This is a weekly Duplicate Pairs event scheduled for Thursday evenings starting at 19:20.

St. Albans Club Members may play with a Guest once however they need to have registered their Usernames with Steve Lambert prior to the day of the event.  The events cost $3/person and will consist of 20 board duplicate and will have a regular, qualified Tournamament Director.  Players need to register for the event, as a Pair, at least 10 mins before the start time.  Late arrivals may be turned away.

Results will count for EBU Masterpoints and NGS purposes.  The percentage scores will also be included in the Online Pairs ladder on this website and be combined with scores achieved in the daily EBU Pairs events on BBO.  Previous results can be found in the usual way under the 'Results' link of this website.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR HOW THE EVENT WORKS

Hi all,

Here are the instructions for SABC Club Duplicate Pairs on Thursdays at 19:20.

Prior to event, ie now:

Please ensure you have some $BB on your account.  You will need $3 per player to take part

Please ensure that you know how to Self-Alert

Please arrange your Pairs.  If anyone is without a partner then let me know and I will try and put you in touch with someone in a similar position.  I will not however be actively matching people up in the way I do with the Teams events.

Please keep you diary free between 19:15 and 21:30 for the event

The event is a Closed Event meaning you will not just be able to turn up and play with someone who is not already playing with the club.  The registration will only permit a pre-agreed list of Usernames.

Should there be an odd number of Pairs a Robot pair will be introduced by the TD to prevent a sit-out.  It is technically possible therefore, if unlikely, that you may play one round against self-alerting Robots.

On the evening of the event:

Please log on around 19:00 to register.  It is actually possible to register from around 18:00 but not necessary.  That said, please do not be late otherwise you may not get a game.

To do this log on and then go to the Virtual Club section > England-EBU and the St. Albans event should be obvious.

Click on that Tournament

You will be asked to Register, the Name of your partner and for payment. It is your partner’s BBO Username that you enter and it is important to get it completely correct.

You normally have the option to either pay just for yourself or also for your partner.

Registering sends an invitation to your Partner, just as in Teams.  They need to accept the invitation to get you registered as a Pair for the event.

It is best if i) Only one of you registers ii) You register when you are both online and iii) The invitation is accepted immediately

Unlike at Teams nothing will then happen other than a confirmation message that you are Registered for the event

All you do then us wait.

Any Pairs registering after 19:15 may not be permitted to play.  It is hard for the TD to ensure we have an even number of Pairs and to deal with any problems.  It is not fair to accept him to also have to deal with late entries.

If you have any problems registering then please immediately contact the TD who has Username: vEBU206674 via chat message.

The Event itself:

At 19:20, or soon thereafter, you will be automatically taken to your first table.  Here you will play the first round the same opponents.  As ever be VERY NICE and give a brief system explanation however there is some time pressure so chat is best left to the end of the round.  You can use CTRL-C (Copy) and CTRL-V (Paste) to make this easier.

You will have around 8 minutes/board and there will be a clock counting down in the top left of the screen

It is important that play proceeds at a good pace.

At the end of the round you are automatically taken to the next round.  This could happen before the timer reaches zero if all pairs have finished. Any boards that have not been finished will be given an adjusted result.  Mostly this will happen automatically but also the TD will review for fairness.

It is obviously not great to run out of time although it will happen, especially if anyone has connectivity issues.  Please do your absolute best to minimise the problem though.

If at any time you need to call the TD this can be done via the Blue Button with three white lines top left of the screen.  Gary, our TD, will ‘come’ to the table and engage via the Message line.

If you have an issue in one round please DO NOT mess up the next round by spending lots of time messaging with the TD.  It is sufficient to register the issue and leave the TD to look at it.  There will be time in the break or at the end of the match to deal with outstanding issues.

Subsequent rounds

Round 2, and all others, will proceed in a similar manner.

Your score for the first round boards will now be available as a running % total, top left, and by board in the History Tab to the right.

By all means look at the previous boards but only when you are dummy or you have finished the round.  It is not acceptable to delay play to consider/debate past boards.

After the event

The preliminary results will be available immediately after the event.  There will be a window of around 30 mins where the TD will review any outstanding issues and make any necessary adjustments.  After that the score is final.

The final results will be uploaded to the EBU for Masterpoint and NGS purposes.  They will also be displayed on the club website and be available on BBO.

If you have any questions please ask.  It is far easier to deal with them now than on the night.