Ten years ago, from the Summer Meeting in Brighton, I posted on A-level results day.
I am just as pleased to report that my younger daughter H has got into Cambridge, to read Classics.
She too has worked very hard ... we are very proud ... blah, blah, blah, ...
1 . 2 . 3 … is this thing working?
Summer Meeting back live and in Eastbourne.
Most of the scoring computer functions seem to be working.
Scoring issues and internet access issues solved.
We are running without large screens of scrolling results – to avoid players crowding together. Instead, live results and assignment are available via the EBU web site and the Bridgemate app, and we have posted a QR code to take players to the live results page.
Played speedball, partnering the TD, to make the event happen. FIrst time we had held cards and used bidding boxes since February 2020.
More ramblings and some deliberate puns/typos from the last seven daze.
The first weekend was intense: I was scoring all sections from one computer. The computer was networked to another computer on the balcony with its own bridgemate server and large display screen. The results from upstairs were collected on the upstairs computer and written to the database on the master computer; and the rolling scores were displayed on both floors. Everything worked but the computers did run a bit slowly at times – database access over ethernet is just not the same as accessing a database on the same computer.
We kicked off with ruling and appeals from the off: the first appeal related to a ruling in match one. During the midweek events there have been less actual appeals but lots of threats and “french” appeals (haranguing anyone who has to listen about how unfair it all is).
RIP: Robin Williams, a clown who couldn't live any more; Lauren Bacall, a goddess who should have lived forever.
...
and then I went to look at the end of Friday point-a-board teams scoring and got involved in fixing the pianola uploads; and then setting up the networked computers for the Swiss Teams; and before you know it, it was another 1:00am finish.
Arrived at the venue earlier than scheduled – due to mad dashing in and out of lifts and up and down escalators/stairs at Gatwick, so I made an earlier connection – looking like something out of the Fast Show. So plenty of time to set up a few more computers for the midnight late-night (11:30pm) speedball.
So now I have set up another computer and (more importantly?) connected to the internet and social media.
I knew most of the setting-up was already done because the EBU had posted a picture on twitter before I had got on my second train #ebubrighton.
Other TDs arriving now for briefing meeting; and it's Sarah's birthday – happy birthday to you!
Session 2 of the Swiss Teams was when multi-section Australia movement really kicked in. During the session the teams had a new team number which was the same as their new home/NS table number, but the overall results were expressed in terms of their initial team number. The BridgeMates use the 'in session' number whereas the scoring program used (mainly) the initial team number. This was all new for everyone but players/TDs/scorers got the hang of it after a couple of rounds.
I scored the first session of the day, which was interesting when the computer screen failed before the start of play. We could still attach a monitor and use that to duplicate the desk top — so we could copy the data files. Copying the data files to a spare computer and we were able to resume before play started.
In the evening, I had a session off from scoring — although I was involved as 'assistant to the scorer'. I had unauthorised information rulings in both sessions: whether I was TD or scorer. In both cases, it was clear there were logical alternatives but the real question was what was suggested by the disallowed information from partner.
A more interesting ruling involved 14 exposed cards during the auction period. The TD made a ruling that allowed played to continue (with fewer penalty cards). One side had just been on the club TD course, the other side included a number of national referees: and both sides thought the ruling was wrong!
Upstairs/downstairs events on Tuesday led to knee problems for the poor scorer but it now feels like we are over the worst for Brighton.
The Mixed Pivot Teams was complicated as ever but seemed to go smoothly, although we continue to have BridgeMate configuration problems. There were also awkward rulings and talk of several appeals — one of which happened. Some players and appeals committees seem to expect the TDs to do extensive player-polling before giving any judgement ruling; but in some events polling can be difficult to organise and can take up a lot of time for the TD — time they could be dealing with other incidents/rulings.
Wednesday was sufficiently less 'full on' than Tuesday, that I stayed to do scoring for the Midnight Speedball and I played one board for the winning pair. The speedball went to time and we had results on the internet and photographs of the winners by 1:35am.
Thursday involved more BrigeMate configuration problems in both the afternoon and evening sessions. There was other problems in the evening Mixed Pairs, with one player unable to continue playing, due to 'illness', which meant a change to the movement. Nevertheless, the operation to merge the earlybird session with main session data while the main session was still in play was again successful.
The biggest outstanding problem in scoring is the Play With The Experts: the masterpoints have the unique combination of two winner movement, stratification, and a mixture of green/blue points. Any pair of those issues would be problematic but the combination of all three involves iterated construction of a spreadsheet with all the constituent masterpoints, and the spreadsheet has to be rebuilt by hand every time we find a problem with the previous data.
The masterpoints for the Mixed Pairs is a combination of stratification and a mixture of green/blue points: so I left that for Friday morning and we were back at our hotel until midnight. Unfortunately, the bar was open and an early night was avoided — instead the TD tradition of 'a bit after' 2am was observed.
A busy day: arrived at 10am to set up a fourth scoring computer, left after 12:30am when I had to redo the internet uploads. These were the days events:
| U25 Pairs | Upstairs | 12:00-15:15 and 15:45-18:45 | Open Pairs | Downstairs | 14:00-17:30 | Seniors Pairs semi-finals | Downstairs | 14:00-17:30 | Pairs Trophy (early bird) | Upstairs | 19:00-22:30 | Pairs Trophy | Downstairs | 19:45-23:15 | Seniors Pairs finals | Downstairs | 19:45-23:15 |
I had fifteen minute outside the venue for dinner while the U25 Pairs was finishing: ten minutes waiting for chips to be cooked and five minutes eating them in a shelter on the promenade.
The hairiest point of the day was merging the early bird Pairs Trophy data in with the other sections, while the main event was still in progress. This meant the competitors could watch complete scolling results as the last boards were played and the results were final as soon as play was complete.
I had a half day: meaning I was only at the venue in the morning and evening. I spent the morning rearranging computer stations, copying files and generally setting up for scoring the midweek events. In the evening, the scoring went smoothly until it came to the master points: the combination of green points, blue points and stratification was too much for me and for the scoring programme; we went to bed and calculated the masterpoints in a spreadsheet in the morning.
During my afternoon off, I went to Shoreham by bus. We had a great aunt/uncle who lived in Shoreham and generations of my family have visited Shoreham (and the beach) since forever. My plan was to walk from the centre of town over the footbridge over the rive Adur and on to the beach beyond. The (old) footbridge was to me an iconic feature of Shoreham — so I was dismayed to see it has been replaced by a concrete and steel structure. Furthermore, the new bridge is still under construction, so my plans to recreate childhood memories were thwarted. (Hence the 'not bridge' label to this post.)
Back in Brighton, I was able to listen to some of the cricket but I missed all the action when England won the match and the Ashes.
The Brighton Hub and Pianola is proving a success — so much so that we had to provide alternatives results because everyone wanted to access the results of the Swiss Pairs as soon as the event was finished and scored. Otherwise scoring the Swiss Pairs went smoothly, and bridge in the upstairs section was free of incident. There were more awkward incidents in the downstairs sections.
Scoring the evening's Open Pairs and Open Teams had its moments — the BrigeMates went live in the wrong events and players in the teams were able to enter some names before they were fixed. The upshot was that some players appeared to be playing in both the teams and the pairs until we checked against the names slips. The recurrent theme of scoring at Brighton is doing things that don't happen (very much) at any other event. This starts with the Sunday Open Teams were the movements are special and not always obvious for the scorer.
There was time between scoring to give some rulings and to reflect on previous rulings. I had to rule on misbid or misexplanation when there had been a two-suited double in a strong 2♣ auction. I did not expect to find much support from the system card but there it was: it was not the exact sequence at the table but the fact that they had a documented method of two-suited calls was enough for me to rule misbid not misexplanation. The problem with mixing scoring and directing is that it is difficult to have time to discuss/explain rulings with players at the end of the session because you have to sort out the scores.
I discussed yesterday's misbid ruling with a TD colleague who is here as a player. The bracketed words in yesterday's blog 'absent any unauthorized information' came back to bite me. My colleague agreed that the failure to use the stop card before 2NT was evidence that opener had misbid but it was also unauthorised information to his partner. So his partner's action in not making a slam try should have been judged as a potential use of unauthorised information, not (just) as potential evidence of a concealed partnership understanding.
We also learnt that non-forcing responses when opponents have doubled are alertable — a change in the Blue Book from the Orange Book.
Lots to do for scoring the Swiss Pairs: dealing with new replacement pairs after pairs withdraw, dealing with names (foreign names with prefixes 'de', 'van' were causing us particular grief), and sorting out stratification. Assignments on the web and uploading to Pianola went faster than last night. I did not quite finish in time to play in the speedball but I was there to help set up the Swiss teams scoring. (Ultimately the Swiss teams speedball was scored by hand – so we will try to recreate it on the computer on Sunday.)
Two claims caused some discussion/disagreement. On the first a player claimed 12 tricks, in a line which included throwing a loser on a trick he would have to follow suit. Nevertheless the only normal lines would drop a doubleton queen for 13 tricks and that is what he got. On another claim, declarer claimed one off as soon as he saw the bad trump break, without planning the further play. There were ways to go off but the play had to be perverse not to make. (Should 'perverse' replace 'irrational', 'not normal', 'beyond careless or inferior'?)
I had to rule on a misinformation/misbid auction. Dealer opened 1♣ (strong, artificial) and rebid 2NT in a competitive auction. This was explained as 23+ (1NT was available to show a weaker balanced hand). This explanation caused the defenders to misdefend 3NT when declarer turned up with only 19 HCP. Opener claimed this was misbid, he bid 2NT because he thought the auction was already at the two level. This was plausible: there had been a lot of bidding for the auction to still be at 1♠ and the player had not used the stop card before bidding 2NT. So I ruled misbid rather than misexplanation. The defenders asked me if the this misbid has been fielded – perhaps responder was worth a slam try opposite 23+ HCP. I decided the misbid was not fielded but really the 'fielded misbid' regulation seems unnecessary in this sort of auction – any meaning for 2NT is permitted, there seems no reason why they should try and conceal their agreements about strong balanced hands, and (absent any unauthorized information) why shouldn't they bid how they like.
The most obvious inovation at Brighton was the EBU TDs in their new uniform; out goes shirt and ties and maroon jackets — in with red polo shirts. The jackets had pockets that would fit a law book and note pad; as an alternative, a number of styles of ‘man’ bags are being sported. No pocket is big enough for the White Book, which I have printed and spiral bound, on display next to the scoring computer.
The move is towards webifying the Brighton experience: less on paper — more on the web. The expectation is that all the results (and other player information) can be read on players' phones. The results are being displayed via Pianola. Of couse this means getting the results straight, and doing the assignments, before the poor scorer goes to bed. (This year, bed is in a different hotel — an interesting walk along the sea front through the drunken revelers.)
The Brighton Hub (on the EBU website) will also have articles that would have previously appeared in the bulletin. The ever popular TD Corner will appear there, so opportunities for more ramblings.
Mentioning my boot in this blog, while wearing my boot at Brighton, has allowed a few more people to put a face to the blogger. If you look on the back page of Sunday's “Brighton Focus” (the daily bulletin) you can see my face in profile: photograph by VixTD.
Saturday flew by: not much time between sessions for the scorers but we did get the evening session scores merged and determined the qualifiers for the final before midnight. Scoring in the playing area and running past midnight can mean competing with the noise from the speedball while performing the (sometimes complex) tie-break procedures to determine the qualifiers.
Scoring the finals on Sunday started with typing in the movement data; surely anyone can type in the movement for eight teams in 7 rounds, someone said later. I agreed that was easy but checking that what you have typed has no errors and will not bring the event to a shuddering halt in round 3 is harder, and takes longer. The movement data was OK and the finals went easily for 6 rounds, except for one incident of less than best behaviour at bridge. But in the last round, bluejak had two rulings at the same table between two teams in contention. We were mentally preparing for appeals and a late finish but nothing happened.
One ruling was a hesitation blackwood (bluejak suggests “BIT-wood”) auction where we ruled that a 2NT opener could pass a sign-off with 3 aces (having showen O or 3). The other ruling was a more complicated misinformation ruling and the result was a weighted score: a lot of a profitable sacrifice and a little of the table result, a making game. The first ruling was a slam swing but the second only swung one IMP because the result at the other table was a making slam.
The finals and the final tidying up was finished in time to relax over a vegetarian meal at Food for Friends: an annual event.
Today's missing link: Fours Stars “B” Final data.
The day started out sombre but finished with all the fun of the speedball
I had the afternoon off and this enabled me to travel to London for my godmother's funeral. This was an internment in a large North London cemetary, like something out of Dickens. The weather was great and we could listen in peace to the readings and prayers. (When you see these scenes played out in films, it is always raining.)
I arrived back in Brighton for the end of the afternoon session and was in time to do a final score correction and post the results to the internet. Then on to the main event with four sessions and two sections over two floors, and lots of scope for scoing issues. There were a number of disputes during the opening matches - this often happens at the start of a long Swiss Teams events.
Sorting out the scoring for the main event overlapped with the start of the Midnight Speedball pairs, which I was supposed to be in charge of. My colleagues rallied round to kick the event off and when I got there Gary had everything under control. During the speedball, Gary managed to pick up two appeals: one from the main event and one from the speedball itself (but both relating to alerting). I managed to get a “referee” from the bar, and the appeal from the speedball was resolved during playing time, with the referee talking to the players between rounds. Play finished in the regulation 90 minutes and results were available on the internet before 01:45. At some stage during the speedball I tripped over a glass: my foot was ok but the glass was unequal to the encounter with my boot!
Only one event this evening because the Seniors Congress has finished; and there were no appeals, late rulings, or score changes; so the event was scored and the results provided to the display boards, the internet and the bulletin, and we were in the bar, before midnight.
In the bar were several club TDs who had been on the four-day Club TDs; and those who did well were celebrating. One of the club TDs came over to talk to us and explained that there were people he wanted to avoid. This lead us on to the very important TD skill of being to tell people to go away firmly, while remaing polite.
As a TD or a scorer, one has to be available to the players when one if on duty. But there are times as a scorer when you need to left in peace and any queries an individual player may have have to be delayed for the greater good of producing a score for all the players. Such times include at the end of the event when a complicated event involves alot of operator input to fix the problems; and also in the middle of an event when the progress of the event while be compromised if scoring problems are not fixed.
One example was. when we were dealing with introducing the rover pair and their results into the scoring of the Seniors Pairs Qualifier. A player came up to discuss how the overall winner of the “Play With The Experts” was determined. It became clear that they wanted to discuss the principle that should apply to determining the winner.
Today we had problems with the scoring system during the first round of Seniors Swiss Teams. We were trying to understand the size of the problem and now much intervention was needed to recover all the scores. A player who was about to play in in the Open Pairs wanted to look at problem with the scores from the previous evening's Mixed Pivot Teams. I was trying to politely but firmly tell the player to come back in an hour when a colleague came to take details of the problem and promised to follow it up.
Lot of scratching of heads, printing of scores, and ticking boxes in the scores database eventually solved the problems in the Seniors Swiss Teams (with minimal impact on the players). When we came to catch up with the problem from the Mixed Pivot Teams, it turned out to be same problem that his opponents had raised earlier in the day. Despite both sides thinking there was an error, it turns out that both teams had made the same error in scoring up, and the scores we had were correct.
Two full days of scoring - setting up in the morning and then two events in the afternoon. There is little time betwen sessions - especially with early bird evening sessions - but I did manage to sit down to eat dinner today. Both evenings, there were late rulings and appeals, so into the wee small hours finalising the results and doing internet stuff.
Law 86D reared its ugly head - apparently we are back to giving an assigned adjustment when there are two non-offending side. I still think we should only be awarding a score that reflects the good result that was obtained at the table where a result was obtained, not attempting to reflect the good result they might have been obtained at the table where a result could not be obtained (or not a result untainted by extraneous infromation). But today we awarded a score that was about the biggest swing on the board that was obtained by any team in the event - surely that can not be right!
As I say each Monday at Brighton, these events test corners of the scoring system that do not get used for the rest of the year. The scoring also tests the scorers — they must remember to use the rarely used features and how to use them. The “Play With The Experts” Pairs (PWTE, not PTFE) requires two unusual features: preset butler datums and multisection two winner (mitchells). This year we also had an early bird section starting upstairs at 19:00 that had to be merged with the two downstairs sections, which started at 19:45.
Yesterday the poor scorer had a late finish: there was a score change in the open teams just as I was about to upload the results to the internet. Relaunching the TeamsScorer program while the FTP process was trying to connect threw the machine in to a complete tiz. I would press a button and nothing would happen for 90s, so I would wander off to the open pairs to help finalising those results. Eventually I managed to print a new ranking list but then I tried turning it off and on again, a process which itself took forever. It was an hour after the end of the event when the printer finally delivered the revised cross-table results and I could go to the bar.
Tonight was an even later finish. We had introduced a rover into the 15-table white section (playing a web mitchell movement). Unfortunately we ended up with EW pair numbers that did not match any of the movements we could easily generate: we need to substitute a new movement with the same pair numbers with the extra rover pair in the movement, so we could then edit the rover pair into the travellers. So we had to edit a new movement file, load the new movement, re-read the scores, edit the travellers so the rover pair played the boards they played, and then add the weighted adjustments that had been lost be re-reading the scores. We finally printed a ranking list and displayed it on the notice boards ready for the player to read bright and early in the morning.
It was too late even to go the bar.
Two rulings today involved curious problems in working out how many tricks the players would make (or did make).
One hand declarer said he had made 11 tricks after entering a score for 10 tricks. The TD was trying to deal with three things at once and when they caught up with the defenders they said spmething to the effect of “oh let them have their 11 tricks if they want it so badly”. So perhaps they did not really think they had conceded 11 tricks or perhaps they knew they really had conceded 11 tricks but hoped noone would have to find out how. We looked at the hand and could only see 10 tricks, so the TD went back to the declarer and they described how the defence had contrived to play all their high spades and allow ♠7 to make in dummy for the eleventh trick. So my first instinct was right; “oh let them have their 11 tricks ...” meant yes it was 11 tricks, but we don't want to talk about it!
The other hand involved working out how many tricks West would make playing in clubs.
| J 9 7 6 | ||
| A K 10 7 6 | ||
| 2 | ||
| J 9 2 | ||
| K 8 | 5 4 | |
| J 3 2 | 9 8 5 4 | |
| K J 8 5 4 3 | A | |
| 5 3 | A Q 10 8 7 6 | |
| A Q 10 3 2 | ||
| Q | ||
| Q 10 7 6 | ||
| K 4 |
Say North leads ♥A and continues with ♥K and gives South a ruff; the defence still have a trump trick. South can see the diamonds are blocked so now is the best time to play ♠A and another. Perhaps declarer will cross to ♦A and play the last round of hearts while there are still trumps in West. South ruffs with ♣K in front of West but is that the last trump trick? We thought South had to give the lead to dummy with a spade ruff or ♦K and so declarer could take the club finesse, but then we realised that East would only have clubs left and could not even under-ruff to lead the leave in West. Other lines, where the defence do not crash ♥Q are just as bad: an adjustment to 7 tricks in clubs (at least some of the time) was not good for East/West.
No chance to see the Olympics closing ceremony — not sure whether there will be time during the week to catch up on iplayer.
Tramping up and down the playing area has aggravated the blister on my foot and I am back wearing the aircast boot that I had to wear in 2010.
The day was busy with rulings, so no chance to watch the 5000m final. One hand attracted many rulings: these were the East/West hands.
| 8 7 5 | K | |||
| J 10 | W | E | 6 5 3 | |
| J 10 9 4 2 | A K Q 7 3 | |||
| A J 2 | K 9 7 4 |
North/South bid spades and East/West bid diamonds; some times West passed slowly at some point in the auction and East rebid 5♦; some times East passed slowly and West bid 4♦. Usually Pass was ruled to be a logical alternative to bidding again, and clearly partner's slow Pass suggested bidding again (over passing). So in most cases the score was adjusted to North/South playing in the spade contract they had got to.
Lots of players threatened to appeal several of today's ruling (though perhaps not the rulings on this hand) but at the end of the day, and after speaking to cuddly appeal consultants, there were no real appeals.
Brighton is the biggest event of the domestic calendar and so you get to meet people you don't see very often: players, TDs and backroom staff. For much of the rest of the year I communicate with these people via telephone and email and rarely see them face-to-face.
A silly incident yesterday, reminded me that people's virtual personna (or at least their names) can leak into real life®. Much of my online bridge discussion takes place on BrideBase forums. Among the TD's at Brighton are a number of BrigeBase members, who I might think of as gordonTD, mamos, bluejak, and VixTD.
A player came up to me at the start of play and said his partner would be late and he would start off playing with a substitute. Later his partner turned up and was able to start playing and so I went to the TD in charge of the White section just to explain what was going on. This was fine until I wanted to refer to the player by name — all I could think of was "gnasher" — and that did not seem an appropriate form of address. After an a bit of a pause and a bit of poiting I managed to come out with "Andrew" — sorry Andy.
(Equally, "campboy" does not sound like a name I should use at the table.)
Although I am scorer, there is some time to give rulings. I was called to a table where South had explained partner's 3♦ as something to do with the majors but as soon as the auction reached him, he thought better of it, and decided that 3♦ was probably natural and he should just bid 3NT. Later, when he thought the auction was over, he explained that what he said about 3♦ was probably wrong. I sorted this out and there was no harm done — the other side would not have done anything different with the correct explanation.
But he should have corrected the explanation as soon as he realised he was probably wrong. This is an aspect of procedure that is not obvious to players: if a you give an explanation that you later think is incorrect then the TD should be called immediately and the correction given (Law 20F4). There can be no damage in correcting as soon as possible, and damage has been done my the original misexplanation. This is in contrast to when partner gives an incorrect explanation and does not realise: you cannot correct the explanation until at least the end of the auction (as the declaring side) or the end of play (Law 20F5).
Although the difference between the two situations is logical, it is not always obvious that logic should be assumed to apply to the laws of bridge.
Despite a broken keyboard, I hope to resume this blog for the EBU Brighton Summer Congress. The keyboard is suffering from liquids (don't ask), and some punctuation symbols (included those needed for HTML) are just not working.
My mother died three months ago and that has been hard work - emotionally and practically. In the meantime, I have been kept busy by a number of bridge events but very few laws issues. The biggest problem was caused by me inducing a firmware incompatibility in the scoring system - with hilarious consequences.
I know my family and friends follow this blog while I am Brighton as the best way of finding out what I am up to. So a big shout out to E, who is volunteering at the Olympics and is having a whale of a time; and to the rest of the family.
Last year I travelled to Brighton via Westbury on a very crowded train. Today's route is much less direct but should be on better trains - we shall see.
