========================================================================== MAGIC CONTEST ========================================================================== NEWS ==== Minor improvements and bugs have not been included in these news. They are identical to the ones you see when you, in the main window, click News. BUG SEARCH ========== If you get into trouble, please contact: Tomas Brenning tomas@brenning.se http://www.brenning.se Version 4.4.0.1, 18 Nov 2011 ============================ Austrian version: A small error has been found in Turnierbericht erstellen and Meisterpunkte und Rang. This caused multiple files to be created in Magic Contest Outbox which in its turn meant that Magic Contest could no longer report contests. This error has been fixed. In case you have not downloaded version 4.4 from 15 November, here are the news once more: These are the new features of version 4.4. Next version will be published Sunday 22 April. * Bug-fix --- General * Swiss --- Danish --- Drop-out teams --- Redo round * Double dummy analysis --- Bug-fix --- New printing features --- Automatic double dummy analysis * Print --- Match list --- Team scorecard * Report contest --- Automatic FTP of personal scorecards --- Complete match list in team events * Current standing / Projector --- Show seating for next round on a new page --- Hide mouse pointer * Bridgemate --- Create random results --- Create random line-ups --- Create database and confirm overwrite --- Import results based on table and not pair numbers --- Individual event --- Bug-fix for Finnish users * Bridgemate II --- Show player names in individual events * Butler / Point league * Top-N and starting list including scores BUG-FIX - GENERAL Select Contest menu-Options-Close preparations and any tab. Make a change and click OK. Now Magic Contest crashed. This has been fixed. SWISS - DANISH There is a setting called Danish that when used allows double meetings as opposed to regular Swiss where no pairs are supposed to meet twice. Allowing double meetings is primarily interesting at the top tables, so as of this version Danish is only applied to the top-half of the field. After that, double meetings are not allowed. SWISS - DROP-OUT TEAMS If a team drops out you can set it as a drop-out team and thereby exclude it from future seatings and ranking lists. Do like this: * Go to Contest menu-Enter names * Select the drop-out team and click Edit * Select Drop-out and enter after what round the team will drop out * Click OK From now on that team will only show in ranking lists before the drop-out round. After the drop-out round it will not show on ranking lists nor will it appear in any seatings. SWISS - REDO ROUND The menu item previously known as Add / delete round has now changed into Add / Delete / Redo round. When you select it there is a new option called Redo round X. This option can be used if you have already created a draw, then changed some results that affects the ranking, and want to redo the draw. This is the same as first deleting a round and then adding it again. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - BUG-FIX This bug concerns a fraction of the Magic Contest users. You have to use both double dummy analysis and tailor-made reports. Using that combination, under certain conditions, the par contract and the suit symbols could disappear. This bug has been fixed. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - NEW PRINTING FEATURES For double dummy analysis there is now the option of printing a frame around the analysis. This is only available when printing in one of the corners, but then it helps to separate the analysis from the cards. If you print in one of the right corners there has previously been a problem with the analysis sometimes overwriting North's or South's cards. This has now been solved so that in case a suit is very long it is moved slightly to the left so to not overwrite any cards. Due to space constraints the bottom left corner is not suitable for printing if you use the default settings for makeable contracts. However, if you select Only makeable contracts and Number of tricks above 6 the analysis box is reduced to give some spacing between the analysis and South's cards. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - AUTOMATIC DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS When you start a contest you may get a question about importing hand records. This window now has an option called Automatically make double dummy analysis. This means that you can analyse the hands before proceeding to the other preparations. Mind you, the analysis usually takes a minute or so, so this is only recommended if you have some spare time at this stage of the setup. If you do not get that question you can activate it through Contest menu- Options for all new contests-Pair contest-All properties. This is a horribly ugly window with far too many tabs. In the bottom left of the tabs there is one called Show windows. This is where you can activate the Hand record window. The automatic double dummy analysis also works in team events. Once you have started the team event, select Contest menu-Properties...-General and the Hand record tab. If you now activate It is mandatory to select a hand record and Automatically make double dummy analysis the pair window will analyse all imported hand records once the Bridgemate database has been created. PRINT - MATCH LIST For team events there is now a new report in the Team report category called Match list. This allows you to print the matches for any round(s) of your choice. If you have not yet entered any names the team numbers are printed. This allows you to create a condensed overview with all matches in the event as long as you create the printout before entering teams. If you have entered the team names and you want a condensed overview you can for instance reduce the text size to 60% to fit as many matches as possible on the page. PRINT - TEAM SCORECARD When printing team scorecards the complete roster is now printed at the bottom of the scorecard. Next to each player there is a player number, typically 1-4 or 1-6 depending on the number of players in the team. If you let the players enter member numbers in the Bridgemate, for instance for calculating the butler, the players can now enter this number instead of their member number. This is faster for the players than entering their usually longer member ID. Magic Contest will automatically figure out which team what entry belongs to if both teams enter for instance 1 at the same table. REPORT CONTEST - AUTOMATIC FTP OF PERSONAL SCORECARDS Through Contest menu-Report contest there is since before an option to report personal scorecards to your website. Select Website, click Properties, select the Website tab, and activate Report personal scorecards. The new feature is that if you activate automatic FTP to your website this now means that all the personal scorecards are automatically transferred to the website along with the normal web report. REPORT CONTEST - COMPLETE MATCH LIST IN TEAM EVENTS If you report a team event to your website all rounds are now reported, regardless of being played or not. The idea behind this is to allow the players to ahead of time see what teams meet in what rounds. If you do not want this you can click Properties, select the Website tab, and select the option called Final result, ask for what boards to report. This means that every time you report the contest you will be asked for what rounds to report. CURRENT STANDING / PROJECTOR - SHOW SEATING FOR NEXT ROUND ON A NEW PAGE There is a new setting that allows you to show next round's seating on a separate page. Select Contest menu-Properties...-Current standing and the Bridgemate tab: Show seating for next round on a new page This should not be confused with what round is printed as it is only for the projector. In case you run a delayed Swiss, i.e. after round 2 you create round 4, then round 4 will be printed on all paper printouts. On the projector round 3 will be shown. CURRENT STANDING / PROJECTOR - HIDE MOUSE POINTER If you use the Current standing features to show results on plasma TV:s or projectors you may find this option useful. Normally when you see such presentations you will see the Windows mouse pointer, typically an arrow, somewhere in the middle of the display. Very few users remember to remove the pointer from the screen. Granted, not the most important problem in the world, but if there is a solution to be found, why not solve it. Select Contest menu-Properties...-Current standing. You can now use the option called Hide mouse pointer. Next time you create Current standing you will see that if you move the mouse into the browser window there will be no arrow. If you move the mouse out of the window it will reappear. Note! This currently only works for internet browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome. Unfortunately Internet Explorer does not support this features at the time of this writing. BRIDGEMATE - CREATE RANDOM RESULTS Magic Contest now offers the possibility to simulate Bridgemate results. This is an excellent feature when you want to make tests or hold courses. Through Contest menu-Properties...-Bridgemate and the Bridgemate (import) tab you will find the new option: Create random results (use only for testing) This creates 2-10 results every time results are imported from Bridgemate. The results are completely random and make no sense if you look at them. They are however be very useful for testing purposes. In a team contest you need to do like this: * Team window: Follow the above instructions to activate random results. * Team window: Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Create database. * Pair window: Start importing results. As described above, this will create random results. * Team window: Start importing results. The random results created by the pair window will be imported. BRIDGEMATE - CREATE RANDOM LINE-UPS If you use the above mentioned random results in a team event line-ups will also be created. Normally players 1-4 will be seated at every table, but once in a while there will be a player 5 and player 6. In case this happens in teams with only 4 players you will see a missing line-up in the team window. Once in a while there will also be a reversed line-up. You will see an x in the team window next to such a line-up which indicates a double line- up, i.e. the same player(s) sit at both tables. This is usually a sign of both teams being seated in the wrong direction at one of the tables, and I cannot enough emphasize the importance of verifying the line-up as early as possible in the round. BRIDGEMATE - CREATE DATABASE AND CONFIRM OVERWRITE When you create a Bridgemate database with the same name as an existing database you are asked to confirm overwriting the old database with the new. This has lead to many problems for users who have accidentally overwritten existing databases that have contained real results. This has changed to make it more difficult to make mistakes. First Magic Contest verifies that there are no results and names in the database. If there are, you are once again asked to confirm that you want to overwrite the existing database. If you confirm also this, then a backup of the original database is created in the Old folder in Magic Contest Inbox. Then, and only then, the new database is created. This means that you will have a backup even if you have confirmed something twice that you really do not want. BRIDGEMATE - IMPORT RESULTS BASED ON TABLE AND NOT PAIR NUMBERS When a Bridgemate database is created both pair numbers are stored in the database along with normal data such as table, round and board. When importing Bridgemate data Magic Contest compares round, board and pair numbers, and if that matches the result is imported. Under certain conditions, for instance if the preparations have been redone, where the Bridgemate movement has not been updated correctly, you may have a situation where table, round and board are the same, but where non-matching pair numbers prevent Magic Contest from importing the results. This has now changed. At every import Magic Contest will look for a successful pair matching. If that is not found, but where the table number matches, the mismatch will be presented to the tournament director who can make a decision on whether to import the result based on table rather than pair numbers. The only drawback is that under certain conditions it will be impossible for Magic Contest to interpret switched directions. This problem is very rare and can be ignored compared to the possibility to import results based on table. BRIDGEMATE - INDIVIDUAL EVENT As you may know you can use Bridgemate for individual events in spite of this not officially being supported by Bridgemate. There are only marginal drawbacks such as only two _pair_ numbers (North and South) are shown instead of four player numbers, and player names only showing in the first round. Recently Bridgemate II started to support current standing and movement instructions for the next round. This is also something that does not work for individual events, so this is automatically disabled when creating the Bridgemate database. BRIDGEMATE - BUG-FIX FOR FINNISH USERS Problems with editing results with North as declarer have been found. This is due to abbreviation conflicts in the Finnish version. This means that all bridge notation (suits, declarer, double/redouble, etc) from now on will be in English in spite of Finnish printouts and Finnish data entry. BRIDGEMATE II - SHOW PLAYER NAMES IN INDIVIDUAL EVENTS Officially individual events are not supported in Bridgemate. However, through minor adjustments it is possible to do it. This is described in the Bridgemate documentation for Magic Contest. If you run an individual event player names are only shown in the first round even if you select to show them every round. This is an override from Magic Contest as Bridgemate cannot show player names correctly for individual events. BUTLER / POINT LEAGUE When you create Butler reports, or when you use the point league (in principle same feature), columns for each result are shown. For the internet report the titles of those columns are now linked to the respective segment or contest. This means that it is easier to navigate the webpages as you only have to publish a link to the overall results from which the user can click his way onto the detailed results. TOP-N AND STARTING LIST INCLUDING SCORES Top-N is defined to break the ranking list into smaller parts for lists ranked by the score. For starting lists Top-N is automatically turned off so that all pairs are shown from top to bottom. This showed good intention but was of course incorrect when producing the current standing report called Starting list including scores. This has been revised. Version 4.4, 15 Nov 2011 ======================== These are the new features of version 4.4. Next version will be published Sunday 22 April. * Bug-fix --- General * Swiss --- Danish --- Drop-out teams --- Redo round * Double dummy analysis --- Bug-fix --- New printing features --- Automatic double dummy analysis * Print --- Match list --- Team scorecard * Report contest --- Automatic FTP of personal scorecards --- Complete match list in team events * Current standing / Projector --- Show seating for next round on a new page --- Hide mouse pointer * Bridgemate --- Create random results --- Create random line-ups --- Create database and confirm overwrite --- Import results based on table and not pair numbers --- Individual event --- Bug-fix for Finnish users * Bridgemate II --- Show player names in individual events * Butler / Point league * Top-N and starting list including scores BUG-FIX - GENERAL Select Contest menu-Options-Close preparations and any tab. Make a change and click OK. Now Magic Contest crashed. This has been fixed. SWISS - DANISH There is a setting called Danish that when used allows double meetings as opposed to regular Swiss where no pairs are supposed to meet twice. Allowing double meetings is primarily interesting at the top tables, so as of this version Danish is only applied to the top-half of the field. After that, double meetings are not allowed. SWISS - DROP-OUT TEAMS If a team drops out you can set it as a drop-out team and thereby exclude it from future seatings and ranking lists. Do like this: * Go to Contest menu-Enter names * Select the drop-out team and click Edit * Select Drop-out and enter after what round the team will drop out * Click OK From now on that team will only show in ranking lists before the drop-out round. After the drop-out round it will not show on ranking lists nor will it appear in any seatings. SWISS - REDO ROUND The menu item previously known as Add / delete round has now changed into Add / Delete / Redo round. When you select it there is a new option called Redo round X. This option can be used if you have already created a draw, then changed some results that affects the ranking, and want to redo the draw. This is the same as first deleting a round and then adding it again. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - BUG-FIX This bug concerns a fraction of the Magic Contest users. You have to use both double dummy analysis and tailor-made reports. Using that combination, under certain conditions, the par contract and the suit symbols could disappear. This bug has been fixed. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - NEW PRINTING FEATURES For double dummy analysis there is now the option of printing a frame around the analysis. This is only available when printing in one of the corners, but then it helps to separate the analysis from the cards. If you print in one of the right corners there has previously been a problem with the analysis sometimes overwriting North's or South's cards. This has now been solved so that in case a suit is very long it is moved slightly to the left so to not overwrite any cards. Due to space constraints the bottom left corner is not suitable for printing if you use the default settings for makeable contracts. However, if you select Only makeable contracts and Number of tricks above 6 the analysis box is reduced to give some spacing between the analysis and South's cards. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - AUTOMATIC DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS When you start a contest you may get a question about importing hand records. This window now has an option called Automatically make double dummy analysis. This means that you can analyse the hands before proceeding to the other preparations. Mind you, the analysis usually takes a minute or so, so this is only recommended if you have some spare time at this stage of the setup. If you do not get that question you can activate it through Contest menu- Options for all new contests-Pair contest-All properties. This is a horribly ugly window with far too many tabs. In the bottom left of the tabs there is one called Show windows. This is where you can activate the Hand record window. The automatic double dummy analysis also works in team events. Once you have started the team event, select Contest menu-Properties...-General and the Hand record tab. If you now activate It is mandatory to select a hand record and Automatically make double dummy analysis the pair window will analyse all imported hand records once the Bridgemate database has been created. PRINT - MATCH LIST For team events there is now a new report in the Team report category called Match list. This allows you to print the matches for any round(s) of your choice. If you have not yet entered any names the team numbers are printed. This allows you to create a condensed overview with all matches in the event as long as you create the printout before entering teams. If you have entered the team names and you want a condensed overview you can for instance reduce the text size to 60% to fit as many matches as possible on the page. PRINT - TEAM SCORECARD When printing team scorecards the complete roster is now printed at the bottom of the scorecard. Next to each player there is a player number, typically 1-4 or 1-6 depending on the number of players in the team. If you let the players enter member numbers in the Bridgemate, for instance for calculating the butler, the players can now enter this number instead of their member number. This is faster for the players than entering their usually longer member ID. Magic Contest will automatically figure out which team what entry belongs to if both teams enter for instance 1 at the same table. REPORT CONTEST - AUTOMATIC FTP OF PERSONAL SCORECARDS Through Contest menu-Report contest there is since before an option to report personal scorecards to your website. Select Website, click Properties, select the Website tab, and activate Report personal scorecards. The new feature is that if you activate automatic FTP to your website this now means that all the personal scorecards are automatically transferred to the website along with the normal web report. REPORT CONTEST - COMPLETE MATCH LIST IN TEAM EVENTS If you report a team event to your website all rounds are now reported, regardless of being played or not. The idea behind this is to allow the players to ahead of time see what teams meet in what rounds. If you do not want this you can click Properties, select the Website tab, and select the option called Final result, ask for what boards to report. This means that every time you report the contest you will be asked for what rounds to report. CURRENT STANDING / PROJECTOR - SHOW SEATING FOR NEXT ROUND ON A NEW PAGE There is a new setting that allows you to show next round's seating on a separate page. Select Contest menu-Properties...-Current standing and the Bridgemate tab: Show seating for next round on a new page This should not be confused with what round is printed as it is only for the projector. In case you run a delayed Swiss, i.e. after round 2 you create round 4, then round 4 will be printed on all paper printouts. On the projector round 3 will be shown. CURRENT STANDING / PROJECTOR - HIDE MOUSE POINTER If you use the Current standing features to show results on plasma TV:s or projectors you may find this option useful. Normally when you see such presentations you will see the Windows mouse pointer, typically an arrow, somewhere in the middle of the display. Very few users remember to remove the pointer from the screen. Granted, not the most important problem in the world, but if there is a solution to be found, why not solve it. Select Contest menu-Properties...-Current standing. You can now use the option called Hide mouse pointer. Next time you create Current standing you will see that if you move the mouse into the browser window there will be no arrow. If you move the mouse out of the window it will reappear. Note! This currently only works for internet browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome. Unfortunately Internet Explorer does not support this features at the time of this writing. BRIDGEMATE - CREATE RANDOM RESULTS Magic Contest now offers the possibility to simulate Bridgemate results. This is an excellent feature when you want to make tests or hold courses. Through Contest menu-Properties...-Bridgemate and the Bridgemate (import) tab you will find the new option: Create random results (use only for testing) This creates 2-10 results every time results are imported from Bridgemate. The results are completely random and make no sense if you look at them. They are however be very useful for testing purposes. In a team contest you need to do like this: * Team window: Follow the above instructions to activate random results. * Team window: Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Create database. * Pair window: Start importing results. As described above, this will create random results. * Team window: Start importing results. The random results created by the pair window will be imported. BRIDGEMATE - CREATE RANDOM LINE-UPS If you use the above mentioned random results in a team event line-ups will also be created. Normally players 1-4 will be seated at every table, but once in a while there will be a player 5 and player 6. In case this happens in teams with only 4 players you will see a missing line-up in the team window. Once in a while there will also be a reversed line-up. You will see an x in the team window next to such a line-up which indicates a double line- up, i.e. the same player(s) sit at both tables. This is usually a sign of both teams being seated in the wrong direction at one of the tables, and I cannot enough emphasize the importance of verifying the line-up as early as possible in the round. BRIDGEMATE - CREATE DATABASE AND CONFIRM OVERWRITE When you create a Bridgemate database with the same name as an existing database you are asked to confirm overwriting the old database with the new. This has lead to many problems for users who have accidentally overwritten existing databases that have contained real results. This has changed to make it more difficult to make mistakes. First Magic Contest verifies that there are no results and names in the database. If there are, you are once again asked to confirm that you want to overwrite the existing database. If you confirm also this, then a backup of the original database is created in the Old folder in Magic Contest Inbox. Then, and only then, the new database is created. This means that you will have a backup even if you have confirmed something twice that you really do not want. BRIDGEMATE - IMPORT RESULTS BASED ON TABLE AND NOT PAIR NUMBERS When a Bridgemate database is created both pair numbers are stored in the database along with normal data such as table, round and board. When importing Bridgemate data Magic Contest compares round, board and pair numbers, and if that matches the result is imported. Under certain conditions, for instance if the preparations have been redone, where the Bridgemate movement has not been updated correctly, you may have a situation where table, round and board are the same, but where non-matching pair numbers prevent Magic Contest from importing the results. This has now changed. At every import Magic Contest will look for a successful pair matching. If that is not found, but where the table number matches, the mismatch will be presented to the tournament director who can make a decision on whether to import the result based on table rather than pair numbers. The only drawback is that under certain conditions it will be impossible for Magic Contest to interpret switched directions. This problem is very rare and can be ignored compared to the possibility to import results based on table. BRIDGEMATE - INDIVIDUAL EVENT As you may know you can use Bridgemate for individual events in spite of this not officially being supported by Bridgemate. There are only marginal drawbacks such as only two _pair_ numbers (North and South) are shown instead of four player numbers, and player names only showing in the first round. Recently Bridgemate II started to support current standing and movement instructions for the next round. This is also something that does not work for individual events, so this is automatically disabled when creating the Bridgemate database. BRIDGEMATE - BUG-FIX FOR FINNISH USERS Problems with editing results with North as declarer have been found. This is due to abbreviation conflicts in the Finnish version. This means that all bridge notation (suits, declarer, double/redouble, etc) from now on will be in English in spite of Finnish printouts and Finnish data entry. BRIDGEMATE II - SHOW PLAYER NAMES IN INDIVIDUAL EVENTS Officially individual events are not supported in Bridgemate. However, through minor adjustments it is possible to do it. This is described in the Bridgemate documentation for Magic Contest. If you run an individual event player names are only shown in the first round even if you select to show them every round. This is an override from Magic Contest as Bridgemate cannot show player names correctly for individual events. BUTLER / POINT LEAGUE When you create Butler reports, or when you use the point league (in principle same feature), columns for each result are shown. For the internet report the titles of those columns are now linked to the respective segment or contest. This means that it is easier to navigate the webpages as you only have to publish a link to the overall results from which the user can click his way onto the detailed results. TOP-N AND STARTING LIST INCLUDING SCORES Top-N is defined to break the ranking list into smaller parts for lists ranked by the score. For starting lists Top-N is automatically turned off so that all pairs are shown from top to bottom. This showed good intention but was of course incorrect when producing the current standing report called Starting list including scores. This has been revised. Version 4.3.2, 2 July 2011 ========================== Here is the list of news in version 4.3.2: * Bug-fixes * Finnish printouts * Current standing * Point league and Butler * Team triangle * Print --- Automatic printout --- Irish filter --- Double dummy analysis * Bridgemate II --- General --- Settings --- Export hand record --- Import hand record --- Show current standing --- Enter member number, show names, and name source --- Show names in team events --- Special letters --- Player duplication Next version (4.4) will be published on Sunday 13 November. BUG-FIXES Under certain conditions Magic Contest could lose its hand record. This error has been reported by several tournament directors and has now been fixed. When running a team event with Butler the final result sorted by team is now transferred if you use automatic FTP. Under certain conditions the butler scores in team events could be shown rounded to one decimal in spite of the settings saying two (and the final zero being shown). This has been fixed. The problem could also arise in regular point leagues. FINNISH PRINTOUTS Clubs from one more country (Finland) can now print reports in their native language. Do like this: * Score a contest * Click Print * Select language in the bottom-right corner of the window CURRENT STANDING Current standing in team events can be improved, and the long list of suggestions contain remarkably many excellent ideas that one day will be implemented. Unfortunately time contraints make it impossible for me to develop all of it for this release, so you have to wait until November for such improvements. POINT LEAGUE AND BUTLER When you report a point league or a Butler to the internet there are now automatic links from the overview of the point league to the detailed contests. This allows you to in a more convenient way go from one contest report to the other. TEAM TRIANGLE Team triangle is yet another feature that suffered from my lack of time. It works, but at the moment there are some contraints: * You need to create two random rounds * The team triangle only works for those two rounds * When creating round 3 you need to change into using a bye This is actually how the French federation does it. What they do is that they seed the starting field according to strength. Then they use the movement called "Swiss (pre-determined)" that gives all teams a pair of opponents of even strength. The idea is actually rather good as the results of the first round just as often reflects luck as skill. The complete team triangle documentation (not mentioning the contraints) can be found at the Magic Contest website: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp The only positive note is that nobody has to have a bye any of the first two rounds. For the November version of Magic Contest this will be solved so that you have full flexibility to change between triangles and byes whenever you want depending on drop-outs and other criteria. PRINT - AUTOMATIC PRINTOUT If you run a barometer and use automatic printing of score recaps you may have noticed the problem that occurs if you now and then print Suspicious results. When auto-printing, since Magic Contest automatically prints the last selected report, Suspicious results is printed instead of the origin- ally selected score recap. This has been fixed. Now you can print Suspicious results whenever you want and then just close the print window. Next time you go to the print window the previous score recap selection will be active. PRINT - IRISH FILTER A new feature called Irish filter has seen the light of day. The purpose of it is to specify how many of the bottom pairs will be replaced by dummy names. Sometimes such anonymity can be pleasant. You find these settings through Contest menu-Properties...-Print and the Print (Irish filter) tab. There you can select whether to use the filter or not and how many of the bottom pairs to be made anonymous. The default Magic Contest setting is that the dummy names are famous actors such as Julia Roberts, John Wayne and Audrey Hepburn, but you can replace or extend these names with names of your own preference. The anonymous names will always consist of a woman and a man, regardless of the original pair's gender composition, and the names are selected randomly every time Magic Contest recalculates the contest. The feature, and the naming, originates from Irish tournament director Fearghal O'Boyle who has asked for it and confirmed through e-mail that the naming is to his liking. PRINT - DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS Since way back there is functionality for analysing the hand records and printing maximum number of tricks for each player. You can find separate documentation on the Magic Contest website. One of the settings allows you to select where the information is printed. If you previously selected bottom left or bottom right there was almost an overlap between the analysis and West's or East's clubs. This has now been fixed so that there is always a few millimeters between the cards and the analysis. It has also been improved in that in case the analysis is condensed (NS in one line instead of two) it is always bottom aligned so that the last line as aligned with South's clubs. BRIDGEMATE II - GENERAL There is quite a lot of new functionality for Bridgemate II. All of it requires that you install new software from www.bridgemate.com: * Bridgemate Control 2.6.1 * Bridgemate II server 1.3.107d * Bridgemate II 1.6.1 BRIDGEMATE II - SETTINGS A number of new settings have been added that really improves Bridgemate II. All of them are described in chapters below. Just as before I recommend that you control these settings through Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties and the Bridgemate Control settings tab. Since the April version you should use the following option: Use for all Bridgemate settings = Magic Contest This setting allows Magic Contest to overrule Bridgemate Control no matter what settings have been made in Bridgemate Control. There you can find the following settings concerning hand records: Hand record --- Enter hands at the end of the round --- Show hands after entered results The following settings have existed before and have now been activated in Bridgemate II: Show --- Current standing ------ All boards at the end of the session After entering member numbers Bridgemate II can search the member file and immediately show names through the Name source option: Show --- Player names ------ Name source Read more in the Bridgemate documentation on the details for each option. BRIDGEMATE II - EXPORT HAND RECORD * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties * Select the Bridgemate Control settings tab Hand record --- Show hands after entered results You can export the hand record to Bridgemate II. There are two ways to use this: * The tournament director can through TD menu and (the new) option 7 inspect any hand of his choice. This means as a tournament director you no longer have to print the hand record. This is extra useful if you also allow the players to enter the hands at the end of the first round. * Through the above setting you can allow the players to view the hand after the result has been entered. There are two ways to export the hand record to Bridgemate: * Automatically --- Import the hand record into Magic Contest --- Create the Bridgemate database --- Now the hand record is automatically exported * Manually --- Create the Bridgemate database --- Import the hand record into Magic Contest --- Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Export hand record --- Go to Bridgemate Control --- Select Session-Upload hand record The first option is of course recommended. BRIDGEMATE II - IMPORT HAND RECORD * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties * Select the Bridgemate Control settings tab Hand record --- Enter hands at the end of the round You can let the players enter the hands at the end of the round. In a regular pair event where all boards are in circulation every round every pair will only enter the first round's boards. When all hands are entered you can import the hand record from Bridgemate into Magic Contest through the menu option Contest menu-Bridgemate-Import hand record. BRIDGEMATE II - SHOW CURRENT STANDING * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties * Select the Bridgemate Control settings tab Show --- Current standing ------ All boards at the end of the session If you activate the Current standing setting you can see the pairs' current standing after every round or only after the last round. It is worth mentioning that Bridgemate and not Magic Contest does the scoring, so possible deviations, incorrect scores for rulings, missing penalty points, etc, depend on that. The printed final result will always be produced by Magic Contest. You can also activate the option to show all boards at the end of the contest. This is shown either as percentages or as matchpoints. BRIDGEMATE II - ENTER MEMBER NUMBER, SHOW NAMES, AND NAME SOURCE * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties * Select the Bridgemate Control settings tab Show --- Player names ------ Name source Since dawn of time you have been able to enter member numbers in Bridgemate and Bridgemate II. After that Magic Contest has imported the numbers, searched for them in the member file, and last, for Bridgemate II, exported the names back to the Bridgemate database so the players can see the correct names every round. Now there is a feature where Bridgemate II does the name lookup and immediately shows them to the players for verification. In case of a mistake the players can press CANCEL and enter the member numbers again. For the name search to work you need to activate a so called name source. There are two types: * Bridgemate database * BMPlayerDB database Actually, the options are completely irrelevant to the normal user. Without too much detail you are recommended to use the second option (BMPlayerDB database). Read more about this in the Bridgemate documentation. When you create the Bridgemate databas Magic Contest will, depending on the name source selection, export the entire member file to the right location so that Bridgemate Control can enable the name searches in the correct name source. A word of warning: If you use BMPlayerDB there is a new Bridgemate Control option that allows you to store files in different locatations. The BMPlayerDB database is one such file that is possible to move. The warning is that this does not work in Magic Contest. Magic Contest assumes that the BMPlayerDB database is placed in the same folder as BMPro.exe. Options to change this are not available. BRIDGEMATE II - SHOW NAMES IN TEAM EVENTS In the list of changes for version 4.3 in April this year I proudly wrote the following: If you score a team event the player names are always shown, regardless of the setting in the team window. What is shown is either player names (if you have made the line-up prior to creating the database) or team numbers and team names (if there in no line-up available). This remains if no member numbers are entered. However, combined with entering member numbers, nothing is shown since name searches are never performed in team events. It turned out that what Magic Contest did (enter member number but show something completely different) was an undocumented feature that no longer works in Bridgemate. Tough negotiations are in progress to get this functionality back. However, I cannot say anything to when (or if) it really will come back. If you absolutely need this feature you can install version 2.5.1 of Bridgemate Control and then downgrade the server and the Bridgemate II, but then you lose all the new features. Hopefully a solution is available within a few months. BRIDGEMATE II - SPECIAL LETTERS When Bridgemate II shows player names it cannot show special characters such as éèô. A solution for this is on the Bridgemate to-do list. Previously Magic Contest has solved this be replacing "é" by "e" and "ô" by "o". Now the following applies: * If Magic Contest exports the names to Bridgemate there are no problems. Magic Contest will continue replacing special letters wiew their viewable counterparts. * If Magic Contest exports all names to Bridgemate (through Name source; see above) to allow Bridgemate II to use the member file for name lookups and immediately show names, such letters temporarily do not show. This applies until Magic Contest imports the member numbers and exports the names back to Bridgemate. This will again allow converted special letters to show just as above. BRIDGEMATE II - PLAYER DUPLICATION If you let the players duplicate the boards and then move to another table to play the first round Bridgemate II has previously shown the wrong names. This has now been fixed through a new (automatic) parameter in Bridgemate Control. Version 4.3, 15 April 2011 ========================== The following is included in this version: * Miscellaneous * Enter results * Current standing * E-mail * Bridgemate --- Bridgemate Control --- Bridgemate settings --- Bridgemate member numbers - Alpha-numeric prefix --- Bridgemate II * Print --- Automatic printing --- Team scorecard --- Personal scorecard --- Suspicious results --- Butler * Internal movement editor --- Format --- Copy data from Excel --- Close preparations --- Assign phantom pairs --- Error handling... * Import team starting list * Austrian Bridge Federation (ÖBV) --- Member file There will be another update on 26 June with planned improvements I did not find time to include in this version. MISCELLANEOUS Bug-fix: Multi-session, qualifying+final, 2 or more sections. Scores turned out incorrect in sections B and up, but this has now been fixed. When scoring a Butler event the datum score is now printed on score tables and personal scorecards. ENTER RESULTS When you use Bridgemate colours (Result menu-Colour settings-Show Bridgemate tables in colour) there is now one more improvement: On top of the table numbers being coloured as previously, the first pair number is coloured red if there is a skipped board in the played board number interval. This is particularily useful in team events where boards are normally played sequentially. CURRENT STANDING The following has been implemented: If you use Current standing and you have selected to show long pages with neither flip nor scroll (i.e. only show the top part of the page) you have previously received problems when you suddenly want to present a starting list, for instance after a lunch break. Then you have had to manually change to allowing the pages to scroll and then change back when you have started to show results again. This is now dealt with. The change (and the reset) is done automatically when you want to publish a starting list. E-MAIL If you use the built-in Magic Contest e-mail facility the settings are controlled through Contest menu-Options...-General and the E-mail tab. There is now a new options that can come in handy: * Always send BCC (blind copy) to myself The default setting is that this is active. BRIDGEMATE Bridgemate now supports sections of 2 or 3 letters. Magic Contest does not have support for this, so the section letters A-Z are the only ones available. BRIDGEMATE CONTROL There is a "new" Bridgemate Control setting found through Tools-Options- General: * Delete original records when deleting a score in Bridgemate Control Make sure not to activate this setting as Magic Contest does not support that. BRIDGEMATE SETTINGS If you go to Contest menu-Options for all new contests-Pair event- Bridgemate and the Bridgemate control (settings) tab you find the following new setting: * Use for all Bridgemate settings NOTE! The default setting is Magic Contest (as opposed to Bridgemate Control). This means that if you are used to using Bridgemate Control for all settings you need to either change this setting to Bridgemate Control or start using Magic Contest for all settings. I recommend the latter since you get many settings "for free", for instance if you now and then change between barometer and regular evening events. That setting is explained in the following way: There is a main option in Bridgemate Control Software (BCS) that allows you to decide "who's the king", i.e. whether BCS or Magic Contest controls the Bridgemate settings. The above option overrides the BCS the option. Here is an excerpt from the English documentation: When creating a Bridgemate database there are a number of Bridgemate settings the user can configure: * Enter lead (Yes/No) * Enter member numbers (Yes/No) * Show suit symbols (Symbols/Letters) * Many more... You can do this both in Magic Contest and Bridgemate Control Software (BCS). There is a main option in BCS that allows you to decide "who's the king", i.e. whether BCS or Magic Contest controls the Bridgemate settings. In this new Magic Contest version there is an override option that makes Magic Contest "the king" no matter what the setting is in Bridgemate Control. There are benefits to this. This means that if you have previously used the settings in Bridgemate Control this has temporarily changed. To change back you need to do the following: * Select Contest menu-Options...-Pair contest-Bridgemate * Select the Bridgemate Control settings tab * Change Use for all Bridgemate settings to BCS The changes only apply to new contests. Read more on http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp. BRIDGEMATE MEMBER NUMBERS - ALPHA-NUMERIC PREFIX This feature is tailor-made for the Spanish Bridge Federation, but my understanding is that some bridge clubs in India can also make use of it. The idea is to enable member numbers in the Bridgemate in case the member numbers are alpha-numeric. Right now it is impossible to enter anything but numbers in the Bridgemate. Consider the case when member numbers for the majority of members in a club has a special region prefix. This is an example from the Spanish member file: 07B1091 07B1092 07B1094 The letter B makes it impossible for the players to enter the member number in the Bridgemate. However, in case all, or a majority of players, in a club have the same member number prefix then Magic Contest offers a solution. Select Contest menu-Options for all new contests-Pair event-Bridgemate and the Bridgemate (import) tab. Here you can find the following new option: Prefix for alpha-numeric member numbers (AAAnnnn) There are two ways to configure this prefix: * Enter 07B. In this case the player entry is simply added to the prefix. This means that if the player enters 123 Magic Contest will try to find 07B123 in the member file. * Enter 07Bnnnn. In this case the entry "nnnn" means that the entered number is to be padded with zeroes to the length equal to the number of n:s (in this example 4 positions) and right-adjusted. In the example of 123 the member number will become 07B0123. For those members that do not have the same prefix there is no good solution if they have another alpha-numeric prefix. If, as the case can be in Spain, they happen to have a completely numeric member number that is longer than the length of nnnn above, for instance 0820205, then the prefix is ignored and instead the actual entry is searched for in the member file. It should be mentioned that in case all members of the club have the same prefix that is strictly numeric, it is possible to enter 123nnnn to make Magic Contest act the same way as in the example of the alpa-numeric prefix above. BRIDGEMATE II Miscellaneous functionality for Bridgemate II has been added: * Show names requires an upgrade to Bridgemate Control 2.5 or later * Show team names instead of player names in team events * Random PIN code * Show current standing * Show all boards at the end of the session * Show the results automatically You find all these settings through Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties and the Bridgemate control (settings) tab. Most of these settings require the latest Bridgemate firmware version: * Bridgemate II: At least 1.5.4 * USB Bridgemate server: At least 1.3.101d --- Bridgemate II has the ability to show names. To allow the names to show with the latest Magic Contest version you must upgrade to the latest Bridgemate Control Software version. This has to be 2.5 or higher. If you use earlier versions the names no longer show. --- If you score a team event the player names are always shown, regardless of the setting in the team window. What is shown is either player names (if you have made the line-up prior to creating the database) or team numbers and team names (if there in no line-up available). --- You can now receive a random PIN code for allowing the tournament director to make changes. Go to the permanent Bridgemate settings through Contest menu-Options...- Pair contest-Bridgemate and the Bridgemate Control settings tab. If you enter PIN code=10000 a new PIN code will be generated every time you create a new Bridgemate database. The code will display on the screen after having been created. --- It is possible to show the current standing at the end of each round, at the end of the contest, or not at all. The Bridgemate server will do the scoring, so the results shown should be considered as quite preliminary. --- You can show the board results at the end of the contest. You can select between showing the preliminary percentages or the preliminary matchpoints. --- From earlier versions there is a setting where you during the round can press the RECAP button on the Bridgemate II to see the round's board results. There is now a new setting where the results are displayed automatically (for verification) at the end of the round. PRINT - AUTOMATIC PRINTING The default setting is that score recaps automatically print at the end of each round in barometer. The setting for this is found in Contest meny- Properties...-Print and the Print (auto) tab. There you can also find the new option After round. This allows you to select to print only after certain rounds. If you enter for instance 2,4,6,8 printing will take place after those rounds. Magic Contest will suggest rounds 1-2 at the first printout, 3-4 for the second, and so on. Those rounds without printing will still update Current standing for displaying on a projector. PRINT - TEAM SCORECARD Team scorecards are now available under the Team report type in the Print window. Two copies of each report is printed. Both open and closed rooms are printed, as are both segments in case of more than one segment per round. If you want to print only one segment you need to specify a print interval for the printer. PRINT - PERSONAL SCORECARD When you print personal scorecards there is now a Find player button. In large fields that can be used to locate pairs that neither know their pair numbers nor at what table they started (more common than should be expected). PRINT - SUSPICIOUS RESULTS When printing Suspicious results or Confirm Bridgemate results a new window shows after the report has been printed or closed. In that window all results marked as suspicious are shown. You have the following buttons at your disposal: Edit Verify this Verify all Change score from N-S to E-W or E-W to N-S Change score from N-S to E-W or E-W to N-S AND arrow switch the pairs This means you can verify that a result or all results are correct (through Verify). If you use Edit or Change score the result is also verified. Any verification is kept until future printouts where the verified results will not show again. If you close the contest and reopen it everything is reset, i.e. previously suspicious but verified results will again show. PRINT - BUTLER The following bug has been fixed: Butler (landscape) was shown in team order. This has been fixed and the pairs are now shown according to rank. --- When scoring Butler or IMPs across the field Personal scorecard is a new options when printing reports. --- When scoring a Butler event the datum score is now printed on score tables and personal scorecards. INTERNAL MOVEMENT EDITOR The movement editor has up until now required Microsoft Access. This has now changed thanks to a simple help module in Magic Contest. There is still no integrated movement editor, so you are encouraged to create the movement in Excel or a similar program. The new feature in Magic Contest is that you now do not need Microsoft Access to build the movement files but you can do that inside Magic Contest. The following text is copied from the online Movement editor page. It can also be found on: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsmovementcreate.asp --- Table of contents * Format * Copy data from Excel * Close preparations * Assign phantom pairs * Error handling... As opposed to the Movement editor (that requires Microsoft Access) there are now features for building the movement files from within Magic Contest. There is still no integrated editor in Magic Contest, so the editing has to be done through Excel or an equivalent program. However, once the movement has been created in Excel you can use Magic Contest to import the data. It is saved in a permanent file that you can use over and over again. --- Format The format is important. There are actually four different formats depending on what type of movement you want to create: * Simple movement * Multi-session * Team event (1 session per round) * Team event (2 sessions per round) Do the following to find out what columns are to be used: * Start Magic Contest * Close Contest Explorer * Click Movement (to your right) * Select Create movement * Select one of the four options The window will tell you what columns to use. For example, for the simple movement these are (in order) Table, Round, N- S, E-W, From, and To (board). --- Copy data from Excel You probably want to enter all data in Excel. Do like this to transfer the data from Excel to Magic Contest: * Create the movement in Excel. It is essential that the columns are identical to the ones indicated by the Magic Contest create window (see above) and in the same order. * Follow the above instructions for Magic Contest to select the correct movement to create. * Select all movement data in Excel. Make sure not to select any headers. * Press Ctrl-C to copy the data. * Go to Magic Contest and place the cursor in the text window. * Press Ctrl-V to paste the movement. --- Close preparations Do the following to use one of your movement files to close the preparations: * Start the contest just like any other contest * When you arrive at the normal Close preparations, cancel that * Click the Movement button to your right and select Close preparations * Select the appropriate movement file --- Assign phantom pairs The phantom pair is a pair just like any other pair with a pair number. Do not do anything special in Excel to deal with phantoms. Instead, just import the movement and later select the phantom pair in Enter names inside Magic Contest. --- Error handling... ...is non-existent. Magic Contest is very courteous and does exactly what you tell it to. If there are major errors in the original movement file Magic Contest will crash. IMPORT TEAM STARTING LIST You can now create the starting list in Excel and then easily import it into Magic Contest. The format is important: * One team per line * The columns contain the following information: --- Column A: Team name --- Column B: Country (can be empty) --- Column C: MemberID1 --- Column D: MemberID2 --- Column E and so on to the last player Do like this to import the names: * Select all cells in Excel (omit column headers) * Select Edit-Copy (or press Ctrl-C) * Go to Magic Contest and Enter names and click Import * Right-click and select Paste (or press Ctrl-V) * Click OK The teams are imported starting from the top and down. After finished import basic validation is done that players are only part of one team. If a player is part of more than one team you are asked what team the players is really part of. There is an alternate format that can be used if you already in Excel want to use team numbers. Then you use the first columns as team number according to the following: * One team per line * The columns contain the following information: --- Column A: Team number --- Column B: Team name --- Column C: Country (can be empty) --- Column D: MemberID1 --- Column E: MemberID2 --- Column F and so on to the last player When the teams are imported they will be placed according to the team numbers in Excel and Magic Contest, and not from the top and down as in the first alternative. If you want to have an Excel starting list that can be read by normal people there is an alternate format for MemberID1, MemberID2, and so on. It looks like this: * MemberID PlayerName This means that if you place MemberID and PlayerName in the same Excel cell and place a space between them Magic Contest will interpret the first part of the cell as a member ID and correctly import the players. You can import plus members just as any other member. What you must think of is that in Excel you cannot just like that enter a plus sign followed by a number. When you press Enter Excel will interpret that as a positive number and remove the plus sign. Instead you must first enter an apostroph as an instruction that the following plus sign is to be interpreted as pure text. AUSTRIAN BRIDGE FEDERATION (ÖBV) - MEMBER FILE Due to the change in the login information to the ÖBV webserver it has been impossible to download new member files. This has now been changed so that download is again possible. We apologise for the trouble this has cause the Austrian users. Version 4.2, 28 Dec 2010 ======================== This is the Magic Contest Christmas edition. I hope you can find some nice presents among the additions and changes in this version: * New or updated documentation * Miscellaneous improvements * Movement --- Pair --- Team --- Swiss teams --- Individual --- Create movement * Tiebreak --- Pair --- Team --- Individual * Bridgemate --- Bridgemate Control and Bridgemate II --- New settings --- Other settings --- Show player names --- Swiss Pairs with movement instructions --- Bug-fix * Print --- Settings --- PDF Creator * Current standing --- Settings --- Profile --- Show Top-N --- Firefox and Internet Explorer * Team scoring --- Board numbers in Bridgemate --- Incorrect line-up --- Home/Away in Swiss --- HUM * Special development for the Spanish clubs --- Download member file --- Start the contest --- Report contest --- Continued development * Desarrollo especial para clubes Españoles --- (the previous chapters translated into Spanish) NEW OR UPDATED DOCUMENTATION The following documents have been created or modified: * Bridgemate * Bridgemate II * Current standing * PDF Creator * Team contest * Movement They can all be found at the Magic Contest website: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp Please check the website for more updates to the documentation. MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS It is now possible to recalculate an event up to a certain round (instead of including all boards as before). This is done through a new menu item in Contest menu called "Include rounds in scoring". This means that if you want to make a printout from one of the earlier rounds with the ranking only up to and including that round you select this menu item, select the round in question, do your printing, and then select the menu item again to reset the scoring to all rounds. This works for both team and pair events. Start a contest. Arrive at the selection of number of sections. Now there is an option called "Skip letter I for increased readability". In case you have many sections there is always a case for not using the letter I since it is easy to mistake for instance table I1 with 11. Contest menu-Report contest. If you change the website file name and you also report the contest to PBN and/or TXT those file names change accordingly. When reporting a multi-session event to Website there are now automatic links created from all sessions to the other sessions. This makes it much easier for the internet users to go between sessions. As long as you keep your fingers away from the automatic file names Magic Contest suggests the linking works fine. MOVEMENT All references in the below list are to the "Orange book" by Jannersten (Movements - a fair approach). MOVEMENT - PAIR The new version contains a couple of new movements: * Pages 103-104: Mitchell with a 1.5-table appendix * Page 105: Mitchell with a 2-table appendix. The arrow switches on page 106 are implemented in case of arrow switching. Since before Pivot Mitchell (pages 97-100) and Filled-out Pivot Mitchell allow you to add a pair or a table to a normal Odd Table Mitchell or Skip Mitchell. When selecting Pivot Mitchell you automatically get a phantom as N-S at the highest table. What is new is that if you undo the preparations and select the Filled-out version that phantom is automatically removed. The reverse also applies if you start with Filled-out and then change into normal Pivot. MOVEMENT - TEAM There is a new movement called Round-robin. If you use this movement (and not the regular Howell) the following applies: * The starting field is seeded by strength from 1 and up * The teams meet opponents of alternating strength * In the last the meetings are 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and so on MOVEMENT - SWISS TEAMS There is a new movement called Swiss (pre-determined). It you use this movement (and not the Swiss (1-2, 3-4, ...)) the following applies: * 2 rounds, 8-17 tables * The starting field is seeded by strength from 1 and up * Each team meets "even" opponents in the first two rounds, i.e. for 16 teams team 1 meets 2 and 15, 2 meets 1+16, 3 meets 4+13, and so on * The Home/Away assignments alternate the first two rounds MOVEMENT - INDIVIDUAL All three options for 12 players described on pages 33-35 are now implemented. MOVEMENT - CREATE MOVEMENT As reported before there is an external movement editor that allows you to create most types of movements and then import them into Magic Contest. This movement editor now handles team events as well. All features of creating a movement is found on the Magic Contest website: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsmovementeditor.asp You can also click the Movement button in the Magic Contest main window. That will take you to to the website. TIEBREAK Tiebreak is now possible. If you select Contest menu-Properties-Scoring you will see the new tiebreak window. The criteria are different for pair and team events (see below) but the general handling of this window is the same. In the list you can find the different possible tiebreak methods. They of course vary from country to country, so only the normal ones have been implemented. You can use the Up and Down buttons to change the order of priority. When you want the tiebreak to end (in case it could not be broken by previous tiebreak methods) you use the option "--- No more tiebreak ---". For each tiebreak method there are a number of parameters that can be set: * High value is better than low * Use Win/Lose instead of awarded points There are also parameters for 3-way tie or more: * Everybody must have played everybody * Repeat in case of partial tiebreak All parameters are described in detail in the separate documentation found on the Magic Contest website. This also goes for detailed descriptions of all tiebreak methods shown below. TIEBREAK - PAIR The possible tiebreak methods for pair events are the following: * In-between meeting * Session percentage * --- No more tiebreak --- * Standard deviation * Topscore comparison (A Swedish method not yet implemented) It seems like In-between meeting and Session percentage are popular tie- break methods in that order of priority, so those are default. TIEBREAK - TEAM The possible tiebreak methods for team events are the following: * --- No more tiebreak --- * Swiss points * IMP quotient * Random * Match (VP) * Match (IMP) * Match (total points) * Match (number of won matches) For team events the tiebreak methods seem to differ a little bit more than for pair events. For that reason no tiebreak method is active as default. You will have to assign one (or more) yourself for any tiebreak to take place. TIEBREAK - INDIVIDUAL This is not yet activated. It will most likely be in version 4.3 (April 2011). BRIDGEMATE When you create a database Bridgemate Control is automatically launched. The front page is the one with all the results. If a player walks by the computer he might accidentally see detailed results before he has played the boards. There is a very useful new settings found in Contest menu-Bridgemate- Properties. Select the Bridgemate Control tab. The setting is called: Show round monitor (instead of detailed results) This means that results are automatically hidden from the start. If you really want to see the results in Bridgemate Control you can deactivate this option or manually change to the Results tab in Bridgemate Control. BRIDGEMATE - BRIDGEMATE CONTROL AND BRIDGEMATE II Some new functionality in Magic Contest requires you to upgrade to the latest version of Bridgemate Control. Please go to the Bridgemate website and download the latest version of Bridgemate Control. BRIDGEMATE - NEW SETTINGS All settings relating to Bridgemate II have also been implemented in Magic Contest. They can be found through Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties and the Bridgemate Control tab. Scroll the page twice and you will find the new settings below the regular settings. In Bridgemate Control and Tools-Options-Bridgemate there is a setting called "Use Bridgemate settings specified by". This should be set to "Scoring program" to allow Magic Contest to maintain those settings. These are the new settings (with default values in parenthesis): Show Player names (Yes) Name source (Magic Contest) Automatic board numbers (Yes) Score recap (Freq, 6 lines, 2 score columns) Remaining number of boards to play (Yes) Next seatings at the end of the round (Yes) Ranking (No) Options for the tournament director 4-digit PIN code for TD menu access (--->) Request confirmation for 'No play' (through '0') (Yes) Enable RESET function key (Yes) Allow the players to see the round's score recap (Yes) Allow the players to change results (No) Recording bidding and play Enter bidding (bid by bid) (No) Enter play (card by card) (No) Validate entry with hand records (No) Show the hand records (No) Other Validate the entry of member numbers (No) Enter pair numbers as part of the declarer (No) All settings are described in the official Bridgemate documentation. BRIDGEMATE - OTHER SETTINGS Through Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties and the Bridgemate Control tab there are two more settings: * Reset Bridgemate after upload to server * Run Bridgemate Pro concurrently with Bridgemate II The first ensures that all Bridgemate II are reset before usage. This can be useful in events where all boards in the Bridgemates are not entered, for instance in large team events where players tend to leave the table without entering all results, or in team events with free boards where Magic Contest opens up boards 1-32 while the players will only enter 9-16. The second setting allows you to open two Bridgemate Control windows - one to run Bridgemate II and the other to run Bridgemate Pro. The details are described in a separate document that can be found on the Magic Contest website. BRIDGEMATE - SHOW PLAYER NAMES This only works for Bridgemate II. When this options is activated the player names show on the display at the start of all rounds (or at the start of the first round; your choice). It works like this: * If you have a prepared starting list this is automatically saved in the Bridgemate database. After that the names show every round. * If you let the players enter their member numbers they will most likely not see their names the first round but probably from the second. This depends on when you import the names. When you select Contest menu- Bridgemate-Import names the player numbers are imported, the numbers are converted into names, and the names are immediately exported to the database. You can at any time export the names manually to the Bridgemate database through the menu option Contest menu-Bridgemate-Export names to Bridgemate II. This is something you need to do if you make manual changes to the starting list if you want those to reflect in the Bridgemate. At the moment Bridgemate II cannot show names outside the normal alphabet, i.e. åäö, éèê, íì, and so on. They are within limits converted into normal characters. This will be fixed in version 4.3 in April 2011 parallel to a new release of Bridgemate Control. BRIDGEMATE - SWISS PAIRS WITH MOVEMENT INSTRUCTIONS If you play Swiss Pairs it is especially interesting in Bridgemate II to show the seating for the next round at the end of the round in play (see New settings above). Then the players can automatically move to the next table without having to look up the printed assignments. Next seating assignment works almost as good if you score a 95% Swiss (see separate Swiss documentation). Assume that you generate the next round five minutes prior to the end of the round. Then the slow pairs will see their new assignments at the end of the round while the fast players have plenty of time to find the printed assignments. BRIDGEMATE - BUG-FIX This is a bug-fix where I assume nobody has noticed the error. Either way, it has been fixed, and here is the description of the error. Assume you play a single session event with 42 boards of 3 boards per round. Now there could be a problem with the break between board sets in case you play 1-32 and 1-10 since round 11 contains boards 31-32 and 1. Bridgemate handles this by renumbering the boards. Unfortunately there was a change in the Bridgemate implementation where Magic Contest suddenly did not follow the specification which made it impossible to import the second occurance of board 1. PRINT When printing team reports you no longer have to use the syntax "/3" to print a specific round. Just enter "3" and it will print correctly. Bug-fix: For team events with odd number of teams the printouts showed the opponent of the phantom team as the round winner with far too many VP:s in the round. The total score has always been correct. This has been fixed. PRINT - SETTINGS There are some new printout settings that can be found through Contest menu-Properties-Print: * Team event: Roster (to the left; for printing) * Team event: Roster (to the right; for current standing on projector) The default is that the roster is printed on paper but not shown on the projector. PRINT - PDF CREATOR There are two new options through the Report menu in the Print window: * Use PDF Creator * ... without having to select a printer There is an open source software called PDF Creator. Once installed and configured correctly this will allow you to continuously create PDF files instead of actually printing. The PDF pages will automatically show on the screen. This is particularily useful in events where you want to be able to go back in time and see how a printout looked, or during a bridge festival where you have a copying department that can provide players with any printout they want. The idea is that every printout is numbered sequentially. This allows you or the copying department to know what printout was the latest. It is also important that the scoring computer's default printer is PDF Creator to allow automatic printing. The second option allows you to remove the step of selecting printers completely. This means even more automation and faster printing. Complete documentation is found at the following webpage: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp CURRENT STANDING When using Current standing in a team event there have been conflicts between settings that have made it possible for the pair window to also report Current standing. A number of those possible conflicts have been eliminated. Theoretically it be interesting to report from the pair window, for instance to show the Butler rankings, but it has now been made much more difficult to do pair reporting to avoid manual mistakes. CURRENT STANDING - SETTINGS There are some new settings that can be found through Contest menu- Properties-Print: * Round winner * Round total These two allow you in an easy way to turn off/on round winners instead of having to modify the underlying reports. As mentioned in the Print-Settings above there is also a Roster option for current standing that is turned off by default. CURRENT STANDING - PROFILE In the Current standing documentation it is described how to make settings according to a number of pre-defined profiles: 1. Projector. Barometer. Score tables. 2. Projector. Barometer. No score tables. 3. Projector. Team contest. Only finished matches. --- 4. Projector. Normal event. Continuous scoring. 5. Projector. Normal event. After play. Current board. 6. Projector. Normal event. After play. No score tables. --- 7. Player computer. Score tables. 8. Player computer. No score tables. It is now easier to select one of those profiles. You can do it in one of the following ways: * Select Contest menu-Properties-Current standing. Use the Profile button in one of the first two windows. * Select Result menu-Profile. Now the profiles are available without having to open the Current standing properties. CURRENT STANDING - SHOW TOP-N Magic Contest has been substantially improved. Thanks to Irish tournament director Fearghal O'Boyle for bugging me about this for quite some time and not giving up hope. The improvement allows you to keep a portion of the pairs on the screen while the other pairs flip below. People are always interested in the top-5 ranking and it is useful not having to wait forever to show those in case of large starting fields. If you select Contest menu-Properties-Current standing there is now a new tab called Current standing (Top-N). These are a few of the available settings: * Keep top-N pairs all the time on the screen (you select N) * Show column titles all the time (automatic) * Use separating lines or not after different screen sections * Decide to show contest information or not * Decide to show round winners or not and where to show them The details can be found in the Current standing documentation found at the following website: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp One important issue to stress is that the auto-updating web page Magic Contest creates does not know how large your projector or plasma screen is which means that you have to tell that to the program. You simply have to try your way to success. Magic Contest is pre-configured with values that correspond to a maximised Internet Explorer screen on a 1024x768 projector. This means that given the certain text sizes the following number of lines fit the page: * 1 -> 43 * 2 -> 38 * 3 -> 32 * 4 -> 25 * 5 -> 19 Then it's entirely up to if you use Internet Explorer or Firefox or if you have selected to maximise the window or not. See the documentation for more details. CURRENT STANDING - FIREFOX AND INTERNET EXPLORER There have been some problems showing Current standing using Firefox. This has now been solved. Also, the right-hand scroll bar has previously not been removed in Firefox but is now. This works in both Windows and Linux. However, it seems as though Safari in Apple OS does not support this. TEAM SCORING - BOARD NUMBERS IN BRIDGEMATE The below describes a method for scoring a team event with Bridgemate where boards are not pre-duplicated. You can still use Bridgemate line-up for master points and Bridgemate results for ranking on Current standing. This scenario means that you could easily have a situation where table 1 plays boards 1-8, table 2 boards 9-16, and so on. To enable this you need to do the following: * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties and select the Pair window tab. Make sure Calculate Butler is turned off. * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Create database. * Instead of entering the first board number you enter -24 if 24 is the maximum board number or -32 if 32 is. * Now all Bridgemates are opened for the full range of boards, i.e. 1-24 in the first example above. * The players enter the line-up and then the boards they play. When they are done they leave the Bridgemate (that at that point wants a new board number). * The team scoring, i.e. the VP table, will be based on the number of boards per round you specified when you closed the preparations. * Before you start the next round it is essential that you reset all Bridgemates as there will be problems with the line-up for the next round if you do not reset them. In Bridgemate-Other settings (above) you can read about a way to remotely reset all Bridgemates in case you use Bridgemate II. TEAM SCORING - INCORRECT LINE-UP When you import member numbers from Bridgemate they might be incorrect. If so, they are shown instead of the names (as opposed to previously when the names were left blank). This gives you an easy means of tracking the error since you can compare the entered number with the member numbers of the roster and see if a single digit is missing or is incorrect. TEAM SCORING - HOME/AWAY IN SWISS Magic Contest now calculates the number of Home and Away assignments the paired teams have had before the current match. Then the team with less Home assignments gets the Home rights. In case of a tie the higher ranked team gets the Home rights. TEAM SCORING - HUM If a team is using HUM systems (Highly Unusual Methods) their opponents should be the Home team in all matches. Go to Contest menu-Enter names. Select the team and click Edit. Now you have the option of checking the HUM option to make the team a HUM team. This will change the seating in all non-played matches as well as in all future Swiss matches. SPECIAL DEVELOPMENT FOR THE SPANISH CLUBS If you read below you will find the following chapters translationed into Spanish. Special development has been made for the Spanish clubs. This covers down- loading the AEB member file and reporting the contest back to the AEB for calculating master points and showing web results. To utilise these features you need to upgrade your licence. Please contact José Miguel Martínez at info@bridgebase.es for the price list for such an upgrade. ... SPANISH CLUBS - DOWNLOAD MEMBER FILES You need to be connected to the internet for this to work. When a new member file is published Magic Contest automatically determines this and downloads it automatically. After that a complete member database is created with the members of the AEB along with their member numbers. This is a one-time procedure that takes a few minutes. ... SPANISH CLUBS - START THE CONTEST When you start a contest you will see a new window where you can select the master point type of this tournament. The only option at the moment is the following: "Enviar resultados a la AEB mediante HOCLAS" ... SPANISH CLUBS - REPORT CONTEST Do the following to report the contest to the AEB: * When the contest is over you select Contest menu-Report contest. * Now you check the top option called Master points (where it also says "Enviar resultados a la AEB mediante HOCLAS"). Click OK. * Two files are reported, one called "HOCLAS...-Lic.txt" and another called "HOCLAS...-Por.txt" with "..." being the contest date and name. The first file contains licence numbers and the second contains percentages. You can find both files in Magic Contest Outbox in My Documents (or Mis Documentos in Spanish Windows). * Then you open the AEB HOCLAS Excel file. This is always available for download at the AEB website. The below cell references are to that file. * Open the first of the reported files using Notepad and copy-and-paste the member numbers into cell A9 (and B9 and below). * Open the second of the reported files and copy-and-paste the percentages into cell G9 (and H9 and below). * Now you can manually enter the official information in the Excel file and send it to the AEB for further processing. ... SPANISH CLUBS - CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT The AEB has provided me with the interface for sending results in a more formal way, e.g. so that also board results are reported and the above described copy-and-paste is not needed anymore. Whether this is developed is completely up to the Spanish clubs and the interest that is shown for this upgrade. There will be no extra charge for future special development in case a club purchases this upgrade. DESARROLLO ESPECIAL PARA CLUBES ESPAÑOLES se ha realizado un desarrollo especial para clubes españoles, que cubre la descarga del fichero de jugadores desde la AEB, y el envío del informe del torneo a la web de la AEB para el posterior cálculo de puntos federativos y publicación de resultados en la web. El uso esas utilidades requiere que sl Club actualice su licencia. Si desea que su Club actualice esas funciones, póngase en contacto con José Miguel Martínez a través del e-mail info@bridgebase.es para que él le informe de los precios de la actualización. .. CLUBES ESPAÑOLES - DESCARGAR EL FICHERO DE FEDERADOS Es imprescindible disponer de una conexión a Internet. Cuando la AEB publica un nuevo fichero de jugadores, Magic Contest lo reconoce y descarga automáticamente, tras lo cual se crea una nueva base de datos completa de los federados de la AEB, junto con su número de licencias. Este es un proceso que se realiza una sola vez, y que puede durar unos minutos. .. CLUBES ESPAÑOLES - INICIO DEL TORNEO Cuando se inicia un torneo, aparecerá una nueva ventana donde el usuario podrá seleccionar el tipo de puntos federativos de este torneo. La única opción en este momento es: "Enviar resultados a la AEB mediante HOCLAS" .. CLUBES ESPAÑOLES - INFORME DEL TORNEO Haga lo siguiente para enviar a la AEB el informe del troneo: * Cuando el torneo haya terminado, seleccione "Contest menu - Report contest. * Compruebe que está marcada la opción de arriba llamada : "Enviar resultados a la AEB mediante HOCLAS"). Haga clic en OK. * Aparecerán dos archivos, uno llamado "HOCLAS ...- Lic.txt" y otro llamado "HOCLAS ...- Por.txt", en que los puntos suspensivos "..." significan la fecha del torneo y el nombre. el primer archivo contiene los números de licencia de los participantes y el segundo contiene los resultados en porcentaje de cada pareja. Usted puede encontrar ambos archivos en Magic Contest Outbox que encontrará en la carpeta Mis Documentos (o su carpeta personal de nombre equivalente). * Ahora debe descargar y abrir el fichero HOCLAS. Este fichero de Excell está siempre disponible para su descarga en el sitio web de la AEB. Los siguientes son referencias de las celda a ese archivo que debemos emplear. * Abrir el primero de los archivos de arriba, el HOCLAS ... - Lic.txt, y copie y pegue los números de licencia de los jugaodes del torneo en la celda A9 (y B9 para abajo). * Abrir el segundo de los archivos, HOCLAS... - Pro.txt, y copie y pegue los porcentajes en la celda G9 (y H9 para abajo). * Ahora puede introducir manualmente la información oficial en el archivo de Excel y lo enviará a la AEB para su posterior procesado. .. CLUBES ESPAÑOLES - CONTINÚA EL DESARROLLO La AEB nos acaba de proporcionar la interface para el envío de los resultados de una forma más adecuada, por ejemplo, en que se detallan los resultados obtenidos en cada mano, de tal forma que en un futuro ´próximo el sistema descrito de copiar y pegar no se necesitará más, y será sustituido por un método automático. Este desarrollo especial es completamente voluntario para aquellos clubes españoles que deseen utilizarlo, y deben solicitar esta actualización expresamente. Aquellos Clubes que hayan comprado esta actualización no tendrán que pagar flas actualizaciones de este desarrollo que se hagan en el próximo futuro hasta que se complete la integración en el sistema de la AEB, dichos clubes recibirán estas actualizaciones de forma gratuita. Version 4.1.5, 25 Sep 2010 ========================== Special WBF version for the World Bridge Series in Philadelphia. Version 4.1.1, 20 April 2010 ============================ Some errors in Magic Contest have been found. This is a list: * Team contest: Sometimes the total score amounts to -92 trillions. The error has been found and fixed. It only appeared when there was a bye. * Team contest: In case of a bye the 18 VPs that were temporarily awarded were incorrectly adjusted downwards when printing a final result in case a team had a low average score. The bye now always awards the same as Average+, i.e. at least 18 VPs. * The new Board-A-Match module had a bug when using together with Howell movements. This has been fixed. There is also a small clarification to the documentation. * The added functionality for handling Windows7 print problems for multiple copies turned out to not always work for older computers. This has now been reverted so that everything is as before the original change. If you do have a computer with Windows7 you need to activate the menu item Report menu-Handle Windows7 print problem (too many copies) ot make this work correctly. * Austrian version: The master point report lost its plus member numbers. This has been fixed. There is also some added functionality: * A new report has been added that works for multi-session. It is called Final result with percentages for all sessions. If you score a multi- sessions event you can now print a report that contains the percentages for all sessions on the same printout. Note! This does not work just like that on old multi-session events. If you want to test the report you need to open the first session, make a change, and then open all sessions in turn. Then you will be able to print the report correctly. Version 4.1, 23 March 2010 ========================== These are news and changes of this version: * New and updated documentation * Print * Swiss * Board-A-Match * Create movement * Bridgemate - Arrow switch * Bridgemate - Show news * Import hand record * Individual contest * Newsflash * Report contest * Current standing * Automatic FTP * Team contest - Miscellaneous improvements * Team contest - Butler * Team contest - Bridgemate * Team contest - Enter pair results in the team window * Team contest - Rulings * Team contest - Print team scorecard * Team contest - Create movement * Team contest - Multiple parallel contests * Team contest - Club match NEW AND UPDATED DOCUMENTATION The following documents have been created or modified: * Bridgemate * Team contest * Current standing * Swiss * Board-A-Match * Club match * Qualifying and final They can all be found at the Magic Contest website: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp PRINT The handling of printers in Windows is all but easy if you have decided like I have to do everything from scratch instead of relying on the programming environment's automatic features. Up until now you have had to manually change to landscape for such reports. This has now changed so that landscape reports are automatically printed that way. In case the automatic landscape feature for one or the other reason does not work there could be a conflict between the solution and a certain Windows installion. In that case you can revert to manually selecting landscape. You do this through: Report menu-Automatic landscape Several users have told me that when using Windows7 multiple copies do not work as expected. If the user asks for 2 copies 4 are printed, for 3 9 are printed, and so on. This has been dealt with. The catch is that I do not know if the solution has affected something else. In case something else happens there is a menu item that cancels the above described change: Report menu-Handle Windows7 print problem (too many copies) SWISS The menu structure has been slightly changed. Earlier you could find the Add / remove round and Swiss break directly in the Contest menu. Now they can be found is a submenu called Contest menu-Swiss. There is now a new option called Use 95% Swiss. It is used to post new seatings before the last results has been imported. The menu item is used to turn off the automatic Swiss at the end of the round and instead rely on you manually creating next round around five minutes before the end of the round. This variant can only be used together with Bridgemate. In a team contest you can take the 95% Swiss concept one step further. Together with Current standing you can set up approximately the following chain of events: * The round is in play. The previous round is shown on the projector. * Some matches have finished. Only those are shown on the projector. * You manually create the new round. Now all finished matches as well as the new seatings are shown on the projector. * All matches have finished and all information is show on the projector. You can read about all these features in the documents called Swiss, Team Contest and Current standing. BOARD-A-MATCH Board-A-Match is a scoring method mainly used in USA and Canada. You can describe it as a combination between a team contest and a pair contest. Some say it is the ultimate pair contest since every trick in every contract can be the deciding factor. It also takes certain skills figuring out what is played at the other table and what measures should be taken at this table to win the board. All details concerning Board-A-Match can be found in the separate documentation found on the Magic Contest website. QUALIFYING AND FINAL Multi-session can now be used to score a contest with both qualifying and final stages. You can read more about it in separate documentation found on the Magic Contest website. CREATE MOVEMENT As mentioned before (August 2006) it is possible to import a movement from a Bridgemate database. That way you can publish your own movement that can be used in Magic Contest. Below you can read a copy of the change log from that version. All features of creating a movement is found on the Magic Contest website: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsmovementeditor.asp You can now import a contest that somebody else has created in Bridgemate without having to close the preparations in Magic Contest. Instead you use the Bridgemate database to close the preparations. Do like this: * Start the contest in a normal way * When it is time to close the preparations you select to do nothing * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Close preparations * Select the Bridgemate database that contains the movement The following is imported from the Bridgemate database: * Number of tables * Pair numbers * Board numbers * Movement The reader now realises that you can import any movement (well, almost) into Magic Contest, even those that are not strictly speaking available through Magic Contest. The only catch is to get the movement into the Bridgemate database. Currently there are no features for building new movements in Magic Contest and save them in a Bridgemate database. Instead, you need to use Microsoft Access to edit a Bridgemate database according to your own ideas and then use it for future events. There are a number of limitations that will be solved in the future. Such limitations are, among others, that only one section can be imported at a time and that a semi-barometer can not be imported at all. Besides this the error handling is non-existant, so the result will not be better than what you make out of it. Note! The Bridgemate database must still be in Access 97 format (like the current Bridgemate databases) to be imported by Magic Contest. BRIDGEMATE - ARROW SWITCH An old source of irritation has been removed. Imagine the following: One table has arrow switched the boards but not yet played all of them. You are notified and decide they will play all boards arrow switched. Before you have not been able to arrow switch the round in Magic Contest without having imported all results. This is now dealt with so you can now arrow switch the entire round before all results have been imported. This also applies to when you ask the players to only play the incorrect board arrow switched and the others correctly. Then you can immediately arrow switch the board and wait for the result to be imported. BRIDGEMATE - SHOW NEWS If a new Bridgemate Control Software is published on the Bridgemate web site Magic Contest automatically downloads it and suggests for it to be installed. Some users have commented that they do not appreciate blindly installing a new version. Therefore the following applies: Before the Bridgemate installation the news are shown. A large thank you to Ron Bouwland at Bridgemate to having enabled that feature. Besides, now Bridgemate Control is the name of the previously known Bridgemate Pro Control. All references in Magic Contest to BMPro have been changed to Bridgemate Control or BM Control. IMPORT HAND RECORD Some extra functionality has been added when importing hand records. If you select Contest menu-View hand record and then select File-Settings you will find the following options: * Process original hand record file after import --- Copy to the Hand record folder in Magic Contest Documents --- Delete --- Rename (from DUP to ~UP, BRI to ~RI, etc) * Insert where? (when importing multiple hand record files) --- Ask about the position --- First --- Last --- After current prefix The options should be handled carefully but can be useful in ceratin situations. If you start a contest and that way open a hand record you will find the new Advanced button. There you find the options in the window Process original hand record file after import. More added functionality: If you use double dummy analysis there is a little beep at the end of the analysis. This makes it easier to do other things while waiting for the analysis to finish. Here I would like to brag a little on behalf of fellow-Swede Bo Haglund. He has created the double dummy tool I'm using and while Magic Contest needs around a minute or so to analyse 24 boards it takes 10 to 15 minutes using other tools on the market. If you have a "large" hand record, i.e. 105 continuous boards, that you want to reduce to smaller hand records there are a couple of new menu options that will speed up the process. Through File you can now select Delete all deals before (after) this. Select the first (last) deal you want to keep and select the menu option ... before (after) and you will achive that goal. INDIVIDUAL CONTEST There is now a new empty personal scorecard where names of both the partner and the opponents are printed. The name of that report is: Empty PS, grid, 26 boards, individual partner+opp names (landscape) Problems occurred at a contest in France. They had by mistake selected to use the Mitchell alias feature for an individual event. This lead to some results now being imported from Bridgemate. This should of course not be possible and has therefore been turned off. NEWSFLASH The main window and the Contest explorer have been extended with a new button called Newsflash. Internet access is required for it to work. If you click you you received the following message: --- This newsflash gives me the possibility to communicate with all Magic Contest users between releases. I hope it will come in handy. Best regards /Tomas Brenning --- This means that if I want to contact the clubs and send a quick message I can do that. Next time Magic Contest is opened it will automatically show the newsflash. If you do not want any automatic newsflashes you can disabled it through Contest menu-Options-General and the Magic Contest website tab. REPORT CONTEST You can now report team contests to PBN and TXT. If you report contest to Butler (in the pair window in a team contest) the option is now called Butler and not Point league as before. Here and there you will still see the previous mention of "point league". CURRENT STANDING There has previously been a problem with Current standing for team and pair contests colliding when the pair profile has had Current standing activated. This has now been fixed. AUTOMATIC FTP Since before it has been possible to use FTP to publish contest reports on your private website when selecting Contest menu-Report contest. This has now been extended to work also during the contest. There is also a new setting. You can read about the details on the Magic Contest website: http://www.brenning.se/mcrcftp.asp Some websites require so called passive mode when updating the website. If you go to Contest menu-Options...-General and the FTP tab you will find this setting. The website host can tell you if passive mode is required or not. You can now use automatic FTP to publish results every time a Bridgemate import takes place. The settings for this are found through Contest menu- Properties-Bridgemate and the Bridgemate (report) tab. There are separate settings for Website and Current standing. TEAM CONTEST - MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS There is now a movement for two teams in case a final is played and you want to use Magic Contest for for instance the Butler. Through Enter names you can now enter the following for each team: * Club and country. The former can be used for scoring a Club match in a team contest. * Extra score, Carry-over and Handicap. Those you recognize from normal pair events. They can be useful in case the +/- column in Enter results is not sufficient. * Extra information. Here you can enter three different types of information (as opposed to a pair contest's five). TEAM CONTEST - BUTLER When you report the team contest to website links to the Butler will be automatically created. Among those links is one for the total Butler report sorted in team order (on top of the normal one in rank order). When printing Butler reports you now have more reports to choose from. As before this takes place through the Point league report type. TEAM CONTEST - BRIDGEMATE There is a new tab available through Contest menu-Properties-Bridgemate called Hand record. There you can decide whether to ask for a hand record file or not when the pair window is opened. There is a new tab through Contest menu-Properties-Bridgemate called Pair window. There you find the following settings: * Close the pair window after the Bridgemate database has been created. * Calculate Butler. If you select not to score a Butler there will not be any links when reporting to website. * Use Butler IMPs (datum score) instead of IMPs across the field. This simply controls what scoring method is used. In Sweden IMPs across the field is mainly used while internationally datum score is preferred. * Use colour settings where results are only shown as white or black boxes. The default setting is that no detailed results are shown in the pair window. Instead focus is on results having been entered or not. This gives the tournament director a tool to control how results are entered at the different tables. If you turn this off the normal colours you use for pair events are used. When it comes to colours you can set the default colours for the team window. Select Contest menu-Options-Team contest-Enter names and results and the Enter results tab you can see what options you can set. TEAM CONTEST - ENTER PAIR RESULTS IN THE TEAM WINDOW In the result window the Edit button is now available. When you click it you see a scorecard with all results from open and closed rooms. Through the two Edit buttons you can now edit results from this window. When you have changed a result this is stored in the Bridgemate database. This means the pair window can import the changed result. Just as before the reversed applies (change in the pair window, import in the team window). Besides, you can also add a result through the Edit buttons in the team window. This is useful if a table have not entered one of the results. Even in this case the result is written to the Bridgemate database for further import into the pair window. In this case the reversed direction does not apply. TEAM CONTEST - RULINGS If you make a 12C1c ruling and enter that ruling in the pair window the team window will score IMPs correctly. The same applies for arrow switched boards. By the way, you can arrow switch boards in both the pair and the team windows. TEAM CONTEST - PRINT TEAM SCORECARD If you in the team window click Edit you will find a Print button. That buttons prints an incredibly plain team scorecard in case the players need to verify their (incorrect?) scores. With time, better designed team scorecards will appear in Magic Contest. TEAM CONTEST - CREATE MOVEMENT Just as for pair contests you can now create your own movements. How to do it is described in detail at the Magic Contest website: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsmovementeditor.asp TEAM CONTEST - MULTIPLE PARALLEL CONTESTS Before Magic Contest was limited to one team contest per computer and Bridgemate server. This has now changed. In the document Team contest that is found in the Documentation section of the Magic Contest website this is described in detail in the chapter called Master/slave – Several parallel team events. You will find detailed instructions on how to connect multiple team contest to that way only use one Bridgemate server. http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp If you are used to combining multiple pair contests in the same Bridgemate server through the Add to database menu item you must completely rethink when it comes to team contests. The documentation describes how to connect the contests and then create one database that contains all tables without further ado. You can not really combine a team contest with a pair contest in the same database. What you can do is possibly to start a team contest and then add a pair contest in the same database. There is however a large risk of biting your own tail as problems will arise when new rounds or segments are to be created for the team contest. My recommendation is not to experiment with such features. TEAM CONTEST - CLUB MATCH From this version you can score a team contest as a club match. You activate the club match just as in a pair contest, i.e. through Contest menu-Properties...-Scoring and then the Club match tab. When you enter team names you can also enter clubs for the respektive teams. If you know all players in the database represents unique clubs (but same for all players of the team) you can omit the club. Version 4.0.4, 23 Aug 2009 ========================== Sao Paulo version Version 4.0.2.1, 20 June 2009 ============================= This is a quick fix for the Austrian Bridge Federation. Now the automatic download of new member files works. Version 4.0.2, 16 June 2009 =========================== Here comes the promised Magic Contest update. Most changes concern the team module. * Documentation * Small improvements and bug corrections * Close preparations * Create database * Round information in Bridgemate * Current standing * Print * Report contest DOCUMENTATION The following documents have been updated. You can find them at the Magic Contest website. * Team contest * Current standing * Movement SMALL IMPROVEMENTS AND BUG CORRECTIONS A number of small improvements and bug corrections have been made, all of them concerning the team module: * Entering player number 0 in Bridgemate made Magic crash. Fixed. * Plus members did not work through 042 in Bridgemate. Fixed. * No name import in the pair window during certain circumstances. Fixed. * Switch between result entry and line-up is now smoother. * Current round feedback at the top of Contest menu and Result menu. * Improved feedback on the difference between pair and team windows. Still one might want a more clear way of figuring out which his the team window and which are the pair windows. Also, the current round could be shown more clearly. The thoughts go to large text and catchy colours, but that feels too much considering the restrictive design I try to maintain in Magic Contest. Comments and opinions are welcomed. CLOSE PREPARATIONS When you close preparations you can now click Advanced and select the lowest table number in your team contest. This is useful when you have several parallel team contests and you easily want to distinguish one from the other. CREATE DATABASE If you have a bye and you create a database two things will happen: * The pairs at the tables in question (open and closed room) will be marked as phantom pairs. * No Bridgemate table will be created for the bye. This is good since when all results have been entered BMPro will automatically shut down, something that didn't previously happen with a bye. There are a couple of new settings that affect how the pair contest that is created behaves. Both settings are done in the team window before you create the database: * Select Contest menu-Properties-Bridgemate. Select the Hand record tab. Here you can select if it is mandatory to import a hand record file every time a new pair window is opened. * Select Contest menu-Properties-Bridgemate. Select the BMPro tab. If you remove the tick from the Start BMPro automatically checkbox this will not happen when you create the database. This is useful when you do not use Bridgemate but in spite of this want to score a butler. Then you must select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Create database to create the pair window. ROUND INFORMATION IN BRIDGEMATE When you create a Bridgemate databas your machines will now show the current round instead of as before always round 1. CURRENT STANDING Select Contest menu-Properties-Current standing. Select the Current standing (more) tab. When you click Profiles you now get the following option: 3. Projector. Team contest. Only finished matches. If you select this option the previous round will show on the projector. Once a match is finished the ranking and matches from the previous round will be removed and instead only finished matches from the current round will be shown. Once all matches are finished the ranking from the current round will be shown. This setting is found in the Bridgemate (report) tab and it is called Report only finished matches. PRINT There are some settings that concern printing of rosters and clubs on starting lists and final results. Select Contest menu-Properties-Print: * Club. This setting decides if the player club will be printed. Default setting is No. * Roster. This setting decides if the rosters will be printed. Default setting is Yes. REPORT CONTEST When you report a team contest to Website links will automatically be created to the Butler. This makes it extra important that you do not change any file names when you report the pair contest to the butler since the team window does not know that you make changes in the pair window. Version 4.0, 22 Apr 2009 ======================== These are the new features of this version: * Update schedule * Team contest * Austrian version * New/modified documentation * Help * Print * Movement * Bridgemate - Download new Bridgemate Pro Control version * Bridgemate - Create database from round Y * Bridgemate - Fouled version * Current standing - Double dummy analysis * Current standing - Using frames UPDATE SCHEDULE As you can read in the team documentation (see link below; written in red in the documentation) there are many future improvements planned. I'm sure more will come after all Magic users lay their hands on the team module and give their feedback. The update schedule looks like this: 4.0.1 is scheduled for mid-June. This will mainly take care of annoyances and smaller improvements and of course formal errors that may have made it in there. 4.1 is scheduled for November. This version should deal with the remaining issues from the documentation. In between I will work with preparations for as well as actually running the World Championships in Sao Paulo. TEAM CONTEST I'm happy to say that Magic Contest now has a team module, especially since I for so many years have promised it to you without delivering. You have probably gotten used to statements such as "Maybe this autumn", and when autumn has arrived nothing has been produced. In order to run team contests you should read the documentation found at this page: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp This is a quote from the documentation: "Under no circumstance will you able to run a team event with Bridgemates, team scoring and Butler scoring without reading this document and testing carefully a number of times before running a real event." As you might understand I strongly recommend reading the documentation... AUSTRIAN VERSION If your scoring computer is connected to the internet this new feature is useful: The new version of Magic Contest now automatically downloads and installs the member file (MCPlayer.mcd) when it is published at the ÖBV website. NEW/MODIFIED DOCUMENTATION The following documents have been updated: * Team contest * Bridgemate * Current standing * Movement HELP I have come across an excellent support tool. In the help menu (Contest menu-Help) there is now a new item: Install TeamViewer for remote control support (www.teamviewer.com) This opens an internet browser that lets you install the special program needed. If you want support and nothing else helps this program will allow me to control your computer and hopefully find the error. TeamViewer seems perfectly safe. The only way your computer can be remotely controlled is if you through phone or e-mail provides the other party with an ID and a password. PRINT When you print personal scorecards it was possible to click on the section and pair to select what pair to print personal scorecards for. You can now click on more than one pair, one by one, and then click Print to print the personal scorecards for all the pairs. When you click on the pairs you will see how the entry field is filled with pair numbers. MOVEMENT There is a obscure movement called Appendix Mitchell that also can appear in a scrambled form. This makes it unlikely that you have ever tried the movement. Either way, if you have, you will now notice that guidecards do not anymore contain movement instructions. BRIDGEMATE - DOWNLOAD NEW BRIDGEMATE PRO CONTROL VERSION Magic Contest now checks the internet for new Bridgemate Pro versions. There is a setting through Contest menu-Options...-General-Magic Contest website where you can select to turn off this option. BRIDGEMATE - CREATE DATABASE FROM ROUND Y There is a new option in the Bridgemate menu called Create database from round Y. This is an extract from the documentation: "Imagine the following scenario in a multi-day contest over one single session: * Day 1 - Create database * Night - The power is lost causing the server to lose all its data * Day 2 - Create database again and overwrite the database used the day before Now you can not get Bridgemate to work starting in the expected round. If this ever happens you can now select the following menu item to make Bridgemate start in the correct round: Create database from round Y Apart from this there are excellent ways of solving this problem without the help of Magic Contest (assuming you still have the original database). This takes place in BMPro and the menu item Server – Synchronize client <-> server. Read more about this in the Bridgemate manual." BRIDGEMATE - FOULED VERSION When you edit a Bridgemate result through Enter results-Edit you now have the option of assigning a fouled version to the result. All results that belong to the same fouled version will be scored together, and Neuberg's formula will be used to adjust the score. Previously you had to go through Result menu-Ruling to do this. CURRENT STANDING - DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS If you use double dummy analysis it will now show in Current standing. CURRENT STANDING - USING FRAMES There is a new setting in the Current standing (more) tab called: Update each page individually (used for frames) This setting allows you to set up a frames system where you have ranking to the left, board 1 at the top right and board 2 at the bottom right. This setting allows each frame to update itself. Version 3.4.0.3, 9 Apr 2009 =========================== Bug-fix. Version 3.4.0.1, 8 Apr 2009 =========================== Bug-fix. Version 3.4, 4 Apr 2008 ======================= This is a beta teams version. The official one will be release around 20 April. Version 3.3.5, 26 Sep 2008 ========================== Beijing version. Version 3.3.3, 1 Sep 2008 ========================= Some items this time are strictly for the French Federation: * General changes * Print personal scorecards * French Federation GENERAL CHANGES Law 12C3 has been renamed 12C1c. PRINT PERSONAL SCORECARDS When you print personal scorecards you can now select section, direction, and then the pair to print. This is good if the players don't know their pair number. FRENCH FEDERATION The date format on all reports and all types of output is now DD/MM/YYYY When you go to Contest Explorer and click New pair contest you now get the choice between Une séance and Multi-séances. The latter also remains in the Special menu. This summer's problems with the reporting back to the FFB database is now hopefully over. In case of an event such as the one in Pau some pairs get IDPaire and some get "NI". In more controlled events all pairs get their IDPaire in the report. Version 3.3.2.1, 23 Aug 2008 ============================ The Spanish translation is now complete. What remains are some real events where the translations can be scrutinized. Correct credit should also be given. The Spanish translation has not only been done by José Miguel Martínez but also by fellow tournament director Javier Valmaseda. They have both done an excellent job. It seems as though the new version contained a small error that could pop up under certain circumstances when using Swiss and Bridgemate. The error has been removed. Version 3.3.2, 9 Aug 2008 ========================= This is what you can find in this version: * Spanish printouts * Movement * Bridgemate * Double dummy solver SPANISH PRINTOUTS Thanks to tournament director and Spanish Bridgemate reseller José Miguel Martínez Magic Contest can now print in Spanish. The first version probably contains some odd wordings, but this will hopefully be corrected as soon as possible. MOVEMENT There are two new movements - Curtailed Pivot Mitchell and Curtailed Filled-out Pivot Mitchell. If you select to play a multi-session individual barometer the movement of players from one session to the next works better. BRIDGEMATE When you score a multi-section event Magic Contest has stopped importing results when the active section is complete, no matter if the other sections are complete or not. This has now been fixed in the sense that Magic Contest does not stop importing results, no matter whether all sections are complete or not. DOUBLE DUMMY SOLVER Ver. 1.1.8 of Double dummy solver has now been included in Magic Contest. According to the author it is 10-15% faster when analysing. As there is some overhead in Magic Contest during analysis I guess we can count on 5-10% improvement. Version 3.3.0.4, 22 June 2008 ============================= French version Version 3.3.0.3, 20 June 2008 ============================= French version Version 3.3.0.2, 4 June 2008 ============================ French version Version 3.3.0.1, 1 June 2008 ============================ A number of French versions have been released the spring of 2008 whereas the English and German versions have been put on hold. This is mainly due to no single major issues being release each time. This list of news is a summary of all changes since the last release in January. Hopefully you can find something useful. * Bridgemate --- Movement editor --- Bridgemate folders --- Close preparations --- Automatically shut down Bridgemate Pro Control --- Update movement from round X --- Bug-fix --- Multi-session * Print --- New starting list * Movement --- Skip boards at Skip Mitchell --- Individual movement --- Combined Mitchell --- Multi-session * Other --- Automatic FTP --- Current standing --- Use local network for automatic install BRIDGEMATE - MOVEMENT EDITOR There is a new movement editor published at www.brenning.se. There was a bug in the old one, so please replace the old with the new. You also might want to place the new movements in the separate Movements folder (see below) which allows you to easier select home-made movements. BRIDGEMATE - BRIDGEMATE FOLDERS When importing a Bridgemate movement file the default is now to import from the Movements folder. This can be found in Magic Contest Documents which can normally be found in C:\Program Files\Magic Contest. You can change the location of the entire Magic Contest Documents folder if you go to Contest menu-Options...-General and modify the folder for Documents. Note that this will affect both contests, reports and the member database. BRIDGEMATE - AUTOMATICALLY SHUT DOWN BRIDGEMATE PRO CONTROL There is a new feature that allows BMPro to shut down automatically when the session is over. For this to work you need to download the latest version of BMPro from www.bridgemate.com. You need to make a setting in Magic Contest. Go to Contest menu-Options... -Bridgemate-BMPro settings to make this setting permanent for all new events. Under Communication settings you can find the new option called Automatically close BMPro at the end of session. BMPro uses this feature to shut down automatically when all Bridgemates log off after a session. The criteria for this to work is that all Bridgemates have been logged on at the exact same moment in time. This means that under certain circumstances, for instance when there is a stationary phantom pair, BMPro might now shut down automatically. You can solve this by, in the middle of the session, turning on that particular Bridgemate and notice that it says End of session. Then BMPro should close down properly. BRIDGEMATE - UPDATE MOVEMENT FROM ROUND X You can now update the movement from any round of your choice through Contest menu-Bridgemate-Update movement from round X. This is useful for instance if you have forgotten the skip in a Skip Mitchell, or if you have selected too few rounds in a Barometer Howell. Just Undo Close preparations and then update Bridgemate from round X. BRIDGEMATE - BUG-FIX There was a small bug when closing preparations through Contest menu- Bridgemate-Close preparations. This has been fixed. BRIDGEMATE - MULTI-SESSION If you run a multi-session event where you import the movement from a Bridgemate database designed for this, Magic Contest now remembers the name of the movement database so that you do not have to make that selection every time you change sessions. PRINT - NEW STARTING LIST There is a new report that let's you print a starting list on one page with N-S to the left and E-W to the right and large tables numbers in the middle. It is called: Table order, one section per page (both pairs on one line) MOVEMENT - SKIP BOARDS AT SKIP MITCHELL After an idea from the French federation there is now a new type of Skip Mitchell. Instead of having the pairs skip you now let the pairs move in a normal fashion and instead skip the boards when the skip takes place. You can find this setting through Select movement-Advanced-Mitchell (more). MOVEMENT - INDIVIDUAL MOVEMENT There was a bug in an individual movement for 14 players and 13 or less rounds (14b, page 38-39 in Movements). This has been fixed. MOVEMENT - COMBINED MITCHELL As described before there is a solution to the problem of having 12.5 + 12.5 tables and wanting to play 13 rounds. The solution is to enter one section with 25 tables. This will automatically merge the two half tables. There is now a solution for using this movement for multi-session with limited number of double meetings. There is also a document found in the documentation section of www.brenning.se describing this. MOVEMENT - MULTI-SESSION When running a multi-session event the handling of sessions is more convenient than before. There are two improvements: * After you have created the session you receive a question if you want to open the new session immediately. * After you have moved the pairs you receive a question whether you want to activate the automatic carry-over. Make sure you have changed all pairs before you actually answer Yes to this question. OTHER - AUTOMATIC FTP After you have reported a contest you can now automatically set up ftp to your website. Do the following: * Select Contest menu-Options...-General and the FTP tab. There you can enter basic FTP data such as: --- Host address --- User name --- Password --- Remote folder * When you select Contest menu-Report contest there is an FTP checkbox that, when checked, will make Magic automatically connect to your website and send the reported files. OTHER - CURRENT STANDING If you modify a Current standing report there is an extra tab available. This allows you to take away (or modify) the information rows that usually appear right below the contest name. This can be useful to a) save space, or b) give a special message to the players, for instance when play begins after the break or to announce special prizes. OTHER - USE LOCAL NETWORK FOR AUTOMATIC INSTALL If you have a local network set up with many computers that all have Magic installed you can now automatically install new versions on the clients. The options is found through Contest menu-Options-General-Magic Contest website and is called Also look for a new version on the local network. The way it works is that you need to place two files in the selected folder: * SetupMC.msi * Log.txt Magic Contest compares the existing Log.txt with the new one and uses that criteria to decide whether to launch SetupMC.msi or not. Version 3.2.5.3, 15 May 2008 ============================ French version. See separate check list. Version 3.2.5.2, 14 May 2008 ============================ French version. See separate check list. Version 3.2.5.1, 21 April 2008 ============================== French version. See separate check list. Version 3.2.5, 16 April 2008 ============================ French version. See separate check list. Version 3.2.4.7, 28 March 2008 ============================== French version. See separate document for list of changes and new features. Version 3.2.4.6, 20 March 2008 ============================== * Multi-session * French version MULTI-SESSION When running a multi-session event the handling of sessions is more convenient than before. There are two improvements: * After you have created the session you receive a question if you want to open the new session immediately. * After you have moved the pairs you receive a question whether you want to activate the automatic carry-over. Make sure you have changed all pairs before you actually answer Yes to this question. FRENCH VERSION Magic Contest can now completely import an FFB import file. The following features are available if you click the Changer button (you can also double-click in the lists): * Change parameters for: - The contest - One section - All sections * Move a pair from one position to another * Change the position at a table (N-S to E-W) * Move a pair from "Autres paires" to a position in a section When you have made the necessary changes you click Ouvert to open the first session. Version 3.2.4.5, 19 March 2008 ============================== At a new installion of Magic Contest the documents folder is placed in My documents instead of as previously C:\Program Files\Magic Contest. Version 3.2.4.3, 19 March 2008 ============================== * Current standing * Bridgemate folders CURRENT STANDING If you modify a Current standing report there is an extra tab available. This allows you to take away (or modify) the information rows that usually appear right below the contest name. This can be useful to a) save space, or b) give a special message to the players, for instance when play begins after the break or to announce special prizes. BRIDGEMATE FOLDERS When importing a Bridgemate movement file the default is now to import from the Movements folder. This can be found in Magic Contest Documents which can normally be found in C:\Program Files\Magic Contest. You can change the location of the entire Magic Contest Documents folder if you go to Contest menu-Options...-General and modify the folder for Documents. Note that this will affect both contests, reports and the member database. Version 3.2.4.2, 18 March 2008 ============================== French version: Small bug when reporting contest. Fixed Version 3.2.4.1, 16 March 2008 ============================== * Use local network for automatic install * French version USE LOCAL NETWORK FOR AUTOMATIC INSTALL If you have a local network set up with many computers that all have Magic installed you can now automatically install new versions on the clients. The options is found through Contest menu-Options-General-Magic Contest website and is called Also look for a new version on the local network. The way it works is that you need to place two files in the selected folder: * SetupMC.msi * Log.txt Magic Contest compares the existing Log.txt with the new one and uses that criteria to decide whether to launch SetupMC.msi or not. FRENCH VERSION French version: An import file can now be processed and used to start a new event. Version 3.2.4, 15 March 2008 ============================ There was a small bug when closing preparations through Contest menu- Bridgemate-Close preparations. This has been fixed. Also, if you run a multi-session event where you import the movement from a Bridgemate database designed for this, Magic Contest now remembers the name of the movement database so that you do not have to make that selection every time you change sessions. Version 3.2.2.2, 10 Feb 2008 ============================ This release, and 3.2.2.0 and 3.2.2.1, are small releases intended for the French federation. No list of news will be written until the next official version. Version 3.2.1.1, 17 Jan 2008 ============================ * Enter results - Copy view at multi-section * Double dummy analysis - bug fix * Double dummy analysis - refined search * VP Conversion * Bridgemate - Closed preparations ENTER RESULTS - COPY VIEW AT MULTI-SECTION When you run a multi-section event and you jump back and forth between sections there is sometimes (or always) a need for using the same view in all sections. Example: You are importing Bridgemate results in round view. Now you want to look at a specific board in all sections, so you change to that board in section A. If you now go to section B you will see that you are still in round view and have to change manually to get to the same board as in A. The same, but reversed, applies when you want to return to round view for continuing the result import. There is now a setting that allows you to always use the same view across all sections. Go to Contest menu-Properties-Enter names and results and the Scorecard tag. There copy can find the Copy view option. To make it permanent over all future contests you can of course select Contest menu- Options-... and so on. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - BUG FIX The calculation of par contract and par result was incorrect when one side sacrificed against a making contract. Sometimes Magic Contest then found a sacrifice against the sacrifice, for instance: 4S by N = 5Hx by E -2 5Sx by N -1 This has been fixed. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - REFINED SEARCH Magic Contest has gotten extra features for finding the par contract. Take the following exciting examples: Board 1 N: AKQJT98765 / KJ9 / - / - E: 32 / 32 / - / AQT987643 S: - / - / AKQJT987654 / KJ W: 4 / AQT87654 / 32 / 52 Find 4N ... 430 Sacrifice in 5Cx ... 100 Find 5C ... 400 Sacrifice in 5Hx ... 300 Board 2 N: AKQJT9872 / 432 / - / 4 E: 3 / - / 32 / AKQJT98763 S: - / 6 / AKQJT98764 / 52 W: 654 / AKQJT9875 / 5 / - Find 3S ... 140 Find 4C ... 130 Find 4D ... 130 Sacrifice in 4Hx ... 100 VP CONVERSION The second stage of the French Beijing trials have now been played. A few modifications to the scoring was necessary to deal with rulings such as A+, A= and A-. In normal pairs scoring you always compare N-S with other N-S. In VP conversion table by table you actually create many teams matches, and in these cases N-S always compares with E-W just as in a teams match. If E-W at another table is benefitting from an A+ ruling, so will N-S at the tables comparing with that result. When comparing one A ruling with another, the other one is ignored (second example). Let's take some examples: Table 1-6: Normal results Table 7: A+/A- Table 8: A+/A+ Comparison between table 1 and table 7: 1-NS (normal) comparing with 7-EW (A-): A- (-3 IMPs) 1-EW (normal) comparing with 7-NS (A+): A+ (+3 IMPs) 7-NS (A+) comparing with 1-EW (normal): A+ (+3 IMPs) 7-EW (A-) comparing with 1-NS (normal): A- (-3 IMPs) Comparison between table 7 and table 8: 7-NS (A+) comparing with 8-EW (A+): A+ 7-EW (A-) comparing with 8-NS (A+): A- 8-NS (A+) comparing with 7-EW (A-): A+ 8-EW (A+) comparing with 7-NS (A+): A+ BRIDGEMATE - CLOSE PREPARATIONS Since some time back it has been possible to use a Bridgemate database for creating your own movement. If you didn't know this you can read more if you click version 2.10.12 to your left. The table RoundData has been extended with the field custom_Session. This can be used if you run a multi-session event and want to create only one database with the movements for all sessions. Version 3.2.1, 16 Jan 2008 ========================== * Double dummy analysis - bug fix * Double dummy analysis - refined search * VP Conversion * Bridgemate - Closed preparations DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - BUG FIX The calculation of par contract and par result was incorrect when one side sacrificed against a making contract. Sometimes Magic Contest then found a sacrifice against the sacrifice, for instance: 4S by N = 5Hx by E -2 5Sx by N -1 This has been fixed. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS - REFINED SEARCH Magic Contest has gotten extra features for finding the par contract. Take the following exciting examples: Board 1 N: AKQJT98765 / KJ9 / - / - E: 32 / 32 / - / AQT987643 S: - / - / AKQJT987654 / KJ W: 4 / AQT87654 / 32 / 52 Find 4N ... 430 Sacrifice in 5Cx ... 100 Find 5C ... 400 Sacrifice in 5Hx ... 300 Board 2 N: AKQJT9872 / 432 / - / 4 E: 3 / - / 32 / AKQJT98763 S: - / 6 / AKQJT98764 / 52 W: 654 / AKQJT9875 / 5 / - Find 3S ... 140 Find 4C ... 130 Find 4D ... 130 Sacrifice in 4Hx ... 100 VP CONVERSION The second stage of the French Beijing trials have now been played. A few modifications to the scoring was necessary to deal with rulings such as A+, A= and A-. In normal pairs scoring you always compare N-S with other N-S. In VP conversion table by table you actually create many teams matches, and in these cases N-S always compares with E-W just as in a teams match. If E-W at another table is benefitting from an A+ ruling, so will N-S at the tables comparing with that result. When comparing one A ruling with another, the other one is ignored (second example). Let's take some examples: Table 1-6: Normal results Table 7: A+/A- Table 8: A+/A+ Comparison between table 1 and table 7: 1-NS (normal) comparing with 7-EW (A-): A- (-3 IMPs) 1-EW (normal) comparing with 7-NS (A+): A+ (+3 IMPs) 7-NS (A+) comparing with 1-EW (normal): A+ (+3 IMPs) 7-EW (A-) comparing with 1-NS (normal): A- (-3 IMPs) Comparison between table 7 and table 8: 7-NS (A+) comparing with 8-EW (A+): A+ 7-EW (A-) comparing with 8-NS (A+): A- 8-NS (A+) comparing with 7-EW (A-): A+ 8-EW (A+) comparing with 7-NS (A+): A+ BRIDGEMATE - CLOSE PREPARATIONS Since some time back it has been possible to use a Bridgemate database for creating your own movement. If you didn't know this you can read more if you click version 2.10.12 to your left. The table RoundData has been extended with the field custom_Session. This can be used if you run a multi-session event and want to create only one database with the movements for all sessions. Version 3.2, 6 Jan 2008 ======================= A lot has happened since the last release. Mainly, the French and Austrian versions av been developed and released. Please click 3.1.5.2 - 3.1.5.7 to your left to read more about what has happened since the last release. A few small improvements have been implemented since 3.1.5.7, but nothing really worth mentioning. The main addition is VP conversion of IMP events. DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS All of this is described in 3.1.5.2 - 3.1.5.7, but I want to stress the fact that this is probably thoe most exciting addition to this version. A lot of people use different tools to print hand records with Deep Finesse analysis, and now this is completely integrated in Magic Contest. Try it and I'm sure you will abandon the other tools. BRIDGEMATE - DOCUMENTATION The Bridgemate documentation has been updated. The updates are marginal, but for reference, please download the document from: http://www.brenning.se/mcdocsdocumentation.asp VP CONVERSION The latest addition is a new scoring type that converts IMPs into VPs. It is still being developed, so only a few parts work. Currently it converts the basic scoring type IMPs across the field into VPs based on comparing your own table with each of the other tables. If you have 11 tables the average per round will be 150 VPs (15-15 is a tie). Another limitation is that you can only use the official WBF VP table that adjusts to the number of boards per round. Do like this: Start a new pair contests, change the scoring type into IMPs across the field, click Advanced, and select the VP conversion tab. Here you can select Yes, table by table. Then you select the VP table where currently the WBF table is the only available one. From this point and on the result entry and scoring takes place just as normal. When you print a score recap you will get some extra score grids in the beginning of the report: * Result overview, table by table, board by board * IMP overview, table by table * VP overview, table by table The VP conversion was used in the French trials for the Olympiad in Beijing 2008, so it works perfectly fine in Magic Contest. However, not all the exceptions to the exceptions have been found, so if you want to try this scoring method you have to do it on your own risk, at least if you want to deviate from normal scoring. Version 3.1.5.7, 27 Nov 2007 ============================ * Double dummy analysis * PBN * Serpentin ranking * French version DOUBLE DUMMY ANALYSIS All previous references to "Deep Finesse" have been removed. Insted the simple terminology "double dummy analysis" is used. Magic Contest can now perform a double dummy analysis. Credit for this feature goes to Bo Haglund from Sweden. His DDS (Double Dummy Solver) DLL comes for free, licensed under GPL (GNU General Public License). The DDS website gives more information: http://web.telia.com/~u88910365/ The only analysis that takes place is a trick count analysis. That means that no par contract (minimax, best score, etc) is calculated. Do the following to analyse the hand record: * Import a hand record file * Click Contest menu and select View hand record * Click File and select Make double dummy analysis If you select a specific hand the analysis will start from that hand. There are a number of settings that decide the layout when printing hands: * Contest menu-Properties...-Print-Print (double dummy analysis) * New report: Deal tab PBN (Portable Bridge Notation) The latest PBN specification allows for two new tags that are both related to double dummy analysis: * OptimumResultTable * OptimumScore Both are supported, both for import and export. Currently the par result (OptimumScore) is not calculated by Magic Contest's analysis, so the par result can only be exported if it has been previously imported from a PBN file that supports it. SERPENTIN RANKING This is a feature requested by the French Bridge Federation. The concept is that in a straight Mitchell you might sometimes want only one winner but you do not want to use arrow switches. To give some fairness in case of unbalanced lines the ranks alternate between North-South and East-West. Imagine the following ranking: 1 ns1 66% 2 ns2 65% 3 ew1 64% 4 ew2 63% 5 ew3 62% 6 ew4 61% 7 ns3 60% ... When using serpentin ranking with 3 pairs from each line the final ranking will look like this: 1 ns1 66% 2 ew1 64% 3 ns2 65% 4 ew2 63% 5 ew3 62% 6 ns3 60% 7 ew4 61% ... The number of pairs in the serpentin ranking are decided through Contest menu-Properties...-Scoring-Serpentin ranking. Enter number of pairs for each direction, e.g. 3 if a total of 6 pairs are to be included in the serpentin part of the ranking. FRENCH VERSION There is nothing specific to the French Bridge Federation in this version. Remember to read the change log for version 3.1.5.6 to your left that describes the newly added feature of specific tops. Version 3.1.5.6, 5 Nov 2007 =========================== * Specific top * Bugfix: Alphabetical order * Bugfix: Random sort order * Bugfix: Austrian version (master points problems) This is a version that mainly takes care of errors in Magic Contest. I am sorry about this and will try to be more careful in the future. SPECIFIC TOP Through Contest menu-Properties...-Pair contest-Scoring-Matchpoints (more) you can now find Use specific top. This allows you to factor the top, for instance with a top of 100 which makes it easier for the players to know the value of scores on boards. The scoring is first done taking care of normal factors such as number of results, number of rulings, Neuberg's formula, etc. Then the specific top and the normal top create a factor that will be used for multiplying all scores. In case of 11 tables this is the scores before the factoring: # Res NS EW 4 450 17 3 6 420 7 13 1 -50 0 20 With a specific top = 100 the factor is 100/20 = 5 and the scores look like this: # Res NS EW 4 450 85 15 6 420 35 65 1 -50 0 100 BUGFIX: ALPHABETICAL ORDER It turned out that the alphabetical sort order introduced in version 3.1.5.1 was always active, not just when the checkbox was checked. For those who have not tried this, select Contest menu-Properties...- Pair contest-Enter names and results and check the Alphabetical order checkbox. You must enter the names from the member file for this to work. BUGFIX: RANDOM SORT ORDER There has also been problems when sorting names in a random order. For the Austrian users this was actually fixed in version 3.1.5.4. BUGFIX: AUSTRIAN VERSION (MASTER POINTS PROBLEMS) The master points problem with points out of order seems to finally be solved. I received some invaluable help from the scorer involved in the Austrian pairs championship the past weekend, and with this help I could find the error. Version 3.1.5.5, 28 Oct 2007 ============================ There is still an Austrian error in the master points presentation. This version may or may not help solving that. If an error occur, please close down the contest immediately and look in Magic Contest Outbox. There is a .log file with the name of the contest. Copy that file to another file name or e-mail it right away. Also, please keep a copy of the incorrect printout for future comparisons with the log file. Remember you need to do the above before reopening the contest. If not, the log file will be overwritten. Version 3.1.5.4, 22 Sep 2007 ============================ * Version 3.1.5.2 * Enter names - Seating: Bugfix VERSION 3.1.5.2 A few new interesting features were added in version 3.1.5.2. Please click the version to your left and read more about it. ENTER NAMES - SEATING: BUGFIX If you select to use seating instead of closing preparations in the normal fashion (last step of opening a contest; instead of entering number of sections you select to prepare seating) there was a bug. It appeared if you entered names and tables and then chose to sort the names according to the tables. The bug has been removed. Version 3.1.5.3, 6 Sep 2007 =========================== * French version FRENCH VERSION The single-section multi-session option to move the pairs according to "serpentin" now works. The algorithm is as described in a document by Jean-Francois Chevalier. Support for individual events now exist in ContestExplorer_ContestParam. The following IDs are used: 500 Individual barometer 510 Interwoven Howell 511 Stanza Howell 512 Interwoven Howell 513 Mingled Movement 520 Regular Mitchell 521 Scrambled Regular Mitchell 530 Irregular Mitchell 531 Scrambled Irregular Mitchell 540 Rainbow Mitchell 541 Scrambled Rainbow Mitchell 550 Broken Rainbow Mitchell 551 Scrambled Broken Rainbow Mitchell Remember that enough table space has to be entered to allow all players to have their place in the name entry window. This means you must enter 5 tables when you have 17 players. In this case there will be three phantom players (18, 19 and 20). Version 3.1.5.2, 5 Sep 2007 =========================== * Multi-session - Change dates automatically * Multi-session - Line movement * Restore pair numbers after Undo Close preparations * Empty personal scorecard * French version MULTI-SESSION - CHANGE DATES AUTOMATICALLY Suppose you play a multi-session event over two days with a total of four sessions. Then you can enter the start date and the end date. All reports will then show this date interval at the top left corner. If you do not want the complete date interval in the title of all reports you can enter just the first date. In order to change dates automatically there are two new multi-session options: * Automatically change dates after session * Number of days to add Enter 2 in the first field and enter 1 in the second to have Magic Contest automatically change the date by one day after session 2. MULTI-SESSION - LINE MOVEMENT When you move lines between sessions you can use the Auto-move button in the Move lines window. The small change is that the moving of lines is now optimized according to number of sections and sessions. A large thanks to Marc van Beijsterveldt for doing the job. There is a new document in the Documentation section of the Magic Contest website. This describes in detail how the Auto-move button works. RESTORE PAIR NUMBERS AFTER UNDO CLOSE PREPARATIONS Suppose you use one movement to close the preparations. Then you change the pair numbers for one reason or the other. This could be in session 2 of a multi-session event where you need to change one pair from a moving line to a stationatly one. Now a few pairs drop out and you need to reduce the number of tables. Now you typically select Contest menu-Undo Close preparations for the section and change the number of tables. According to the instructions Magic Contest now assigns pair numbers according to the new movement. However, it is likely that you want to retain the pair numbers that you have already once modified. The final step of Close preparations now takes care of this automatically. In case there has been any changes to the pair numbers you are asked if you want to restore the pair numbers or not. EMPTY PERSONAL SCORECARDS A lead column has been added in the normal empty personal scorecard. The landscape version intended for more boards has no space for lead. FRENCH VERSION A number of translations have been included. The newly added movement Combined Mitchell now works through the database interface (movement ID 110-113). Version 3.1.5.1, 28 Aug 2007 ============================ The change log for version 3.1.5 is repeated for convenience. * Quick bug fix (3.1.5.1) * Automatic Magic Contest updates * Bug fixes * Alphabetical name order * Austrian version - Name format * Austrian version - Master point disorder QUICK BUG-FIX (3.1.5.1) These two items are the only thing that separates version 3.1.5 from this: Enter handicap through Enter names. The handicaps entered disappeared but did still affect the total score. Fixed. IMP penalties at Butler and IMP across the field caused Magic Contest to crash. Fixed. AUTOMATIC MAGIC CONTEST UPDATES Magic Contest can now automatically look for program updates. Select Contest menu-Options...-General-Magic Contest website to access this setting. Here you can select to download the latest version of Magic Contest. The default setting is to do this every time Magic Contest is started. If there is a new version you are asked if this should be downloaded and automatically installed. In case you have a firewall on your computer it may be that you have to tell it to allow Magic Contest to access the internet. BUG FIXES Printout of the personal scoreslip was affected by a setting that was intended for normal personal scorecards. This has been fixed. The individual movement Broken Rainbow had a bug. This has been fixed. ALPHABETICAL NAME ORDER Through Contest menu-Properties...-Enter names and results-Enter names there is now a checkbox called Sort the names of the pair in alphabetical order. As with the Mixed checkbox this setting decides what order pairs are shown in Enter names and subsequentally on printouts. If you check both Mixed and Alphabetical the former takes precedence. AUSTRIAN VERSION - NAME FORMAT The last version caused a change in the behavious in Enter names. In spite of the name format being selected as "SMITH John" names appeared as "John Smith" in Enter names. This has been changed back in the Austrian version. AUSTRIAN VERSION - MASTER POINT DISORDER There has been (and might still be) a master point disorder problem. I can not for my life find the error since it can not be reproduced. I have tried to make a few smaller modifications, but I can not promise that the bug has been fixed. Please let me know if the bug remains. Version 3.1.5, 27 Aug 2007 ========================== * Automatic Magic Contest updates * Bug fixes * Alphabetical name order * Austrian version - Name format * Austrian version - Master point disorder AUTOMATIC MAGIC CONTEST UPDATES Magic Contest can now automatically look for program updates. Select Contest menu-Options...-General-Magic Contest website to access this setting. Here you can select to download the latest version of Magic Contest. The default setting is to do this every time Magic Contest is started. If there is a new version you are asked if this should be downloaded and automatically installed. In case you have a firewall on your computer it may be that you have to tell it to allow Magic Contest to access the internet. BUG FIXES Printout of the personal scoreslip was affected by a setting that was intended for normal personal scorecards. This has been fixed. The individual movement Broken Rainbow had a bug. This has been fixed. ALPHABETICAL NAME ORDER Through Contest menu-Properties...-Enter names and results-Enter names there is now a checkbox called Sort the names of the pair in alphabetical order. As with the Mixed checkbox this setting decides what order pairs are shown in Enter names and subsequentally on printouts. If you check both Mixed and Alphabetical the former takes precedence. AUSTRIAN VERSION - NAME FORMAT The last version caused a change in the behavious in Enter names. In spite of the name format being selected as "SMITH John" names appeared as "John Smith" in Enter names. This has been changed back in the Austrian version. AUSTRIAN VERSION - MASTER POINT DISORDER There has been (and might still be) a master point disorder problem. I can not for my life find the error since it can not be reproduced. I have tried to make a few smaller modifications, but I can not promise that the bug has been fixed. Please let me know if the bug remains. Version 3.1.4, 26 July 2007 =========================== * Report contest * Current standing * Movement * Bridgemate - Incorrect names * Bridgemate - Create database for round 1 only * Close preparations - Use Bridgemate * Print - Personal scorecard * Print - Multiple copies * Multi-session - Line movements * Multi-session - Other * French version REPORT CONTEST When you report a contest to website the default file name is today's date. Sometimes this is inconvenient, especially at bridge festivals. You can now select Contest menu-Options...-Report contest and the Website (file name) tab and use the following setting to have the contest name as default file name: Use contest name instead of contest date CURRENT STANDING Current standing now offers you several colour schemas to allow you some flexibility to the appearance on the projector. Select Contest menu- Properties-Current standing-Current standing (and more). The setting Text and background colour gives you the following options: * Black on white * White on blue * Yellow on blue * Yellow on black From a LIX readability perspective yellow on black is the best. However, a black background does not always look that interesting, so if you want colour I would recommend yellow on blue. Note! The default is yellow on blue for the French version. MOVEMENT If you are set on playing Mitchell there are some table numbers that do not fit the available movements. If you for instance want to play 26 boards with 25 tables there is not good solution. Normally you would select to play in two sections (A+B) but in this case it means 12 1/5 tables in each section. The way Magic Contest works right now you can now use two sections and at the same time have the two pairs with bye meet each other. There is now a new movement called Combined Mitchell. It is a movement for one section where the above mentioned problem is solved. At 25 tables it means that tables 1-12 correspond to the original section A. Tables 14-25 correspond to section B. Table 13 comprise one moving pair from section A (as E-W) and one moving pair from section B (as N-S). The pairs and boards move just as normal with a few exceptions: * 13 E-W moves to 1 E-W * 13 N-S moves to 14 E-W * 25 E-W moves to 13 N-S You probably need a double set of boards to avoid board sharing between tables 1+14, 2+15, and so on. Combined Mitchell works for all odd table numbers. The following Mitchell types are included: * Odd Table Mitchell * Relay Mitchell * Skip Mitchell * Scrambled Complete Mitchell (Odd Table Mitchell and Relay Mitchell) * Scrambled Skip Mitchell BRIDGEMATE - INCORRECT NAMES When you start a Bridgemate database where the players enter the member numbers in the Bridgemate there is now a report indicating incorrect or possibly incorrect member numbers. It also specifies missing players. The incorrect or possibly incorrect member numbers fall into two categories: * Member number without a hit in the member database * Member number that is equivalent to the pair number The second option is a human shortcoming that is much to common. Instead of entering their own member number they enter the pair number they will use in the contest. If you go to Enter names the incorrect pairs are shown in red. BRIDGEMATE - CREATE DATABASE FOR ROUND 1 ONLY There is now a new menu item through Contest menu-Bridgemate: Create database for round 1 only It creates a database for just one round and then automatically undoes all the preparations. The purpose of this option is to start bridge festivals where you know the exact number of sections and the maximum number of tables in each section Assume you use 4 sections of max 14 tables. Then you can start this setup, that is with exactly 14 tables, five minutes before game starts. Now the tournament directors can spend some time on filling holes and allow some late entries to play without having this prevent the players from using the Bridgemates for results in round 1. Five or ten minutes into the round you can again close the preparations, this time for the exact number of tables. The last you have to do is select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Update movement from round 2 and you will activate the Bridgemate for the rest of the event. First make sure that possible phantom pairs have been set before closing the preparations. Of course it is not limited to bridge festivals, but that is where it is most useful. There is one restriction, and that is that the pair numbers must be identical from the preparations were closed the first time to the second. This limits the usage to Mitchell and the Barometer Howell (1-20 or 1-40) that has fixed pair numbers. CLOSE PREPARATIONS - USE BRIDGEMATE The last stage of closing preparations has the option Use Bridgemate. This takes you to the following window: * I want to use Bridgemate * I want to select a phantom pair * I want to use Bridgemate, but right now only for round 1 The third option is new. If you select this you will copy the behaviour of the menu option described in the previous section. After the Bridgemate database has been created the preparations will be automatically undone. When you finalize the preparations and again select Use Bridgemate Magic Contest will automatically suggest that you update the movement from round 2. PRINT - PERSONAL SCORECARDS The report Personal scorecard-Prognosis at the beginning of the last round turned out to have a flaw in spite of the good intentions: In a Mitchell, the East-West scorecards had the table position printed in the last round to help the tournament directors distribute the papers. Unfortunately East-West often looked at this table position at the start of the next session and selected to sit down at the wrong table. Now the layout of the East-West cards have changed slightly. At the top it now says: Tournament director: To be handed out at table A 1 E-W Next to the name it now says the starting position of each pair which is better as a reference at the beginnined of the next session. PRINT - MULTIPLE COPIES There are two ways to print multiple copies: * Click Print and manually specify exact number of copies to print * Use auto-print at barometer with multiple copies The auto-print options can be found at Contest menu-Properties...-Print- Print (auto). There is now a new option: Confirm continued printing after the first page (when printing multiple copies) This setting makes sure that you don't print unnecessary copies in case you got the layout settings wrong or if you, after inspection, found an incorrect result. MULTI-SESSION - LINE MOVEMENTS When you move the lines from one session to another it is convenient to convey this message to the players. Suppose you do this before the session is over and you intend to print personal scorecards it is possible to include a message with the line movements. After you have tweaked the line movements Magic Contest will give you the option to create a file with the following (approximate) layout: A N-S >> A N-S A E-W >> B N-S B N-S >> B E-W B E-W >> A E-W When you print the prognosis personal scorecards or the session result of the previous session you can manually include this as a message after you have clicked Print (in the window called Board, round and message). The reason that the arrows are not aligned is that the print width taken by the directions ("N-S" and "E-W") is not the same. Therefore the extra space creates better print layout. MULTI-SESSION - OTHER If you activate member number entry in Bridgemate in a multi-session event Magic Contest automatically turns this off for session 2. In France it is common to show total percentage (167.5) instead of average percentage over all sessions (55.8). The setting for this can be found at start-up of a multi-session event and is called Show total percentage (instead of average over all sessions) This option is not activated by default except in the French version. FRENCH VERSION The Combined Mitchell can be opened through the database using the following ID numbers: 110=Combined Mitchell 111=Combined Relay Mitchell (Guéridon) 112=Combined Scrambled Mitchell 113=Combined Scrambled Relay Mitchell (Guéridon) There are some new database parameters that correspond to the new settings as decribed above: * ReportCSColourScheme * AutoPrintConfirmMultipleCopies * ShowTotalPercentage Version 3.1.2, 12 June 2007 =========================== Work progresses for the French federation with frequent new releases. Therefore the releases are not synchronized with the English and German versions. Please click on the new versions to your left to read about what has happened since early May when the last version was released. This particular version is very small and contains the following: * Deep Finesse analysis * Changing pair numbers at multi-session * French version DEEP FINESSE ANALYSIS Magic Contest can not make the Deep Finesse analysis. That is something that is imported from a PBN file with a special layout, namely a file that contains the tags OptimumResultTable and OptimumResult. The analysis is made by Deep Finesse through Jannersten's BOS concept. You have to contact per@jannersten.se for details about downloading and buying BOS and Deep Finesse (DF). To my best knowledge BOS is free while DF requires a licence at an unknown price. Once BOS and DF are installed If you have a stand-alone DUP file you need to do the following: * Start a BOS session through File-New * Use Run-Export_Import to import the file * Click Makeable_Contracts to make an analysis * Use HandPrint to export a suitable PBN file The HandPrint option to activate is called Makeable contracts and you can find it in the middle of the window to your right. Then click the button pdf Files which also exports the PBN file. After importing this PBN file into Magic Contest you have a number of layout options available through Contest menu-Properties...-Print (Deep Finesse). The first one is the position of the analysis: * Position (relative to the deal) - Below (always for internet output) - Top right corner - Bottom right corner - Bottom left corner The internet output is always placed below the deal. Then there are a number of optional printouts: * General - Par result - Ascending suit order (CDHSN) * Makeable contracts - Only makeable contracts - Number of tricks above 6 * Condensed printout - Hide South and West if equal number of tricks in all suits - Replace trick count with colon (:) when equal number of tricks If you design a report of your own you can use an option in the Deal tab to print or not print the analysis. CHANGING PAIR NUMBERS AT MULTI-SESSION When you change a pair number, for instance 1 to 21, the opposite change was also made when both pair numbers resided in the same section. This has now changed so that the change takes place in all sections. Remember that if you have already activated the automatic carry-over and exchange two pair numbers only the pair numbers are exchanged, not the names and the carry-overs. This will be fixed shortly but for the time being you have to back to the previous session, make a change to something to force a carry-over, and then open the current session again. FRENCH VERSION The Deep Finesse analysis is exported to ContestReport_HandRecord. The DF parameters are included in the ContestExplorer_ContestParam. Version 3.1.1.4, 6 June 2007 ============================ A small version on the Swedish National day: * Multi-session for one section * Report * Report settings * French version * French version - movements MULTI-SESSION FOR ONE SECTION There are a number of ways to score a multi-session single-section event. The correct way according to the book Movements is to combine a Scrambled Mitchell with an Interwoven Howell in either order. To increase the excitement the second session can be run as barometer, still using the Interwoven Howell so that all pairs meet all other. The French way is to either arrow switch every other table for the second session or place them according to rank. The latter case is done this way for 8 tables: 1 - 2 16 - 15 4 - 3 13 - 14 5 - 6 12 - 11 8 - 7 9 - 10 When you change to the second session after having scored the first as a Mitchell you received the following options: * Interwoven Howell * Interwoven Howell (barometer) * Serpentin based on rank (Snake in English) * Switch pairs at even table numbers After selecting one of the options the movement of pairs has been done automatically. All you need to do is to activate the automatic carry-over. The Serpentin option is not yet implemented. REPORT There are now two new reports that can be useful for handicap events: Final result: HANDICAP Final result: SCRATCH Apart from scoring with and without handicap they also print the corresponding text in large letters at the top of the report. REPORT SETTINGS Through Contest menu-Properties-Print you can now find two new settings in the section called Print on reports and to the internet: * Handicap percentage * Handicap score These two decide what to be printed and what not. FRENCH VERSION The settings described in Report settings above are now implemented in ContestExplorer_ContestParam. [Print] DoNotPrintPlayerHandicap DoNotPrintScoreHandicap Note that they are reversed in the sense that 1=Yes means that the field is hidden. FRENCH VERSION - MOVEMENTS The ContestParam document has been extended with two new movements that can be used from FFBCom: 230 = Interwoven Howell 231 = Interwoven Howell for Multi-session Both movements are described in the book Movements. Version 3.1.1.3, 5 June 2007 ============================ * Mixed * Deep finesse * French version MIXED This option can be found in Contest menu-Properties-Enter names under the following name: Mixed event, i.e. automatically place the woman first in the pair It automatically makes sure that the woman is in the first position and the man in the second. It is required that the players reside in the member file and of course that the correct sex has been assigned. DEEP FINESSE Deep Finesse analysis has been implemented. In order to print the analysis you need to import a PBN file that contains OptimumResultTable as provided by Jannersten's BOS concept. The analysis requires a licence of Deep Finesse installed on your system. Go to www.jannersten.com for more information. FRENCH VERSION The Mixed flag as described above is also implemented in ContestExplorer_ ContestParam as follows: [Enter names] IsMixed ParamEpreuves has been extended with the field bMixed in case you want to support the Mixed feature. --- Deep Finesse is supported in ContestReport_HandRecord. 20 new fields have been added: cTrickNorthNoTrump cTrickNorthSpades ... cTrickWestClubs The prefix "c" means "count", that is "number of". In case the Deep Finesse analysis has been imported it will also be exported to these fields. Version 3.1.1.2, 1 June 2007 ============================ * Report * Skip Mitchell skip * French version * French version - Handicap events REPORT There is a new report called Final result without handicap. This can be used in multi-session handicap events to print the scratch results. SKIP MITCHELL SKIP It is now possible to select what round the skip at Skip Mitchell takes place. Select the movement, click Advanced, select Mitchell (more), and enter the round for the skip. FRENCH VERSION There was a bug when restoring a backup. This has been fixed. FRENCH VERSION - HANDICAP EVENTS Handicap events are now supported. The following is required to start a handicap event from FFBCom: ParamEpreuve now contains the Boolean field bHandicap so that FFBCom can manage the contest setup correctly. ContestExplorer_ContestParam now contains [Handicap]-HandicapParam. This field is described in detail in the ContestParam documentation. Ignore this field for non-handicap events. ContestExplorer_StartingList contains the fHcpPercentage field for the calculated handicaps. These are only imported if HandicapParam above is supplied. ContestExplorer_TotalScoreTable has been extended with the following fields to accommodate reporting of scratch (non-handicapped) results: * nSessionRankWithoutHcp * nSessionRankWithoutHcpTie * fSessionScoreMPWithoutHcp * fSessionScoreIMPWithoutHcp * fSessionPercentageWithoutHcp When an event is started the handicap parameters and the player (pair) handicaps are imported into Magic Contest's internal handicap system. The details for that can be found through Contest menu-Properties...-Handicap. If the handicaps are calculated per player both values are shown in starting lists and on final results. If the handicaps are calculated per pair, i.e. when both players' handicaps are identical, only one value is shown. Version 3.1.1, 29 May 2007 ========================== This is a rather small update: * Personal scoreslip * Enter results - only enter a certain number of rounds * Movement * Multi-session - Handicap and/or average=0 * Multi-session - Hand record * Multi-session - Barometer * French version * French version - Backup PERSONAL SCORESLIP This has now been modified so that it is possible to print it during the contest or after the contest in the sense that byes and A+ or A- are adjusted accordingly. If you create a new report you will see the new tab Score adjustments that takes care of this for you. The default settings are after the contest for the report called 3x1, all rounds, while for the other scoreslips it is assumed that you print them during the contest and that scores are therefore not adjusted. ENTER RESULTS - ONLY ENTER A CERTAIN NUMBER OF ROUNDS For those of you who collect the scorecards before the end to start entering results there is a new feature that makes entering results a little but easier. Assume you play 13 rounds and collect the scorecards after 9. Go to board 1. Enter the first 9 results. This takes you to round 10. Now press the slash (/) key on the numeric keyboard. This puts a end to board 1. Now press Enter to move to board 2. Enter 9 results. After the 9th you see that the entry box does not expect any more results. This allows you to use Enter to move to the next board and so on. When you want to enter results 10-13 you just go to a board and round 10. Start entering results and you will be allowed to enter 10-13. If you want you can use multiple slash if you first collect after round 6 and then after round 10. MOVEMENT Stationary VasNeg movement. This is a modification of the Dutch VasNeg movement. It will be used in Antalya for the Open European Championships. Through Close preparations-Movement-Advanced you can now select to invert a movement by checking the Use mirror movement... option. This can be used in conjunction with Club match (see the setup) in order to have pairs play together with one other pair but playing in the completely different direction every time. MULTI-SESSION - HANDICAP AND/OR AVERAGE=0 An error has been fixed in the multi-session carry-over. This occured for handicap events and barometers where average was set to 0. MULTI-SESSION - HAND RECORD Imagine following criteria: * Specify Clear hand records when changing sessions = Yes. You do this at the multi-session start-up. * Import a hand record into session 1 When you create session 2 you will automatically be asked for a new hand record. MULTI-SESSION - BAROMETER When you start the second session you will automatically get the correct starting board number in case you have set Clear hand records when changing sessions to No. FRENCH VERSION When used together with FFBCom (the French Bridge Federation's official program) Magic Contest will only import the official contest parameters once. All later changes will take place in Magic Contest. The above does not apply to names that can be changed as many times as you like in FFBCom and then automatically imported into Magic Contest. FRENCH VERSION - BACKUP This options is only available to the French users. The backup has been modified a little bit. Now there are two menu options through Menu de l'épreuve-Backup: * Create backup * Create backup and send as an e-mail The first options creates the backup and also zips the file. The original file created is called 1234.mcb. The zip file that is created is called 1234.mcb.zip and is placed in Magic Files. The unzipped file is deleted. The second option can send the zip file as an attachment to an e-mail. For this to work you need to have set up the e-mail support through Menu de l'épreuve-Paramètres par défault-General-E-mail. You can use either Outlook Express or set up SMTP support in Magic Contest. If the e-mail is sent successfully the zip file is removed from Magic Files. When importing a backup you simply place the file in Magic Import and start Magic Contest. The file will be automatically restored. Version 3.1.0.2, 4 May 2007 =========================== This is a release specifically for Austria. It contains a new master point module and modified methods of applying this for handicap contests. Don't forget to click 3.1 in the list to the left to read about the major extras of that version. Version 3.1.0.1, 3 May 2007 =========================== This is a bug-fix due to an embarrassing newly introduced error. Don't forget to click 3.1 in the list to the left to read about the major extras of that version. MOVEMENT I am an idiot. It turns out I managed to remove Curtailed Odd Table Mitchell from the list of available movements. This has been fixed. BRIDGEMATE If you use the setup with two contests and one Bridgemate server there is now added functionality. Just as before you use contest #1 to create the database. Contest #2 is used together with Contest menu-Bridgemate-Add to database. Previously you have then had to go to BMPro and synchronize the database with the server for the added tables to be activated. New functionality now makes that step superfluous. Instead the tables are automatically added to the server. Version 3.1, 1 May 2007 ======================= This is a list of new and/or modified items: * Enter names - Easier way to assign a phantom pair * Enter results - Section buttons * Close preparations - Assign board sets to specific tables - Pair numbering * Individual - New movements - No movement instructions on some guidecards - Irregular Mitchell - Rainbow Mitchell - Broken Rainbow Mitchell * Current standing - Position for next table - Show / hide matchpoints - Bug-fix * Bridgemate - Conditional settings - Update movement from round 2 (bug-fix) - Swiss - Swiss (bug-fix) - Validation report * Print - Personal scorecard - Prognosis at the beginning of the last round - Method of sorting personal scorecards / scoreslips - Personal scoreslip * Multi-session - Add session number to contest name - Open another session - Move lines - Barometer Howell - Interwoven Howell - New report layout - Bug-fix * Fouled version (misduplication) * Contest menu - Options ENTER NAMES - EASIER WAY TO ASSIGN A PHANTOM PAIR Traditionally you assign a phantom pair by selecting Name menu-Set as phantom. There is now a faster way to do it: Click one of the names of the pair (or the pair number). Enter 0 (zero). The pair is automatically assigned to be a phantom. If you want to remove their phantom status you repeat the above process. This means that the 0 functions as a toggle between phantom and not. ENTER RESULTS - SECTION BUTTONS When you enter results you now get buttons for each section instead of having to go through Contest menu. CLOSE PREPARATIONS - ASSIGN BOARD SETS TO SPECIFIC TABLES Sometimes you might want to start with board set 2 on table 1. It can also be that you have placed the board sets incorrectly, for instance not noticing the relay table. There is now a solution: Select you movement and click the Advanced button. Select the Board set tab. Here are a few options for moving the board sets around. The basic one is to assign a starting board set number for table 1. All other tables will be adjusted accordingly. A custom board set can be used if the boards by mistake are not placed according to the movement. Samples of such board sets 1:2,3/2:1,4 Boards 2+3 form board set 1, boards 1+4 form 2 1:3-5/2:6-8/3:1-2,9 Boards 3-5 form board set 1, 6-8 form 2, boards 1-2+9 form 3 This also means that you can play a barometer event with different number of boards per round. Note that in this example, 5 tables, 9 rounds, you must still enter 27 total number of boards in order to select the right movement before modifying the board set. 7:19-20/8:21-22/9:23-24 CLOSE PREPARATIONS - PAIR NUMBERING Select the movement and click Advanced. In the Pair tab there is a new option: Adjust the first par number to what section letter is being used Together with Start numbering = 40 this would make sure that section C always starts at 81, section F at 201, and so on. This can be useful if you want to pre-print guidecards for bridge festivals and want to make sure they function no matter what number of sections and/or starting section letter you use. INDIVIDUAL - NEW MOVEMENTS All of these movements come from the orange book Movements. You can find them on page 376-389: * Regular Mitchell (already in there; 5, 7, 11, 13 and 17 tables) * Irregular Mitchell (8, 9, 12, 15 and 16 tables) * Rainbow Mitchell (for both Regular and Irregular Mitchell) * Broken Rainbow Mitchell (newly invented; see below) Appendix players are not implemented. INDIVIDUAL - NO MOVEMENT INSTRUCTIONS ON SOME GUIDECARDS Some of the individual movements are "strange" in the sense that it is not possible to create guidecards with reasonable movement instructions for the players. Among these movements are Irregular Mitchell (which has a special first round and then a restart in round 2) and Rainbow Mitchell (which apart from the normal movement also has interchanging of the players inside the round). For these movement the guidecards do not contain any instructions. Instead you are recommended to print personal scorecards or guideslips and hand out to the players so that they know where to sit every round. INDIVIDUAL - IRREGULAR MITCHELL No movement instructions are printed on the guidecards (see above). INDIVIDUAL - RAINBOW MITCHELL The total number of boards have to be divisable by 3. The book describes a random procedure for moving the pairs in the round at every table. This is not how Magic Contest does it. Instead, the first movement is that South and East change positions. The last movement is that new South and West change positions. This means that every player has had three partners in the round. No movement instructions are printed on the guidecards (see above). For technical reason every round is divided into three rounds. This means that if you intend to play 9 rounds of 3 boards Magic Contest will display this as 27 rounds of 1 board. INDIVIDUAL - BROKEN RAINBOW MITCHELL The total number of boards have to be divisable by 2. This movement is not described in the book. It is like a normal Rainbow but with only one switch of partners every round, namely South and East. No movement instructions are printed on the guidecards (see above). CURRENT STANDING - POSITION FOR NEXT TABLE In case you show the next table position on the projector (starting list, Swiss, etc) you sometimes run out of space in case of very long names. This means that the table position "slides" off the screen to the right. This has now been fixed so that the table position is always printed left of the name. In case of long names only the last part of the name slides off the screen. CURRENT STANDING - SHOW / HIDE MATCHPOINTS New option through Contest menu-Properties...-Current standing-Print: Show matchpoints in the Current standing ranking This makes the projector display a little clearer. The frequency and score tables are not affected but still show matchpoints so that the players can verify their matchpoint scores. CURRENT STANDING - BUG-FIX It is possible to show two contests (A and B) on the same projector. You do this through Contest menu-Properties-Current standing-... (and more). Let us assume a barometer. Then the following will be shown: A - Ranking, Board 1, Board 2, then ... B - Ranking, Board 1, Board 2, then ... A - ... A bug has been fixed so that in case of only starting lists it is also possible to alternate between A and B. BRIDGEMATE - CONDITIONAL SETTINGS Through Contest menu-Options...-Bridgemate-BMPro settings there are a few settings that depend on the contest being barometer or not: * Verify that the boards are played in the right order * Show results from other tables * Show percentage of own result These now offer a conditional option. The following options are available: * No * Yes * Yes, but not at barometer The last one is new. This means that you can make this your default setting and then not bother with changing anything if you select to run a barometer once in a while. BRIDGEMATE - UPDATE MOVEMENT FROM ROUND 2 (BUG-FIX) This is something that has only worked when Use Mitchell alias has been activated. You can now use this also in Howell or a barometer. Note that you need to retain the pair numbers and board numbers of the first round for this to work. BRIDGEMATE - SWISS When you use the combination Bridgemate+Swiss Magic Contest first creates the new round and then asks you to update Bridgemate. This confirmation has been removed and instead Bridgemate is automatically updated. After the new tables have been automatically uploaded to the server by BMPro you get a message of what has taken place. In case you remove a round through Contest menu-Add / remove round this will also be automatically removed from Bridgemate. BRIDGEMATE - SWISS (BUG-FIX) With the following combination an error could occur: * Bridgemate * Swiss * One round delay The error occured when a table recorded a fast result in round n+1 while another table was still playing in round n. When the late table finished and the TD updated the Bridgemates the movement of round n+1 was removed from the Bridgemate server. This error has been fixed. BRIDGEMATE - VALIDATION REPORT There is now a new report called Score recap - Verify Bridgemate results. This report verifies the lead for the printed boards, so that you can see if a board has been rotated or not. The results are printed in round order within each section. PRINT - PERSONAL SCORECARD - PROGNOSIS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST ROUND If you score a Multi-session with Bridgemate it is recommended that you print personal scorecards with one round to go and hand it to the players. This means the players can go to lunch and confirm all results but the last round without having to stick around for the frequency tables. The report to print is called: Prognosis at the beginning of the last round This is a very flexible report. In all sessions but the last the total percentage, total rank and the session percentage are printed. In the last session only the session percentage is printed so that there will be no risk of infraction due to the players seeing their total rank and score. PRINT - METHOD OF SORTING PERSONAL SCORECARDS / SCORESLIPS Personal scorecards have until now always been sorted according to pair number. If the selection has been a section interval, for instance A-B instead of "All pairs", the pairs have been sorted first on section and then on pair number. This has always meant that the tournament director had to resort the printouts before handing them out at the tables. There is now a solution: When specifying the pairs to be printed there is now a new option: Print all pairs ordered by table This not only sorts the printouts in table order, it also prints the table and position in the top left corner of the printout. The following rules apply to what round is used for the printout: * Empty personal scorecards: First round * Prognosis: Last round * Barometer: Next round (used for personal scoreslips; see below) PRINT - PERSONAL SCORESLIP On general request there is a new report type - Personal scoreslip. This is like a personal scorecard but where more than one is printed on the same page. There are a number of available formats, for instance 1 column x 4 rows, 2x4, 3x6, 3x1, and so on. Due to different space restrictions (height and width) they all contain slightly different data. MULTI-SESSION - ADD SESSION NUMBER TO CONTEST NAME When you start a new multi-session event there is now an option of automatically adding " - Session 1" to the contest name. This means that you no longer have to do that manually when you enter the contest name. MULTI-SESSION - OPEN ANOTHER SESSION The menu item Contest menu-Multi-session-Session n gives you a new way to open another session than the current. MULTI-SESSION - MOVE LINES When you have created a new session and open it you will be offered to move the lines through a new window instead of through the pair number method used before. You can select to use the Auto-move button which moves the lines according to a the barometer movement described on page 224 in the orange book. In short, this gives the best balance between the lines if you complete the movement (4 lines, 3 sessions; 6 lines, 5 sessions; and so on). You can do this for all lines simultaneously or for just an interval of lines. You can also use the Move up/down buttons to manually move the lines. In case a line is not completely filled (11 tables is moved to a 12-table section) you will receive a warning. MULTI-SESSION - BAROMETER HOWELL The above moving of lines do not apply to Barometer Howell. Instead you need to modify the movement as far as the following go: * Number of boards in the session * Possibly number of boards per round * Starting round number according to the complete movement What happens is basically that Magic Contest automatically undoes the preparations and lets you close them again, this time with the settings for the new session. MULTI-SESSION - INTERWOVEN HOWELL When scoring a two-session one-section event you can always combine an Interwoven Howell with a Scrambled Mitchell to achieve one winner (see page 176-179 in the orange book Movements). What goes for Multi-session - Barometer Howell also goes for Interwoven Howell, that is the need of reclosing the preparations. For 11, 15 and 17 tables the movement on page 177 is recommended as it gives better balance compared to the ones on page 162-163. Both are available when you select the original movement. For Scrambled Mitchell there is also special arrow switching for odd number of tables (page 178). These alternatives are available when you select movement. Both the original and this new variant can be selected. MULTI-SESSION - NEW REPORT LAYOUT All reports have date, contest name and session number in the top left title. Then the report name and possibly session or board information is printed in the top right. Now the layout looks like this for multi-session events: Contest name Report name Date Session number MULTI-SESSION - BUG-FIX Previously, when going back one session, changing a score, and returning to the original session, score changes could get lost under certain conditions. This has been fixed. FOULED VERSION (MISDUPLICATION) In case there is a fouled version of a board and you need to create two score tables (the normal version and version a) there is now an easier way to do it. The original way is to select Contest menu-Ruling-Ruling and assign it there. The following method is much faster: Click the result, enter >a and press Enter. It first looks like you completely overwrite the existing result but the original result will come back with a >a at the end. The new implementation is that when you assign a fouled version this way, all results in the same window with higher round number will automatically be changed to the same fouled version. This only applies if a) you look at the boards in board view, and b) it is not a barometer. The assumption is that if you have a fouled board it remains fouled the rest of the contest. To remove a fouled version you click the first correct result and enter only >. This will remove the fouled version for all boards below. Assume the board was only fouled two or three rounds before the tournament director found the error and corrected the board. Then you select the first time it was fouled and assign >a. Then you select the first time it was correct again and take away the >a. This will remove the assignment in all later rounds. CONTEST MENU - OPTIONS When you select Contest menu-Options...-Pair the options are now divided in categories in the same way Properties... have been. Version 3.0.11, 11 Feb 2007 =========================== Now there are three countries included in the Magic community - Sweden, Austria and France. For the time being only the French districts will use Magic Contest. There are separate language versions with in principle identical functionality. In the list below you can find some additions that are specific to one or the other country. * Window size * Import DLM hand record files * Multi-session Barometer Howell * Enter results - Colour settings * Enter results - Numeric keypad * Bridgemate - Close preparations * Bridgemate - Current standing * Bridgemate - Barometer boards * Report * Contest Explorer * Current standing - Text size * Current standing - Contest date * Current standing - Show pair numbers * Austria * France WINDOW SIZE The Magic Contest windows have been adjusted to fit larger screens better. Technically speaking you now need a screen resolution of at least 1024x768 to run Magic Contest. IMPORT DLM HAND RECORD FILES Magic Contest can now import the Jannersten duplication format .DLM. MULTI-SESSION BAROMETER HOWELL When you run this type of event and create a new session Magic Contest everything works as before. However, when you Undo Close preparations and close them again to confirm the movement, you are now automatically asked for what round to start at (instead of as before having to do it manually through Advanced, ) ENTER RESULTS - COLOUR SETTINGS The result menu now gives you the Text size menu item. You can select values between 6 and 35 points with the default being 12. If you usually don't have more than 10 tables you are recommended to change this value to something larger. Through Result menu-Colour settings you can now choose to show vulnerability in the North-South and East-West columns as well as in the result column (as it has been shown so far). This new vulnerability is shown as red or green. In case you use the option of scorecard colours at multi-section that colour takes precedence. ENTER RESULTS - NUMERIC KEYPAD There are a number of new settings through Contest menu- Properties...-Enter names and results-Enter results (more): Use alternating minus and plus to repeat results with switched signs. This is a standard in Austria and is therefore the default setting in the Austrian version. Use the comma (or period) key instead of the minus key for negative results. This is the standard in France and therefore this is the default settings in the French version. Use the Enter key to repeat results. As above for the French version. All the above default settings apply in new contests. If you open an old contest you need to open the properties and manually set the correct options. As a reminder: When you enter results and confirm the result with Minus or Plus you automatically repeat the same result if you hit the same key again. This applies regardless of the above settings. BRIDGEMATE - CLOSE PREPARATIONS In the last window of closing the preparations your normal choice have been to select Enter names or Enter results. Now there is a new option called Use Bridgemate. When selected, the Bridgemate database is automatically created without any extra selections or confirmations. The only drawback is that Magic Contest can not read your mind, so if you haven't entered any names Magic can not know if you have a bye or not. Therefore you first get a question where you can select to specify phantom pairs or not. The former takes you back to the manual routines while the latter does everything automatically. One can say that 50% of the times you will have full automation. Had you entered names before closing preparations and specified phantoms while at it, Magic Contest would have created the Bridgemate database without any further ado. BRIDGEMATE - CURRENT STANDING When you run a barometer with Bridgemate and Current standing it's very important that you don't accidentally report a previous round "over" a later one. This can happen in case you have gone back to a previous round to change an incorrect result. Magic now gives some help that hopefully will reduce the risk: If you click the Previous button or if you click on a previous round the Bridgemate import is automatically turned off. After you make your change it still is, but if you click on the current round the Bridgemate import will automatically be reactivated. Note that if you click the Bridgemate checkbox BEFORE going forward to the current round you may experience incorrect reporting on the projector. BRIDGEMATE - BAROMETER BOARDS In the Bridgemate settings there is an option to restart board numbering after 32 boards. This is meant for long barometer events where you play for instance 1-32 and 1-30 in one long session instead of playing 1-62. Unfortunately this setting has incorrectly affected normal events with for instance 13 tables and boards 1- 39. This bug has been fixed. REPORT There is a new report available through the report type Score recap called Verify entered results. This shows a very comprised printout of all entered results in round order for cross-checking the entries against the score- cards. The results are shown in round order. CONTEST EXPLORER Recently the new feature of automatically archiving old contests was activated. Unfortunately there was a small bug in case you wanted to open a contest from another location (Contest Explorer-File-Open from...). This bug has been fixed. CURRENT STANDING - TEXT SIZE The Current standing text sizes found in the properties have been extended. Previously there were only three (Normal, Large and Larger). These have changed into five: Small (2) Medium (4) Large Small is equivalent to to old Normal. Medium is Larger. The new (4) and Large are both larger than the largest old option. CURRENT STANDING - CONTEST DATE Contest date is no longer shown for Current standing. The idea is that Current standing always shows something going on right now so why show information not needed. CURRENT STANDING - SHOW PAIR NUMBERS If you go to the properties there is a tab called Print. This gives you the option to show or hide pair numbers in Current standing. The default setting is that pair numbers are not shown. Score tables are not affected, nor are starting lists. Both still show pair numbers since it is interesting information in those two reports whereas the pair number in the ranking does not really add to the presentation. AUSTRIA Magic Contest has been adjusted to the new master point model where the players' category is part of the calculation of master points. This only applies to some master point types. FRANCE Some special French movements have been included in the French version: * Howell FFB 4-8 tables * Hérédia FFB 7-12 pairs The way to enter rulings such as A+/A- have been extended into supporting the French model of 19997 for this particular example. Version 3.0.7, 11 Jan 2007 ========================== This is a mini-release that concerns the following: * Current standing * Bridgemate - More automated start-up * Swiss - Stationary pairs * Swiss - Double meetings CURRENT STANDING When you select Contest menu-Properties...-Current standing this now includes more tabs: * Print (layout) * Enter results The former is used to set the name format for Current standing. The latter is used to select whether to show complete score tables with contracts and all or just show frequencies. The setting Enter contracts takes care of this option. BRIDGEMATE - MORE AUTOMATED START-UP At the end of closing the preparations you are asked for what to do next. This window now has the new option Use Bridgemate. When selected, the Bridgemate database is automatically created, a procedure that makes Bridgemate start-up smoother than before. If you haven't entered names yet you are first asked to confirm there is no bye. In case of a bye you need to set the phantom pair before creating the Bridgemate database. This allows the Bridgemate to know what rounds to skip. Then you have to create the Bridgemate database manually as before. If the phantom pair is stationary you don't have to do it before creating the database since that Bridgemate will not be used and therefore doesn't have to know about the skipped rounds. SWISS - STATIONARY PAIRS The option Name menu-Set as stationary now works for Swiss. Such a setting ensures that the pair remains at the selected table all through the event. SWISS - DOUBLE MEETINGS The way to assign opponents have so far tried to ensure no double meetings (revenge rounds). If this is not possible the lowest ranked pairs were seated to meet each other regardless of number of previous meetings. In contests with too many rounds in relation to the size of the field this could lead to both four and five meetings. This has been fixed, so instead of four or five meetings more double meetings are created until no more can be found. Then triple meetings are created and so on. As previously, the method of eliminating double meetings go from the bottom and upwards, but only up to half the field. The top ranked are not affected by possible problems lower down in the field. Remember, the top of the field never have any double meetings since those meetings are taken care of before any problems arise. Version 3.0.6, 27 Nov 2006 ========================== This is a patch where lots of annoying little errors have been fixed. All the below comments have been fixed. ENTER RESULTS The latest version introduced a bug when entering an incorrect pair number. ENTER NAMES At multi-section repeated member number entries are checked across all sections as opposed to just within the section. IMP ACROSS THE FIELD AT TEAMS EVENTS When scoring an IMPs across the field in a teams event by the help of a point league, previously tied meetings, i.e. 0 IMPs, have not been shown. BRIDGEMATE Here is a long list of exotic errors that arose at an event in Italy. Most of you haven't been close to these errors. Remember, everything has been fixed. Use Mitchell alias. Change a result through Edit. The pair number of the declarer turned incorrect in the Bridgemate database. Use Mitchell alias. Odd Table Mitchell (9 tables). Some results were imported into the wrong round. Auto-print at barometer. Use your own report instead of a pre-defined. The last round was printed twice when importing from Bridgemate. Printout language different from the main language. Enter a ruling, for instance Average+/Average-. The information written to the Bridgemate database was incorrect. Multi-session. Go to a previous session. Click Edit and change a result. Go directly back to the current session. Incorrect carry-over. If the x10 checkbox was ticked at result entry and you made a split score ruling (-100/+680) you got an error at later Bridgemate imports. Version 3.0.2, 12 Nov 2006 ========================== The "real" list of changes for the autumn 2006 update can be found if you click 3.0.1 to your left. Make sure to read that list so you do not miss any news. It is quite long. This update version takes care of a few issues that were added after that: * Scoring bye in multi-session events * Individual guidecards * Current standing showing more than one contest * Use logins to separate contests SCORING BYE IN MULTI-SESSION EVENTS Magic Contest has always incorrectly (in some countries) awarded the total percentage for byes in multi-session events. The new options are: * Total percentage (Sweden) * Session percentage (Austria, ...) * Session percentage but at least Average+ (Italy) You can find this option through Contest menu-Properties- Scoring-Bye. INDIVIDUAL GUIDECARDS A couple of individual guidecards were incorrect and have been corrected. This was specifically Reduced Howell for 16 and 20 players. CURRENT STANDING SHOWING MORE THAN ONE CONTEST If you run two contests at the same time and you only have one projector you have had to select which contest to show but not both. This has now changed: Assume you have contests A and B. First you show the result list for A, then boards 1+2 for A, then the result list for B, then boards 1+2 for B, and then back to the beginning. The settings can be found in Contest menu-Properties- Current standing-Current standing (and more). You make settings for "this" contest and "next" contest. In the sample with two contests make the following settings: A: This: Enter suffix = A A: Next: Enter suffix = B B: This: Enter suffix = B B: Next: Enter suffix = A At the point when you close the preparations and assign number of tables you can also manually assign the section letter (also in a single-section contest). Assume you have done so in both A and B. Then the above settings can be simplified into the following: A: This: Section letter A: Next: Section letter B: This: Section letter B: Next: Enter suffix = A There is no limit to how many contests you can set up to change between. USE LOGINS TO SEPARATE CONTESTS It has always been possible to set up different logins to allow different users to have their own settings. The users can be set up through the User button in the main window. Now you can separate the contest files created by these users. Select Contest menu-Options...-General-Contest Explorer and tick the following option: Use separate contest folders for different users The effect is that when you log in you only see the contests created by that user. Version 3.0.1, 29 Oct 2006 ========================== You can now print this list of news and changes. Click Print at the bottom right. As you can see from the version number the first digit has increased from 2 to 3. This is an indication of something big, and in this case it is the introduction of individual contests in Magic Contest. Other than that the following has been added: * Automatically archive old contests * Limit number of windows when starting a new contest * Current standing and Bridgemate * Individual contest * Individual contest and movements * Individual contest and Bridgemate * Individual contest and miscellaneous special cases * Name menu - Import names * Bridgemate - Automatic deactivating and reactivating * Bridgemate - Make changes * Bridgemate - Import names * Bridgemate - New version AUTOMATICALLY ARCHIVE OLD CONTESTS A lot of people have quite a few contests in Contest Explorer. This means it takes quite some time to open it without any particularily good reason. Now there is a feature for automatically archiving old contests. The default setting is 90 days. If a contest is older than that you will receive a message to that effect. You can manage these settings through Contest menu- Options...-General-Contest Explorer. LIMIT NUMBER OF WINDOWS WHEN STARTING A NEW CONTEST Through Contest menu-Options...-Pair contest there is a tab called Show windows. This allows you to decide whether a window is shown or not at start-up of new contests. A lot of users don't know about this feature which means unnecessarily many windows will be shown at start-up. Now Magic Contest senses such windows, i.e. windows that are shown without any changes being made, and asks you if you really want to show them. CURRENT STANDING AND BRIDGEMATE If you score a contest with Bridgemate and want to show Current standing at the same time some of the settings can be tricky to fine-tune. Now this has become easier: When you show the Current standing properties through Contest menu-Properties... two new (old) tabs are shown - Import and Report for Bridgemate - that are also shown through properties for Bridgemate. The settings that are used by Current standing are: Import - Import only up to and including the current round Report - Current standing Report - Report only after completed round If you through the second Current standing tab click Profile and selects a suitable profile the Bridgemate settings will be set accordingly. INDIVIDUAL CONTEST Now you can use Magic Contest for scoring individual contest. You start an individual contest through the New contest- Ind button in Contest Explorer. After that the start-up and later the name and result entry are the same as for a pair contest. The only thing that really separates the two are the movements that can be selected and the fact that you work with four players rather than two pairs. INDIVIDUAL CONTEST AND MOVEMENT Remember that enough table space has to entered to allow all players to have their place in the name entry window. This means you must enter 5 tables when you have 17 players. In this case there will be three phantom players (18, 19 and 20). The following movements can be selected: 2-3 tables (8-14 players) Howell (16-17 players) Stanza Howell (16 players) Reduced Howell (16, 17 or 20 players) Mingled movements Mitchell Interwoven Howell Individual barometer (16-61 players) I don't claim that all movements are available. INDIVIDUAL CONTEST AND BRIDGEMATE Individual contest and Bridgemate works just fine. The only small peculiarity is that at round start Bridgemate will show "NS: 10 EW: 5" instead of all four players. It can be discussed what player numbers to show. I have chosen to show North and South even though it says NS and EW. Do you think this is illogical and that North and East should be shown? Think like this: If North and East are shown we don't know if South and West are seated correctly - they may have switched chairs. If instead North and South are shown we at least knwo that East and West are seated in the right direction. They may have switched chairs but this does not matter. Since this might be confusing to the players it is your responsibility as a tournament director to explain this to them. INDIVIDUAL CONTEST AND MISCELLANEOUS SPECIAL CASES The widths of the guideslip reports are adjusted to pair contests. Since more player numbers are printed not as many columns will be shown for individual events. When printing personal scorecards you will find a new column - With. There you can see the player number of your partner. Instead, the column with the opponents' names has disappeared since there was not enough space to print both their and your partner's names. Some guidecard do not have any movement instructions. This goes for for instance Stanza Howell where people move here and there. I recommend printing guideslips or empty personal scorecards. The PBN file has changed layout slightly. For instance there are now four score columns (MP_North, MP_South, etc) instead of two. A number of equivalently logical changes have been introduced. NAME MENU - IMPORT NAMES When exporting names section, table number and pair number are written to the exported file. At a later import all three had to match for the import to work which now and then has been irritating. Now this has been solved: Through Result menu-Settings there are now a few options that give yoiu greater flexibility when importing names. First select the import setting and then import the name file. The settings you can choose between are: Table and pair number Only table Only pair number From top to bottom BRIDGEMATE - AUTOMATIC DEACTIVATING AND REACTIVATING When using Bridgemate the top right checkbox is ticked. If you want to do something else, e.g. print reports or view properties, it has been previously recommended to remove the tick before doing this. Now this has changed into the tick being automatically removed when doing something and later automatically being ticked again. BRIDGEMATE - MAKE CHANGES Earlier it has been recommended that changes, for instance result or declarer, should be changed in BMPro since they would then be saved in the Bridgemate database. If something would happen to Magic Contest the changes would still be saved in the database. This has changed: There is now an Edit button (right below the Bridgemate checkbox). Click this button and a window will be shown where you can change contract details or switch arrows. Also other changes like rulings (60/40) or law 12C3 or switched arrows can be made directly in Magic Contest. Any changes you make are written straight into the Bridgemate database. This basically means you don't have to make any changes whatsoever in BMPro from now on. The only thing that is not written to the database is when two pairs have gone to the wrong tables and played there. You can still make the change in Magic Contest but it will not be saved to the Bridgemate database. BRIDGEMATE - NEW VERSION There is a new Bridgemate version available for testing. It will require updating BMPro, server and Bridgemate, and and will then offer the following new features: * Mandatory member number * Verification of increasing board numbers Magic Contest has already been adjusted to these features. The exact version numbers are BMPro 1.6.x, server firmware 1.2.3 and Bridgemate firmware 2.2.1a. Version 2.10.12, 29 Aug 2006 ============================ This version is in fact the same as version 2.10.11 with a very small change for Austria. For convenience the entire list of news is repeated below. * Personal scorecards for multiple sections * Print player names on guidecards * New multi-session options * Multi-session and barometer * Bridgemate and misduplication * Update movement in Bridgemate * Import movement from Bridgemate (=movement editor) PERSONAL SCORECARDS FOR MULTIPLE SECTIONS So far you have been limited to entering a pair number interval. The printouts have then been sorted according to pair number order which is not very convient in a multi- session event where pair numbers are moved back and forth between sessions. Now you can enter a section interval, for instance C-E, to get a printout for those sections ordered primarily by section. This helps handing them out since pair numbers are sorted correctly. PRINT PLAYER NAMES ON GUIDECARDS When you print guidecards with player names the contest name will also be printed. There are features for using this also when printing table sign-up forms. NEW MULTI-SESSION OPTIONS When you start a multi-session event there are a few extra options at start-up: * File name for different reports. You can select between: - Contest name - Contest date - Specify file name In the latter case you can also select to add the current session number to the file name. This is very convenient if you have a website where you have decided to use the file names a-1, a-2 and a-3 in a three-session event. Just enter "a-" as file name and select to add the session number and the files that will be created have the correct file names without any user interaction. * You can select to clear the hand record when changing between sessions. Use this option if you have new hand record files for every session. If you play for instance an event with boards 1-32 in one hand record file where the first session holds boards 1-20 and the second 21-32, then you just keep the hand record and you only have to import the hand record once. MULTI-SESSION AND BAROMETER When you play a barometer as multi-session you need to renumber the pairs when starting sessions 2 and up. You can do this manually, but since Magic Contest does not fully support manual renumbering of Barometer Howell pair numbers there is now a setting that makes it easier: * Create session 2 * Open session 2 * Select Undo Close preparations * Specify number of tables and boards in session 2 * Select the movement * Click Advanced and select the Barometer Howell tab * Enter what round play will start at * You can also select the Board tab and specify what board number to start from in case the second session starts at for instance board number 21. Now the pair numbers will automatically be renumbered for session 2. Note that the entered round refers to the original round numbering of the Barometer Howell movement. For instance, if session 1 had 13 rounds you will enter 14 at the start of the session 2. BRIDGEMATE AND MISDUPLICATION If you have a misduplicated board you can now enter >a in the Remarks field of BMPro to automatically transfer the information to Magic Contest. >a to >i are available options. This can also be combined with penalty points in the following way: >ans-10 Version a. NS -10 mp ew%-10>b Version b. EW -10% UPDATE MOVEMENT IN BRIDGEMATE You can now "undo" an incorrect start of an event. The restriction is that the pair numbers are identical between the two tries, at least in the first round. Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Update movement from round 2. The following takes place: * Tables are added or removed * Phantom pairs are added or removed In the case of new tables you must make sure to add then manually in BMPro to the client and then possibly to the server. IMPORT MOVEMENT FROM BRIDGEMATE (=MOVEMENT EDITOR) You can now import a contest that somebody else has created in Bridgemate without having to close the preparations in Magic Contest. Instead you use the Bridgemate database to close the preparations. Do like this: * Start the contest in a normal way * When it is time to close the preparations you select to do nothing * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Close preparations * Select the Bridgemate database that contains the movement The following is imported from the Bridgemate database: * Number of tables * Pair numbers * Board numbers * Movement The reader now realises that you can import any movement (well, almost) into Magic Contest, even those that are not strictly speaking available through Magic Contest. The only catch is to get the movement into the Bridgemate database. Currently there are no features for building new movements in Magic Contest and save them in a Bridgemate database. Instead, you need to use Microsoft Access to edit a Bridgemate database according to your own ideas and then use it for future events. There are a number of limitations that will be solved in the future. Such limitations are, among others, that only one section can be imported at a time and that a semi- barometer can not be imported at all. Besides this the error handling is non-existant, so the result will not be better than what you make out of it. Note! The Bridgemate database must still be in Access 97 format (like the current Bridgemate databases) to be imported by Magic Contest. Version 2.10.11, 18 Aug 2006 ============================ * Personal scorecards for multiple sections * Print player names on guidecards * New multi-session options * Multi-session and barometer * Bridgemate and misduplication * Update movement in Bridgemate * Import movement from Bridgemate (=movement editor) PERSONAL SCORECARDS FOR MULTIPLE SECTIONS So far you have been limited to entering a pair number interval. The printouts have then been sorted according to pair number order which is not very convient in a multi- session event where pair numbers are moved back and forth between sessions. Now you can enter a section interval, for instance C-E, to get a printout for those sections ordered primarily by section. This helps handing them out since pair numbers are sorted correctly. PRINT PLAYER NAMES ON GUIDECARDS When you print guidecards with player names the contest name will also be printed. There are features for using this also when printing table sign-up forms. NEW MULTI-SESSION OPTIONS When you start a multi-session event there are a few extra options at start-up: * File name for different reports. You can select between: - Contest name - Contest date - Specify file name In the latter case you can also select to add the current session number to the file name. This is very convenient if you have a website where you have decided to use the file names a-1, a-2 and a-3 in a three-session event. Just enter "a-" as file name and select to add the session number and the files that will be created have the correct file names without any user interaction. * You can select to clear the hand record when changing between sessions. Use this option if you have new hand record files for every session. If you play for instance an event with boards 1-32 in one hand record file where the first session holds boards 1-20 and the second 21-32, then you just keep the hand record and you only have to import the hand record once. MULTI-SESSION AND BAROMETER When you play a barometer as multi-session you need to renumber the pairs when starting sessions 2 and up. You can do this manually, but since Magic Contest does not fully support manual renumbering of Barometer Howell pair numbers there is now a setting that makes it easier: * Create session 2 * Open session 2 * Select Undo Close preparations * Specify number of tables and boards in session 2 * Select the movement * Click Advanced and select the Barometer Howell tab * Enter what round play will start at * You can also select the Board tab and specify what board number to start from in case the second session starts at for instance board number 21. Now the pair numbers will automatically be renumbered for session 2. Note that the entered round refers to the original round numbering of the Barometer Howell movement. For instance, if session 1 had 13 rounds you will enter 14 at the start of the session 2. BRIDGEMATE AND MISDUPLICATION If you have a misduplicated board you can now enter >a in the Remarks field of BMPro to automatically transfer the information to Magic Contest. >a to >i are available options. This can also be combined with penalty points in the following way: >ans-10 Version a. NS -10 mp ew%-10>b Version b. EW -10% UPDATE MOVEMENT IN BRIDGEMATE You can now "undo" an incorrect start of an event. The restriction is that the pair numbers are identical between the two tries, at least in the first round. Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Update movement from round 2. The following takes place: * Tables are added or removed * Phantom pairs are added or removed In the case of new tables you must make sure to add then manually in BMPro to the client and then possibly to the server. IMPORT MOVEMENT FROM BRIDGEMATE (=MOVEMENT EDITOR) You can now import a contest that somebody else has created in Bridgemate without having to close the preparations in Magic Contest. Instead you use the Bridgemate database to close the preparations. Do like this: * Start the contest in a normal way * When it is time to close the preparations you select to do nothing * Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Close preparations * Select the Bridgemate database that contains the movement The following is imported from the Bridgemate database: * Number of tables * Pair numbers * Board numbers * Movement The reader now realises that you can import any movement (well, almost) into Magic Contest, even those that are not strictly speaking available through Magic Contest. The only catch is to get the movement into the Bridgemate database. Currently there are no features for building new movements in Magic Contest and save them in a Bridgemate database. Instead, you need to use Microsoft Access to edit a Bridgemate database according to your own ideas and then use it for future events. There are a number of limitations that will be solved in the future. Such limitations are, among others, that only one section can be imported at a time and that a semi- barometer can not be imported at all. Besides this the error handling is non-existant, so the result will not be better than what you make out of it. Note! The Bridgemate database must still be in Access 97 format (like the current Bridgemate databases) to be imported by Magic Contest. Version 2.10.9, 6 July 2006 =========================== Maintenance version for the Danish Bridge Festival 2006. Version 2.10.3, 22 May 2006 =========================== This is just a maintenance version for Bonn Nations Cup 2006. Only functionality related to teams events and Bridgemate has been added. Version 2.10, 15 Apr 2006 ========================= * Seating * Scorecard colour * Multi-section * Multi-session * Result menu * Current standing * Swiss * Name format * Report contest to text file * ECats and automatic e-mail * Bridgemate * Austria: Negativer Platzwechsel * Weighted scores (Law 12C3) * Exact matchpoints scoring versus WBF rules * Number of comparisons at IMPs across the field SEATING Magic Contest now has seating on the menu. This means that you can create a list of players without knowing how many sections there will be. Based on the entries and manual section and table assignments the pairs will later be positioned. Do like this: When you are asked for number of sections, click the seating checkbox at the bottom and continue. The name of that checkbox is: Enter all names, prepare the seating, and then select number of sections You will automatically go to Enter names. There you find two extra columns - Section and Table. They are used for manually assigning table positions to the pairs. Austrian version: Along with the manual seating information you also see Meisterpunkte and Setz-Punkte. In this version those are only used as a help in seating the pairs. In the next version you will also be able to use that information for automatic assignments. The default setting is that the average of the two players' points is shown. See below for changing those settings. Start by entering the players of the event. When you enter seating information you can enter the following types of information: * Section * Table * Direction (+ for North-South, - for East-West) You can use any combination of these and you can also leave out one or more pieces of information. Remember that you do not have to enter seating information for a pair. In such a case that pair will be placed completely randomly in one of the available sections. Here are some examples: A2+ Section A, table 2 as North-South A+ Section A, any table as North-South - Any section, any table as East-West 3- Any section, table 3 as East-West 1 Any section, table 1 in any direction You enter the section assignment in the Section column. You enter table number and direction in the Table column. At any time you can click the Section or Table column header to sort the pairs according to the current seating assignments. After making changes you need to click the column again to resort the pairs. Austrian version: You can also click Meisterpunkte or Setz- Punkte to sort the starting list accordingly. This may be of help in case you want to enter names first and manual seating information later. Then you know what pairs will be top seeded if you go by Meisterpunkte level. Once the seating information has been entered it is time to close the seating. Click Contest menu and select Close seating. You will in turn see the following windows: 1. The details of the manual seating information is shown. Enter number of sections and click Next. 2. The next window lets you enter number of tables in each section. Do that for all sections and then click Finish. While entering number of tables you will get information on how many non-assigned pairs there are and some other pieces of useful information. After that it is up to Magic Contest to figure out the seating. First the exact seating assignments are dealt with. Then all others will be placed randomly according to their details. Magic Contest will try all possible seating combinations until none remain. This may take quite some time, but there will always be an end to the testing and an error message indicating what is wrong. If you get tired of waiting you can always click Cancel to take away a few seating assignments and thus make it easier for Magic Contest to seat all pairs. All seatings will be validated and error messages will be shown if two or more seatings logically interfere with each other. This is an example of such an occurance: 3 sections (A, B and C) 8 tables in section A #1: 6 pairs seated in any section at table 1 #2: 8 pairs seated at A+ #1 will fill all tables 1 of sections A, B and C. #2 needs all tables in section A. Since #1 has already occupied one table in section A it is impossible to seat all pairs according to both #1 and #2. Seating is always based on sections from A and up (A, B, C, and so on). If you want to use other sections letters you must assign this at a later stage when you close the preparations. You can always undo the seating through Contest menu and Undo Close seating. If you have already closed the preparations for any section you need to undo that before you can undo the seating. If you have entered too many pairs (or left some empty) that you do not want to seat you can always make them into phantom pairs. That will exclude them from any seating. Austrian version: It is possible to show Meisterpunkte and Setz-Punkte in different ways. This is done by clicking the Seating button and select one of the following options: * Details * Average * Square root of product Assume the two players have 500 and 1000 MPs. The following will show for the three options: * 500 - 1000 * 750.1 * 707.1 The square root may sometimes be more fair than showing the average. If you have a top-level player playing with a beginner their average will still be rather high while the square root will be substantially lower. Probably this value describes their combined playing strength better than the average. SCORECARD COLOUR When you close the preparations you now have the option of selecting a scorecard colour. This colour will later show when you enter names and results as the background colour for the pair numbers. This gives you a very good way of controlling that the scorecards you enter are the same as on the screen. The option of scorecard colour can also be reached through Result menu-Scorecard colour. MULTI-SECTION When you have finished a board at multi-section it is a matter of taste if you want to continue with * Next board, same section * Same board, next section The default setting has so far been to continue in the same section. Now you can change this behaviour: Click Contest menu, select Properties..., select Enter names and results, and select the Enter results tab. The option at the bottom lets you decide what to do. MULTI-SESSION The report type Final result has always printed the text "Final result" in the top right corner. At multi-session this message sends the wrong signal. The way it now works is that the following texts are printed: * Multi-session, session 2 of 3 without carry-over Result Session 2 * Multi-session, session 2 of 3 with carry-over Accumulated result Session 1-2 * Multi-session, session 3 of 3 with carry-over Final result RESULT MENU There are a number of colour settings in Result menu that are now combined under the same menu item: Colour settings * Show vulnerability in colour * Use grey background for missing results * Use white text for entered results * Show Bridgemate tables in colour The last item is new. It allows you to get colour feedback on the progress when using Bridgemate for result entry. You need to import Bridgemate results in round view. Then a table without results is shown in red. After displaying a rainbow it ends with blue for two missing results and green for one. The normal grey colour indicates a completed table. The last three colour settings are also available through Contest menu-Properties-Enter names and results-Enter results (more). CURRENT STANDING It is now possible to control the size of score tables through the Current standing properties. You can select between Normal, Large and Largest. Saving current standing has until now been a little bit difficult to adjust to particular needs. It has often included having to create new reports every time. The Result menu-Current standing menu item now has a few extra options available. This is the complete menu as it looks now: Current standing * Save current standing * ...including seating for next round ---- * Starting list * Starting list including scores * Starting list (next round) * Starting list (Swiss, rounds 1 and 2) SWISS When you want to start a Swiss with one round's delay North-South will stay at the table and East-West will move up one table. There is now an option (through Advanced after you have selected the movement) that lets you decide whether there will be arrow switches at even tables in round 2 or not. If you play a Swiss with a one round delay you sometimes run into problems right after a lunch break. This is of course because the round after the break is not the one shown on printouts and Current standing. You can now select Contest menu-Swiss break to temporarily change the round being shown on printouts and Current standing. When you want to return to the original way of showing rounds, select the menu option again to turn off the break. NAME FORMAT Sometimes you have the need of displaying names in different formats in different places. For instance, the projector screen space when showing Current standing might be limited so you just want to show the players' last names while when printing you want their entire name. There is now a solution: Select Contest menu-Properties-Print-Print (layout). Here you can select different formats for different actions. REPORT CONTEST TO TEXT FILE Contest menu-Report contest has now been extended to include reporting to normal text files. Through Properties you can control the following settings: * Create separate file with scores. Basically this means that you have the option of creating one file with a result list and all score tables or the two lists separated into two files. * Field delimiter. Tab, semi-colon, comma or space. * Text delimiter. Double-quote, single-quote or nothing. * Decimal sign. Period or comma. * File extention. This allows you to create TXT or CSV files. The latter type can be directly opened by Excel. ECATS AND AUTOMATIC E-MAIL When you report a contest to ECats for simultaneous scoring you can now get Magic Contest to send an automatic e-mail to ECats which takes care of the entire scoring procedure. Select Contest menu-Report contest and check both ECats and E-mail and an automatic e-mail will be sent to results@simpairs.com If you are not familiar with automatic e-mails from Magic Contest you can reach the settings for that through Contest menu-Options for all new contests-General and the E-mail tab. Here you can choose to use Outlook Express or enter your own e-mail settings directly in Magic Contest. BRIDGEMATE If you make a Bridgemate ruling with the TD key, that is a 60%-40% ruling, there is now an option that decides how to interpret the ruling. Select Contest menu-Bridgemate- Properties-Bridgemate (import). You can now choose between: * Average+ / Average - * Exactly 60% / 40% There is a new menu option when importing Bridgemate results. Through Result menu-Delete all results you can find ...in the contest after this round. This can be used if you quickly want to go back to a specific round and print the result list for that round. After this you just start the import again and Magic Contest will import all results. AUSTRIA: NEGATIVER PLATZWECHSEL This is for the Austrian bridge clubs using Magic Contest. When using Negativer Platzwechsel everything is as you now expect it and want it to be. The starting list shows the seating for the first played round. All previous errors in the implementation are now removed. As before you must however include the duplication round in the number of boards when closing the preparations. This means that if they play 18 boards you must still enter 20 (if there are 2 boards per round). WEIGHTED SCORES (LAW 12C3) Law 12C3 can not be described in simple terms so you need to know about the law to understand this section. Through Result menu-Weighted score (Law 12C3) you can now assign weighted scores according to Law 12C3. You can enter a number of results and their respective probability (=Chance). It does not matter if you do the assignment in percentages or in number. Enter the respective results and chance. Example: 2 420 3 -50 You can also enter it like this: 40 420 60 -50 If you want you can enter the result directly in the result entry window. Then you need to follow this format of entry: 12c3:2/420/3/-50 In case you use Bridgemate for scoring you can use the Remarks field to enter such a ruling in the same format as the last example above. There is an internet page that describes 12C3 more in detail. You can also find a few examples: http://www.brenning.se/mcsclaw12c3.asp The below is an extract from that page (written by Ton Kooijman): A weighted score exists when more than one result on a board is awarded to a pair, the scores being related with at probability of occurence. When the TD deems the chance to defeat 3N as too small to award a full 3N minus one but still considers it a real possibility to defeat it he could decide to award 2/5 of -100 and 3/5 of 400. And it could become more complicated. Due to an infraction a pair doesn't reach a game, the denomination not being obvious. And in 3N, with a chance of 30% to be reached, there will always be 9 tricks, and in 4S taking care for another 30% there is only a chance of 1/3 to make it. In the remaining 40% the TD supposes the pair to double the contract reached by the opponents. To convert these scores to a result in matchpoints we add these scores to the frequency table one by one and calculate the matchpoints for each of these results. Then we multiply with the expectancy as estimated. The questions what to do with the scores of all the other participants is hardly touched. It is worse, I suspect that quite often those matchpoints are calculated with a score less, the weighted score. It would be an improvement to use the Neuberg formula but there is a much better solution. Let me show what should be done. To keep it easy we assume a frequency table with only two scores: 2 times +600 for 3N just made and 5 times -100 for 3N minus 1. There are 8 tables and for the missing one the TD assigns a weighted score based on 40% making 3N and 60% going one off. What we have to do now is to add these frequencies: 0.4 times 620 and 0.6 times -100 to the frequency table, giving the layout of the first score table to your right. The matchpoints are calculated by adding 5.6 to -1 giving 4.6 and adding 2.4 and 5.6 to 4.6 giving 12.6. This is the basic method for calculating the matchpoints of any frequency table. The matchpoints for the weighted score are calculated by taking 0.4 times 12.6 (5.04) and 0.6 times 4.6 (2.76) giving 7.8 (see the second score table to your right). This is of course the same result as adding both scores one by one to the frequency table for the seven scores: 3 scores of 600 give 0.4 times 12 = 4.8 and 6 scores of -100 give 0.6 times 5 = 3, which adds up to the same 7.8. I am interested to know which software programme will be the first to calculate results this way. And for future EBL (WBF) events I consider it mandatory to do the calculation like this. EXACT MATCHPOINTS SCORING VERSUS WBF RULES Magic Contest scores exact matchpoints while the WBF rules that scoring with exactly one decimal. It also states that 0.05 rounds upwards. This means that in the following case (with the top = 10.0): 9.95 - 0.05 the awarded points are 10.0 - 0.1 Of course this means that the sum is not necessarily equal to the top. There is now a setting that opens up for WBF scoring. You find is through Through Contest menu- Properties-Scoring-Matchpoints (more) and Number of scoring decimals. My personal opinion is that this rule should change. It is clearly based on old-time manual scoring instead of those methods we use nowadays. NUMBER OF COMPARISONS AT IMPS ACROSS THE FIELD At IMPs across the field the score is usually shown as average per comparison. In version 2.8.3 there was a change to the implementation of this that was not popular among everybody (click 2.8.3 to your left). This is what now applies: There is an extended option to how scores are shown in the Matchpoints, Butler and IMPs across the fields tabs through Contest menu-Properties-Scoring. You find it in the View total score setting where the options now are: * Actual score * Average per board * Average per comparison * Average per comparison (plus the own result) This means that the two last options give the user the flexibility of choosing what they want. Version 2.9.5, 7 Feb 2006 ========================= With emphasize on Multi-session, this version consists of: * Player duplication * Automatic printout * German translation (for the Austrian version) * Austria: Printout of Kategorie * Multi-session PLAYER DUPLICATION This is just a reminder. If you use the Player duplication option (Advanced button after you have selected movement) the number of boards played must include the duplication round. AUTOMATIC PRINTOUT Magic Contest has always offered automatic printouts of barometer score recaps at the end of the round and scores at the end of a board in normal contests. These options must be activated through Contest menu-Properties-Print- Print (auto). At every printout you have been required to confirm what board(s) to print Those options have now been extended with one where the requirement of confirming the boards have been removed. Go to the above window and uncheck the Ask for what boards... option. This makes the printouts really automatic. GERMAN TRANSLATION (FOR THE AUSTRIAN VERSION) You will notice that Magic Contest now has a beautiful mix of English and German. Most help texts (the ones in blue) are now in German. Magic Contest will gradually be translated into German. AUSTRIA: PRINTOUT OF KATEGORIE A bug was reported when a player not in the member file played. The printout showed a Kategorie for the pair which is wrong. This has been fixed. MULTI-SESSION Multi-session is the highlight of this version. One can now claim that multi-session is fully automated in Magic Contest. Very briefly, this is what you do (more details below): * Create session 1. Make some basic settings and enter names and results. * Create session 2. You can do this step whenever you want, that is before, during, or after session 1 is completed. * Rearrange the positions of the pairs. * Activate automatic carry-overs. Names and scores are automatically transferred from session 1 to session 2. * Continue like above with the following sessions. Follow these detailed steps: * Open Contest Explorer. Click Special, select Multi- session, and select New pair contest. The new contest starts as usual. When naming the event I recommend that the first session is called something like "My contest - Session 1" so to emphazise that it is the first session. There is also a new option called One multi-session winner. This is useful when the sessions are two-winner and the totals are one-winner for making the printouts correct. * There is a new Multi-session window (after the General and Contest date windows). Here you must state how many sessions are played. There are also settings that decide how master points are reported. The rest of the start-up is exactly like when starting a new contest, as is running the first session. When you feel ready to create session 2, which does not have to be after session 1 is completed, do like this: * Click Contest menu, select Multi-session, and select Create next session. Session 2 is created but session 1 is still open. * Click Contest menu, select Open, and select the top item (that is supposed to be session 2). * Select Enter names. You see an empty slate of names. What you want to do now is renumber the first pair of each line to resemble moving pairs around. It is best to use a very simple example: 2 sections, 13 tables each A-NS: 1-13: Stays seated A-EW: 21-33: Moves to B-NS B-NS: 41-53: Moves to B-EW B-EW: 61-73: Moves to A-EW The movement means that the seating afterwards should look like this: A-NS: 1-13 A-EW: 61-73 B-NS: 21-33 B-EW: 41-53 To accomplish this, follow these steps: * Click pair 1-EW (pair number 21) in section A. Enter 61. You will see all E-W pairs renumber. * Change to section B. Click 1-NS (41). Enter 21. * Click 1-EW (61). Enter 41. Now the pair number should be as they are seated in session 2. Continue like this: * Click Contest menu, select Multi-session, and select Automatic carry-over. You will see that names are automatically filled into the pairs. If you immediately try a printout you will see that the scores are the same as for session 1. Now you can continue either with scoring session 2 or continuing with scoring session 1. Any changes you make to session 1 is automatically transferred to session 2. This goes for name changes as well as scores and such. The things that does not get transferred from one session to another are settings found through Contest menu and Properties... All such settings are connected strictly to every session so if you need to change something for all sessions you just have to open every session and make the changes. Suppose you have reached session 3 and suddenly there is a change to session 1. When you make the change to session 1 it is essential that you open session 2 before returning to session 3. The automatic carry-over only works if all sessions are opened in-between of a change and continuing to score. There is a report (Final result without carry-over and handicap) that is suitable for printing parallel to the normal final results. The report in question will only print the session totals. The sample above was the easiest type of movement between sessions. If you have different sizes of lines you might have to modify the automatic renumbering a little bit by clicking other pairs numbers than the top ones of every line and modify those. There might even be a need for completely changing movements. Remember to first make all changes and then activate the automatic carry-over. Version 2.9.4, 28 Jan 2006 ========================== As you have noticed the same list of news used for the international version and the Austrian version. This will be changed shortly. Meantime, have a look at your left since version 2.9.3 was only released for the Austrian market. This version concerns Bridgemate and Current standing: * Use white text for entered results * Current standing and profiles * Enter penalties in Bridgemate * Current standing and Bridgemate USE WHITE TEXT FOR ENTERED RESULTS When importing results from Bridgemate there are two options that may be of interest: * Use grey background for missing results * Use white text for entered results Both options are available from the Result menu where the latter is new. The former has always been available. The purpose of Use grey background... is to make it more clear which results are missing. With the normal settings it can be difficult to spot what is missing, especially from a distance. The purpose of Use white text... is to allow you to have the scoring computer in the playing area while not showing played results to the players. When used together with Use grey background... the screen will just show a grid of white and grey boxes. CURRENT STANDING AND PROFILES Select Contest menu-Properties...-Current standing and the second tab. The button Profile now gives you a fast way of setting a combination of settings through one click. The options are: 1 Projector. Barometer. Score tables. 2 Projector. Barometer. No score tables. 3 Projector. Normal event. Continuous scoring. 4 Projector. Normal event. After play. Current score table. 5 Projector. Normal event. After play. No score tables. 6 Player computer. Score tables. 7 Player computer. No score tables. Like before you can of course set the detailed settings yourself. ENTER PENALTIES IN BRIDGEMATE Penalties can not be entered in the Bridgemates but they can in BMPro, the Bridgemate controlling software. Right-click a result and select Edit. Place the cursor in the Remarks field and enter the penalty like this: * ns-10 awards -10 to North-South. If the scoring type is matchpoints then it is -10 mp, if the scoring type is IMPs across the field then the penalty is -10 imps per comparison (applies also to Butler). * ns-8ew-15 awards both sides penalties. * ns%-10 awards North-South a penalty of -10% of a top at matchpoints. CURRENT STANDING AND BRIDGEMATE Until now there have been a number of checkboxes that have conflicted with each other. The checkboxes are: * Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties-Bridgemate (report) and Current standing and Report only after completed round. * Enter results-Current standing. All of them could be checked at the same time but the problem was that the latter was used instead of the former. This has been fixed so that the former decides when Current standing is exported. Version 2.9.3, 18 Jan 2006 ========================== This is an Austrian release. Some of the changes are general and belong in the international version too. * Swiss pairs * Austria: Automatic Kategorie on all printouts * Austria: Magic Contest Inbox and Outbox * Austria: Bug fixes * Austria: Scoring a multi-session event Note that there has been an international release since the last Austrian release. Click on 2.9.1 in the list to your left to read about general improvements. There are quite a few issues that concern the Austrian clubs. SWISS PAIRS When running a Swiss Pairs there was something wrong with the pair numbers under certain conditions. This has been fixed. AUSTRIAN: AUTOMATIC KATEGORIE ON ALL PRINTOUTS The printouts of final results now contain the master points category. Only categories A, Treff and Karo are printed. If you do not want this printout it is possible to disable it by doing the following: * Click Contest menu, select Properties..., select Enter names * Click the Extra information tab * Remove Kategorie from the Auto value column. * Click OK Now there should not be any Kategorie on the printouts. AUSTRIA: MAGIC CONTEST INBOX AND OUTBOX As you may have noticed Magic Contest Inbox and Outbox are automatically created in the root of your computers hard drive. To make it easier to access the data in those folders the latest version will place shortcuts in My documents. AUSTRIA: BUG FIXES When reporting to website and PBN the instructions were fouled. This has now been fixed so that there is a correct link to the PBN website. This can be used if you are interested in creating your own statistics from contest data. When scoring an event without Austrian master points Magic Contest still showed master points and club points. Fixed. AUSTRIA: SCORING A MULTI-SESSION EVENT The list of steps found at the below web address states that a more advanced form of scoring multi-session events will be release on 6 February. http://www.brenning.se/mccountryaustria.asp Magic Contest has already been improved a little bit to cater for multi-session events. Contest Hans-Richard Grümm or Erich Schamberger for more information. Version 2.9.1, 13 Jan 2006 ========================== Note that a number of versions have been released without being published on the website. For news about those versions, please click the corresponding version number in the list to the left. The latest official release was 2.8.6 for non-Austrian users while 2.9 was the latest Austrian release. This is what is new in version 2.9.1: * International versions * Multi-section * Search for a name in the starting list * New and modified reports * Current standing * Bridgemate settings * Bridgemate and rulings * Bridgemate and Swiss pairs * PBN INTERNATIONAL VERSIONS I've been busy making international versions of Magic Contest. Currently the Austrian Bridge Federation has a tailor-made Magic Contest. The current version contains French printouts. MULTI-SECTION In case of multi-section events with different number of boards in circulation it has previously been required that the section with most number of boards is also the first section. This is no longer a requirement. SEARCH FOR A NAME IN THE STARTING LIST The Find player button seen in the top right corner has traditionally been used for searching the member file for names. Now this button is more versatile: Click Find player. There is now a checkbox titled Search only the starting list. When ticked, you don't search the member file but the starting list. As opposed to searching the member file this is a free text search. You can search for complete name, last name, first name or parts. NEW AND MODIFIED REPORTS There are two new starting lists: * Table order, one section per page * Table order, one direction per page All personal scorecards are now printed in round order, not in board order as before. It is still possible to print the personal scorecards in board order. When asked for number of boards the option All rounds is ticked. If you change that to All boards you will change the printout order. CURRENT STANDING When you present the current standing on a projector or an external monitor there are different needs to what text size is appropriate. So far it has not been that easy to change this, but this has now improved: Click Contest menu, select Properties, and select Current standing. In the main tab you now find a text size option. The alternatives are Normal, Large and Larger. BRIDGEMATE SETTINGS The following new features of Magic Contest's depend on you having the latest version the Bridgemate Pro system. The version must be v1.1a or higher (later than 1 October 2005). In BMPro, if you select Tools-Options-Bridgemate, there are a number of settings that decide how the Bridgemates function. These can now be managed from Magic Contest: Click Contest menu, select Bridgemate, select Properties, and select the Bridgemate (settings) tab. The settings you find in this list correspond to the settings found in the Bridgemate window above. To enable this you need to have BMPro allow the scoring program to decide the settings. This is done through Tools-Options where there is a checkbox deciding if BMPro or the scoring program controls the settings. BRIDGEMATE AND RULINGS As above this functionality depends on you having the latest version of Bridgemate Pro system installed. If you have an Average rulings, i.e. a combination of Average-, Average= and Average+, you can now enter that ruling directly in the Bridgemate. * Enter board number * Plug in the Tournament Director key * Select menu item 1 * Press 4, 5, or 6 for North-South's percentage * Do the same for East-West * Unplug the TD key and confirm the result The Bridgemate will show 40%, 50% and 60% respectively. This will interpreted by Magic Contest as A-, A= and A+. BRIDGEMATE AND SWISS PAIRS As above this functionality depends on you having the latest version of Bridgemate Pro system installed. When a round is finished the following automatic events take place (you are in turn asked for each): * Create a new Swiss round * Print the score recap of the played round * Update the Bridgemates The last item is new. It corresponds to the previously manual menu item Update Swiss movement. (The menu item is still there in case you need to use it.) The really good thing is that Magic Contest now sends a signal to BMPro to update the Bridgemate server with the new movement. You will be notified by BMPro when this has happened - usually within a few seconds after Magic Contest has updated the movement. PBN This section is for those of you who are technically interested. The PBN file has always contained the table number in the ScoreTable section. In the event of multi-section events this field has contained a section letter and a tab character which has not quite been consistent with the PBN specification. This has changed: * There is now a Section column that only contains the section letter. * The Table column only contains the table number. Version 2.9, 6 Jan 2006 ======================= This is the first official release of the Austrian Magic Contest version. The following areas have been affected: * Enter names * Enter results ENTER NAMES The name entry window has been cleared up a little bit. The buttons previously to the right that allowed you to select the view (table, pair, player, etc) have now moved to the top left corner (below Contest menu). When clicking one of those buttons you now see a menu where you can more detailed select what view to use. When you prepare a contest and you show the pairs in pair order you can now see how many pairs have been entered. In the left column the row number = number of pairs is shown. ENTER RESULTS Some of this functionality depends on what setting you use for the plus and minus keys on the numerical keyboard. The numerical comma or period sign has always been used to repeat the previous result. This repeat functionality has been extended: If you enter a result and press the minus key as Enter and press it again the previously enter result will be repeated. This of course requires the setting "minus as Enter" to be activated. If "plus as minus" is activated, the above "minus repeat" also works for the plus key. If "plus as minus" is NOT activated, the plus key works the same way as the minus key albeit that it confirms positive results and repeats them. If you use Enter to confirm a result you can not under any circumstances repeat that result with the Enter key. Version 2.8.8, 30 Dec 2005 ========================== This Magic release offers full support for MagicMP.DLL. This is an interface that allows external parties to write their own DLL that calculates Magic master points. Within the realm of such points are master points, rating points, club points, and whatever kind of points a bridge federation can come up with. The points are shown in the following reports: Printouts * Score recap in the last round * Final results Internet reporting * Website * Current standing Report master points * MCContestReport.mcd Version 2.8.7, 29 Dec 2005 ========================== * Player duplication * Player duplication instructions * Automatic printouts * Frequency tables with percentage scores * Printout of score tables only * Austrian version PLAYER DUPLICATION Magic Contest now allows player duplication while still using the built-in movements. Pair numbers, board sets, arrow switches and all that go with a movement are now adjusted to player duplication. Page 500-501 in the orange "bible" (Movements - a fair approach by Jannersten, Hallén, and Hanner) describes the details behind player duplication. When starting an event with player duplication the number of boards you enter must include the duplication round. When you have selected a movement you can click the Advanced button and select the Player duplication tab. There are on-screen instructions that have been copied into the below PLAYER DUPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS section. Those instructions cover basically all details regarding the player duplication. This is where you can choose to activate this feature and also fine-tune it. The following options exist: * Use player duplication of the boards in the "first" round * Move boards only at Skip Mitchell and let East-West remain at the table * Use "negative" pair numbering The first option activates player duplication. The second is only applicable at Skip Mitchell. The third allows you to have the original pair numbers play each other but with a new board set. The only change to the normal player duplication is that the pairs numbers have been stepped back one step before the duplication. PLAYER DUPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS When you open the Player duplication tab you can read the following set of instructions: After duplication, without playing the boards, both pairs and boards are moved according to the selected movement. First played round (=round 2 according to the original movement) is considered Round 1. However, on starting lists the seating for the duplication round will be printed. Skips in Skip Mitchell take place according to the original round numbering (unless the above option Only move boards... is checked when skips take place one round later). Arrow switches take place according to the new round numbering. FREQUENCY TABLES WITH PERCENTAGE SCORES When printing frequency tables you can now select a report where the percentages of the awarded scores are printed on the score table. The following reports have been affected: * Score recap * Score recap, last round * Final result * Current standing Printing percentages is only automatic for frequency tables. If you want to print a report with pair numbers and detailed results that include percentages you need to create a report of your own and add the named percentage fields to the report. Note! If you have already designed new reports they may have been slightly modified. Inspect the Score table tab and see if your selection is what you intended it to be. PRINTOUT OF SCORE TABLES ONLY You can now print just the score table without any round winners, result lists, summaries, and other blocks of information that can occur on a score recap. Select the score recap you want to use. Below the list of reports you can find the Details field. Click the arrow and select the option Only score tables are printed. AUTOMATIC PRINTOUTS In earlier versions Magic Contest has allowed automatic printout at barometer events. You can now do the same at a normal event and let Magic Contest print score tables as the entry of scorecards progresses. Click Contest menu, select Properties.., and select Print. The bottom option gives you the following options: * Yes * No * Number of copies When the last result of a board is entered it is automatically printed on one page. Nothing but the score table and the hand record is printed. When you score a multiple section event nothing is printed until all results for a board is entered in all sections. AUSTRIAN VERSION For the time being this list of news is shared with the Austrian version. This will change as soon as all of Magic Contest has been translated into German. Currently, only printouts exist in German. When running the Austrian version Magic Contest Inbox and Magic Contest Outbox will automatically be placed in the root of your harddisk, i.e in the following two folders: C:\Magic Contest Inbox C:\Magic Contest Outbox The reason to this is to make it easier for the Austrian Bridge Federation to maintain their separate modules and master point reporting by knowing exactly where on their clubs' computers necessary reporting data can be found. Version 2.8.6, 8 Dec 2005 ========================= * More translation * Magic Adapter MORE TRANSLATION The German (Austria) translation printout version has been updated. There is still work to be done. MAGIC ADAPTER In order to allow external parties to use data from Magic Contest an interface called Magic Adapter has been opened up. The entry point for this interface is after you have reported a contest. Select Contest menu-Report contest and clicked OK. When the report is completed you are notified through a message box. When you click OK Magic Adapter is launched if available. The following rules apply for Magic Adapter to be launched: * The program name must be MagicAdapter.exe * It must reside in the Magic Contest program folder This is a list of parameters that can be sent to Magic Adapter through the command line: /m:Filename - Master points /p:Filename - Point league /b:Filename - PBN /w:Filename - Website No "funny" characters are allowed in the file names. This basically means A-Z, 0-9, dash, underscore and definitely no white spaces. Magic Adapter opens up as a completely separate process and Magic Contest does not look for any report of results. Version 2.8.5, 24 Nov 2005 ========================== Magic Contest is now multilingual. Printouts and website output can now take place in English or in German. When printing, in the bottom right corner of the print window, you can select English or Deutsch (Österreich). Note! Spoken German in Germany differs a little from spoken German in Austria. This also applies to certain bridge terminology, for instance Hearts that is Herz in Austria while in Germany they allegedly use the French Coeur. (If I'm wrong I apologize and blame somebody else.) Version 2.8.3, 21 Oct 2005 ========================== IMP across the field has been slightly miscalculated when taking an average per comparison. With 12 results the average has been calculated as (Total IMPs) divided by 11. This should in fact be 12 and has been corrected. When you print a butler there are now default reports to that effect, one Final result and one Point league. Both show the word "Butler" in the top right corner. Version 2.8.2, 9 Oct 2005 ========================= If you have updated to Bridgemate Pro scoring system v1.1a (October 1st, 2005) you can benefit from this update. Note! BMPro v1.1a contains improved functionality for handling Swiss Pairs. This is not yet implemented in Magic Contest. The new features concern managing the BMPro settings from the scoring program. By default the BMPro settings are used. To have the scoring program control the settings you need to tell BMPro to accept that. Open BMPro. Select Tools-Options you should untick the Use Bridgemate settings in Bridgemate Pro Control and override scoring program settings. This untick allows Magic Contest to control BMPro settings. Continue by selecting the Bridgemate tab. Here you see all the settings that can be managed by Magic Contest. Click OK to save the untick you made and close BMPro. You find the settings in Magic Contest through Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties-Bridgemate (settings). If you don't assign a value to a setting the original BMPro value will be used. Version 2.8.1, 2 Oct 2005 ========================= This is just a maintenance version. Click 2.8 in the list to your left if you updated a pre-2.8 installation. Version 2.8, 8 Sep 2005 ======================= Here is a short list of the changes in this version: * Bridgemate * This and that * Movements for inter-club contests * Appendix Mitchell BRIDGEMATE Magic Contest can now read data from a standard bws, i.e. a Bridgemate database created by another program than Magic Contest. If you play a barometer there is now an option that can ensure correct result reporting. Select Contest menu- Properties-Bridgemate-Bridgemate (import). The new option reads Import only up to and including the current round. It prevents you from importing results from the following round in case you are slow at reporting the current round. If you want to report Current standing (and other reports) only when rounds are completed you can select the Bridgemate (report) tab in Bridgemate properties. The option Report only after completely finished round ensures that no reporting is made unless all results of the current round has been imported. THIS AND THAT You can not change the background for not entered results. Click Result menu and select Use grey background for missing results. This makes it much easier to see what results are missign, especially when used together with Bridgemate. If you use Current standing at a barometer the text Final result is shown after publishing the last round. If you have defectors in a Swiss pairs event, up till now it has not been possible to tick them as phantoms since Magic Contest has crashed. This has been fixed. There is now a filter available in Contest Explorer. Click File and select Apply filter to enter a text string that has to be part of the contest name to be shown in the list of contests. When you want to show all contest you click File and select Remove filter. If you score an IMPs across the field event in a teams event there is now a button called Open <-> Closed that gives you a shortcut to switching between open and closed room. MOVEMENTS FOR INTER-CLUB CONTESTS The following three movements for inter-club contests are now available in Magic Contest: * Zigzag Mitchell * Inter-club Scrambled Mitchell * Ring Dance Mitchell (barometer) You can read more about them in Movements, page 446-449. In case you want to pay a Zigzag Mitchell there is a comment at page 447 concerning optional movement for an even number of tables. Magic Contest does not offer this option but requires you to play a Relay Mitchell with board sharing. APPENDIX MITCHELL Appendix Mitchell (page 106-110 in Movements) is now available. Version 2.7.4, 18 June 2005 =========================== Appendix Mitchell have been added. "Not played" from Bridgemate, i.e. the players have pressed 0, is interpreted as a passed hand. This is due to the fact that a number of inexperienced players don't see the Pass button and chooses 0 instead. In case there is a ruling that can always be made in BMPro which will overwrite the preliminary Pass. Version 2.7.3, 2 June 2005 ========================== This update mainly concerns Bridgemate: * Print * Bridgemate - Import results * Bridgemate - Multiple events in the same database * Bridgemate - Board numbers above 63 * Bridgemate - Swiss Pairs PRINT Select Contest menu-Properties-Print-Print (more). Now you can create default settings for the position of the deal for paper and website reports separately. BRIDGEMATE - IMPORT RESULTS When you start importing results from Bridgemate the view automatically changes to round, ordered by table nunber. This only happens the first time for each contest, so if you change views after the first import that view remains if you later resume the import. BRIDGEMATE - MULTIPLE EVENTS IN THE SAME DATABASE If you run two parallel events you have so far been bound by Magic Contest's features for scoring separately. Now you can actually have two separate contests that use the same Bridgemate database while still keeping the scores separate. Use one of the contests for creating the database. Open the second contest, click Contest menu, select Bridgemate, and select Add to database. After the contest has been created you will be notified of what section letters have to be used in the Bridgemates for the added contest. If you choose to do the above you need to modify the settings for showing results in Bridgemate. There is a setting that keeps the sections separate in BMPro. Refer to the BMPro manual for this. BRIDGEMATE - BOARD NUMBERS ABOVE 63 Magic Contest can handle as high board numbers as they come. Unfortunately, they can not be split into board sets of, say 32, but all boards must be played continuously. At a 52 pair 2 boards per round complete Barometer Howell this means 102 boards from 1 to 102. It also means that board 33 most likely is physical board 1. Actually, the physical board sets must be even multiples of 16 to fit the vulnerability of Magic's. Bridgemate, on the other hand, can not handle board numbers above 63. To handle this there is now a Bridgemate setting where you can renumber the displayed board number in Bridgemate while retaining the continuous board numbers in Magic Contest. The only rule that has to be followed is that the board sets are of even length and that they still are multiples of 16 to fit the vulnerabitly. This setting is found in the Bridgemate properties and is called Restart board number after. BRIDGEMATE - SWISS PAIRS Magic Contest can now score Swiss pairs while at the same time update the Bridgemate database with the new rounds as they are created. Note! As we speak, BMPro is not designed for Swiss Pairs. This means that the smallest mistake can cause very severe errors. BMPro will be modified shortly, but for now the below work-around does work. Create a Swiss Pairs contest. Do this through Special-Swiss Pairs in the Contest Explorer. It does not matter if you use one or two random rounds. The instructions below will refer to two random rounds but can logically be modified into fitting one random round. Create a Bridgemate database. You can also add the contest to an existing database (see above). End of round 1 * Import results from Bridgemate * Create round 3 through Contest menu - Add / remove round End of round 2 * Make sure to import all Bridgemate results for round 2 * Uncheck the (import) Bridgemate checkbox * Select Contest menu, Bridgemate, Update Swiss movement. The Bridgemate database will be updated with round 3. * BMPro: Select Session - Update movement * BMPro: Click Update now (see note below) * BMPro: Close the window and press F4 to reactivate the Bridgemate server * Create round 4 through Contest menu - Add / remove round End of round 3 * Continue as above Because of the one round Swiss delay (two random rounds) things happen in a somewhat strange order. As you can see for round 2 above, results are imported, the movement is updated, and then a new round is created. This is quite in order since the rounds are created with the one round delay. Note! In case you manage multiple events in the same database you will see the separate sections in the list above the Update now button. It is essential that you only check those sections you actually want to update. Any errors you make here are irreversible. Version 2.7.1, 20 Apr 2005 ========================== The following areas are affected by this update: * Bridgemate * Current standing * USB memory * E-mail BRIDGEMATE Two major bugs have been fixed: Removed results through the Bridgemate terminals messed up the Magic Contest import. Contracs just made without lead couldn't be imported. CURRENT STANDING There is now a setting that allows you to only output the current board. This is convenient at a regular evening event when entering results board by board. By doing that the users can stand and watch the monitor and score the boards as they are entered instead of having to wait for them to scroll one by one. USB MEMORY Magic Contest offers basic import and export features: * Contest Explorer, File button, Open from / Send to * Contest menu, Send to * Enter names, Name menu, Import / Export * Enter results, Result menu, Import / Export The normal list of destinations (Diskette, Inbox, Outbox, etc) has been extended with USB memory (E:). There is a limitation in the fact that Magic does not know what letter assignment your USB memory actually has. The default setting is E: but if you know it is something else you can change that through Contest menu, Options..., General, and the folder for the USB memory. E-MAIL Previously Outlook Express has been the only option of sending e-mail from Magic Contest. There is now an alternative: The default setting is still Outlook Express. However, if you click Contest menu, select Options..., select General and click the E-mail tab there are a number of settings that can be set by ticking the Enter e-mail settings. Basically, in tech language, you get to set up an SMTP client for outgoing e-mail. These settings are the same you enter when you set up e-mail support through Outlook or Outlook Express or any other e-mail program for that matter. The difference is that Magic sends the e-mail rather than relaying it through your e-mail program. If you feel up to it this is a better way of supporting outgoing e-mail. Version 2.7, 14 Mar 2005 ======================== The following areas are affected by this version: * Change Bridgemate results * Enter BMPro rulings * Bridgemate settings * Report contest to internet * Create empty deals (in order to enter deals manually) CHANGE BRIDGEMATE RESULTS Changing a result can cause problems. Assume the result has been entered in Bridgemate, transferred to BMPro, and imported into Magic Contest. Picture the two following scenarios: 1. Change the result in Magic Contest. This means the BMPro database does not contain correct results. In case you need to clear all Magic Contest data and import it again you need to make the same change as the first time. 2. Change the result in BMPro (right-click a BMPro result and select Edit score). This does not overwrite the already imported result. The reason for not overwriting is that the result may already have been changed in Magic Contest and who knows what result is considered the correct one. There is now a solution to this. Go to BMPro, select a result, right-click the result and select Edit score, change the score and enter a single x in the Remarks box. This is a signal to Magic Contest to overwrite the previous result. ENTER BMPRO RULINGS You can now enter rulings in BMPro and have Magic Contest import them. The reason for doing this in BMPro follows the same reasoning as above. The rulings that can be entered are exactly the same as those you can enter manually in the Enter results window. You can find instructions at: http://www.brenning.se/mcerrulings.asp To enter a ruling, right-click the BMPro result and select Edit score. Enter the ruling in the Remarks box. The only exception to the rule is fouled boards that have to be entered directly in Magic Contest. BRIDGEMATE SETTINGS There are a number of new Bridgemate settings. Select Contest menu-Bridgemate-Properties: * Minimize the BMPro window. After the database is created and tables have been sent to the server, BMPro can minimize itself by using this setting. Select the Bridgemate (more) tab: * Enter member numbers in BM. The latest version of BMPro and Bridgemate has a setting called Member numbers that can be reached through Tools-Options, the Bridgemate tab, and Member numbers. By checking the options both in BMPro and Magic Contest you can have the players enter their member numbers that are later looked up by Magic Contest when importing them from Bridgemate * Plus member prefix. Member numbers in Bridgemate can only be numerical. To deal with possible plus members in Magic Contest, i.e. players being added to the member file who have received an automatic member number preceeded by a plus sign, you can enter what the players have to enter in Bridgemate instead of the plus sign. A few examples may come in hand: Member number in Magic Contest: +7 Member number prefix: 0 Enter in Bridgemate: 07 Member number in Magic Contest: +12 Member number prefix: 000 Enter in Bridgemate: 00012 If you have checked the Enter names checkbox Magic Contest will ask you to import the names immediately after creating the database. Since Magic Contest only tries to import the names once, you must wait until you know all players have entered their member numbers before until you answer yes to the question. At any stage you can manually import names through Contest menu-Bridgemate-Import names. REPORT CONTEST TO INTERNET If you click Contest menu, select Report contest, check Internet and report the contest to internet, that report now contains a link from the top to the score tables. CREATE EMPTY DEALS (IN ORDER TO ENTER DEALS MANUALLY) Open a contest, click Contest menu, and select View hand record. Click File and select Create empty deals. This gives you a number of empty deals that you can use to manually enter deals in case you do not have the deals on a diskette. Version 2.6.12, 13 Feb 2005 =========================== As always, quick releases (2.6.11) generate new errors. This release contains a few fixes. For clarity the news for version 2.6.11 are included in this text. Areas affected are: * Contest menu - Properties... * Bridgemate * Current standing CONTEST MENU - PROPERTIES... Start a contest. Click Contest menu and select Properties for this contest. There are now sub-menu items that help you find the Properties section you are interested in. If what you are looking for is not part of the menu you can always select the top option to show all properties. BRIDGEMATE When importing results from Bridgemate there is now a Bridgemate checkbox in the top right corner. If you uncheck it you temporarily turn of Bridgemate import, for instance to change a score or enter a ruling. Check the checkbox to resume Bridgemate import. This checkbox only shows when you have started Bridgemate import through Contest menu - Bridgemate. Magic can now (again) import results for section B. Mitchell alias and phantom pairs has made life difficult for Richmond Bridge Club. This now works. At multi-section, when different number of boards are in circulation in the sections, the section with the most number of boards MUST still be section A. This will be addressed as soon as possible. You can now reach the Bridgemate properties in two ways: * Contest menu - Properties... - Bridgemate * Contest menu - Bridgemate - Properties Bridgemate filenames now include date. This is an option that can be turned off through Contest menu - Bridgemate- Properties. CURRENT STANDING Current standing now contains new options. Click Contest menu, select Properties..., and select Current standing. Click the Current standing (more) tab. There is now a section call Scroll pages that are too long. The options are * No * Scroll * Flip The effect of the latter two is that when a page is too long, instead of just refreshing or moving on to a score table, it will now show the entire contents, screen by screen. Between each screen there will be a break that is decided by the time interval you have entered for updating the page. The difference between Scroll and Flip is that the former scrolls the page to the next position while the latter just changes page instantly. There are also a couple of new checkboxes that affect the layout, primarily of scrolling pages even though they work for the normal current standing reports. These are: * Hide right-hand side scroll bar * Write title in the page footer Version 2.6.11, 8 Feb 2005 ========================== During development of different features designed for the UK and EBL markets other areas were affected by the changes. Some have been dealt with. This is a summary of the major issues at hand: Mitchell alias and phantom pairs has made life difficult for Richmond Bridge Club. This now works. At multi-section, when different number of boards are in circulation in the sections, the section with the most number of boards MUST still be section A. Version 2.6.10, 5 Dec 2004 ========================== Christmas comes early this year. Enjoy the following changes and additions: * Bridgemate * Scrambled Mitchell * Board sharing * Website formatting * Page break at score recap and final result * Score recap in round order * Personal scorecard * Suspicious results * Send e-mail * Miscellaneous bug-fixes BRIDGEMATE Reading results from Bridgemates has its pros and cons, the latter of course being that there is no verification of entered contracts and declarers. This version contains a new report called Suspicious results that you can read more about in a separate section below. SCRAMBLED MITCHELL The default setting for scrambled Mitchell is to use unique arrow switches for different tables numbers according to the book Movements - A fair approach, by Jannersten. To adjust to normal British contest setup Magic now contains the following option: Start the contest. Close the preparations. Enter number of tables and boards and select Scrambled Mitchell. Click Advanced and select the Mitchell tab. At the bottom there is an option of arrow switching the last n rounds where you enter n. I gather 1 or 2 are the most common. BOARD SHARING At Relay Mitchell, Pivot Mitchell and certain Howells some tables get to share boards every round. In a Relay Mitchell it is always table 1 and the highest table that share boards. In case you use travellers where the pairs write the results from the top and down, i.e. ordered by round, you can not really enter results without checking the pair numbers carefully. The reason to this is that you do not know which of the two tables wrote their results first. The way Magic Contest solves this is that one table is supposed to write their results at the bottom of all scorecards while the other table writes the result just as if there were no board sharing. The default setting is that the lower of the tables write the results at the bottom of the scorecard. This setting can be reached if you click Advanced when you have selected a movement. Click the Round tab and make the appropriate selection. This setting affects the order of the results when you enter results ordered by round as well as if you print results ordered by round. It does not however affect Pivot Mitchell or Filled-out Pivot Mitchell since those two use board sharing between different tables in different rounds. WEBSITE FORMATTING Marietta Andree of Richmond Bridge Club had a request that would solve her problems with an Internet provider that puts large advertisment at the bottom of each page. Click Contest menu and select Options...-Report contest- Website (more). This page contains a number of fixed text fields that describe the general layout of an internet report. Between those you find input fields where you can write your own html code. In the particular example of Richmond Bridge Club the text is to be entered into the bottom right input field, i.e. after . PAGE BREAK AT SCORE RECAP AND FINAL RESULT The report types Score recap and Final result have been crammed with reports that have shadowed the general view. This has been cleared up a little bit by reducing the number of reports. Both reports have the option of having the result list on the same page as the score tables, but that options has been put into a drop-down selection called Details that you find below the list of reports. SCORE RECAP IN ROUND ORDER You can now print score recaps in round order if you want to get printouts that you can compare to the travellers since the results on the printout is in the same order as on the travellers. PERSONAL SCORECARD If you run a Mitchell with non-unique pair numbers you can now print personal scorecards, something that was not possible before. The drawback is that when you enter a specific pair number you get personal scorecards for both North-South and East-West with that pair number. SUSPICIOUS RESULTS The new Score recap report called Suspicious results now gives you a possibility of verifying the entered results regardless of if they have been entered manually or by the help of Bridgemates. The following are checked for: 1. 400+ in both directions. 2. Same suit or no-trump played by both directions. The criteria for a suspicious result is that either direction contains exactly one of the named results while at least one exists for the other direction. Such results are marked by <<. I think a few examples are in place: 1. +620 +600 170 -420 << 2. 3H by N << 2S by S 1H by W 2H by W 3. 2S by S << 1N by N 2H by E 2S by E << 3C by E 4. 2S by N 2S by S 2S by E 2S by W Example 1 show that you don't have to have entered results to make use of the report. Example 3 shows that same suit played exactly once by both directions (spades) is considered suspicious for both directions. Example 4 shows that nothing is considered suspicious if both directions have declared twice or more. Suspicious results do not care about the actual outcome of contracts (except 400+), just who was declaring the contracts. Neither does it check the actual hand layout for logical suspicious results. This report has not really been put to test so I'm happy to receive input from real life as well as suggestions for more types of tests. Example 4 may also be slightly questionable. SEND E-MAIL Magic Contest can now connect to your e-mail program and send miscellaneous types of reports in different ways. When the e-mail is sent by Magic the settings of your e-mail program decides if the e-mail is placed in the outbox or sent immediately. Depending on the situation a number of different file types can be attached to the e-mail: 1. Contest 2. Bridgemate 3. --- 4. Master points and rating 5. Website 6. PBN 7. Member file 8. Request update 9. --- One special feature of #7 is that, since the member file can grow to a substantial size, if you have compressed the member file into a zip file, Magic will attach that file rather than the mdb file. If you want to know what file to compress you can click the Member file button in the main Magic window. After the file has been sent it is automatically removed. The four different types of e-mails that can be sent are: 1. Contest explorer-File-Send to Send an entire contest from the list of contests in Contest explorer. What is sent is an mc2 file. The recipient of this file places it in Magic Contest Inbox and opens Magic Contest to access to contest. 2. Contest menu-Send to This sends the currently open contest. 3. Contest menu-Help This sends a support e-mail to tomas@brenning.se unless a Bridge Federation is associated with the current Magic Contest installation. The Help menu contains a general help e-mail as well as one where the contest is attached (as in #1 above). In this case the Bridgemate database is also attached. 4. Report contest If you click Contest menu and select Report contest there is a Send e-mail checkbox. If you select to report to website the report file is sent to all players of the contest that have e-mail addresses in the member file (member database). If you also report point league and/or PBN files those are also attached. Currently personal scorecards are not attached. MISCELLANEOUS BUG-FIXES When a website report includes personal scorecards Magic sometimes used an incorrect header and navigation bar for the personal scorecards. This has been fixed. Manually entering contracts was not fully adjusted to international keyboards. The . key on the numerical keyboards now works as clubs. Version 2.6.9, 4 Nov 2004 ========================= Printing of personal scorecards now works for two-winner Mitchell where pair numbers are the same for N-S and E-W. If you enter a specific pair number both N-S and E-W will be printed. This will be changed in the future. All Bridgemate actions (create, import, open BMPro) are now positioned in Contest menu-Bridgemate. The previous way of exporting and importing results have been removed. There are a number of Bridgemate settings that can be found through Contest menu-Properties-Bridgemate and Bridgemate (more): * Include client name * Use default client name * Client name These three concern how the database is created and what information is given to the database. If you do not include the client name, i.e. your computer's name, you need to log on the client in BMPro before being able to use it. It is also a matter of what client "owns" what tables. * Use Mitchell alias If you use this option Magic Contest will export table numbers instead of pair numbers to Bridgemate. This means that you can use unique pair numbers in Magic Contest while having the players use their initial table number in Bridgemate. This allows for what players consider the normal way of pair numbering without any technical Magic Contest concerns. * Open BMPro automatically * Add tables to server * Start retrieving data These settings decide if and how BMPro should be opened immediately after having created the database. Having all of them checked gives a minimum of user interaction . The first time a database is created Magic Contest asks for the location of BMPro. If you want to change locations you can click Locate program file. * Repeat import automatically * Interval (seconds) The first setting makes Magic Contest import results continuously at a certain interval (=the second setting). * Report contest These settings allow Magic Contest to report the results continuously to different parties. Version 2.6.3, 16 July 2004 =========================== No change log available. Version 2.6.1, 29 June 2004 =========================== No change log available. Version 2.5.1, 3 Mar 2004 ========================= There have been a few minor changes to the SWAN Games data transfer. Version 2.5, 26 Feb 2004 ======================== The following subjects have been changed: * Report contest - SWAN Games Online Bridge * Report contest - PBN * Report contest - Website * Current standing * Enter contract * Print - Default formats * IAF/Butler * Player REPORT CONTEST - SWAN GAMES ONLINE BRIDGE Magic Contest can now connect to SWAN Games and send a contest. The exact contest result will be displayed at a designated page at SWAN. The only thing required from SWAN to enable the transfer is an event ID and an authentication ID. SWAN Games can be found at www.swangames.com. SWAN reports are not enabled at demo mode. REPORT CONTEST - PBN Click Contest menu, select Report contest, click Properties, and select the PBN tab. All properties of this window stem from the PBN specification, version 2.0, and enables you to enter more event-related information that is included in the PBN file. The title of the club column ("Clubs") has been changed to "Club". REPORT CONTEST - WEBSITE The meta section of the html file contains ScoringType that until now has shown what scoring type has been used. It still does, but not the format is according to the PBN specification, chapter 3.4.12. That specification can be downloaded from http://home.iae.nl/users/veugent/pbn.html CURRENT STANDING Current standing has entered the "layout age". The former boring but functional layout has been replaced by pages where deals and score tables have been spiced by colours, suit symbols and other more layout-friendly features. In order to make this work you also need to copy some files, namely the suit gifs from the Program file folder to the Current standing folder. The Program folder is usually C:\Program\Magic Contest or C:\Program Files\Magic Contest while the Current standing folder usually is Magic Contest Outbox in My documents. ENTER CONTRACT When you enter contracts for a tournament it is possible to enter the result either as number of tricks for the declarer or as a relative result using +n, -n or =. This hasn't changed, but the default print format has changed to the latter format. PRINT - DEFAULT FORMATS Click Result menu, select Properties... and click the Print tab. At the bottom there are new fields where you can select default format for player names and contract results. More will be added as times passes. IAF/BUTLER The default values for bye and A+/A- have been changed for Butler and IMP across the field events from 1.0 to 1.5. The new value is the one supported by the Dutch Bridge Federation. PLAYER The Team field has been added to the Player table of the Magic Contest member file. Version 2.4.1, 3 Feb 2004 ========================= Several modifications have been made. The change log will not be kept up to date this time. Version 2.3.2, 26 Aug 2003 ========================== Several modifications have been made. The change log will not be kept up to date this time. Version 2.2.1, 13 Jan 2003 ========================== Even if many things are about technology, this version is mainly focused on the players and tournament directors as human beings. * Verification of questinable results * Verification of high results * Turn off vulnerability verification * Enter contract * Current standing * Reports The next version will be available in April/May. VERIFICATION OF QUESTIONABLE RESULTS At result entry all results are checked to see if they are reasonable. This verification deals with incorrect vulnerability. 650, for example, is a valid nonvulnerable result (5S D +1) but it is not unlikely that the writer meant 4S +1 but mistook the vulnerability. All games and slams and a number of doubled partials are verified. When such a result is found you get a question asking you to verify the result. The window that is shown contains (in case you entered a nonvulnerable +650): / Yes * No - Change the result to +450 The three keys / * and - are the only keys that work. Enter does not work to select the checked options. The reason to this is two-fold: 1. All three keys are placed at the top of the numeric keyboard thus making them easy to use. 2. It is easy to miss the error messages. Because of this it should not be easy to continue entering results and press Enter after the next result and get out of rhytm. Of course you can use the mouse to click any option. If you in the example accept 650 and enter another 650 Magic Contest will accept this immediately. VERIFICATION OF HIGH RESULTS Except the verification of questionable results, high results are also verified. If you have entered at least 400 in one direction and you enter 400 in the other direction Magic Contest assumes this to be a misprint and shows the same window as above where you get the chance to change directions of the result. Once you have accepted high results in both directions Magic Contest will stop protesting. TURN OFF VULNERABILITY VERIFICATION If you out of some reason do not want vulnerability verification at result entry, e.g. if you after 20 boards start over at board 1 and try to enter this as board 21, you can do this by clicking Result menu in the bottom right corner and selecting the corresponding menu item. ENTER CONTRACT From the beginning Magic Contest has offered the option of entering contracts instead of results. This is something that needs to be activated, which is done via Properties for this contest, the Enter results tab and the Enter contract checkbox. The normal way of entering results has been 4SN10 for 4S by North just made. Now you do not have to enter number of tricks when the contract has just made, i.e 4SN is enough in the example. If you do not want to enter number of tricks you can also use + and - for number of over-/undertricks. This means that 4SN+1 is the same as 4SN11, i.e. game with an overtrick. At printout the number of tricks is printed. If you want you can create a new report, enter the field list of the score table, edit the Result (number of tricks) field and change the format into +, - or =. CURRENT STANDING This feature can be used to present the current standing (=result list) parallel to result entry based on the entered results so far. It can be activated via Properties for this contest, the Current standing tag and the checkbox you find there. Current standing is saved in html, i.e. the same format used to present regular web sites in Internet Explorer or Netscape. When you switch from one board to another the page is updated with the current standing. The actual page, magiccontest.htm, is saved in Magic Contest Outbox. Magic Contest does not open this page - that is something you have to do yourself. Once the page is opened it will auto-update every 15th second. This of course means that it will not quite keep the speed of the result entry but that is not anything the players behind your back will notice. You may protest and say that the screen is a bit crowded if both Magic Contest and Current standing share the space. Well, that is true, but since Magic Contest only uses a part of the screen it is possible to position the windows so Magic Contest only covers the right part of the current standing. Remember to exit the result entry if you want to move the main Magic Contest window to the right to prepare space for the current standing. This feature opens up fantastic opportunities. Let us assume that you have a portable computer with an external screen where you can show other information than the one on the screen of the portable computer. Then you just connect the screen and turn it towards the players and position the internet browser in that window. The next step is to connect a projector and project the image on the wall outside the tournament director's office, or why not connect several computers into a network and let one computer manage the presentation of the current standing while you enter results on another. The next step will be to transfer the files to internet every 5 minutes to really improve service to the players and the spectators. REPORTS As usual all homemade reports have disappeared. This is because the format changes too much and that I am too lazy to create a converter. There a two types of personal scorecards - one that can be printed during the contest and one that can be printed after the contest is over. The difference is the calculation of rulings (60% and 40%) and byes. When the contest is over these are adjusted according to normal rules. Version 2.1.4, 8 Nov 2002 ========================= This update contains the following changes: * Enter results * Point league * ECats on-line scoring system for simultaneous pairs ENTER RESULTS When entering results, Magic Contest can create a self- updating result file that can be showed on a separate monitor or a projector or even "behind" the Magic Contest main window if you want to keep track of the result list. Click Contest menu, select Properties for this contest, click the tab Enter results and check the option Save current standings... Click OK. The file that is created is found in Magic Contest Outbox and is called magiccontest.htm. POINT LEAGUE You can now force the point league to be individual. The default option is to keep the point league pair-based if possible. If you report a contest both to internet and to a point league, the contest report will include a link to the corresponding point league. When you start a contest you can assign it a session number. That number is divided into session and segment where you can use one or both. If used, you need to enter the point league properties and check the option Show session in the header instead of date. When you create a point league you can enter the number of points a player gets if she does not participate in one or more sessions. For instance, if you miss a session you may very well get 40% to be able to join the point league. ECATS Magic Contest is now fully compatible with ECats on-line scoring system for simulaneous pairs. Read more at www.ecatsbritain.com. Magic Contest can not send files to ECats. For that you need the free upload program that ECats supplies. The create the necessary files, click Contest menu and select Report contest. Check the ECats option, enter the assigned session number and click OK. If you want to try it out, use demo session number 9999. Version 2.1.3, 15 Oct 2002 ========================== POINT LEAGUE A few options have been added, among them the possibility to make the point league pair-based, the possibility of showing the total score as an average and the possibility to sort the contest results from left to right as well as from right to left. Version 2.1.2, 1 Oct 2002 =========================