[jillybean]

Does anyone have any material that explains movements?

"Setting Up Game Movements for Dummies" style.
I have very little knowledge of movements, it's something McBruce does here, all I have to do is try to follow the maze of tables he has set up.

[pescetom]

wikipedia is often a good start.

[AL78]

 pescetom, on 2023-June-09, 12:16, said:

wikipedia is often a good start.

"A complete movement, in which each entrant plays against all of the other entrants or in which all entrants in each scoring field play against all of the same field of opponents, is inherently the fairest choice. The worst scenario is a movement that is one round short of complete: one entrant does not play against a very strong competitor, thus gaining a significant advantage, while another entrant does not play against a very weak competitor, thus incurring a significant disadvantage."

At my club we frequently have to knock off the last round because the players aren't able to keep to 15 mins/two board round, and I hadn't appreciated the reduction in fairness that results.

[jdiana]

The ACBL has some resources that might be helpful - https://www.acbl.org/club-corner/

Howell - https://web2.acbl.or...VACB/howell.pdf

Mitchell - https://web2.acbl.or...CB/mitchell.pdf

(I'm not a director and have no experience with this.)

[jillybean]

Thank you
This is for live games, not BBO
Mycroft sent me some good material too

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://web2.acbl.org/documentlibrary/clubs/SmallGames.pdf

https://www.bridgesc...ecommended.html

At the moment we are just running a Mitchell 2 sections of 9 or 10 tables each, with a phantom if we have half a table.
This is Shuffle, Deal, Play - I hope to get pre duplicated boards in the future.

The other game is between 5 - 6 tables and set up as a by stand relay, table 1&6 sharing boards
4 board sit out if half a table. I think this is the game we could improve if players were open to moving and those setting up the game had more information.

[pescetom]

 AL78, on 2023-June-10, 06:15, said:

At my club we frequently have to knock off the last round because the players aren't able to keep to 15 mins/two board round, and I hadn't appreciated the reduction in fairness that results.

That's why I prefer to really push them to keep time and will not knock off a round. They moan more (especially when they do not get to start a board because they had less than 4 minutes available) and create me much more work, but they get a fairer tournament.

If you are directing frequently, you can also gradually tighten the screws without them really noticing it. Start with 17 mins and get them down to 15 cutting half a minute per month. On RB where there is instant movement and less herd-effect I was able to get them down from 8 minutes a board to 5 minutes a board this way. But back f2f together with some who had not played online they effortlessly returned to 8 minutes

[mycroft]

As I discussed elsewhere, the only benefit of the 5.5 share and relay is that the sitout pair can kibitz the playing half of the relay. Otherwise, I'd do the 3/4 Howell - 3 board sitout only. And 8x3 or 9x3 is worth the annoyance of the Howell over 5x5 any day (except if you need 3, 4, 5 stationaries).

A quick reminder on that is "if it turns out that the 'need to be stationary' pairs are all the strongest pairs in the room, that's not fair to anybody that they never have to play each other, and something should be done occasionally about it (even if it's a "stationary E-W, when they 'come' to your table, you go over there. You can do it once.")

At the old club in Calgary, we would do "shuffle, deal, play, *and duplicate*" when we had two sections. Then the director ensures that the copies get moved over to the right section. A bit crazy the first round (because one section plays the second board of the pair/trio first) and a bit slow the first round (duplication), but at least both sections are playing the same boards. Which, if you're ranking across (or scoring across) is obviously fairer. Even if you're not - even if it's two different games (open and intermediate) - playing the same boards means the players can talk about them afterward.

A clock *really* helps. Especially if it's the person calling the rounds that is frequently slow (whether or not it's because of director calls :-).

[pescetom]

@mycroft, your experience is invaluable, but your writing / TD jargon is occasionally a problem

 mycroft, on 2023-June-10, 09:36, said:

A clock *really* helps. Especially if it's the person calling the rounds that is frequently slow (whether or not it's because of director calls :-).

Looking carefully at the clock obviously helps. Do you mean that showing a clock to players really helps? I have a problem that often not all tables can see the server screen and the App does not offer a clock, but beyond that, it's not my experience that it helps, it reduces the possibility of recovering a few minutes when possible and the slower pairs get to game things more comfortably.

And what do you mean by "the person calling the rounds" ?

[jillybean]

We don't have a clock

[AL78]

At my club slow play has been a problem for decades. It has got worse since the pandemic with an aging and more fragile membership who have slowed down, and because Horsham, West Sussex, England seems to be home to some of the world's slowest people in general. There is one who is notorious for slow play and I believe he has lost partners partially because of it and he is never going to speed up. When I direct I do my best to keep the movement going on time and I am largely successful, but there is occasionally that one pair who start the last board with a minute to go just before I get the chance to stop them (I am a playing director and it can sometimes be difficult to take boards away in time if they have no chance of finishing on time). There is one director and his wife who can be slow, frequently doesn't call the move until everyone has finished, including the slowest pair, and his wife once refused to acknowledge that bridge is a timed game.

Once a pair has been allowed to play slower than the field for long enough, it becomes an entitlement and nothing is going to speed them up.

[mycroft]

Yes, a clock that all the players can see and are trained to look at really helps.

Our México club got a 55" TV donated, and it's now being used as a (as close to) 800x600 VGA terminal to run a (10 year old, doesn't work well with modern anything, still the best actual) bridge clock, visible across the room. It probably sped the game up 15 minutes.

Whether it was the usual suspects who had all the reasons why they weren't slow seeing "there's 5 minutes left in the round, let's get to board 3", or the playing director (who would take calls, and call the round when they were done) just calling when the clock went down and finishing late (but catching up), or just people seeing that we're in the next round and should move even if they didn't hear (or didn't have) someone actually call it, it actually works.

And when the director can say "look, it's not personal, it's the same time everybody gets, including me and partner. Let's finish up and move", it also helps a lot. And when you can cheat the clock a minute or two every couple of rounds when the room lags, you can set it reasonably tight (nobody notices when you walk up and add a couple of minutes, they think they're playing 20m/3 boards - and after a couple of weeks, they mostly are).

And when you decide you have to run the 13x2 Howell for 6.5 or 7.5 tables, even getting 20 seconds a round out of the clock will save 20-30 minutes on the back end.

Specifically, in case the above doesn't clarify, when I got there, it was all playing directors, and they really would call the rounds when *they* were done, and not look around to see if they were the only ones still playing. Even if they'd taken two OLooTs and an insufficient bid during the round. And suddenly, the 15 minute round was 19 minutes. And *nobody* moved before the round was called. And a 1330 start time game didn't finish before 1715. And they couldn't figure out why. Having the clock wakes up the playing directors (including me, when I have to) that maybe they're an outlier, and we should let the rest of the game continue.

[blackshoe]

Two good books on movements:

Duplicate Bridge Schedules

Movements, A Fair Approach

There have been some objections to what the second book says about arrow-switching, and I don't think anyone should pay the price that seller is asking for it, but maybe you can find a better price. The first book is interesting as it goes into the mathematical basis for movements (I suppose you can ignore that part if you're not interested.

There's the classic Duplicate Bridge Direction

Some good stuff here, including the Groner and some free "bulletins" about movements and scoring.

[P_Marlowe]

A clock helps, it means everyone can see, that the call to finish is fair / objective,
it also keeps fast players in check, who think, time is up, and start complaining, that
play is slow, ..., a player has 14-15 min for the round, and he can us it.


And you dont need a clock, you need a countdown timer, there are various freeware options
av. just use google and your trusted download platform.

[mycroft]

A countdown timer that automatically restarts (trust me, I did a tournament with a CD that didn't autoreset, and I missed restarting it maybe half the rounds. And I wasn't playing). That adds the break when necessary. And can be up-ticked (or down-ticked) quickly and easily. And maybe has a "do not start boards" warning two minutes before. And...

GIMF, yes. Trust me, I've used it. There are a couple of online (web-based) bridge clocks, too. I'm not thrilled with them either. 100% better than nothing, though.

[pescetom]

 mycroft, on 2023-June-11, 11:01, said:

Yes, a clock that all the players can see and are trained to look at really helps.

Our México club got a 55" TV donated, and it's now being used as a (as close to) 800x600 VGA terminal to run a (10 year old, doesn't work well with modern anything, still the best actual) bridge clock, visible across the room. It probably sped the game up 15 minutes.

Whether it was the usual suspects who had all the reasons why they weren't slow seeing "there's 5 minutes left in the round, let's get to board 3", or the playing director (who would take calls, and call the round when they were done) just calling when the clock went down and finishing late (but catching up), or just people seeing that we're in the next round and should move even if they didn't hear (or didn't have) someone actually call it, it actually works.

And when the director can say "look, it's not personal, it's the same time everybody gets, including me and partner. Let's finish up and move", it also helps a lot. And when you can cheat the clock a minute or two every couple of rounds when the room lags, you can set it reasonably tight (nobody notices when you walk up and add a couple of minutes, they think they're playing 20m/3 boards - and after a couple of weeks, they mostly are).

And when you decide you have to run the 13x2 Howell for 6.5 or 7.5 tables, even getting 20 seconds a round out of the clock will save 20-30 minutes on the back end.

Specifically, in case the above doesn't clarify, when I got there, it was all playing directors, and they really would call the rounds when *they* were done, and not look around to see if they were the only ones still playing. Even if they'd taken two OLooTs and an insufficient bid during the round. And suddenly, the 15 minute round was 19 minutes. And *nobody* moved before the round was called. And a 1330 start time game didn't finish before 1715. And they couldn't figure out why. Having the clock wakes up the playing directors (including me, when I have to) that maybe they're an outlier, and we should let the rest of the game continue.

Thanks, although that remains the opposite of my own experience. Maybe Mexican players are easier to herd than cats and Italians are more difficult Or maybe it's that we have the luxury of a non-playing director who can follow the movement carefully (even if battling with the inevitable Director Call in a distant room towards the end of the last board in round).

We frequently used a countdown timer on the TV pre-covid and of course we also had a timer when playing online during lockdown. But back in the club post-lockdown it often wasn't practical to use the timer as we only have a monitor in the main room and we were also playing in two side rooms due to enlarged tables (1.4m x 1.4m) to reduce infection risk. I found it was actually easier to keep them on time f2f when the clock was *not* displayed. Maybe part of this is that the director who insisted on the timer display pre-covid was not held in great esteem and was prone to whining constantly about time (I never mention it except to a table running behind, and even then I strive to let them play without stress). Maybe it's that the slow pairs would allow themselves to go even slower whenever they saw from the timer that they could, and still end up behind on the last board. Whatever, they all seem to trust the director to give them due time without a timer and they sure appreciate that the tournaments now start and finish on time.

(oddly enough, it's tempting to use the timer without displaying it. The scoring program tends to crash out after an hour or so of keyboard inactivity and this only becomes apparent when players cannot enter scores in the App. With the built-in timer running it doesn't crash out.)

[jillybean]

Thanks for all the useful information.
I will get onto clocks, perhaps after we have pre duplicated boards and we don't have players entering the hands in the first round but I will start using and paying attention to my own clock and noting where the bottlenecks are. We definitely have a few who even after finishing a round late, then start writing their score, want to see what their % is on the BM, and start discussing the hand with partner.

[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2023-June-12, 10:33, said:

We definitely have a few who even after finishing a round late, then start writing their score, want to see what their % is on the BM, and start discussing the hand with partner.

On the bright side, the number of slow pairs is similar to or even less than the number of slow players, in my experience - just pray that two slow players do not pair up together (and try to tweak them apart if they do). The regular slow pairs are your opponents as TD and you get to know each other and try to exploit each other's weaknesses It's a mistake to give them much rope (even if they include club President) but also to penalise them without ample warning. It's a good idea (if the late tables are not more than two and had ample warning and the software allows it) to call the round on time all the same: up to you to transfer played boards to the right table and placate the designated next opponents. It's important to keep track of these delays and follow the late tables during next round, as you do have to give rope to innocent opponents if necessary. I strive to spot tables that are running behind, but in any case will not let anyone start a new board with less than 4 minutes remaining. I do not stress late tables unduly once they are playing, but they are heading for a penalty if they waste any time after the last trick.

[jillybean]

ok, where can I download and print Howell movement and player guide cards, for free?
This is something I have to arrange and print at home, there is no printer with the ACBLScore PC or Bridge Club.

Thanks

[Stephen Tu]

 jillybean, on 2023-June-16, 14:15, said:

ok, where can I download and print Howell movement and player guide cards, for free?
This is something I have to arrange and print at home, there is no printer with the ACBLScore PC or Bridge Club.

https://web.mit.edu/...tter/index.html

If you want to use different movement / # of rounds / # of boards you may have to figure out how to run the bridgemats program that generated the above:https://web.mit.edu/...mats/index.html which requires a Perl interpreter (I use https://strawberryperl.com/ on windows), and a postscript viewer to view the output. Might view the following old thread for reference: https://www.bridgeba...post__p__869166

[jillybean]

Thanks. I can find the table mats ok, I'm looking for the printed guides for the players for an odd, even number of tables, and a half table. I might be asking an irrelevant question here because I am limited to the movements available in ACBLScore

For the 4.5 table game I would set up a 5 table, 9 round Complete Howell or a Three-Quarter Howell 5-6,5-7 or 5-8
So it seems that I will need to set up some games at home to be able to print the guide cards. oh boy.