt that Roland is one of the best VuGraph commentators. I can't begin to imagine the amount of work that he is responsible for behind the scenes...

[dogsbreath]

ok Roland .. but we must reserve final judgement till we learn how much Guiness y can drink/buy, your appreciation of the oval-ball game , and a signed affidavit of your golf handicap ..
Rgds Dog .. look forward to seeing y here sometime

[Walddk]

dogsbreath, on Feb 22 2005, 07:19 PM, said:

ok Roland .. but we must reserve final judgement till we learn how much Guiness y can drink/buy, your appreciation of the oval-ball game , and a signed affidavit of your golf handicap ..
Rgds Dog .. look forward to seeing y here sometime

I'm a major disappointment altogether, because ...

1. I don't drink alcohol (Guiness Book of Records is the closest I get to the Irish stuff you are referring to).

2. My appreciation of rugby is non-existent, BUT if you would care to discuss cricket for 5 or 6 days I'll be there in a flash!

3. My golf handicap is more than serious, since i don't play the game! I do enjoy watching it on TV though, not least when Europe thrash the Americans every other year

4. I will "see" you before you know it. Our vugraph broadcast from the Camrose Trophy in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, on March 4, 5 and 6 I mean. You still in the team or did the selectors have enough?

.....

By the way, thanks for the kind words joker_gib and hrothgar. It's MY pleasure really. I enjoy what I do and am delighted to see how our schedule expands almost on a daily basis.

Roland

[joker_gib]

Walddk, on Feb 23 2005, 01:47 AM, said:

1. I don't drink alcohol

He he !

Amazing cause you don't seem to have drunk water on the photograph you chose as avatar !

[Walddk]

joker_gib, on Feb 23 2005, 06:20 AM, said:

Amazing cause you don't seem to have drunk water on the photograph you chose as avatar !

I have actually. The picture was taken in Menton, France, in June of 2003 during the European Championships. It was excruciatingly hot and humid (new record for the area), so you had to drink all the water you could find.

Diet Coke is also ok as you may know, but alcohol? No thanks, I don't like it, and I am not kidding!

Roland

[joker_gib]

Better like this and it's mandatory to play good bridge !

Alain

[Booze]

hi

We should thank Roland a lot and IMO he should be sponsored with free diet cokes for ever!! He has done a fantastic job organising all commentators and scheduled them for all Vugraphs, been a hell of job but I guess he loves it !

Booze

[luke warm]

i'll add my voice to richard's, i'm always somewhat disappointed when roland is present but defers to other commentators... this isn't a criticism of them, i enjoy "listening" to them as well, but i prefer roland's insights

[shoeless]

I personally am in awe of Roland's skill in this role - aside from his considerable skill in analysis - I see a composer and conductor of a symphony at work in presenting us with remarkable harmony. The bridge greats have table feel - Roland has vugraph feel - there is evidence of an amazing intuitiveness and sensitivity to the viewers needs. Hats off to you Roland. You the man!! Please bring back 'Pooh bear' - he cracks me up.

[fred]

As someone who had to do Roland's job recently (he had the nerve to go and play in a tournament himself and Ritong, who sometimes helps out, was also not available at this particular time) I gained a new level of appreciation of how hard he works for BBO.

I do not have strong organization skills, but I suspect that even people who are good organizers would have trouble coordinating hundreds of commentators representing many countries, languages, and time zones in order to get an appropriate group together for each of the 1000+ vugraph table-sessions that we rate to have thisyear. This job involves responding to a LOT of e-mail and keeping track of who is available when. Given that many bridge experts (and tournament organizers) have serious egos, strong opinions on bridge matters and who they are willing to work with, and less than ideal levels of responsibility and reliability, Roland's task becomes all the more complicated and difficult.

Roland also makes "first contact" with tournament organizers, communicates with them and their operators as to how our broadcats are produced, compiles and sends me scheduling information in a form that I can use it, and proofreads our schedule web pages in order to correct my frequent mistakes.

On top of all of this he probably logs more sessions as a commentator than anyone else on BBO and is one of the few commentators who makes a serious effort to learn the history of the tournament, the biographies and systems of the players, and all of the features of BBO so that he can share this information with our audiences. He is also one of the few commentators we have who is willing and able to produce bridge analysis for all levels of players.

I have no doubt that the general success of BBO is in no small way partly due to the popularity of our vugraph broadcasts and that, without Roland's many contributions, our vugraph broadcasts would suffer greatly in terms of quality as well as audience enjoyment.

The man is a marvel and I am really glad that our membership seems to be recognizing this.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdulmage]

apparently others don't have "strong organization skills" as well. Camrose Cup had the opponents in the wrong seats and wrong imp display, LOL.

[Walddk]

Walddk, on Feb 23 2005, 01:47 AM, said:

4. I will "see" you before you know it. Our vugraph broadcast from the Camrose Trophy in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, on March 4, 5 and 6 I mean. You still in the team or did the selectors have enough?

Roland

Well, we can now state that the selectors did have enough, because you and Diane Greenwood were on the bench at the weekend. Too bad for you, and too bad for Northern Ireland who performed pretty poorly this time.

There was one good thing about it though. We had Diane as one of our vugraph operators, and she did very well!

Roland

[DenisO]

jdulmage, on Mar 7 2005, 05:54 AM, said:

apparently others don't have "strong organization skills" as well.  Camrose Cup had the opponents in the wrong seats and wrong imp display, LOL.

Ok - so there were a few hiccups, but this didn't detract from a great weekend of bridge viewing. I thought it very exciting - and there was some really good bridge as well! Result was in doubt right to the last few boards which is quite something considering the teams had all played eight 32-bd matches (over the two weekends).

A great big thanks to BBO, Roland and his team of commentators and all the bridge lovers who organised the matches in Scotland and N Ireland.

Denis