[Vampyr]

lizanne98, on 2014-May-13, 05:16, said:

I run several small duplicate games and was offering my players hand records and sorting the cards by hand. It took me about 3 hours per set of boards... Also, I have good days and bad for the machine to work. Sometimes I have to pull the same board through three or four times. However, it still saves me time. When working well (either me or the machine -- am not sure who is causing the problem), I can do all 36 boards in a little over one hour.

Three hours seems like an awfully long time to prepare a set of boards. In any case, an hour with the Handy Dup is certainly an. Improvement on that, but you can do a set in about 20 minutes with a Duplimate. In London even the smallest clubs save up for a Duplimate (sometime a reconditioned one) rather than go for an alternative. And it seems hard enough to get volunteers to prepare the boards.

[mycroft]

If the cards are sorted, A->2, before I start, I can do a set of 36 by hand in about an hour. I will admit it's not something I'd want to do for a living, but occasionally, no problem, especially if there's something mindless to engage me on the tube (baseball season, I'm pointing at you). If I have to sort the cards, it takes about double the time. So, if the players are willing to sort the cards after the session, I'm willing to make up the hands for them for next week.

Yes, that means that I need several sets of boards and cards. Yes, I'd prefer a machine - especially because then I could make up 2x26 and run web movements sanely (and make up the third set of boards on the fly if necessary). But I *don't* run a club (just games occasionally), so it's just not feasible for me at the moment.

My big problem with the HandyDup remains that I'm left-handed, and it's not.

[Vampyr]

mycroft, on 2014-May-13, 10:12, said:

If I have to sort the cards, it takes about double the time.

I think I will try an experiment soon. It seems to me that the sorting takes much more time than the dealing.

Anyway, are these 36 boards referred to above for a 24-28 board session? I'd suggest investing the extra time to prepare 2x(number of boards played) and giving duplicate a try.

[mycroft]

I find that sorting takes the same amount of time as dealing, checking, and board manipulation.

Re: what movement to use, while I agree with you, the ACBL in general does not. As you very well know.

[Grimstad]

Vampyr, on 2012-January-09, 15:52, said:

This is the one that doesn't put the cards in the boards, right? Seems way too time-consuming.

There are many times when this type of machine could be useful. Occasionally, a bridge club does not have duplicated boards at the time of play, particularly team events. If the machine did not require bar coded cards, I'd buy one in a minute, but I find bar coded cards to be ugly and distracting. (Why are the bar codes printed with visible ink?) My caddies could provide hand records for shuffle-deal-and-play sectional team events at no labor cost and without requiring six times the number of boards we use.

The machine can make hand records more quickly from hand-dealt cards than can be done at a computer. Only 39 cards need to be run through the machine, just as with using Deal Master software. That should take about 1 minute per deal. This could be a cheap back-up for a duplicating machine that breaks down just before a game. (I might even want to use it for playing other card games, like Hearts and Spades in 2-table duplicate arrangements.) For single-table home games with "Doop" scoring, this would be a huge improvement over having each individual sorting his hand, which often has some human error on a hand or two. For teaching bridge in high schools, which I do, a full duplicating machine is overkill and not terribly portable. This would be an easy way to create lesson hands. By requiring barcoded cards, this machine has a limited use.