[jillybean]

pescetom, on 2024-August-03, 15:01, said:

Do not let untrained people use the machine.

Funny that you say this.
After 2 weeks of having the Dealing Machine sitting on my dinning room table, the powers that be have decided that the DM must be used and stored on site. I duly returned the DM.
Stay tuned

[mycroft]

Yes, please keep it clean. I'm not as paranoid as some in the Ajijic club, who expected that we would clean the rollers and camera every day, but I spent about 90 minutes over the course of one sectional weekend cleaning rollers on a different dealing machine. And it helped, but it was horrid. Once a week, or every 10 sets or so, makes a nice compromise.

Be prepared to replace decks of cards about twice as often as you were, as they fade a bit and get harder for the dealing machine to read them. If you have boards that are hand-shuffled in play, you can migrate the dead decks to those (and avoid hand-shuffling the dealer cards, that wears them out faster yet!)

(and remember, unless your club is partial to cake at the table, almost all of that crud on the rollers - and being pushed back on the cards - is dead human skin. Deal with that as you will.)

[blackshoe]

Audrey Grant, giving a seminar on how to run a club at a regional: "Don't serve food".
Local club owner: "That's not going to happen".

[mycroft]

Don't serve sticky food. Pretty simple.

And I have to change my line about club directing now because of Keurig: "It doesn't matter if your games run to time, with perfect seeding and movements, and world-champtionship level directing. If the coffee isn't ready before the first player arrives, you're a bad director." Ah well, the point is still obvious.

[pescetom]

 mycroft, on 2024-August-04, 11:23, said:

If the coffee isn't ready before the first player arrives, you're a bad director."

And what about "if the coffee isn't as good as the local bar, you're a bad club" (but don't blame the director who already pointed it out to the powers that be).

[mycroft]

Ah, well, yes. But since the beer prices were half what they were anywhere else, people would come in just to kibitz a few hands and have a drink(*). The coffee wasn't quite as big a draw.

Of course, there was always the danger they might end up having to play for their beer (including "can you cover the next couple of rounds so that I can get the game in?" pre Bridgemates). So not an unalloyed advantage...

(*) Seriously, I bought the room a drink the day I got my last long-term job (and a 85% raise). 8 tables and the director, came to CAD30.

[jillybean]

"Do not let untrained people use the machine."

Unfortunately, this is mexactly what is happening. I wonder how long it will last.

The game is turning into a monster. We have 100 players registered for the weekly game, and often have 1 or 2 pairs drop in.
I will have to study these movements and muster up the courage to try something other than mitchells.

Or better still, Mycroft, next time you are in Vancouver, keep a Wednesday free and come help us set up some nifty movements.

[mycroft]

Well, I was going to be in Vancouver last April, if it wasn't for that little issue with tax evasion :-)

Spoiler

Nothing to do with bridge or any of the players - the venue for the Regional was playing very fast and loose with "charity" status.

[blackshoe]

27 replies over 50 days to this "quick question".

[jillybean]

You know there is no such thing as a quick question in Bridge
You ask what you think is a simple question and find you are only just scratching the surface.
That is why we love this game.