[mrdct]

An ongoing concern of mine when operating is potential passing of unauthorised information to players. Such UI situations primarily arise from:

1. Players hearing the clicks of the mouse and therefore getting the tempo of bidding even though screens are in use.

2. Players seeing the operator peering at written notes and therefore becoming privy to the fact that explanations have been sought on the other side of the screen.

In relation to (1) my former strategy was to religiously only enter bids when the tray passes under the screen. This gives the impression to the audience that North and South are taking all the time in the auction as the tray only passes under the screen after East and West have made their respective bids. Part of my rationale was that both of my laptops had quite noisy clickers. However, when I had a chance to play on vugraph earlier in the year, I can honestly say that I could not hear a thing from the operator even though he was using one of my noisy laptops. I'm now of the view that provided you have reasonably quite mouse or touchpad clicker, it's OK to enter bids in realtime.

In relation to (2) the UI created is generally only passed to West and North (as South and East have their backs to the operator). Whilst suboptimal for the audience the safest approach for an operator is that if he or she can't read a written explanation without overtly peering, don't peer and just leave the bid unexplained. Most of the time, particularly for major events, there will be a commentator or two quite familiar with the bidding methods that can explain what's going on.

I note with interest the plan of the USBF to use vugraph tempo as an indicator for slow play assessment at the upcoming USBF Championships. In theory this isn't such a bad idea, but the data will need to be taken with a grain of salt as the tempo you see isn't necessarily accurate, particularly early in the auction when operators often attend to other tasks (comparitive scores, making sure tables are still in sync, cross checking against a player's score card or simply just taking a mental breather or a minute or two).

A few times when operating, a pair has been able to give me a spare convention card which is really useful for entering what opening bids and first round responses are. It would be nice if tournament specifications required players to bring three completed convention cards to the table which should be fairly easy given that most are prepared electronically.

[Walddk]

mrdct, on Jul 25 2006, 05:30 AM, said:

It would be nice if tournament specifications required players to bring three completed convention cards to the table which should be fairly easy given that most are prepared electronically.

This is particularly important in events (most) where convention cards are not available through the official web site. You can google your way to some, but only a small percentage, and if you are lucky enough to locate them, they are sometimes out-of-date.

Many make changes to the system regularly. If updated conventions were at hand, commentators wouldn't have to guess what certain bids mean - at least not in the early part of the auction.

Having said that, it's still important that the operator has a chance to relay written explanations to the online audience. Rarely do you find a complete description of the subsequent auction, and even if everything is available, it's impossible for the commentators to read through lots of system notes. It is not unusual for top pairs to have 100+ pages of system notes.

Finally, it's important to note that only very experienced operators have time to give all the information. Most must stay focused on the most important part of the job: operating. It's a well known fact that the success of a broadcast is determined by the quality of the operator.

Roland

[JanM]

I agree about the importance of not passing UI while doing Vugraph. I prefer to use the keyboard to enter bidding and play, and when I'm using my own computer I am 100% confident that the players can't hear the keystrokes (can I put in a shameless plug for a Mac here?), but even in Chicago where I was using an ACBL computer with a very noisy keyboard, I was able to enter the bids carefully so the players couldn't hear them (that was probably not true when I was entering explanations - it was impossible to type with any speed without making noise). Since as a spectator I like knowing who's thinking, and I don't think that the players actually hear the bids entered (particularly if they're done with the keypad and not the mouse), I much prefer to enter bids as they're made.

WRT explanations, however, I feel the other way - when I am lucky enough to have a kibitzer available to hand me the players' notes so I can report on them, I ask that that be done only at the conclusion of the auction. Having said that, yesterday in Chicago I did get many notes in "real time" both because the players at my table happened to write clearly and in dark pen, so I could usually read the notes without being obvious about it (I completely agree that the operator shouldn't disclose that a bid has been explained by obviously looking at the note), and because sometimes the players or a kibitzer handed me the notes early. I was very impressed that the notes from both sides of the table were almost always virtually identical, by the way

For the USBC, we're well aware that the Vugraph timeline won't be anywhere close to perfect. But it will supply an additional piece of information for those who have to judge which players are taking most of the time. If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that the players honestly don't know who's taken more time (strangely, some overestimate the amount of time they, or their partner, have taken and others underestimate).

[JanM]

Sorry, forgot about the convention cards. I'm busy pulling teeth - or rather, trying to get players to send me their convention cards to post online for next month's USBC. I have a few. Hopefully I'll get more. Luckily, there's a Kinko's across the street from the playing site, so I'll be able to take cards over there to scan in for the many who won't get them to me in advance. So I hope that by the time we start Vugraph coverage (the Round of 16, which has only 8 teams because there are two byes to the semi-finals), we'll have ACBL convention cards, USBF System Summary forms, and Advance Submission forms regarding unusual methods for all the players online, as well as links to WBF cards for those players who've filed them for WBF events in the last 3 or 4 years (some of those will be out of date of course, but it's the best we can do). I hadn't thought to print the cards for the operators, and I suspect that in general trying to figure things out from the card would take too much time to be realistic (I know that sometimes when I'm trying to decipher a note from a player about a bid I lose the play, and I'm pretty experienced), but probably a chance to review the card in advance would make things go more smoothly, so I'll try to have them available for the operators.

Another shameless plug . Anyone in the NYC area who might be interested in volunteering as a Vugraph operator, please let me know. We're doing very well with volunteers, but the more the better. We'll be having practice sessions (invisible Vugraph tables, possibly one or two sessions visible) during the Round of 32 (12 teams) on Sunday, August 20 and Monday afternoon, August 21. Live coverage will start with the Round of 16 on Monday late afternoon, August 21. We pay expenses, feed you, and give you a chance to mingle with the stars as well as earn the gratitude of BBOers everywhere.

[hrothgar]

I'm actually fond of going to the opposite extreme...

Make sure that your doing lots of clicking all the time. Send private tells to your friends. Answer questions from the commentators. Make sure that wahtever signal there might be is drowning in a sea of noise.

>I note with interest the plan of the USBF to use vugraph tempo as an indicator
>for slow play assessment at the upcoming USBF Championships

Its unclear to me whether this is a good idea. I don't believe that vugraph operators necessarily preserve tempo. I don't consider the medium reliable enough to be used during an appeal's panel. Furthermore, the Vugraph information doesn't actually preserve any kind of timestamps, so we're left with the audience's subjective recollections about some unreliable data.

If the USBF seriously wants good information about tempo there are a couple reasonable options: As I noted before, you can always start using BBO to run your events...

Alternatively, the chess community created special clocks that they use for events. Its not outside the realm of possibility to create special purpose clocks that could be used to record tempo. (A number of clubs are implementing wireless travellers for reporting scores and the like. A clocking module could certainly be added to this)

[JanM]

hrothgar, on Jul 25 2006, 06:30 AM, said:

I'm actually fond of going to the opposite extreme...

Make sure that your doing lots of clicking all the time.  Send private tells to your friends.  Answer questions from the commentators.  Make sure that wahtever signal there might be is drowning in a sea of noise.

It's irritating to the player to have a lot of clicking going on (when we have to use computers with loud keyboards). So we try to have operators type as quietly as they can, and I think that's a good thing. I also really don't think that the players pick up on the entry of bids, as I've already said.

Quote

>I note with interest the plan of the USBF to use vugraph tempo as an indicator
>for slow play assessment at the upcoming USBF Championships

Its unclear to me whether this is a good idea.  I don't believe that vugraph operators necessarily preserve tempo.  I don't consider the medium reliable enough to be used during an appeal's panel.  Furthermore, the Vugraph information doesn't actually preserve any kind of timestamps, so we're left with the audience's subjective recollections about some unreliable data.

Fred has generously agreed to program the Vugraph software to keep track of the time taken by each player, so we will not be relying on anyone's recollections. And this will be only one piece of information, which will be combined (for those pairs where there's a problem) with a monitor in the room.

I'm sure other things will develop in the future, but this will give us some useful information.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on Jul 25 2006, 07:24 PM, said:

Fred has generously agreed to program the Vugraph software to keep track of the time taken by each player, so we will not be relying on anyone's recollections.

Quoting Eric Cartman "Sweeettttt........."

[mrdct]

hrothgar, on Jul 25 2006, 11:53 AM, said:

JanM, on Jul 25 2006, 07:24 PM, said:

Fred has generously agreed to program the Vugraph software to keep track of the time taken by each player, so we will not be relying on anyone's recollections.

Quoting Eric Cartman "Sweeettttt........."

Totally Sweeeeet!

Will this fuctionality be available for BBO vugraph generally, or just for the USBF?

I would strongly suggest that the clock only start 30 seconds into the auction as that is the period during which the operator is most likely to be doing other things, but I am coming around to believing that even with a bit of inaccuracy it will be monumentally more accurate than arbitrary notes taken by a monitor (who often isn't assigned to the table until after some serious time wasting has already occurred).

Also, this would be really handy for BBO Tournaments where the information captured would be extremely accurate as to exactly how much time each player/pair has taken when deciding whether to issue A-, A= or A+ to unfinished boards.