[Vampyr]

No one is posting in this sub forum. It seems that now more than ever people might wish to share their experience with things such as mask wearing, vaccine passports, compulsory LFTs, fewer tables in the space, etc.

[Lovera]

Vampyr, on 2022-June-16, 12:12, said:

No one is posting in this sub forum. It seems that now more than ever people might wish to share their experience with things such as mask wearing, vaccine passports, compulsory LFTs, dewing ranked in the space, etc.

Unfortunately I was noticing this fact since yesterday and I see that it seems to affect other different subforums as well. Even the arguments seem lately to be more "futile".

[johnu]

Probably time for BBO to remove the subtitle "No longer relevant since COVID-19 means that all bridge will be online from now on." from the subforum title.

[pescetom]

johnu, on 2022-June-16, 14:02, said:

Probably time for BBO to remove the subtitle "No longer relevant since COVID-19 means that all bridge will be online from now on." from the subforum title.

Yes that was an overbid, at least in short and medium terms.

[pescetom]

Vampyr, on 2022-June-16, 12:12, said:

No one is posting in this sub forum. It seems that now more than ever people might wish to share their experience with things such as mask wearing, vaccine passports, compulsory LFTs, dewing ranked in the space, etc.

Happy to share my (mixed) experience.
With a huge effort I managed to migrate the majority of our club online during the initial pandemic and despite some resistance from diehard elements who saw that as the beginning of the end, that saw us through the second wave too and meant that 80% of people were still there this year. Other similar clubs lost 50+% of membership (and are now risking survival with 3-4 tables) when their club effectively disappeared from sight and often further alienated the base when the experienced players organised BBO duplicate tournaments between themselves.
From March onwards people quickly lost fear of covid and also were used to mask wearing (still compulsory here for bridge, unlike discos or stadiums or even planes) and even those who had become fond of online bridge were happy to return f2f, soon we were back to 10+ tables for the first time in five years.
Having said that, the grass is not all green.
On saturday one of our players present Thursday and Friday tested positive and that halved the presence on Tuesday and cancelled the tournament today.
Nobody is forced to say who is positive or who has taken a test with what result, which worries the older players.
If things should get tough again in Autumn then it's not clear how happily people will go back online and there are also important problems unresolved there, such as regulations imposing anachronistic partner-alert and ineffective support for blind players.

[FelicityR]

I haven't commented on these forums for a long time myself, however I thought the following would be of interest. My own small club (just an extension of the local golf club) closed down. Before covid it sometimes could not even manage five tables. After the committee took a vote, and quite a few members had migrated to online bridge, it was disbanded through lack of interest essentially. I am not a fan of online bridge even with my regular partner, who also dislikes it, so I have a few friends over once a week for social bridge.

A friend who lives in Brighton tells me of a local bridge club who have had to vacate their premises - reason unknown - a large grand house perfectly suited for bridge - she thinks that it was once a hotel - and now play both their rubber and duplicate bridge in a pub in the afternoons and evenings! She says the pub is roomy, but she no longer plays herself at this club as numbers have dwindled, too, and has moved to another bridge club in Brighton.

I cannot imagine a pub being conducive to being ideal bridge playing conditions, even if they have separate rooms that they can facilitate for the purpose, and I can just imagine the noise once full-time sports resume. She says the pub has a full range of large televisions for the showing of sporting events, and even if they keep the sound muted, I can just imagine the general hubbub and cacophony from a crowd when sporting events get exciting, such as when England score a goal in the World Cup.

[Cyberyeti]

I haven't played F2F bridge since the start of the pandemic, I may venture out to a congress later in the summer. I don't play much online as my partner is not particularly fond of it, but we've had a few outings. My club has gone online and I've not played there since it did.

I will say that until the EBU forced my previous club out of existence (nobody was prepared to do the pay to play admin, we were often 2 or 2.5 tables so no masterpoints anyway), we played in a pub, and it was fine, you'll be surprised how quickly you learn how to filter out the noise.

[pescetom]

Even at our club you soon learn to filter out the noise, Italians are both anarchical and sociable
As Director you learn how to keep the voices down, but also that striving for real silence is unrealistic.
It's also unthinkable to mute the tv in the bar if an important soccer match is on and people playing still feel free to comment on goals or whatever.
Bridge is important, but not everything.

[Lovera]

When I intervened in this topic I wanted to report that in Natural .., Expert ... and Interesting Bridge Hands there has been a clear decline in posting (just change the frame from 30 days to 60 to notice that there is no change ) which seems to me not to be trivial and that I believe this has not happened in the past.

[pescetom]

Lovera, on 2022-June-17, 09:34, said:

When I intervened in this topic I wanted to report that in Natural .., Expert ... and Interesting Bridge Hands there has been a clear decline in posting (just change the frame from 30 days to 60 to notice that there is no change ) which seems to me not to be trivial and that I believe this has not happened in the past.

I think that's "just" part of internet climate change, with gas emitting social networks melting down thought-based fora at an ever increasing rate, including this one

[Vampyr]

pescetom, on 2022-June-16, 15:44, said:

Happy to share my (mixed) experience.
With a huge effort I managed to migrate the majority of our club online during the initial pandemic and despite some resistance from diehard elements who saw that as the beginning of the end, that saw us through the second wave too and meant that 80% of people were still there this year. Other similar clubs lost 50+% of membership (and are now risking survival with 3-4 tables) when their club effectively disappeared from sight and often further alienated the base when the experienced players organised BBO duplicate tournaments between themselves.
From March onwards people quickly lost fear of covid and also were used to mask wearing (still compulsory here for bridge, unlike discos or stadiums or even planes) and even those who had become fond of online bridge were happy to return f2f, soon we were back to 10+ tables for the first time in five years.
Having said that, the grass is not all green.
On saturday one of our players present Thursday and Friday tested positive and that halved the presence on Tuesday and cancelled the tournament today.
Nobody is forced to say who is positive or who has taken a test with what result, which worries the older players.
If things should get tough again in Autumn then it's not clear how happily people will go back online and there are also important problems unresolved there, such as regulations imposing anachronistic partner-alert and ineffective support for blind players.

The “North London Bridge Club” that Lamford writes about have been running hybrid sessions, with the in-person and online fields merged at the end. It is apparently easy to get the hand records from BBO to deal the real cards, but I am not sure how this is done.

Anyway, our arrangement means that people can play at their own comfort level.

As far as people testing positive, someone did after our last session. But that cN happen anywhere you go, and you will probably be less likely to ever find out.

[pescetom]

Vampyr, on 2022-June-18, 03:49, said:

The “North London Bridge Club” that Lamford writes about have been running hybrid sessions, with the in-person and online fields merged at the end. It is apparently easy to get the hand records from BBO to deal the real cards, but I am not sure how this is done.

Anyway, our arrangement means that people can play at their own comfort level.

It's easy enough to put the same hand records into both BBO (or RB) and the f2f field. I would he happy to run a hybrid session, but it's unrealistic for us for several reasons. The online field would be tiny right now and the total field is barely large enough to cover the cost of one Director, let alone two. Also our federation is not as enlightened as EBU and will not allow an online session for a national sim when f2f is possible (and would also have to do a little programming to be able to merge the two fields, which could not be done locally without a significant DIY programming effort given the file formats).