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Welcome back. The latest Level 4 lockdown in Auckland came into force exactly as I submitted my last report, and subsequent restrictions have effectively killed both club and tournament play in the region ever since. So slim pickings as far as results go for this edition. However, online bridge has flourished during this period. A huge shout out to the Auckland Club, especially Patrick Carter, Julie Atkinson, Sylvester Riddell, Kevin Hu and others, for ensuring that we can get our regular fix. I see that other clubs are now coming on board as well, and the Hamilton Club will be hosting the Waikato Bays 10A Teams online.

 

And talking of online bridge, here is a commercial for the new(ish) platform RealBridge. This was developed in the UK some 18 months ago specifically as a response to their first major Covid lockdown, and it has rapidly become established as the go-to site for playing major events. It has several substantial advantages over the longer established Bridge Base Online (BBO). First, the integral audio/video mimic the real-life experience as closely as possible. You can sit and chat with others at the table, can offer or seek explanations much more straightforwardly and can call a director for a ruling in real time. Furthermore, kibbitzing is limited to a 30 minute delay, thereby eliminating one of the major concerns with BBO, ie possible cheating.

At present, events are organised by participating clubs who pay a fee to RealBridge; in the longer term, these clubs will doubtless recoup their expenditure from players in much the same way as table money has been collected in the past. Here is a screen shot of what it actually looks like during the bidding phase.

And so what of Biritch the Russian Blue during this period? You will not be surprised to learn that he has been pretty grumpy at not being able to impose his substantial table presence on his unfortunate opponents, but he has been able to show off to some extent using RealBridge.

I thought I would ask him about some of the cheating dramas that have emerged during the past few years. Many of you will have watched the compelling documentary Dirty Tricks about a top Israeli pair; they allegedly signalled to each other through their placement of the bidding board on the table.

More recently, in the European Zone qualifying event for the World Championships, every single one of the other 31 teams refused to play against the Italian Open Team in protest against the inclusion of a player who five years earlier had been found guilty of illegal communication with his partner (his suspension period had come to an end). Since the non-offending team was awarded 12 out of 20 VPs if their opponents forfeited, this almost led to the ludicrous situation where Italy would qualify despite not having played a single card!

Back to Biritch. Unfortunately, most of his comments cannot be printed here, but he made it quite clear that he would have ensured that no convicted cheat would ever play competitive bridge again, through means available only to cats.

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