ECatsBridge Simultaneous Pairs

So for club heat organisers, this is how it happens ! I know it looks a lot to read through but it's not difficult, truly ! Mark and I are on hand to help if you get in a muddle !

Getting the results to us as an XML.

Many of you will already be sending the XML to your Home Union, or to your own website so all you need to do is send us a copy to results@simpairs.com. But PLEASE NOTE ...The ESSENTIAL bit there is that the subject of the email must only be the SESSION NUMBER and your country – so it would look like

9999 England

and must not contain anything else – no other files, no messages, nothing else in the subject line ...

Otherwise using ScoreBridge or EBU Score click here for details of how to do it.

Please PLEASE PLEASE have a trial run

Please try a test before the event to make sure you are quite happy with the way it all work - it's far easier to check in advance so it all goes well on the night!

The best way is to contact Anna (anna@ecats.co.uk) who can send you a set of the deal files and a commentary from a previous sevent, your members can play the boards and be sent the commentary and then you can find and upload heh the results files to 9999 and make sure it all works. Or you can just use any club session and send in the results as a test.

Testing can be done any time and is just a case of sending in some results to results@simpairs.com as you would for the 'real' event but using our permenant test session number of 9999

If all is well it will appear here: https://www.simpairs.com/clubs.asp?session=009999. It’s better to give it a try than get in a muddle at the time so please give it a test first.

The Charity donation

We ask each player for at least £3 ... but if they can make it more that would be great as we want to raise a much money as we possibly can. The club can collect the donations if they want or, if it is easier then the players can send them directly to us - click here for details of how to send in the funds, whether you have collected it as a club or whether individuals are going to send it

Don't forget that we will be sending you an invoice for the Admin fee - 90p per player incl. VAT - after the event.

Playing with robots :

Yes, a player may play with a robot but ONLY if they are doing so for the whole session. What we can’t have is someone playing with their “real” partner for half the session and a robot for the other half – after all if it was face-to-face bridge at your club, players don’t switch partners half way through! This would be really difficult to cope with as one of those players would have two sets of results, so we ask the TDs not to let it happen please. And please do not have two robots playing together - that really doesn't work

Number of Boards and how they will be sent

At the moment I am not sure how many boards there will be in the set, but I will advise this when I send the files out - I send a .dlm, a .pbn and a .lin file which should cover all possible dealing machnes and the online heats as well. If you need travellers for manual dealing I can send them as well, just let me know please.

UMS file to the EBU

It is important also for the English clubs at the end to send your UMS file to the EBU – don’t forget that will you ? Remember for Children in Need that the EBU very generously waive the Universal Membership fee but for any other events you will need to pay it.

Overall Master Points -

The “normal” overall masterpoints will be awarded to members of the EBU, SBU and WBU, and I will send them off as normal when we finalise the event.

When can my club play ?

For most of our events, there are different hands each day so you can choose the day you want and we will send you the appropriate file - then all we ask is :

• That you help us by making sure you don’t put the hands up on Bridgewebs or any other site until the evening when our frequencies appear.
• That you tell the members playing not to play the hands again at a different virtual club that day if you are playing in the morning or afternoon

But most of all, enjoy the event !