[Gunnar60]

I have noticed that the alertbid is normaly empty on the VuGraph, only a ! is shown!?
Why is it so? What is the purpose with alertbid if they are not explained?

Bjorn

[paulg]

Where the vugraph is from live play, like the current European Team Championships, the Vugraph operator will see a player alert but may not be able to see the explanation that has been written.

It would help the operator if the bids were explained verbally in a language that they understood, but these events are played with screens and this is not permitted. You can watch the video of the play and see if you can see the explanations.

In reality, the players often alert and their opponents know why, either from the system card, experience or a hand signal. The operators typically find this more difficult to understand and they are not permitted to ask.

[Gunnar60]

OK, do you have a link to the videos?

[paulg]

Gunnar60, on 2022-June-13, 16:04, said:

OK, do you have a link to the videos?

When you go to an Euros Vugraph table, the video stream automatically pops up. At the moment they are not appearing on YouTube afterwards but I expect they'll appear on https://www.youtube....vebridgewebcam1 at some point.

[Gunnar60]

Traian Chira must upload the recordings to YouTube to get access. At last WC he wrote that it will take about 2-3 month to upload all recording! Still he has not done it!
Why I bother was that I was interested in a QF that was not complete and still don't are!
I don't think he is handling this so well. Here is the link to the WC file: https://livebridge.n...hmxtz88FlZf6i48
You can see COMING SOON for many recordings. Now it's about 2 months since WC!

[Gunnar60]

Why can't the operator get access to the explanations on paper (should be in english) and add it to the play data?

[sfi]

Gunnar60, on 2022-June-14, 03:52, said:

Why can't the operator get access to the explanations on paper (should be in english) and add it to the play data?

There are many reasons why this wouldn't work so well. It's intrusive - it would disrupt the game. It takes time - the operator would miss bids and plays. Explanations are very often brief - what is obvious to an expert player may well be unclear or cryptic to a BBO operator. Bids are often alerted but not explained - players can look at the system card, remember it from earlier perusal or simply not care. Explanations are often verbal or done with hand signals. And you can't do any of this in the middle of the hand because that passes unauthorised information to the other side of the screen.

Most of the time, the BBO operators have a tough enough job simply keeping up with the play and the alerts. Providing additional information is generally not going to be possible unless you want to slow down the game just to broadcast it.

[Gunnar60]

Ok, but it seems that the issue has been improved a bit. In the match between Sweden and France, some of the alertbids are explained...
Have they been added after the recording?
On one board with many alterts the operator wrotes, "the only alert I heard was OLA" and that is one players first name :-)

[paulg]

Alerts and/or explanations are only added at the time of recording and not afterwards.

Generally the quality of alerts and explanations really depends on the skill of the operator. A regular operator who is a very good player will know what to look for, be expecting an alert and be able to read any table action or explanation. Most operators are not strong enough players to know what is coming next, so they are under real pressure just to follow the auction and play and they do a fair job.

It should be remembered that wherever the operators are from, most will be coming across systems and methods that are less familiar in their own bridge world and this is one reason that they can struggle more at the start of an event like this.