[Walddk]

The great news today is that the Chinese Contract Bridge Association (CCBA) has provided 8 (!) operators for us for the World Championships (Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup and Senior Bowl) in Shanghai from September 30 - October 13.

If everything goes according to plan, we will be broadcasting from 6 tables (3 matches) in each of the 21 rounds in the qualifying. We will obviously also get comprehensive coverage when we reach the knockout stage.

Our gratitude to the CCBA and Song Zhao, China's Mr. Vugraph, for all his hard work. Those of you who have been following our vugraph presentations from China know how well organised they are. Furthermore, the operators are excellent.

Hervé Lustman (zmud99) will be working for the WBF, but he will also be our man at the venue. With all this put together we are in very capable hands and have every right to look forward to watching the world's best players in action.

I don't think it takes much imagination to foresee that we will set at least a couple of new records in October:

- 1. Number of users online.
- 2. Number of spectators in the vugraph theatre.
- 3. Number of spectators at a single table in the finals.

Useful links:
http://www.worldbrid...Information.htm
http://www.ecatsbridge.com/Events/wbf/2007...hai/default.asp

Roland

[Aberlour10]

I took a look at the schedule of Round Robin, wow!, already in the 1st round great matches like USA1-USA2, Norway-Sweden, Ireland-Netherlands, but it will be hard to manage for the european spectators, because daily starting time in Shanghai = 04.00 CET

Robert

[skjaeran]

Aberlour10, on Aug 11 2007, 06:12 AM, said:

I took a look at the schedule of Round Robin, wow!, already in the 1st round great matches like USA1-USA2, Norway-Sweden, Ireland-Netherlands, but it will be hard to manage for the european spectators, because daily starting time in Shanghai = 04.00 CET

Robert

The first match each day will be in the night for europeans, but the two last matches will be in daytime for us. The problem of course is that we're at work during play time five days a week...

I'm unable to find team rosters. There's none on WBF's official championship site and USA1 only at Anna Gudge's site. That's strange since I submitted the Norwegian team [Brogeland-Sælensminde, Grøtheim-Tundal, Helgemo-Helness, Bjertnes (NPC) and Brekke (coach)] to WBF and Anna Gudge at least a couple of months ago. Hopefully the websites will be updated shortly.

[Walddk]

skaeran, on Aug 11 2007, 11:24 AM, said:

I'm unable to find team rosters.

Quote from the ECats site:
I have been asked to withdraw the lists of teams until they have been approved by the Credentials Committee.

I will re-post them as soon as possible.

...

Almost all of them were there for quite some time, Norway's included. By the way, provisional time schedule for the Round-Robin each day is:

10:30, 14:00 and 17:30 (local time)

As far as time zones are concerned, Shanghai is on GMT +8. This translates to:

Los Angeles is 15 hours behind, New York 12 hours behind, London 7 hours behind, Paris 6 hours behind, and Sydney 2 hours ahead.

Roland

[hrothgar]

Walddk, on Aug 10 2007, 05:48 PM, said:

The great news today is that the Chinese Contract Bridge Association (CCBA) has provided 8 (!) operators for us for the World Championships (Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup and Senior Bowl) in Shanghai from September 30 - October 13.

If everything goes according to plan, we will be broadcasting from 6 tables (3 matches) in each of the 21 rounds in the qualifying. We will obviously also get comprehensive coverage when we reach the knockout stage.

Our gratitude to the CCBA and Song Zhao, China's Mr. Vugraph, for all his hard work. Those of you who have been following our vugraph presentations from China know how well organised they are. Furthermore, the operators are excellent.

Lets hear it for the CCBA! Nice to see a Bridge Organization thats seems to get it...

[skjaeran]

Walddk, on Aug 11 2007, 01:52 PM, said:

skaeran, on Aug 11 2007, 11:24 AM, said:

I'm unable to find team rosters.

Quote from the ECats site:
I have been asked to withdraw the lists of teams until they have been approved by the Credentials Committee.

I will re-post them as soon as possible.

...

Almost all of them were there for quite some time, Norway's included.

I didn'f find that earlier, since I went to the Players name => Bermuda Bowl page were it said:

Quote

As the selections are known, I will list them here :

And the USA1 teams players appers there.

But thanks for the clarification Roland.

[Walddk]

Team rosters and systems are now available at

http://www.ecatsbridge.com/Events/wbf/2007...hai/default.asp

[Walddk]

Walddk, on Aug 11 2007, 01:52 PM, said:

By the way, provisional time schedule for the Round-Robin each day is:

10:30, 14:00 and 17:30 (local time)

As far as time zones are concerned, Shanghai is on GMT +8. This translates to:

Los Angeles is 15 hours behind, New York 12 hours behind, London 7 hours behind, Paris 6 hours behind, and Sydney 2 hours ahead.

Roland

Session start times have now been fixed, but they are slightly different from the initial plan:

11:00, 14:10 and 17:20 Shanghai time.

The conversions I stated about three weeks ago are obviously still valid, but if you want to know what time it is at your place, I can recommend

The Fixed Time World Clock - setup

http://www.timeandda.../fixedform.html

The complete schedule (Round-Robin as well as knockout stage) will be listed on our vugraph web page within a week or so. Remember that once you see the schedule on that page, all times are local to you no matter where in the world you are, provided that your computer clock is set to show your local time.

We use GMT when we list events. The rest is taken care of automatically.

Roland

[Walddk]

Walddk, on Sep 4 2007, 03:18 PM, said:

The complete schedule (Round-Robin as well as knockout stage) will be listed on our vugraph web page within a week or so.

Here it is, round by round, segment after segment, 14 days on the trot:

http://online.bridgebase.com/vugraph/sched...?order_by=event

[Walddk]

Only 4 days to go. Exciting, is it not? Although most of us are unable to be at the venue, we will get a great vantage point in the BBO vugraph theatre. Kick off Sunday in most places, Saturday for some:

Sunday 11:00 Shanghai
Sunday 05:00 Paris
Sunday 04:00 London
Sunday 13:00 Sydney
Saturday 23:00 New York
Saturday 20:00 Los Angeles

For full schedule, please go to

http://online.bridgebase.com/vugraph/sched...?order_by=event

Lots of interesting matches in Round 1 (Bermuda Bowl). How about ...

USA1 v USA2
China SMEG v Argentina
Norway v Sweden
Ireland v Netherlands
India v Italy
Australia v Pakistan

Not that it will help a lot, but feel free to take your picks. If everything goes according to plan we will be broadcasting from three matches in each of the 21 qualifying rounds, and some of them will no doubt involve teams in the Venice Cup and Seniors Bowl too.

I would be very surprised if two of the three matches in Round 1 do not turn out to be the all American clash and the home team against Argentina.

Some teams have already arrived in Shanghai, but the majority will arrive Thursday/Friday. As we all well know, it takes time to acclimatise (jet-lag). Anna Gudge from England (the lady behind EcatsBridge) is already there, and she has posted a blog ...

http://ecatsbridge.blogspot.com/

Chapter 1 today; interesting reading. Bookmark it!

Roland

[joker_gib]

Let's just hope that the internet connection will be OK !?

[Walddk]

joker_gib, on Sep 26 2007, 03:47 PM, said:

Let's just hope that the internet connection will be OK !?

The internet connection from China was a little shaky 3-4 years ago, but that has changed. Over the past 2 years we have had several broadcasts from various parts of the country, and only rarely did we encounter significant problems.

I am quite hopeful that the connectivity from Shanghai will be stable. The Chinese are very competent organisers, so I am convinced that they have tested what they need to test well in advance.

Roland

[FrancesHinden]

I wish the WBF would be more considerate.

I have exams on 8/9 October, and I'm supposed to be working towards them, not watching vugraph.

But the WBF haven't done that badly, because I'll be working or sleeping through most of the matches anyway.

[hrothgar]

FrancesHinden, on Sep 26 2007, 05:52 PM, said:

I wish the WBF would be more considerate.

I have exams on 8/9 October, and I'm supposed to be working towards them, not watching vugraph.

But the WBF haven't done that badly, because I'll be working or sleeping through most of the matches anyway.

????

I thought that you were done with uni (working for Shell and all that rot)

[uday]

A hint from Shanghai suggests that the first round of matches will showcase

China vs Argentina
USA1 vs USA2
Norway vs Sweden

No more info that that, just yet

[FrancesHinden]

hrothgar, on Sep 26 2007, 03:58 PM, said:

FrancesHinden, on Sep 26 2007, 05:52 PM, said:

I wish the WBF would be more considerate.

I have exams on 8/9 October, and I'm supposed to be working towards them, not watching vugraph.

But the WBF haven't done that badly, because I'll be working or sleeping through most of the matches anyway.

????

I thought that you were done with uni (working for Shell and all that rot)

Exams don't stop just because you have left university, there are still professional qualfications (AMCT in this case, which is probably a bit obscure in a global context).

[jaws99]

who do I query at WBF the choice to show the England VC match against China (QF) on BBO for segment 1. This is at 4am - 6am UK time on a Sunday morning. I could understand if this were the case on a Monday-Friday to allow England spectators to see it before work - but not on a Sunday.

I got up at 6.30am hoping that one of segment 2 and 3 would be England - but just found out that I had missed them being shown earlier !

James

[mike777]

This may have been discussed weeks ago, if so I missed it, but who is playing/played on USA2 in the Bermuda Bowl? Is Paul in the hospital? If so is he ok?