Today we have 15 teams playing in the opening round of their GNT Flight. Fight A is a simply 6 team round robin, 5 rounds of 10 boards each. Flight C is a little more weird, and shows the limitations of online bridge technology.
Results Mid-Day
First, here is what everyone is looking for, the real-time results.
Online with 9 teams in the field?
Normally in face-to-face bridge, with 9 teams in the field, you could set up a rotation so that each team plays 8 rounds of 6 boards, through a coordinated movement. For example, round 1 every East-West pair moves up one table, next round every East-West pair moves down one table. After every pair of rounds, the teams can compare scores. It’s not quite the same as having 3 different 3-ways. It’s more like a massive 9-way. But the important point is, no one ever needs to sit out a round.
How did we handle it?
Unfortunately, there is no solution yet for online bridge, and perhaps we wouldn’t want one. Instead, everyone is playing the same pre-dealt hands at the same time, except that one team sits out each round, leaving the other 8 to play a quick 6-board round. It’s a little annoying that the day lasts one round longer then it needs to – and even more unfortunately that no one knows when there bye round is until the day of the match. For people with playing-time restrictions, it makes the day hard to predict. Hopefully next year we have a better solution, or we are fully back to face-to-face.