Wireless scoring at your club?

By now, you will probably have heard of the Bridgemate wireless scoring system. No more paper travellers with the inevitable scoring errors. Instead a simple white box on each table on which you key in the contract and result. This is then instantly communicated to the central scoring computer and the session's results are available within seconds of the last board is played. In fact, you can even have a continuous rolling updated score if your director deems it appropriate.

Are you also aware that this system has been up and running at one club in the Bracknell league for some months now? A club that's not even one of the big boys. Little old Great Hollands bridge club, with it's typical seven or eight table club nights, has been one of the early adopters of wireless scoring, having bought a system last autumn.

It really is everything you ever hoped for, and then some. As the usual scorer, it's wonderful for me. No more late nights trying to figure out whether that sqiggle for declarer is meant to be an N or a W. No more trying to guess what North really meant when he wrote on the traveller:

No more spending the last half hour of the day typing it all into the computer. I can actually relax and play bridge again.

But, you might ask, aren't these gadgets pretty expensive? How can any club, particularly a small one, afford such a thing? The answer is "Member Power".

Like, I suspect, many club committee members I looked whistfully at the Bridgemate system and its price. There was nothing like enough in the club's accounts so this was clearly out of our reach. How wrong I was. I had underestimated Member Power.

It was a chance remark at the table one club night which triggered it all off. I said, only half jokingly, that I'd be prepared to buy the system myself and rent it to the club. Surprisingly one of my opponents agreed. I started asking around and began to realise just how much support there was for the idea. After an invitation went out to the whole of the membership we managed to get together a consortium of nine members, about a quarter of our total membership at the time, who were prepared to put there money where their mouth was. Suddenly the cost, split nine ways, didn't look nearly so daunting as it had first seemed.

So the "consortium", as they became known, drew up an agreement, clubbed together and bought a set. We are now renting it out to the club at 50p a head each club night. We reckon we will have recouped our investment in a couple of years.

What about software? Don't you need a Bridgemate compatible scoring program? I'm glad you asked me that. I don't want to turn this article into an advertising pitch but perhaps you will forgive me the indulgence of a couple of paragraphs. You may or may not know that I am the author of the Duplicate Scorer program which is available for free download from the BBL web site ( http://www.bracknellbridge.com/scorer/dshome.htm). One of the reasons I got into this Bridgemate malarkey in the first place is that about nine months ago I was approached by the UK distributors of the Bridgemate system and asked if I would be interested in making my scoring program Bridgemate compatible. It sounded like a good idea and as a result I can now offer what I believe to be the only "free-to-air" duplicate pairs scoring application to fully support Bridgemates.

I pride myself on Duplicate Scorer being the easiest to use scoring package available (and if you don't agree then I want to know why not). The new Club Option Pack extends it into a complete club management system, with membership database and automatic electronic registration of EBU Master Points.

So what are you waiting for? Drag your club shouting and screaming into the 21st century. Yes, there will be some luddites who want to cling to their rights to right illegible, or down right wrong, results on paper travellers but as soon as they see how easy the electronic system is to use I am sure they will be won over.

I can remember a time when bidding boxes were thought of as a radical new technology to be mistrusted by all. How quaint that attitude seems now. Who would think of starting a bridge club now without bidding boxes? I firmly believe wireless scoring will prove to be the same. In a few years it will seem odd to go to a bridge club that stuffs little bits of paper in its boards. Do you really want your club to be left behind by this new technology? Why not try to persuade your club to be a leader rather than a follower?

Forget the paperless office. This is the age of the paperless bridge club.

Article copyright © Keith Sheppard 2006. If you would like any further advice or information on using wireless scoring at your club, please email me.