The Master Pairs will take place this weekend on RealBridge. Links for each of the three sessions will be sent by email to all the registered participants on Friday no later than 15:00; if you haven’t received this email by then, please check initially with your partner, and then with the CBAI.
We are conscious that at least some participants will be unfamiliar with the RealBridge platform. If that’s the case, we encourage you to trial it beforehand – at a minimum by testing your camera and microphone beforehand at this site.
The Tournament Director has instructed that cameras and microphones should be left on throughout the competition. When you join the first session, you and your partner can sit opposite each other at any table you like. The programme will bring you automatically to your randomly assigned table when the competition starts. For subsequent sessions you will be brought straight to your assigned table. Please log on in good time for each session, in case of any issues. You will need to click on the appropriate link for EACH session. The sessions start at 11:00 and 15:30 on Saturday, and at 11:00 on Sunday.
We will using a slightly different variant of RealBridge than you will have experienced within a club setting if your club uses the platform. The main difference is that you will only be able to see and hear one of your opponents, and not your partner or the other opponent, during bidding and play. As a result, the alerting procedure is that you should self-alert YOUR OWN CALLS, as you do on BBO, by pressing the “Alert” symbol and using a chat function that will appear on your screen to explain your call, as indicated in the screenshot below. Either opponent may ask for further clarification by private text to the player who made the call. ALL explanations should be made by text only. For the avoidance of doubt (and any potential embarrassment!), please remember that one opponent can both see and hear you throughout proceedings. All participants are asked to keep background noise to an absolute minimum (preferably zero) during the event.
Undos will be permitted for ONLY for misclicks in the bidding. There is a double-click option for making your calls and plays that can be activated if you wish – again as on BBO. If you are prone to misclicks, you should take the precaution of activating this double-click option. If you DO misclick in the bidding, please call the TD, who will allow the substitution of another call if 100% certain that the original call was unintended.
For a claim or concession, if there is any doubt or disagreement, please call the TD. Do NOT use the “play on” option.
RealBridge has been used widely for competitions such as this, and is a generally sound and stable platform. However, like all technologies, there are occasionally glitches. If you are worried about the technology, or if any issues arise when you do the camera and microphone test, RealBridge have very kindly offered a series of personal technology clinics, in which they will test your equipment with you one-to-one and try to resolve any problems. These sessions will be held on Friday from 16:30 to 17:30, Friday from 19:00 to 20:00, and Saturday from 09:00 to 10:00. To access the clinic, just follow this link https://play.realbridge.online/de.html?p=211203123814&q=WalkInClinic, sit at a table, click the Director button, and wait for one of the RealBridge support team to join you.
And if anything goes wrong DURING the competition, please contact the chief TD, Fearghal O’Boyle, on (086) 2652871 urgently, and he will do whatever he can to help.
Thank you for supporting the Master Pairs. We hope you enjoy the event, and would welcome any feedback you have on the format and on RealBridge.