COMPUTER GENERATED HANDS SURVEY – INTERIM RESULTS

These results were updated on the date shown in the footer

RESPONDENT PROFILE:

MEMBERS:

Usually play in the Blue Section (MB): 15

Often play in either section (ME): 8

Usually play in the Red section (MR): 11

Non Members (NM): 3

Please note that the totals above and below do not reconcile because some respondents gave multiple answers

CURRENT SCOREBOARD

QUOTES

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QUOTES

I thought I ought to put my views into print, so here are my responses:

a) Always. Then I won't complain when I have just been dealt my 10th balanced hand in a row.

b) I don't mind additional table money at all. If we get computer dealt hands and hand records afterwards, that is adding so much to the evening in my view, that I would expect and be happy to pay extra for it. Also, I think that the wine prizes could be rationalised at the very least. I have no strong views on how, but I don't believe that you would lose any members if you didn't have any wine prizes, so if that is a way of recouping the cost effectively, I'd be totally happy with that. You could easily cut down by, for example, just having prizes for one pair in the competition events, or no wine for teams, or one pair winning over two sections (highest %), etc.

Re dealing at the table, I would prefer not, but if the additional cost of having the hands computer generated is prohibitive, I would rather do that than not have computer dealt hands.

We are not too keen on all computer dealt hands but do not object to once a month or more. Do not like too many evenly balanced hands either.

I think the problem with manually dealt hands is the way they have to be done in 1 2 3 4 formation (at least I have been told it is illegal !! to not do them that way). I think a random formation does give better hands. We sometimes do them that way at our club and they are not so predictable. Just my opinion though. Perhaps you can put me right if there is a correct way to deal them

Theoretically I am all for it, provided we have a print out of the hands. My only worry is the one section format, which is becoming all too often the case. I suspect that the better players would migrate if a one section format was a permanent feature.

As to how to pay, keep the prizes.

Anything that ensures the number of distributional hands on ordinary club evenings is roughly in line with statistical expectations is to be welcomed.

It should also be pointed out to doubters that, besides increasing the fun, this would also be good practice for the more serious events when computer dealt hands are more commonplace.

My guess is that increasing prices to facilitate this would be frowned upon by some (or maybe many?) whereas losing the wine prizes would not be missed by most.

I support two sections whenever feasible.

My vote is to stay as we are. My rationale for that is a selfish one. My partner and I deploy a simplified version of Precision Club. We have just enough conventions to give a fighting chance that we will both remember them at the same time. We don't have conventions that cater for the statistically less frequently occurring distributions because we don't play often enough for such distributions to occur more than once in a blue moon when we are playing. That is one of the (many ?) reasons why we seldom do well in the simultaneous pairs events.

From playing social rubber bridge as well as club duplicate over many years I have found sufficient variety in manually dealt hands to keep boredom at bay.

I am in favour of computer generated hands on every occasion even if that includes additional costs and also it will prepare members for the type of hands they will encounter when playing in County and National competitions, and allow members to revisit the hands they have just played looking at their triumphs and mistakes thereby improving their future performances.

I am in favour of CGH...more challenging...will improve standards.

I like idea of keeping prizes, its adds to sense of achievement..appeals to basic hunting instinct!
So a few pence per player then?

I am in favour of computerised hand once a month, I personally love them, I think they are so exciting. Ask players to deal the cards before the evening starts. My vote is to use computer generated and it would be great to see the club move towards getting bridge-mates.

My feeling on wine prizes is to abandon except for " player of the month".

Keep things as they are. Even on the badly dealt board all pairs and table will be playing the hands. So much additional hassle is inevitable with computer hands and sometimes one direction can have poor hands. In fact partner (and I) has had cause to complain at another club with computer generated boards because the hands have seemed to be unfair to our direction on too many occasions. It is just not worth the hassle, cost and likely complaints. Ask people to take more care over the shuffling each night.

Yes I would be very much in favour of generated hands for several reasons. Also I think this subject goes further than Mountnessing Bridge Club but should be considered on a County level.
Your analysis is good of the problems and of the reactions of the more "social level" players. We all to a greater or lesser extent have problems with some hands even those hand shuffled and think it would soon be accepted by all and the fear of the (at present) unusual hands became more common place. I play on Fridays at Barleylands and I'm sure you know Bernie uses dealt hands always. There are no complaints about them and the standards are varied so the lesser players don't "stay away".

Competition and County players meet these hands at these events and I'm sure they would enjoy the practice and chance to develop their methods further. I feel that as a County, Essex is not strong (my experience is limited in the more major tournaments but when I look at the results few pairs / teams seem to be up there. I know this not really relevant to the general debate but maybe the County should look at this proposal of yours to extend it to all clubs - maybe this would strengthen bridge in Essex.

The financing side could indeed be an issue. I would be in favour of dropping the wine prize not because I rarely win it!!!!!!!! but I don't drink a lot of wine.

Finally on the subject of hand shuffling I have found taking any 2 seats and shuffling those 26 cards and then the other 26 cards and then all 52 cards together does give a more random deal and it only takes a few seconds longer. Something you may like to consider.

1. What are your preferences about using computer-generated hands:

a. Always – well, with only the occasional exception - Yes Please !

b. Regularly, e.g., ‘First Thursday of every Month’ - Better than nothing but it still leaves us behind other clubs (e.g. Barleylands, Chelmsford, Lingwood)

c. Leave it as now – Sim pairs, club championships, some Teams of Four only … Do this and you will start to lose the better players (weaker players may grumble but will still come)

2 Computer generated hands would cost money and that cost would need to be met somehow.  Please pass your views about the following options:

a. Additional table money Why not ? - £2.50 is cheap

b. Abandon the wine prizes (except for ‘player of the month’ and championship events) - Fine with me

c. Ask players to deal the cards from computer-printed curtain cards before the evening starts (for hands they will not play, obviously) - A waste of precious time and it only plays into the hands of the “anti” brigade. Bernie’s rates are very competitive.

3 I favour running the club in two sections whenever the number of attendees enables it, but the logistics of using computer-generated hands might well imply that we had to run as one section as a matter of routine. What are your views? If you have a Red section then this could/should be computer dealt hands. Blue section can stay as it is.

On further reflection, why don’t you just drop the wine prize and use this to fund the computer dealt hands ?

The wine is very often won by the same small group of good players (which probably creates a bit of resentment also).

Last night (as most weeks) I noted 3 or 4 hands that I would really have liked to look at in detail and maybe see how Deep Finesse plays them. If the club is setting out its stall as being one of the best in Essex, then I really think that we should be fostering this kind of post-game analysis for those players who are interested in improving their bridge.

Thanks for this and the opportunity to have a say in things. I have no particular complaints on the way Mountnessing is run; for me a night out playing bridge is always welcome. I have been playing for years at Hatfield Heath on a Wednesday and they have purchased the machine so we have pre-dealt hands every week together with results and copy of the hands etc. etc. We pay £2 a night and play in the local Hall. There are money prize events occasionally at no extra charge.

The only comment I would make is that I have complained regularly that the hands are skewed in favour of one direction - more often than not N/S get the best hands. The machine, I believe, is not dealing fair quality distribution despite being assured that it is random. In practice it isn't. In the past when you went to organised pre-dealt events the hands were pre-inspected and adjusted to ensure a fair distribution. This certainly happens in National and international events - so why not at all levels.

So far as I am concerned if you address this problem then you can pre deal as often as you like - it saves time for sure especially when people spend time talking instead of preparing the hands then hold up the whole room and give you grief trying to keep them moving.

If you really want to get modern then you could catch up with Hutton and use the score recording kit we have there on each table then you would not have to score up either and we would all get our result on the night.

Incidentally playing at Mountnessing saves me £6 in fuel against driving to HH.

As for cost, HH got some form of sponsorship for their equipment and we agreed an increase from £1.50 to £2 per night and it has prospered ever since.

I very much support computer-generated hands because it allows partnerships to review the hands afterwards and learn from their mistakes. But maybe most partnerships don't care about this. And if the distributions are different from manually-dealt hands, then it's a better preparation for tournament play (but, ditto). How the hands are dealt is an administrative / marginal cost issue, and if I were you I'd do whatever is necessary to run things efficiently.

Has anyone done a sensitivity analysis on cost? Bernie seems to get more than a full house on Fridays despite charging £4. If you charged £3 rather than £2.50, I can't imagine much hardship resulting. I don't know why people are interested in the wine. If you're a wine-drinker, you've probably already got crates of the stuff at home. Well I have, anyway. At least your wine's drinkable (unlike Lionel's used to be, I hear tell).

I always thought two sections in the same room divisive. Personally, I'd prefer it if Bernie had his "elite" £50-prize session weekly and Mountnessing was single section.

I like computer dealt hands as oft as possible, partly for the hand records and partly for the greater variety.

Whatever way you choose to raise the money is fine by me. I don't think the wine prizes are a big incentive, and it might be fairer to drop these since some people win these more than others, so dropping these would not worry most of the club members.

If the response to computer dealt hands is mixed, why not run two sections when you can, but only do computer dealt hands for one section so on those weeks those who are not so keen on computer dealt hands can choose to play in the manually dealt section.

I can’t believe it but at my other club some of them actually want to go back to manual hands! They have results sheets including the hand analysis and the hand layouts on the website. It doesn’t cost us anything. I don’t believe they don’t want all that.

If manually shuffled hands differ significantly from computer dealt then technically they are illegal. The rules require hands to be properly shuffled. So shufflers should get no say as they cannot guarantee a legal deal. It is your club just do it. Making up at the table is not an option except in extreme emergencies.

If you have the means to provide 2 sets of dealt hands each week then play one section eddy appendix Mitchell which can handle up to 26 tables never playing more than 26 boards. The move is set up right at the start and does not have to be changed. Perfect for late comers. Think of the disruption this will save.

More often than not 2 sections are either not possible or you find out too late.

As for wine I would not think this is an issue as you win most of it.

In summary as properly shuffled hands should not vary from computer dealt then why choose the harder option?

I’m all for it, with dealing at the table if necessary. The important thing is the hand-sheet – I want to be able to study it in the pub afterwards!

At our club we usually get computer dealt boards for free. When the person who does the boards was on holiday for a month we had to go back to hand dealing and there were a lot of complaints.

What a Pandora's Box! Thanks for opening it for views.

To answer your points:

1 Tricky because if you invest in the facility/technology, in order to get the most value out of it you'd want and need to use it most of the time, I'm sure. I'm one of those who finds the "strange" hands more difficult but I expect they would become the norm fairly quickly. My knee jerk reaction would be to favour options b or c but nothing ventured etc... Sorry, I seem to be sitting on the fence but I've not played computer dealt hands regularly. Not very helpful, I'm afraid but I'm willing to give it a go.

2 Perhaps in these days of cut backs abandoning the weekly the wine would be preferable to an increase in table money. Option c might get people in their seats more promptly but I'd bet it would be the usual few who would turn up early to help.

3 Since joining Mountnessing Bridge club, I have felt very comfortable playing in the Blue section and I would very much prefer the organisation to remain as two sections, whenever practical, as now.

Best of luck with the decision,

I am in favour of CGH too ... as I've always found that it helps with the ever increasing need to analyse and correct. My vote is yes ... I would like prepared hands ... and think the value will show itself in the overall improvement of the Club.

Put simply, I prefer computer generated hands, two sections and am quite happy to see the wine scrapped. I play regularly at Chelmsford B.C. where they usually have CGH & despite often only having 6 or 7 tables I still find the CGH makes a more interesting evening.

In view of the proposed extra cost I would prefer not to have pre-dealt hands. I would not welcome any increase in cost. I would also much prefer to play in the blue section which is only possible if you run two sections.

I would be opposed to the introduction of computer dealt hands. They were introduced at Danbury last year and are not overly popular. It wouldn't surprise me if this contributed to the drop in numbers of players seen. Getting a mix of computer dealt and randomly dealt hands over the course of a week is fine for me but I only play twice.

Thanks for this Alaric - very interesting spread. I cannot help but agree with one of the last comments that " why would anyone want to hand deal the cards when you can have it done for you with copy for reference and scored up on the night". I guess there are many who play the 24 boards and forget it all as they get into the car for home. Difficult one to call. I still think you should provide the best to serve the keenest and let the others enjoy the benefits if they want to. To keep the numbers up you may have to stay with 2 sections.

To add to your sample

1 CGH always

2 Drop the wine (except perhaps player of the month)

3 I don't mind either one or two sections

Please put me firmly in the group that says do nothing. If the majority wish to go ahead that is fine by me even to the extent of extra cost, but I personally do not think that the advantages will make any difference to me. As you say, it would take away the flexibility you have at present deciding to have one or two sections.

I like computer generated hands

I prefer to play in one section all the time. That way the standard should get better and due to better behaviour at the bridge table there should not be so many groans from the blue section that they do not like playing against some members of the red section. Once everyone plays everyone all will be forgotten. As for computer dealt hands, if it means a lot more table money I don't think it is a good idea.