The 2019 Whistler Regional Start Page

Gateway to masterpoints, results, photos

Basic Tournament Information

Location: Fairmont Chateau Whistler, 4599 Chateau Blvd., Whistler BC

Driving: there are two ways to drive to Whistler: by far the easiest way is north from Vancouver on Highway 99.  Highway 1 crosses through East Vancouver before going over Burrard Inlet into North Vancouver, where the road continues past the ferry terminal at Horseshoe Bay, and on northward through Squamish and on to Whistler.  Be sure to watch the signs as you go along the Upper Levels Highway over West Vancouver and stay on Highway 99, avoiding getting into the ferry lineup at Horseshoe Bay, which is the continuation of Highway 1 to Vancouver Island.

The difficult way to drive to Whistler is the Lillooet - Pemberton - Whistler route, which can be a major adventure in late October and November.  I've survived this ride a handful of times in my travels at former jobs but I wouldn't be in much of a state to play bridge afterwards...

When you get to Whistler, turn right at Lorimer Road (left if you came from the difficult route) and continue on through the first Blackcomb Way to the second Blackcomb Way (a winding road) and turn right, then left onto Chateau Blvd and into the main entrance of the Fairmont.

If you miss the Lorimer Road turnoff, the next one northbound (Nancy Greene way) will work: a quick right onto Blackcomb Way will get you back to Lorimer Road.  If you miss Lorimer Road going south, the next exit is left onto Village Gate Blvd, left again onto Blackcomb Way and right onto Lorimer Road.

Transit: Whistler Transit's 5 route goes fairly close to the playing site, a stop beyond the Gondola Transit Exchange.  Several companies offer downtown Vancouver or Airport bus connections to and from Whistler several times a day, and a search engine will find these for you easily.

Restaurants and Shops: The Fairmont has several restaurants and there are several more within walking distance (bring a sweater or winter jacket, Whistler can be chilly in the fall!), and there are several dozen more a short drive away in various parts of Whistler and Blackcomb.

Tournament Site: The playing area is on the north end of the Fairmont (left as you drive into the main entrance) on the main floor.  As always, entry selling spots, hospitality and partnership desks, and bridge supplies and books will take up space just outside the playing area.

Dates, Times, Events: 10:00am, 3:00pm, and 7:30pm are the start times from Tuesday thru Saturday.  The tournament begins on Monday October 28 and 7:30pm with three events:

• The first session of a three-session knockout teams with brackets of 5-8 teams, continuing Tuesday and Wednesday evening.
• An Open Charity Pairs benefiting the ACBL Charitible Foundation which is also the first session of six in the Evening Side Game Series
• A 199er Pairs

On Sunday Novmeber 3, play begins at 10:00am (second session TBA, should end by 5:45 or so) with three two-session team games:

• An Open Swiss Teams with a 0-3000 X strat
• An under-2500 Swiss Teams with a 0-1250 C strat
• A Gold Rush 0-750 Swiss Teams

From Tuesday thru Saturday, the main sessions and morning and afternoon, with only two evening multi-session events: the Monday-Wednesday Knockout Teams, and the Thursday-Friday Evening Swiss Teams.  An Evening Side Game every night from Tuesday-Saturday and a Saturday evening Board-A-Match Teams are the only other events on in the evening.

Morning and Afternoons on Tuesday-Saturday feature the following events:

• Two Session Open Pairs ( 3000+ / 1500 - 3000 / 0 - 1500 )
• Two Session Gold Rush Pairs ( 300 - 750 / 200 - 300 / 0 - 200 )
• Bracketed Knockout Teams (starting Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday)
• Two Session Compact Knockout Teams (Saturday only)
• Single Session Swiss Teams (afternoons only)
• Morning Side Game ( 2000+ / 750 - 2000 / 0 - 750 )
• Afternoon Side Game ( 2000+ / 750 - 2000 / 0 - 750 )
• Single Session 199er Pairs ( 100 - 200 / 50 - 100 / 0 - 50 )

Sessions should end 3¼ - 3½ hours after they begin, on Sunday things end by about 5:45pm.

This Web Site: We have a group of pages linked together by links bars like this one:

Daily Pages: Before the day's events are processed, these will contain a schedule of events in this order:

• Two Session Morning and Afternoon Games
• Morning-only Single Session Games
• Afternoon-only Single Session Games
• Evening-only Games

There will be details on each event, what type of game it is, what the strat limits are, the winners at the previous Whistler Regional in 2017, and a direct link to the ACBL Live results, which will be active following each session.

At the end of the day Director-In-Charge Doug Rankin will give me the day's results and I will process them into the website in the early hours of the morning.  The 'day completed' version will feature the following:

• Masterpoint Leaders at the end of the day (not including events that are not yet complete
• Noteworthy News Items Received
• Two Session Pair Games: Open Pairs, Gold Rush Pairs
• Two Session Swiss or Bracketed Teams
• Single Session Open Swiss Teams
• Completed Knockouts
• Rosters for Surviving Teams in Knockouts that are not yet complete
• Side Games
• Side Game Series Leaders
• 199er Pairs

Once a day is complete, no changes will be made to the Web Site unless I hear about late scoring corrections.  If I do, I will change the original page and let you know on the current day's page that there has been a change.  Some browsers save a copy of a page and do not check to see if the content has changed; if you're not getting anything new, in most browsers you should be able to hit F5 (or a round arrow icon on touch devices) to reload the page and stop using the one your computer has saved.

Other Pages: You're looking at the Welcome page right now.  The Masterpoints! Page, which we call DUMPS (Daily Updated Master Point Summary) will be updated every night first, before the daily pages of results take shape, and will contain the latest masterpoint totals and tournament leaders, both overall and limited to non-Life Masters.  Also, they will have everyone's current total broken down into red and gold points, but will not include masterpoints already won in events that have yet to be completed.  The Photos Page will depend on people sending me photos taken.  Now that everyone's cellphone has a camera, anyone can do this!  Here is a good guideline on how to get best results:

• Above the Strike Zone: Try not to include in the frame any part of the body below where the letters would be on a baseball uniform.  People want to see faces, not waistlines.  If you have people of different heights, you might have to include the tall one's strike zone(s), but make faces your focus.
• Fill the Frame: Don't stand so far back that only 10%-20% of the frame is faces.  Move up close and look at your screen as a guide.  I will always crop out legs and shoes, and if this leaves an image that is small, the quality will suffer.
• Send the biggest version you can: It's important.  ooga@shaw.ca is the address to send photo files to.  Don't send the one that takes up the least bandwidth, it will look blurred on a screen if the resolution is lowered beyond a reasonable level.
• Identify!: I need to know who the people are and what they did.  If they won an event, tell me which one and first names from left to right in the photo will suffice (I can get the rest from the data I am sent).  I'd also like to credit the photo taker, so tell me who you are as well.
• Watch the lighting and background: At night, photos taken in the dark may not look too well and require touchup.  The playing area is usually best for light.  I have taken a lot of photos that seem to have trees coming out of the tops of people's heads, so avoid that if you can, although now that all photos will appear online in colour (as opposed to monochrome on paper), this is not as big an issue as it used to be.  Many sites have some great outdoor scenes that would make great photos: if your team goes out for dinner, take a photo of the team somewhere and send it along if you win!  Simple is usually best, against a wall inside the playing area, or even in a space in the middle with people milling around a distance away can sometimes work.
• Patience: There's a lot to do at scary hours during a Daily Bulletin week, and it may take a day or two before I can get around to posting photos.  Or responding to those who have sent them.

The Table Counts page simply has a spreadsheet with table counts and event types which can be used as a nice visual schedule to the different types of events, as well as to track the attendance of the tournament.  If you are one of the many who ask me whether attendance is up or down every day, this is the page you should bookmark!  This is a pdf of a large spreadsheet and might not fit in small screens, but is a sort of graphic schedule showing which events are in which sessions and on which days, and what their attendance was this year compared to 2017.  This is the third Whistler tournament and the second was 150 tables more than the first at 1255  tables, perhaps we can continue to improve this year!

Finally, the ACBL Live Results link goes to the list of tournament events, from which you will need another click or three to find the specific event you want.  Direct links are available from the event reports on the daily pages and will be faster.

Thanks for visiting!  Work slowly continues on finding a good balance between automating the result processing and looking for interesting features in the data to comment on.  Feel free to contact me (see above) with reports of errors or if something isn't working for you.