[BudH]

When I play in an ACBL sectional, regional, or NABC where hand records
are available, is there any way I can obtain the file (pbn format, for
example, or other common file format that can be imported into common hand analyzer software) containing the hand records for that session?

This would make it much easier than manually entering the hands
into Deep Finesse and/or Dealmaster Pro or Double Dummy Solver.

Bud H

[blackshoe]

I suppose it depends where the hands come from — if they're locally generated, I would think you should ask the tournament committee chairman. If they're generated in Memphis, you'd probably have to ask them.

[Siegmund]

It's certainly possible to get ACBL hands in Duplimate format to feed to the machines... so I'd imagine it's possible to get them in a variety of other formats too.

[McBruce]

You can probably do this if you ask the TD (preferably in advance), bring a thumb drive, and go in with the expectation that you may not always be able to get the files you want right away. TDs often have a fair bit to do during a session and especially following a session: sometimes there is not a lot of time. It may seem as though it is a quick copy, but consider what happens if a TD is rushed and copies the wrong file. Accidents happen!

Now, if this becomes popular, Memphis (or Horn Lake MS, now) may have to devise a system where hand record files can appear on ACBL.org shortly after each games scheduled ending time. We certainly can't have dozens of people requesting the deals each session! But this wouldn't be too difficult. I think the deals are generated in advance and assigned to tournaments as requested by Directors-In-Charge, with each set given a five digit code. Each such set could be placed into a database along with a date and time for public release. However, even this is prone to errors: at a recent tournament, we accidentally distributed copies of the Friday Evening hand records in Sections A and B, while a set for Saturday Evening was mistakenly distributed in Section C! If the ACBL sets up a system, there will need to be a way for errors like this to be corrected from the tournament site. I would guess that it's coming, but for now I would try the thumb drive and charm route.

[BudH]

If for all regionals and national tournaments in ACBL land, we could download the hand record files from the ACBL website when the tournament results are posted a few days after the tournament ends, that would be a good start.

And if they did that for sectionals and other events, even better.

Bud H

[jillybean]

Yes, it's possible and is happening here at McBruces games
I have also managed to get electronic hand records from local tournaments, although I have had some trouble getting it in pbn format.

Now I carry a thumb drive around with me but obviously the best way would be to provide the records online, improving security, eliminating paper records and reducing costs.

Now all we need is a dealing machine and predealt boards/hand records for our team games.

[jillybean]

jillybean, on 2010-March-16, 00:34, said:

Now all we need is a dealing machine and predealt boards/hand records for our team games.

Well we now have the dealing machines, still no hand records for team games.

Meanwhile, Ozzy is doing this, LIVE results, from the Birdgemates at all tables.

[mycroft]

I beg to object.

No, *you* can't see them on Live because reasons, but I'm looking at the hand records for the Sunday Swiss (actually RR) from CDMX right now.

And I have asked to be a guineapig for livescoring with bridgemates. Didn't happen in CDMX, there was just too much other stuff to handle to play guineapig; might try it for Ajijic, though.

(I do realize I'm weird. I also don't promise it for anything more than 12 tables, unless someone else is paid to make the boards.)

Spoiler

oh, and *has* the boardsets. We've trained Unit 390 (actually over-trained, the Unit Supply person is a BEAST), but the shocked reactions I get anywhere else when I give the *absolute minimum* boardsets needed for good movements at my other tournaments! And duplicated teams is *worse*, remember...

[jillybean]

That's good to hear, there's hope.


(I do realize I'm weird. I also don't promise it for anything more than 12 tables, unless someone else is paid to make the boards.)

Now there's a thought. Why don't we ask the players. Pay extra for the mandatory lunch provided in our Swiss Teams, which many can't or don't care to consume,
or BYO lunch and have a real game and hand records? I believe you don't need so many boards sets if you get creative with sharing.

[mycroft]

Mandatory lunch Sunday is not negotiable.

Okay, it *is*, but the negotiation is "you want to play only 20 boards each session?" In much of the "world", 1700 is a non-negotiable hard stop (and I think I've heard that in some places, it's 1630). I've already got questions about "when does the game finish Sunday, I have a flight?" for a tournament *next month*.

Lunch is onsite and "mandatory" to allow the half-hour (40 minutes if you're fast, hopefully 15 minutes[*] for the director babysitting the last table and doing reset, the turn and collecting all the boards) break between sessions that allows there to be a two-session game in 7 hours.

With a big "yes, I know these problems have been solved, better than I know how to do it, in RoW; but this is what I have to work with" caveat (and yes, if someone who speaks English with one of *those* accents wants to give me the tech specs for how they do it, I'm all ears):

You need 1 boardset per 4 tables for a decent event (8 or 9 board matches). Unless you're willing to have teams play different copies of the same board and be "\_o_/" when there's a foul in duplication. I know another director who won't do it unless there's 3 boards on each table because of the "speed demon backup"; I'll do it with 2 (and this was the explanation I gave to the speed demon why I wouldn't make him an extra boardset just for his table when he was waiting)[**]. He's probably right, though; I've just got lucky.

And you need extras (lots of extras) if there's a triangle/ring/round robin.

ISTR D19 regulations say "predups for top 4 matches, second session"; they expect to use 4 sets of boards just for those 4 matches.

I was happy (okay, *comfortable*) with 3 sets of boards/session for pairs, up to say 24 tables. Teams - no.

[*]

Spoiler

I'm sorry, I mean "30 minutes as required by labour law". Yep. Honest. Always happens, always will.

Also, the "mandatory lonche"[sic] at CDMX was freaking *amazing* (but yeah, lonches don't play well with gluten intolerance etc.). You just don't get "rubber chicken" or "blandwich and half-cup of watered soup" down here.

Spoiler

Okay, I was complaining a while back about "chilaquiles con salsa gringo", but that place was definitely aiming for the "I want to visit another country, but it had better not be foreign" crowd; and I did find where they hid the actual flavour from those people eventually.

[**]This is *not a criticism*. He was the consummate professional, to partner, opponents and the director. I would *absolutely* go out of my way to accommodate him, because I know he would follow instructions and not negatively affect anyone else, including me. Unlike a fair number of "I'll get you a board when I call the round; I'm not disrupting them with 6 minutes on the clock just so that next round you can bother them with 9 minutes on the clock" people. This time, though, "the chance I foul a board in duplication doing it 'on the rush' and damage your match is too high for an accommodation".

[jillybean]

How does forcing the players to purchase lunch help the Director babysit the last table, do the reset, the turn and collect all the boards?
You can do all that while we sit and eat our own lunch or go out for a 25 minute pizza, penalties for any team not ready to play after break.
I don't understand the need to force feed us.

I also don't understand the complexities of preduplicated boards in team games, but it's done elsewhere. Foul in duplication? hopefully rare and detected early.

[mycroft]

In Mexico City (okay, unsure about Sunday, didn't look, but lunes-sábado at least), getting food you could eat in 30 minutes was possible. Maybe not easy, maybe you have one choice, but possible. "A taco truck on every corner" is a life blessing you need to experience to truly understand (and miss, in the summer!) Okay, maybe guasanas/chirales/verduras preparadas/tamales for variety...

In Calgary, where our sectionals are now, if you absolutely hoofed it and knew exactly where you were going, there are two places you can go. If 200 people know there are exactly those two places, I guarantee the first 20 or so will get their food. You could try the hotel restaurant, of course; I would *not* guarantee anyone will get their food.

In Calgary where our tournaments were for many years, there was nowhere serving food open within a 20 minute walk. Reasonably, not within a 10 minute car ride, never mind the traffic jam getting in and out of the parking lot.

In Penticton, sure there is a lot of food places near the playing site, many of which are even open Sunday. The entire Lakeshore is not capable of doing 400 meals in 30 minutes, never mind people eating them.

As for "order early, and the food will be ready when the break hits" - I've seen *exactly* one place where that was offered that actually pulled it off. I was not the only one surprised, and we *changed the start time* (back 15 minutes) when we realized it wasn't a fluke, but we could count on it. And that was with over an hour between sessions. Even *they* couldn't handle "food to be ready (yes, mandatory lunch) somewhere between 1:00 and 1:30, we'll tell you the exact time at 12".

The alternatives are, almost everywhere:

• "No lunch provided, you will *not* have time to go out, you must bring your own" (and 20% of the game will go out anyway, and will start late because we were right, and another 10% will complain that there isn't enough time);
  
• provide the lunch (and everywhere I have been that did this has *subsidised* this, frequently to half the cost) as a "thou shalt buy", even if you can't eat it(*);
  
• have a "blandwich and soup" counter (for an incredibly inflated price), that gets overwhelmed anyway (thankfully, by the time the directors get there, the line's died down. It might have closed up/"no more soup" by then, too, though);
  
• make a longer break between sessions, and pay for it either with a later ending time (in D18 and D19, where we come to play bridge) or "6 7s" (in D16, where the game ends at 1700 whether or not there's a match still to play).

And as the only thing worse to deal with than a director who doesn't get lunch (always the most *pleasant* of people) is a caddy/board maker who didn't get lunch (the same, and oddly enough makes mistakes); I'll just leave it there.

And "foul in duplication"? Either "sorry, you have to ignore board 4" (or more, depending on the foul), "you get a score based on your comparisons with every other team that played that version of the board" (which kind of defeats the purpose of a "team game"), or one boardset per match, so that both pairs play the same boards even if they don't match the hand records. It doesn't matter if you "catch it early", by the time you have caught it, it's been played at (almost) every table it's going to be, and all those matches are damaged. I'm sure there's a better solution in place by directors with decades more experience with this than I, which is of course why "I'd be happy to hear the tech specs from the English/Aussie directors". Note: not the players (apologies to that one, she knows who she is, hope you're having an amazing time). They don't know how it works from the cogs-and-wrenches end.

(*) Client last week paid, complaining that he wouldn't eat lunch(**). When he asked when we were starting again (with his team having the early flight!) he guessed twice the time I was planning on. "Only 30 minutes? I'm not sure I'll have time to get back to my hotel..." "well, you will have 40. But yes." This *can't be* his first rodeo...
(**)Turns out he didn't in fact pay for his lunch, because *somebody* couldn't do math in the morning. And he did in fact get back on time.

[jillybean]

I appreciate the challenges of catering for 200+ players, creating a hybrid system of pre order or self cater may ease the pressure on the lunch crush while giving the decision back to the players, where it should be.

For our local sectionals, running 20 table swiss teams, it seems an unnecessary overhead.

Yes, pre dealt boards could be a good topic to discuss globally. I know of one country who has not used SDP in team games for over 35 years.

[blackshoe]

I'm pretty sure there's more than one.

"Listen to the experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then go ahead and do it." -- R.A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love, 1973.

[mike777]

 blackshoe, on 2026-January-24, 10:40, said:

I'm pretty sure there's more than one.

"Listen to the experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then go ahead and do it." -- R.A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love, 1973.

Truly great book

[mycroft]

I like that quote. I'm going to give the more cynical version of it.

Jilly, if you think getting "only" 80 players' food ordered, delivered and eaten in 30 minutes without a full food court or "a hybrid system of pre-order and self-cater" is trivial, I have an exciting opportunity for you. As tournament chair of the next Burnaby Sectional, you can implement those plans and "prove the experts wrong". I *guarantee you* the current tournament chair will be *joyous* to let you try - as long as it's your name, not hers, on the schedule.

Sure there's some sarcasm there, but the offer stands. PLEASE prove me wrong (note, I am not an expert. Note the sheer number of "I'd really like to hear from the people with decades of experience" quotes in this thread). All I have is at least two full hands of tries to "make the schedule times better" that have failed, sometimes spectacularly. Here, of course, failure either means a handful of matches starting late (and either multiple penalties, short matches or an extension, which will make the players who *were* ready on time very happy), or a number of people eating at the table or not getting lunch at all (both of which will make players "very happy" too), or a "we want to start as soon as we can, but it looks like that's 1430" (and the pairs who have a flight are now stuck with "forfeit the last match or risk missing the plane").

I do understand that the players want a short break between sessions so they don't have to "wait around all the time", but not so short that they can't eat (*), in a room with perfect light, lots of space, perfect temperature(*) (and no drafts), new decks, perfect movements(*), world championship level directing, all for the same $13/session they paid in 2005. They're also upset when it's noisy when they're playing, but as soon as *they're* done, they're grabbing the hand records and discussing hands (or calling their husbands to say they'll be home soon) while walking through the people still playing(*).

(*)note, the first group being 20 minutes faster than the second group is *totally irrelevant* to this discussion the player's argument.
(*)note, that's for both the people who are wearing a fleece coat when it's "only" 23 degrees, and the ones in t-shirts and shorts and wondering why the AC isn't on.
(*)where they *always* get their stationary, and never have to play against *that pair*, and...
(*)note, usually coming to the director's desk looking for the hand records and asking her if the results are posted/final.

The reason I'm not differentiating the footnotes here is because they're all the same footnote - "bridge players, by and large, are entitled [-]s who act as if everyone else is an NPC until someone actually rubs their nose in it."

I am *not* excluding myself from this; I, too, know that there are things on my "gotta be right" list that are irrelevant to other, perhaps a majority of, bridge players. It's just that professionally I've had to listen to a lot of the gripes, and to other directors who point out things that I couldn't see until they rubbed *my* nose in it; and in my other life I was a "professional paranoid"; explicitly looking at the chosen process to find the ways it would fail or be taken advantage of. So I'm more aware of my part in this whole affair.

[jillybean]

I know catering is a thankless headache, performed by unpaid volunteers and those volunteers are hard to come by.
The Hospitality position is vacant, along with many others in the Unit meaning someone(s) with other responsibilities are also wearing that hat. OMG
Let's hope these volunteers get free plays at all tournaments.

I said up thread, the compulsory lunch is used as a form of crowd control which seems to be a very complicated, labour intensive and somewhat disliked method of making sure players are present at game time. How many still head out to get a decent coffee and have a smoke?
We can scoff down the food on the hospitality table or bring our own lunch. But that's just my opinion.

Let's focus on pre-dup boards

[pescetom]

As a non-expert with very limited experience in organizing large tournaments. I do like the idea of running Swiss Teams with lunch break on Sunday and can see the time/duplication pressure you are up against.

But here in Italy it would be unthinkable to assign less than an hour to lunch and it is unlikely that more than a few people could find anything to eat outside the venue in less time: even a pizzeria that is open and uncrowded at lunchtime has a think time of half an hour or so. Players are fussy and spoilt in terms of food quality, so offering sandwiches won't cut it and soup would cause a rebellion In many although not all cities it would be possible for the organization to order in good quality street food, which would do the job. Otherwise give them free rein for 90 minutes at least. Having organized with difficulty eat-in tournaments with home cooked ands served food, I can testify that it may be justified for members a few times a year but is not viable on any regular basis.

[jillybean]

What does a FIGB tournament schedule look like?

[mike777]

 pescetom, on 2026-January-24, 16:13, said:

As a non-expert with very limited experience in organizing large tournaments. I do like the idea of running Swiss Teams with lunch break on Sunday and can see the time/duplication pressure you are up against.

But here in Italy it would be unthinkable to assign less than an hour to lunch and it is unlikely that more than a few people could find anything to eat outside the venue in less time: even a pizzeria that is open and uncrowded at lunchtime has a think time of half an hour or so. Players are fussy and spoilt in terms of food quality, so offering sandwiches won't cut it and soup would cause a rebellion In many although not all cities it would be possible for the organization to order in good quality street food, which would do the job. Otherwise give them free rein for 90 minutes at least. Having organized with difficulty eat-in tournaments with home cooked ands served food, I can testify that it may be justified for members a few times a year but is not viable on any regular basis.

90 minutes, forget it. I will just eat a protein bar at the table. Play on!