[JanM]

In poker I think they use cameras (or maybe some sort of reader on the table) to show an upside down card. I'm not sure whether that would work for the Vugraph situation. At the moment at least, I don't think we can have a card reader built into the table, so we're talking about a webcam or something of the sort that's attached to the screen and points at where the cards are played? That would certainly help with some things - for instance, the reason I sometimes can't see Jeff Meckstroth's cards is that he often holds them at an angle to the table so they're visible to those in front of him but not to the person sitting behind him (and since his usual preferred position is South, the VG operator is behind him). So a webcam aimed at where his cards are played would help there. It might also help with the Sontags of the world, who play their cards very quickly - but that would need some operator intervention, I think, to go back and pause on the moment the card is visible. For the players who tend to hold their hands over the played card, nothing will help (I think), although maybe being able to go back to the moment the card is played would. But since one of the problems is time - you can't take the time to "rewind" the webcam and pause it and still keep up with the next trick, I don't think it would be likely to work during play - perhaps it would allow the operator to go back and re-do a hand at the end of the session though. For the issue that started this thread - very fast play and claims, there's probably nothing that will help. I don't know enough about the technology of webcams to know whether an inexpensive and simple one would solve some of the problems. But I promise to add it to my long list of "things I need to investigate."

[mrdct]

JanM, on Aug 5 2007, 01:04 AM, said:

You're right, I should have been alert enough to say that . In actual fact, I don't use GIB often enough to have "green cards" instantly trigger the image of a hand where one has invoked GIB's double dummy analysis, so it took me a while to figure out what he meant.

I think GIB is now disabled for vugraph operators.

[helene_t]

Some possible technical solutions (sorry if some of this has already been considered or implemented):
- Vugraph operators get two different "claim" buttons, one for catch-up and one for real claims. The effect is the same, it just produces different messages
- A camcorder in the ceiling so that the operator can better see what's going on.