[Jacki]

Now that we've started the Swiss Teams event, we're going to make them a regular feature on BBO. Providing of course, that there's enough player interest to do these twice weekly (to start).

Since we've been asked to introduce larger team games for a long time by interested player, we're going to do just that.

Times for the games:

Friday, 4/8/2011 8:30pm EDT
Sunday, 4/10/2011 3pm EDT

Try to get a team together, but if you're a pair, or a single, sign up on the team register board as that and we'll pair you up. If there are some people you will not want to have as teammates, then it would be better to form your own team as we will be pairing singles and pairs as best we can.

Register here:

http://www.bboteams.com/register.htm

You can ignore the top part, all we need now are the team names, unless you are going to register for Sunday's game, then you will want to use the drop down menu to select the correct date.

See you at the game!

Jacki

[matmat]

Hi Jacki,

It would be good to post the number of boards to be played and any time limit that is enforced.

[paulg]

Hi Jacki,

Is this a BBO event or a BBO ACBL event? What are the system regulations?

I ask because the 3pm Sunday event is viable for the European audience but it becomes less interesting (at least to me) if it is intended to be an ACBL GCC tournament, given the greater variety of systems and conventions here. I'm not asking for highly exotic methods to be permitted!

Also, as matmat asks, an idea of how long the event will run for.

Thanks

Paul

[shintaro]

paulg, on 2011-April-07, 01:52, said:

Hi Jacki,

Is this a BBO event or a BBO ACBL event? What are the system regulations?

I ask because the 3pm Sunday event is viable for the European audience but it becomes less interesting (at least to me) if it is intended to be an ACBL GCC tournament, given the greater variety of systems and conventions here. I'm not asking for highly exotic methods to be permitted!

Also, as matmat asks, an idea of how long the event will run for.

Thanks

Paul

mmmm same reasoning as Paul

[Jacki]

This will be 3 rounds of 4 boards each. This is not an ACBL event. These events are in preparation for what may become ACBL events.

Before I can ask the programmers to set these up for ACBL events, I have to show them there's enough interest to do that. Participants, for now, can use their convention cards meaning anything other than super chart conventions will be permitted.

The entire event should take about an hour and 15 minutes.

Jacki

[shintaro]

Jacki, on 2011-April-07, 13:09, said:

This will be 3 rounds of 4 boards each. This is not an ACBL event. These events are in preparation for what may become ACBL events.

Before I can ask the programmers to set these up for ACBL events, I have to show them there's enough interest to do that. Participants, for now, can use their convention cards meaning anything other than super chart conventions will be permitted.

The entire event should take about an hour and 15 minutes.

Jacki

good not asking what superchart means must be foreign

[Rain]

Who else is signing up? I think there is still room for interested teams or players. (Players without teams can join too. Maybe we'll end up in the same team, lol)

[mike777]

ok not sure if you need the 4 player names or one name for the whole team.

I did submit a team for friday nite but not sure if I entered the data correctly.

Let me know what I need to do please.

btw how is this scored, by Imps on a 20 VP scale, BAM or other?

[Jacki]

mike777, on 2011-April-08, 14:24, said:

ok not sure if you need the 4 player names or one name for the whole team.

I did submit a team for friday nite but not sure if I entered the data correctly.

Let me know what I need to do please.

btw how is this scored, by Imps on a 20 VP scale, BAM or other?

We'll be scoring this on the 20 VP Scale for Sunday's 3pm game. The registrations worked just fine - I just needed more of them. Check the Lobby News for links to register your team, or click this link:

http://www.bboteams.com/register.htm

If you are a pair with no team, fill out the N/S portion on the registration form. If you are a single, put your name in the "Sub" spot at the bottom of that page. If there is someone you absolutely don't want to partner or have on your team, then please get your own team together. We will put pairs and singles with others as best we can.

What conventions are allowed? All up to, but not including, the Super Chart. This means all bids on the General Convention Chart and Mid-Chart will be allowed. You can check this by clicking on this link:

http://web2.acbl.org...nvchart2005.pdf

The GCC is at the top, scroll down to see the Mid-Chart allowable conventions.

Any questions about any of this? Ask here or send email to: jacki@bridgebase.com.

Jacki

[A2003]

How to find the hand record and results? Is Kibitzing allowed?

[Jacki]

A2003, on 2011-April-09, 06:40, said:

How to find the hand record and results? Is Kibitzing allowed?

Kibitzing is allowed. You can find results and hand records at this link:

http://webutil4.brid...&d=Team%20Games

Jacki

[paulg]

Hi Jacki,

Some initial feedback on the registration process:

• There is no field for team name
• As Mike implies, a confirmation email would be useful upon completion of the form. Then I'd know that I'd put the names in correctly.
• Will the team captain received a reminder email 30 minutes before the event?

I'm sure that a few of us will be interested in running our own events at some point in the future. Is the principal support for this vested in the BBO ACBL club or is BBO itself being developed to support team tournaments so that we can all do it?

Looking forward to supporting the event this evening.

Thanks,

Paul

[Jacki]

paulg, on 2011-April-10, 09:12, said:

Hi Jacki,

Some initial feedback on the registration process:

• There is no field for team name
• As Mike implies, a confirmation email would be useful upon completion of the form. Then I'd know that I'd put the names in correctly.
• Will the team captain received a reminder email 30 minutes before the event?

I'm sure that a few of us will be interested in running our own events at some point in the future. Is the principal support for this vested in the BBO ACBL club or is BBO itself being developed to support team tournaments so that we can all do it?

Looking forward to supporting the event this evening.

Thanks,

Paul

A team name block is coming. Confirmation email can be easily done and I like that idea.

This is not an ACBL specific upgrade on BBO although I hope it will include some ACBL events, we'll just have to see.

And team/pair captains have received a 30 minute warning.

Jacki

[Jacki]

Results of Sunday's 3pm Team event shown here:

http://www.bboteams....april10test.htm

[paulg]

Having just finished some immediate feedback from the team:

• we've never taken so long to play 12 boards on BBO
• why did we not play the same boards as the other matches
• we enjoyed the idea but would not play again unless the time between rounds was very small
• we never knew the 'status' of the competition - how many tables were we waiting to finish, when would the next round start, etc

The tournament ran very slowly and that was with only six teams. I must admit that I hoped that there would be a large amount of (BBO) automation in the running of the event but it seemed that there was a lot of manual work required. It's hard to see how this can scale to a reasonable number of teams without full BBO support.

The kind of thing i mean by full BBO support is that the event is run like a clocked tourney, but with teams rather than pairs. When the round is complete the teams are moved in a similar manner to a regular tourney. I appreciate that this may not be possible and, at a minimum, is probably a significant investment. But I don't feel a manual tournament is worthwhile.

Having said that, thanks to Jacki and TeamsTD for running the event.

Cheers

Paul

[Jacki]

paulg, on 2011-April-10, 15:08, said:

Having just finished some immediate feedback from the team:

• we've never taken so long to play 12 boards on BBO
• why did we not play the same boards as the other matches
• we enjoyed the idea but would not play again unless the time between rounds was very small
• we never knew the 'status' of the competition - how many tables were we waiting to finish, when would the next round start, etc

The tournament ran very slowly and that was with only six teams. I must admit that I hoped that there would be a large amount of (BBO) automation in the running of the event but it seemed that there was a lot of manual work required. It's hard to see how this can scale to a reasonable number of teams without full BBO support.

The kind of thing i mean by full BBO support is that the event is run like a clocked tourney, but with teams rather than pairs. When the round is complete the teams are moved in a similar manner to a regular tourney. I appreciate that this may not be possible and, at a minimum, is probably a significant investment. But I don't feel a manual tournament is worthwhile.

Having said that, thanks to Jacki and TeamsTD for running the event.

Cheers

Paul

Thanks for the feedback Paul. More automation is coming. The start was slow because so many registered players just didn't show up. We check close to game time to see who is ready to play and who isn't here. The outcome of all this was that with 16 possible teams, 10 were viable and of that 10, only 6 had everyone available to play when the game started.

As we progress, we will have for the players a link after each round to see how they are doing and I'm studying hard to find a better way to be sure that people registering will actually come play.

With each one of these we run, we are finding things to change to make it easier for the players. We will also be trying different formats. Today it was four rounds of 3 boards, but I'd like to try, 4 rounds of 4 boards and as things get easier, 3 rounds of 6 boards.

Thanks for helping us with this, the testing will continue until we can finally say - This Works!

Jacki

[inquiry]

Sorry I wasn't able to play in this event.... if for no other reason to get a handle on the problems

I did chat with PaulG and found a few of his comments seemed to very to the point. But there is one that is bothering me right now. The checking results on the team game page is very unsatisfactory. I have no idea which team won!!! or close the event was. It was like a series of very small team games (which of course it was). But shouldn't there be someone a final standing where all the teams are listed with results from first to tenth? I think we need that in a version sooner or later.


I look forward to playing in future attemps. I love team based tournaments.

[paulg]

Onoway, geofspa and I have considerable experience of running BBO team tournaments over the years, but one of the big differences is that we have had a 'committed' set of players (IAC, BIL, Acol Club, my local club). So not only are people generally present, but there is prepared set of interested kibitzers ready to fill the red void. I guess Jacki's experience with the ACBL tournaments is similar, in that people are financially committed and so more likely to show.

I think one lesson from this event is that running larger team events, and longer ones, will require a model where it is expected that (i) people do not show and (ii) people will run at some point, whether for good reason or bad. Perhaps starting matches with empty seats that the players, or director, then fill is a viable approach.

It is interesting to consider what tournaments are likely to be popular. 8-10 board tournaments currently dominate to landscape. Team matches are typically of the same length. Of course this is too short for a teams event. Speaking to my team mates and friends, it seems like 20-24 boards would be feasible. An eight team round-robin, playing 7x3 boards for example, seems ideal to them. Even 7x2 boards makes it an interesting experience. A small round-robin is more attractive than a short swiss event, since you have a fair chance of winning.

However a round-robin would probably need to run as a BBO tournament runs, with the movement automated within BBO and not by external systems, given the number of matches required, although all the matches/line-ups would be fixed at the start of the event.

Actually I quite like the idea of a eight team round robin

[awm]

If there is a short team match going on and a bunch of my friends are playing and need a fourth I might jump in. But I'm not going to go emailing/calling people days in advance just to get together a foursome to play 3x4 boards, it's just not worth the effort. By the number of people who didn't show up for this one, I'd guess I'm not the only one to feel that way. For a swiss teams event to succeed you're really going to play more boards than this to justify some advance planning; it's not like pairs where you can decide to play spur-of-the-moment and grab a partner from whoever happens to be online.

[paulg]

We were certainly aware that this was an early test and so 3x4 boards was appropriate. Perhaps those who responded to the invite in the News were less aware.