Bridgescore+ - Atlanta Regional - August 25-31, 2014
Ran most KOs, CKOs with Bridgescore+.
Reference KO without Bridgescore+ was 60 teams, 5 tables, 10 minutes.
Reference KO with Bridgescore+ is 1-2 minutes after game time.
Monday, August 25, 2014 5pm.
Met with the Tournament Chair (TC) at the hotel playing site to discuss best location of the projector. The most important priority is that the projector must be in a safe location – safe for the players and safe for the TDs. This means that there must be no possibility of players tripping over cords, or being able to spill drinks on the projector or other equipment. The location of the projector must not interfere with the flow of players.
We identified a couple of possible locations. As these impacted vendors, it was important to find the right location, but ultimately the decision on where to put the projector is going to be with the DIC who does not arrive until tomorrow.
Went over what events I wanted to run, and why.
Tuesday, 12:30pm.
It takes about 10-15 minutes to set up the first time at a tournament so I arrived about an hour early. The typical equipment is a laser printer, projector, two computers, one router, with power cords to all devices and a network cable from the printer to the router.
I did not have the latest player database, so the 1:30pm event would be run in parallel, but with no visible information to the players. Main reason for running in parallel is for the TDs to gain confidence in the Bridgescore+.
DIC provided the latest player database. DIC also gave me the TourneyTrax information for the event, but all this is only the tournev.dat file that contains limited and insufficient information for each event. For example, it only gives one event code for a KO (ACBLscore uses a different event code for each bracket of a KO because in ACBLscore terms each is a separate event). The fields names are limited. As an example, the first event is “Education Foundation Swis” (sic) because the limit is 25 characters for the event name. Am not sure that this was the intended TourneyTrax interface to ACBLscore, but this file only applies to the DIC computer, it is not shared with the laptops used for scoring.
Tuesday, 7:30 pm Lou Bluhm KO Bracket B (under 5000)
61 teams entered. 3 TDs running the event. Used Bridgescore+. We used Bridgescore+ for brackets 1,2,3,5, but not the 16 teams in bracket 4. There was some issue with tables that were assigned to the event that were also being used by the seeded Bracket A (10 tables) so these were assigned manually from the rack. Bridgescore+ knows that there may be problems so has lots of fail safe mechanisms. In this case, one click, can set all teams in an entire bracket to read “See rack” on the projected display. As soon as the TDs became aware of the problem, it was easier to try and fix by hand rather than use computers. TDs can manually correct this bracket while the other brackets start to play.
ACBLscore was ready as a hot backup. This slows down the process of assigning teams/brackets in Bridgescore+
Wednesday, 9:30 am Compact KO.
I arrived around 8:15am to set up. Set up only took 5 minutes as printer was already there and the WiFi connections were now automatic so plenty of time. There were only 26 teams. Very simple to run, 2 brackets. Assignments up within a couple of minutes. For this event, ACBLscore did not shadow Bridgescore+ making it quicker and easier to start the event (no double checking entries with ACBLscore). The directors checked the entries against the display on the screen or the laptop displaying the same as the projector. There was only one team that reported an incorrect number of MPs (3800 v 3400). With only 2 brackets, this meant that this compact KO became handicapped.
ACBLscore was ready, but as a cold backup. This meant that we only needed to check the data entry into one system so everything ran a lot smoother.
We did not need to use the cold backup, so that computer was not even turned on.
Wednesday, 10:30 am Compact KO.
There was a 10:30 compact KO held at a different location in the hotel. I brought all the equipment but there was no good place to set up a projector so we decided not to use Bridgescore+. Sales were in a crowded hotel corridor. Approximately 60 teams. It took 5 directors about 10 minutes to handle the assignments for the 4 or 5 brackets. The most common question for everyone was if they were in a 3 way or not. Must have been about 20 different questions to the TDs. This is my reference KO for the week for not running Bridgescore+. 60 teams takes 5 TDs about 10 minutes.
Wednesday, 1:30pm KO.
59 teams entered. There were some late entries, the last entry was not sold until 1:34pm. Bracket sizes were set at 12, 15, 16, 16. Table assignments for all brackets were posted by 1:36pm. So, by comparison with the morning compact KO, Bridgescore+ had all assignments up within 2 minutes. The flooring plan was more complicated: A1-F3, C4-F5, A6-F11, E12. TD did not want to use A4/A5 because these tables are in a very bad location. Bridgescore+ can handle arbitrary assignments so this worked well. I think we had two teams come back with masterpoint reporting corrections but these occurred before the assignments were up. Only documenting the number of corrections because it does impact the work flow and these [player] errors are the most common cause of problems for the TDs after the event starts.
Thursday, 9:30am 3 session KO.
A perfect event. With one minute to go there were 24 teams entered in a 3 session KO which makes for 3 brackets of 8 teams. At the last minute, one additional team entered. So we had 25 teams for the event. The TD broke this into brackets of 6, 6, 6, 7. We had all the table assignments ready. The assignment information was published at 9:30am. Cannot get any better or faster than this. All assignments up at published game time!
Now… real life starts to take over. 2 minutes into the event another team wants to enter. The TDs check their masterpoints, the new team will be in the bottom bracket which breaks the single three way. The TDs accept the new entry, then manually go break the three way and create 2 head to head matches. All is good.
One team has not shown in bracket 1. The TDs are busy breaking the three way. Someone says that the missing team is looking for their partner.
The caddies are not here. I don my caddy shoes. Bridgescore+ has printed 4 sheets of paper, one per bracket, with the tables, team numbers. I go to pick up the sheets. It is amazing the game that players play with the entry form. With only 26 entries to pick up I find the sheets are hidden underneath convention cards, underneath bidding boxes, sitting in a purse. There is one lady sitting on her entry form. Perhaps she is expecting me to try and pull it out. Hmm. I think we need to have a consistent place that players should be expected to put entry forms. It is a small thing, but unless you have been a caddy, how would you know? My suggestion is under the bidding box for NS. This should be in the bulletin at each tournament. Just a small feedback.
All events are playing fine, except that there is one team missing in bracket 1. Someone said that they were waiting on their partner. It is now 15 minutes into game time. Team 19 was still missing. The TD eventually discovers that Team 19 thought they were entering the 10:30 Swiss game, not the 9:30 compact KO.
TD is now a little stuck. Can’t move a team from bracket 2 to bracket 1 as there are only 6 teams in each. So DIC made Bracket 1 a 5 team bracket. Not ideal. But it worked.
Bridgescore+ could handle all of this as part of its KO scoring.
Friday, August 29, 2014.
Started 1:30 KO event. Did a dry run of texting.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Started the 1:30pm KO. Setup started at 1:15pm.
Issues was one team that did not want to play in bracket 1 if they were going to be in bracket 1. This request was only received AFTER the assignments were posted. The request was denied. That team was not happy, but at some point there is an impact on the event that becomes too difficult to honor.