Recent Posts

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General Discussion / Re: Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« Last post by Red_Kite on August 02, 2020, 18:43:56 »
Hello Gavin,
Have a look at stepbridge.co.uk which is what we are using.

Best regards
Neville
2
General Discussion / Re: Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« Last post by johng on July 13, 2020, 14:39:20 »
Gavin,

This could be what you are looking for - http://yourbridgeclubonline.co.uk . It's still under development but is being actively used by Winchester Bridge Club. Read more about it at https://www.itwriting.com/blog/11725-developing-software-for-playing-bridge.html

John
3
General Discussion / Re: Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« Last post by Gravitino on July 03, 2020, 22:47:45 »
John

Many thanks for the reply. There are many who would argue that BBO isn?t proper bridge, as defined by the laws, because that software will not allow you, for example, to revoke or make an insufficient bid. I believe further that BBO implements the US version of the rules, not the EBU?s. There is a case to be made for having an English bridge engine, and I don?t see why that engine need involve the Internet, just as BridgePal scoring doesn?t use the Internet.

Best wishes

Gavin
4
General Discussion / Re: Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« Last post by johng on June 17, 2020, 09:43:36 »
We certainly don't have time to do any development like this, and I'm not sure that I see the point. A large number of EBU clubs are now running virtual duplicate sessions on BBO, and these work very well. Our development effort since lockdown has been applied to software (https://mirgo2.co.uk/bboextractor) that enables the detailed results of these sessions to be extracted from BBO and published on Bridgewebs or Pianola in the same format and detail as club sessions. There is the added advantage that we capture the bidding and play of all boards at all virtual tables and this is included in the upload to Bridgewebs. This means it's now possible to review the bidding/play in Bridge Solver Online - so in this way it's better than when the hands are played with physical cards in the club environment.

In a hotel you could obviously play on BBO when the players are seated in the same room, providing that an internet connection is available, either via the players own mobile data connection, or via a wifi router that has an internet connection. These days, most hotels are likely to have internet access. It needs a director who has the authorisation to run BBO tournaments, and players need to pay a small fee to play in the tournament, just as they would in the club.

I don't know whether there are already any networked bridge playing apps which will work purely over wifi without an internet connection. I will leave this investigation to others.

John
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General Discussion / Re: Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« Last post by Gravitino on June 17, 2020, 06:37:56 »
I am slightly disappointed that no-one has replied on the viability of this idea.

A couple of months has elapsed since I proposed it, and face-to-face bridge looks as far away in the distant future as ever. Bridge holiday companies, for example, face the difficult conundrum of whether (and how) to run holidays booked for September/October of this year in continental Europe. Most likely, the Foreign Office will have by then allowed beach holidays to resume, but there will be no way that face-to-face bridge, a standard component in the afternoons and evenings of these bridge holidays, to be safely run.

A pairs bridge-plaing app would remove any need for playing cards, it could observe the two-metre rule, and yet keep everyone in the same ballroom/conference room, thereby minimising the risk of cheating which is so widely suspected oN online venues such as BBO.
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General Discussion / Time for a Pairs Bridge Playing App?
« Last post by Gravitino on May 13, 2020, 18:31:43 »
For some weeks I have thought that there will be no more face-to-face bridge until there is a vaccine. This week, Vallance said there may never be a vaccine. Bernard Magee said this morning that he believed club bridge is probably a year away.  We face a near-term future in which duplicate bridge with physical playing cards is impossible.

I was thinking: how about a bridge-playing app to supplement the BridgePal scoring program, in which all players have a tablet, rather than a hand of cards.  They would conduct the auction and play through that tablet, which would be linked to a server in the same room. So long as all the players are in the same room, within WiFi contact distance, they needn't be very close to the opponents or their partners.

Is such an app feasible?
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General Discussion / Re: LOCKDOWN
« Last post by Alaric on April 28, 2020, 16:30:06 »
Sounds interesting - thanks.
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General Discussion / LOCKDOWN
« Last post by Mirna on April 28, 2020, 12:13:25 »
If you play bridge in BBO tournaments, you can now extract the results from BBO and upload them to your website or NBO, with full scorecard and traveller details, and hand records, using our new BBO Extractor software. See here
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Release Infomation / BridgeDealer App Release
« Last post by johng on March 13, 2020, 19:14:12 »
There is a new app called BridgeDealer available for download from the link on this page of the BridgePal website (the app is not yet on the google play store). BridgeDealer can be installed on android devices running android version 4.4 or later.

BridgeDealer allows manual dealing of preset hands created by a random deal generator or downloaded from a website. It uses the phone or tablet's front camera to recognise the suit and value of each playing card in a deck. It directs the user whether to place the card in the N,S,W,or E hand. Since the device views the card from underneath the bottom of the deck, the user does not see which cards are being dealt to which hand. With practice, it is possible to deal a deck of cards in less than a minute. There is a link to a YouTube video demonstrating this on the page referenced above.

At the moment this is a standalone app but we are in the process of integrating it into the next release of BridgePal. This may be of interest to clubs that do not have a dealing machine, currently shuffle hands at the table before Round 1, and then manually record them via BridgePal. There will be a Deal button on the contract entry screen which can be used to invoke BridgeDealer in order to deal the current board before it is played at the first table. The app also provides a Read function, which will be able to read a manually shuffled deck of cards into BridgePal.

BridgeDealer is a further development and enhancement of an earlier app called Bridge Card Dealing, which was developed by Frank Wolf of Germany for PlayBridgeWorld. It is largely a rewrite of the original app, including enhancements to Frank's card recognition module. I have taken over development of the app with agreement that it can be distributed free of charge to users.

I will not be issuing further release notes for this app until it is integrated with BridgePal, though I may upload new versions. I would be interested to receive any user feedback by email, for example which makes of card it can or cannot read. The following is a selection of card brands which have been tested with the app, and which were successfully recognised:

- Carta Mundi
- Jannersten bar coded (the app reads the symbols, not the bar codes)
- Piatnik
- Mr Bridge
- Waddingtons
- English Bridge Union
- PlayBridgeWorld
- AL Fleming
- Bridgemate
- Hong Kong

John
10
Support / Results missing when using EBUScore
« Last post by Mirna on March 13, 2020, 09:50:34 »
From recent emails::

User question:
We had an 8 1/2 tables, played a Mitchell, forgot to input arrow switch so one of our members who uses EBU Score updated the movement. All ok on the tablets and final result shown ok but there was nothing in EBU Score, just names. How can we recover the scores from the Tablets ?
It was EBU Stratified pairs so if we can?t recover the scores there will be a lot of annoyed and disappointed members .

John answer:
I don't think anything will have been lost. Whoever made the changes in EBU Score probably forgot to return to the scoring screen in EBU Score. EBU Score only reads results from the wireless database (which is on the PC) while it is in the BridgePal scoring screen. You just need to restart the event in EBU Score and it will read the results from the wireless database. If it doesn't, then use the "Read All Results" function. You don't need to have the tablets connected in order to do this, as no data is stored in the tablets.
If you need further guidance, let me know.

User:
Brilliant, many thanks, something else I?ve learnt !

John answer:
Great ! By the way, I would try to avoid making changes to the movement once BridgePal Server has been started - we wouldn't recommend it as the server may not cope with all types of change that are possible, particularly adding or deleting tables. It would also be problematic if some of the boards have already been played and the change in movement affects where they are placed. Assuming any setup errors are detected early on, it's best to stop wireless scoring, define a new event, then start wireless scoring and have people re-enter results for any boards played so far (hopefully, only one or two). After you start the new event on the PC, BridgePal will automatically switch to it when the user taps OK on the current screen - they will find themselves back on the start screen again.

If you think a pair may turn up late you can include an extra pair when you set up the movement. If they don't turn up, just enter "No Play" on the BridgePal for the boards at the tables where they would have played.
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