[pescetom]

Apologies that this is not a ruling issue, but I did often ask for a f2f Director's forum and I do think that the right people will read here.

I was intrigued by this recent post on that other forum, both because OP must have been directing before most here were born and because he had an insight half a century ago that has been lost and could even remain so.
Unless I am missing something this seems a fine solution for clubs where players are familiar with Mitchell, want no sharing and want to play all the opponents, but get home before midnight.
Does anyone see a fly in the ointment, besides having to duplicate two full sets of boards?

[barmar]

The "Offline Bridge" forum is usually used for f2f directing discussions.

[pescetom]

Fair enough, please move it if you wish.

Any thoughts about the movement?

[blackshoe]

I don't mind director questions here that aren't strictly about rulings, as long as there aren't too many. :-)

[mycroft]

Looks interesting, but I don't need another one; I might just do that instead of the bye-relay if I ever do a 14x2, but I'm never doing a 14x2 :-).

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2026-February-19, 20:54, said:

Looks interesting, but I don't need another one; I might just do that instead of the bye-relay if I ever do a 14x2, but I'm never doing a 14x2 :-).

I was intrigued by it for the much more basic 6 table club tournament.
Sharing is too much of a hassle for the players, keeping the players on time in a full Howell is too much of a hassle for Director.
Duplicating two sets seems a fair price to play (especially if you have a player that needs braille cards anyway).
Of course you need it possible in the scoring program, I asked.

[mycroft]

If you have two sets, just do the bye-relay (/relay-share, depending on your flavour of English) with one set running through 1-3, and the other running through 4-6. Same work as the "half-odd", just a different set of boards on 4-6 (17-24 and 1-4 rather than 9-12, 5-8, 1-4).

[pescetom]

 mycroft, on 2026-February-21, 00:20, said:

If you have two sets, just do the bye-relay (/relay-share, depending on your flavour of English) with one set running through 1-3, and the other running through 4-6. Same work as the "half-odd", just a different set of boards on 4-6 (17-24 and 1-4 rather than 9-12, 5-8, 1-4).

Yes I guess that works too, although it's less elegant.
Thinking about it, I could probably use Relay-Share (sic) to play the braille boards at table 1 only and start with non-braille boardsets 1 to 5 on tables 2 to 6? I've never been willing to duplicate two stacks just to avoid playing with braille cards at all tables, but if it also brings the fruit of a non-skip Mitchell then I guess it is worth a try.

[Come on Canada, 0-1]

[mycroft]

Yes, you can absolutely have one set of boards at one of the share tables and run the rest through (whether it's easier for table 2 to understand "send boards to 6" or table 1 "send boards to 5" is up to you). You lose when there's a fouled board (the braille card table gets a totally artificial score), but win if there are people who hate playing the braille boards, or if they wear more with more play. Remember the bye-stand table (and the instructions to the players on either side) though!

(this note added primarily to state that we are fine, we expect to *be* fine, and yes, it's a little scary)

[pescetom]

 mycroft, on 2026-February-23, 21:20, said:

Yes, you can absolutely have one set of boards at one of the share tables and run the rest through (whether it's easier for table 2 to understand "send boards to 6" or table 1 "send boards to 5" is up to you). You lose when there's a fouled board (the braille card table gets a totally artificial score), but win if there are people who hate playing the braille boards, or if they wear more with more play. Remember the bye-stand table (and the instructions to the players on either side) though!

Thanks, that is as I imagined: I would send boards from table 2 to 6 as they are both close to Director's seat. The bye-stand table at this point is effectively just a pending boardset at table 6, I guess? We usually have the boards not in play on a side table anyway. I would print out the sequence for tables 6 and 1 and print warning notes for EW at tables 1 and 2, at least the first time.

[My note was about the Olympic ice hockey final... but yes]