This issue of the documentation applies to BriAn Android release May13d, iOS release 3.4, and www.brianbridge.net version 1.01i. It was last updated on 20 June 2013.

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in BriAn, and welcome to a new contract bridge experience. Whether you are a player or a club director, beginner or expert, we are certain that BriAn will enhance your enjoyment of bridge.

BriAn runs on your iPhone, iPad, Android smartphone or tablet. When you have finished playing a bridge hand, just enter it into your phone. BriAn will calculate and present your scores, leaving you free for the social and cerebral aspects of the game which we at BriAn appreciate as bridge players ourselves.

This document contains everything you need to get started with BriAn as a player or a club director. The first section is an overview of the basic knowledge required to use BriAn. We then split the document up into a section for social players, a section for club players, and a section for club directors. Screenshots are provided wherever possible to illustrate the text.

We trust you will find BriAn attractive, unobtrusive and easy to use, and we wish you every enjoyment and success in your bridge games.

We welcome comments, criticism and suggestions for improvements. Please don’t hesitate to contact us:

Email: brianplaysbridge@gmail.com

Facebook: Brian Bridge App

Twitter: BridgeOnAndroid

BriAn and Free BriAn

While the BriAn app will allow you to score either social or duplicate games, we also provide Free BriAn, a free version for those who wish to use BriAn only for duplicate bridge.

It is completely free to set up your phone to enter scores and to browse results and hand diagrams while participating in a BriAn-based duplicate game being run.

Free BriAn is also the recommended version of the app for club directors, since it contains our full repertoire of game administration functions. While we charge game administrators for use of our server, is not necessary to purchase the paid-for app to create and run a duplicate game using the BriAn system.

Free BriAn is available for iPhone, iPad and Android phones and tablets. BriAn is only available for Android phones and tablets.

Installing BriAn on an Android device

Make sure you have phone reception or you are connected to the internet via WiFi.

On the home screen of your phone or tablet, press the Applications button.

Browse your applications to find “Play Store”.

Tap “Play Store”.

Tap the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the screen.

Tap-type brian bridge on the keyboard which pops up. Tap on the magnifying glass again.

Installing BriAn

Tap “BriAn Electronic Bridge Scorer”. BriAn will appear with a light blue price tag.

Tap on the price tag. If you need to register a payment method, follow the on-screen instructions.

“Accept & buy”. Wait for the message “Package successfully installed”, or “Successfully installed BriAn Electronic Bridge Scorer”.

BriAn is now installed on your device.

Installing Free BriAn

Tap “Free BriAn Bridge Client”. Free BriAn will appear with a light blue button saying “Install”.

Tap on “Install”.

Tap on “Accept & download”. Wait for the message “Package successfully installed”, or “Successfully installed Free Brian Bridge Client”

Free BriAn is now installed on your device.

Installing BriAn on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

Make sure you have phone reception or you are connected to the internet via WiFi.

On the home screen of your phone or tablet, tap the App store button.

Tap search.

Tap-type brian bridge on the keyboard which pops up.

Installing Free BriAn

Tap “Free BriAn Bridge Client”. Free BriAn will appear with a light blue button saying “Install”.

Tap on “Install”.

Tap on “Accept & download”. Wait for the message “Package successfully installed”, or “Successfully installed Free Brian Bridge Client”

Free BriAn is now installed on your device.

General use of BriAn

Start BriAn by tapping the BriAn icon. If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, press the square button and swipe left and right until you find the icon.

If you have an Android phone or tablet, press the Applications button on the home screen, and browse your applications to find “BriAn”.

We recommend that Android owners put a shortcut Brian on your home screen, though this is optional. It can be accomplished as follows:

Touch the BriAn icon without lifting your finger. After three seconds, the icon will float above your home screen. Drag the icon to an empty space and lift your finger to drop it.

BriAn home screen

On the BriAn home screen you choose what kind of bridge you are playing.

· Duplicate client – choose this if you are playing bridge in a club or tournament, where the director is using BriAn for wireless scoring.

· Rubber bridge – choose this if you are playing rubber bridge, and you want to keep score on the traditional tableau.

· Chicago bridge – choose this if you want to play a series of Chicago games of four hands each with rotating vulnerability.

· Scorecard – choose this if you want to keep a personal record of your scores during any bridge game or event.

On an Android device you can quit BriAn from the home screen by pressing the Back button.

On iPhone and iPad, only duplicate client mode is offered.

Entering a contract

Tap the blue button which matches the contract level, the white button which matches the trump suit, and the orange button which matches the declarer.

If the contract was doubled, tap the purple “x” button. If redoubled, tap the purple “xx” button.

If the hand was passed out, just tap the “PO” button.

Three more buttons will now appear, for specifying the result of play: a minus, a check/tick mark and a plus sign. If not, make sure that a blue button, a white button and orange button are all selected.

You can clear all your selections by tapping the “Clear” button at the bottom right of the screen.

Entering a result

To indicate that declarer made their contract exactly, tap the tick mark button. To indicate undertricks or overtricks, tap the minus or plus buttons repeatedly the required number of times. Do not use the buttons with numbers on to specify the number of undertricks or overtricks; the numbered buttons are only for specifiying the level of the contract. After you have input your result, tap “OK” or “done”. Until then, you can still clear your selection by tapping “Clear”, or change the contract by tapping any of the contract entry buttons. When you have corrected the contract, you will again be able to enter the result.

If you are scoring Chicago or rubber bridge, you can score an “Honours” holding for either the declaring or defending side. Tap the crown icon, and select the honours holding from the list.

You can change how contracts and results are displayed using the “Global settings” - display preferences.

Entering names

To rename a player or an event, touch on the name, hold for about two seconds, and then release. The text will become editable, and you can tap-type your replacement. Finish by pressing the enter button on the keyboard, or your device’s Back button.

If the player or event name you wish to input has been used before in a game on your device, you can ask the device to recall it, rather than typing it afresh. Simply tap on the name text, and select the replacement from the list of names which appears. Regarding this list of names:

· If you are playing rubber or Chicago bridge, or using your device as a personal scorecard, BriAn will provide you with a list of names which have occurred in your previous games. This list is stored on your tablet or phone. If you wish to add, remove or correct names in this stored list, use the “Names list” menu option. You may now

- add a name by tapping in the white box at the top, tap-typing the name using the keyboard which appears, and tapping either enter/return/”Done” or the purple “Add” button,

- remove a name by tapping on the “x” button next to the name,

- correct a name by tapping on the name you wish to correct, and tap-typing the replacement in the box which appears, followed by enter/return/”Done”,

- switch between editing the list of stored player names and the list of stored event names, by tapping on “events” or “names” at the bottom of the screen.

· If you are playing duplicate, BriAn will provide you with a list of names which have occurred in previous games run by your club director. Once you have completed a duplicate, your name will automatically be added to this list.

BriAn menu

On an iPhone or iPad, the menu is a row of buttons at the bottom of the screen, continually on display.

On an Android phone or tablet, the menu is hidden by default. It is shown by pressing the menu button on your phone or tablet. The menu button typically appears either as four small horizontal lines in a column, or as three dots in a vertical line. On phones and some tablets the menu button is usually on the body of the phone, below the screen area, either to the left or to the right of centre. On newer tablets, the menu button is just within the screen area, usually within the bar at the very bottom or very top. It may be displayed behind a digital clock or something else, but it is still clickable even if obscured. One or two models do not have a menu button at all, in which case the up or down volume controls can be used to show the menu.

The menu is the route to many important features in BriAn. In a club game, the menu is used to load the most up-to-date scores, and to view the current rankings and hand diagrams. The menu is also used to change game settings and to display information about BriAn, its developers and contributors.

Back button

On an iPhone or iPad, the back button is an icon in the menu bar. The back button will always be the leftmost icon on the menu bar whenever going back is a permitted action. Otherwise it will be absent.

On an Android phone or tablet, the back button typically appears as an arrow with a curved or square tail, pointing leftwards or downwards. On phones and some tablets the back button is usually on the body of the phone, below the screen area, generally to the right of centre but sometimes to the left. On newer tablets, the menu button is just within the screen area, usually at the far left of the bar at the very bottom or very top.

Swiping the screen rightwards has the same effect as the back button, most of the time. However, when the left/right swiping actions are used for forward and backward browsing through a list of e.g. movements, board numbers or scorecards, then only the back button itself may be used to go back to the previous screen.

Receiving a call while using BriAn

Your phone will prompt you to take your call as normal. When it is finished, press the Back button to resume BriAn as you left it.

Temporarily suspending BriAn e.g. to make a call

To suspend BriAn, press the home/square key on your phone. You may now make a call or perform any other action on your phone, except for powering it off, which will cause BriAn to quit. After you are finished, find the BriAn icon on your phone’s home screen or applications menu, and tap it to resume BriAn as you left it.

Forcing BriAn to quit

On Android phones and tablets, you can force BriAn to quit by using the Task Manager.

If your phone or tablet loses power, or you power it off, this will force BriAn, as well as any other running processes, to quit. To resume, start the phone up, restart BriAn, and select your previous scoring mode. BriAn’s autosave feature will prompt you to recover any unsaved scores.

Updates

From time to time we will release updates to the BriAn apps. Your phone or tablet should alert you when we publish an update.

Updating the BriAn app on your phone or tablet is completely free, and you will have access to updates in perpetuity.

Android: Automatic update install

Android owners, can set their phone or tablet automatically to download updates to BriAn as soon as we deploy them. This may be more convenient, particularly for club directors who own more than one device, such that manual update is time-consuming.

Browse your applications to find “Play Store”, and tap “Play Store”. After Play Store starts, tap the menu button, and select “My apps”.

Find the BriAn icon. If it isn’t on the screen, scroll down your list of apps by stroking the screen upwards. Tap on the BriAn icon.

On the new screen, find the checkbox that says “Allow automatic updating”. If it isn’t on the screen, scroll down until it comes into view.

Tap on the tick mark until it lights up.

Your Android phone or tablet will now install updates to BriAn automatically.

Finding your app version number

For technical support we may ask you what version number of the app you are using. To find this out, do the following:

· Android: Long-press at the top left-hand corner of the app’s title screen. The version number appears at the bottom of a pop-up, and looks something like ver: 30 (Nov12a). The first number (here ‘30’) is the version number, and the code in brackets identifies when that version was released, in this case the first version (‘a’) that was released November 2012.

· iPhone/iPad: Tap the information button on the menu. The version number appears underneath the title (“BriAn”) and looks something like “version 3.2”.

Use of BriAn for social games

BriAn supports familiar scoring and layouts for rubber bridge and various Chicago rule sets. BriAn also allows to simply record a series of results. Records of social sessions can easily be saved to your device to be resumed at a later date.

BriAn makes a continuous backup of any scores you enter. If you inadvertently quit without saving the most recent result, BriAn will offer you the chance to resume from its backup file.

Rubber bridge

Tap “Rubber bridge” on the Brian home screen to enter the main rubber layout.

The rubber layout

The rubber layout displays the current status of your game of rubber bridge. After you have played each hand, tap on the main area of the scoresheet. You will be invited to enter the contract and result (see Entering a contract/Entering a result). If you tapped on the side of the scoresheet to the left of the central vertical bar, the declarer will default to “We”. If you tapped on the right, declarer will default to “They”. When you have finished, the rubber layout will be updated with the new game status. Overtricks, honours, slam bonuses and other components of the score appear as separate entries on the layout. Points for bid-and-made tricks appear below the central horizontal line, and all other scores appear above it.

The main area of the layout starts out with a green background. If a side becomes vulnerable, the background behind their scores will change to red, and the completed game will be “sealed off” with light-grey horizontal separators. At the end of each rubber the background will revert to green, and solid white lines will be drawn to separate the new rubber from the old. You can play as many rubbers as will fit on the scoresheet.

A running total of each side’s score appears in the purple bar at the top of the layout. The margin is shown in italics next to the leaders’ score.

You can replace “We” and “They” with the partnership’s names by touching them in the usual fashion (see Entering names).

To quit and return to BriAn’s home screen, simply tap the Back button.

Options – rubber bridge

Loading, saving and starting afresh are done using the options screen. Tap the “Options” button to show the options screen. The options screen has the following buttons:

· New game: tapping this will ask you to confirm that you want to clear the scoresheet. If you agree, the scoresheet will be cleared, and your old game will kept as a backup until you enter the first score in the new game.

· Save: BriAn will request a filename to save your current scoresheet. If you type a name of a file that already exists, BriAn will notify you and ask if you want to overwrite it. Once the game is written to disk, it can be reloaded subsequently.

· Load: BriAn will present you with a list of files. If you select a file, the game from that file will be loaded into the layout, replacing your current game. The old game will be kept as a backup until you enter the first new score in the game you just loaded. If you do not want to select a file, just tap the Back button to return to the options screen.

· Cleanup files: tapping this will delete any rubber score files saved more than 4 weeks ago.

You can also access the options screen via the menu. Tap the “Settings” menu option.

Chicago bridge

Tap “Chicago bridge” on the Brian home screen to enter the main Chicago scorecard layout.

Chicago Bridge is played in “blocks” of four hands. Partnerships may change between blocks. The deal moves clockwise after each hand. There are two conventions for Chicago scoring in widespread use:

· “Money scoring”:

o Vulnerability goes none – non-dealer only – non-dealer only – all.

o Part-scores count cumulatively towards games from one hand to the next. A game bonus is 300 or 500 depending on declarer’s vulnerability on the hand when the game was completed.

o A part score on the final hand is worth an additional 100 points.

o In some traditions, non-doubled overtricks may score nothing.

· “Non-money scoring”:

o Vulnerability goes none – dealer only – dealer only – all.

o Scores are one-off. There is no accumulation of part scores from one hand to the next. There is no accumulation of games from one hand to the next.

o Duplicate-style bonuses are awarded. A one-off bonus of 50 is awarded to making part-scores. A one-off bonus of 300 (non-vulnerable) or 500 (vulnerable) is awarded for making games.

Our “Money scoring” rules are based on those in use at TGR’s club in London.

Choosing the scoring scheme

Tap the yellow “Options” button. Towards the bottom of the options screen is a checkbox saying “Money scoring”.

If you are using “Money scoring”, tap the “Money scoring” text until a green check mark appears next to it.

If you are using “Non-money scoring”, tap the “Money scoring” text until there is no green check mark next to it.

If you are using “Money scoring”, the checkbox directly below will now read “Score undoubled overtricks”. If you are playing that undoubled overtricks score their usual value, tap the text until there is a green check mark next to it. If you are playing that undoubled overtricks score nothing, tap the text until there is no green check mark next to it.

Tap the Back button on your phone to return to the Chicago scorecard.

The Chicago scoresheet

The Chicago layout initially shows a single empty Chicago scorecard block with a green partnership (“We”) and a blue partnership (“They”). You can correct the player names by touching them in the usual fashion (see Entering names).

As a reminder, the dealing partnership and the vulnerability are displayed next to each hand number with small squares. The colour of each square either matches one or other of the partnership name boxes.

After you have played each hand, tap the cyan “Enter result” button near the bottom middle of the screen. You will be invited to enter the result (see Entering a contract/Entering a result). The declarer defaults to “We”, so tap on the cyan “We” button to change it to “They” when your partnership did not declare the contract. When you are done, the scorecard will display the contract, the result and the score. The contract will be printed in the colour of the partnership which declared the hand. A positive score for the green partnership is displayed on the left of the “Score” column, and a positive score for the blue partnership is displayed on its right.

To cancel a board, press the white “Undo” button at the bottom right of the screen.

To quit and return to BriAn’s home screen, simply tap the Back button.

Finishing a block and starting a new one

When you have entered four scores, the block will be finished. You can then start a new block by tapping the cyan “New cut” button which has temporarily replaced “Enter result”. An empty block will be added to the bottom of the scoresheet. The pair names will default to the same as for the preceding block but can be corrected if the partnerships have changed.

Calculating the totals

Tap the green “Totals” button. BriAn will cross-reference the names in each scoring block and display a totals table. The table shows all the players in the session, ranked by their total score. A row for each player shows their total score, which can be used in a money game to calculate how much they should put into or take out of the kitty. Also shown are the number of hands each player took part in, and their rating, jokingly referred to as an “IQ”, which reflects their score per hand, with 100 being par.

Tapping on one the column headers (“Hands”, “Score”, “IQ” etc.) will cause BriAn to redraw the table, sorting the players according to their value in the chosen column. For example, tapping on “Hands” will cause BriAn to order the players by numbers of hands played. Tapping again on the same column header reverse the sort (starting with the lowest rather than the highest).

To return to the main Chicago scorecard, tap either the cyan “Back” button at the bottom of the screen, or your device’s Back button.

Tapping the “Totals” menu option is an alternative way of showing the totals table.

Options – Chicago

Loading, saving and starting afresh are done using the options screen. Tap the “Options” button to show the options screen. The options screen has the following buttons:

· Cleanup files: tapping this will delete any Chicago score files saved more than 4 weeks ago.

· Money scoring, score undoubled overtricks: this can be toggled at any point during a session; the scores will be recalculated immediately. Undoubled overtricks are presumed to score normally at “Non-money scoring”, so the option is suppressed if “Money scoring” is unset.

· Reset vulnerability for new block: Unsetting this causes the vulnerability to change according to the 16-hand cycle marked on competition board sets, overriding the normal four-hand cycle of Chicago. This option may be useful if playing from a left-over set of tournament boards rather than making the hands on the fly.

You can also access the options screen via the menu. Tap the “Settings” menu option.

Use of BriAn as a personal scorecard

BriAn’s personal scorecard is the electronic equivalent of the paper scoresheets that are handed out at the beginning of a duplicate. It is ideal for any situation where you want to record a set of results, whether the bridge is social or competitive.

In particular, if your club’s director has not seen BriAn, using the electronic personal scorecard at your club would be an excellent way of introducing them to it. Explain to them that BriAn can do their wireless scoring more reliably, more conveniently, more ergonomically and for a fraction of the cost of Bridgemates, and they will never look back (we hope)!

Tap “Scorecard” on the Brian home screen to start a personal scorecard.

The scorecard layout

The Scorecard layout initially shows a table with space for 40 results. A header shows default values for the user’s name, partner’s name, and the name of the event being scored; these can all be corrected by touching them in the usual fashion (see Entering names). Drag the scoresheet up or down to see boards which are off-screen.

To enter a score for a particular board, tap the row corresponding to the board number. You will be invited to enter the result for that board (see Entering a contract/Entering a result). There are a few differences to the result entry screen, however:

· You can move freely between boards within the result entry screen, by clicking on the black arrows on either side of the board number at the top.

· You do not need to enter a result before you tap “done”; if you enter a complete contract, you can save it without a result, and then add the result later.

· You can specify for each board whether you played north-south or east-west. Touch the white text saying “NS” or “EW” underneath the title, to switch between the two orientations. The orientation for a new board defaults to that of the closest board number before it which you have entered a result for. If it is the first board, the played orientation defaults to N/S. So if you are an E/W pair all night, specify E/W for the first board you score, and subsequent boards will default to E/W.

· You can freely return to a board where you have already entered a contract or result, and modify it. You can also modify whether you played NS or EW.

Scoring is duplicate-style, and the vulnerability follows the 16-hand cycle marked on competition board sets; if these aren’t relevant to you, just ignore them and use the card as a record of the contracts and tricks made.

When you are done, the scorecard will display any contracts or results you have entered in the appropriate rows. Scores which are positive for you (taking into account whether you said you played N/S or E/W)

To cancel a board, press the white “Undo” button at the bottom right of the screen.

To quit and return to BriAn’s home screen, simply tap the Back button.

Options – personal scorecard

Loading, saving and starting afresh are done using the options screen. Tap the green “Settings” button to show the options screen. The options screen has the following buttons:

· New game: tapping this will ask you to confirm that you want to clear the scorecard. If you agree, the scorecard will be cleared, and your old scorecard will kept as a backup until you enter the first score in the new scorecard.

· Save: BriAn will request a filename to save your current scorecard. If you type a name of a file that already exists, BriAn will notify you and ask if you want to overwrite it. Once the game is written to disk, it can be reloaded subsequently.

· Load: BriAn will present you with a list of files. If you select a file, the game from that file will be loaded into the layout, replacing your current scorecard. The old scorecard will be kept as a backup until you enter the first new score on the card you just loaded. If you do not want to select a file, just tap the Back button to return to the options screen.

· Cleanup files: tapping this will delete any personal scorecard files saved more than 4 weeks ago.

You can also access the options screen via the menu. Tap the “Settings” menu option.

Players’ guide to using BriAn in a duplicate bridge game

What you need:

· A iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet with a working internet connection and with BriAn or Free BriAn installed.

So your club director has finally been persuaded of BriAn’s merits. You look around your room – not a Bridgemate or Bridgepad in sight. The director has left his laptop at home as well as the flotsam that is traditionally seen attached to it. He asks you if you will be willing to score, and you cautiously agree.

Connecting to the internet

Before you start up BriAn, make sure you are connected to the internet.. you can do this by just opening your phone’s web browser and tap-typing “google” in the navigation bar, and making sure that the google search webpage is loads correctly within at most a few seconds.

Most smartphones have mobile internet, so phone owners will be already connected. The data your phone will use during a BriAn game is negligible: at most a couple of megabytes for a large duplicate.

If you have an iPad (without sim card) or an Android tablet, you will need to connect to a WiFi network. This may be a public network, or one provided by your club, or by a neighbouring facility.

Wi-Fi connection

To connect to a Wi-Fi network, try the following:

Android:

· Go to the home screen, and tap the menu button followed by “Settings”.

· Tap “Wireless and network” followed by “Wi-Fi settings”. Make sure the top item on the list (“Wi-Fi”) is ticked.

· About halfway down the screen a “Wi-Fi networks” list will be displayed.

· Tap a network high up on the list in order to connect. Don’t try networks that say “not in range”.

· Your club director may recommend a specific network, but that shouldn’t stop you trying others. The best networks will be at the top of the list.

· Some Wi-Fi networks are password-locked; these show up with a padlock. Your director, or the venue staff (e.g. at a café or pub) may know the password.

· After you tap on the network, the “Wi-Fi” item at the top should show “Obtaining IP address from network”, followed by “Connected to network”.

iPhone/iPad:

· Go to the home screen, and tap the “Settings” icon.

· Tap “Wifi”. A list of networks will be displayed.

· Tap a network high up on the list in order to connect. Don’t try networks that say “not in range”.

· Your club director may recommend a specific network, but that shouldn’t stop you trying others. The best networks will be at the top of the list.

· Some Wi-Fi networks are password-locked; these show up with a padlock. Your director, or the venue staff (e.g. at a café or pub) may know the password.

· After you tap on the network, a rotating pinwheel should appear next to the network. This will transform into a check-mark when the connection is completed.

Press the your phone’s home/square button and start a web browser. Try to connect to google. The network may redirect you to a further login page. Again, you may be able to obtain the username and password from staff. Once you can connect to google, you are ready to start BriAn.

Even if you have a phone with mobile internet, there are a couple of reasons why you might choose to use Wi-Fi:

· Wi-Fi connections tend to be much faster – you won’t have to wait as long for BriAn to accept your scores or refresh the game.

· If you are in a different country from where you bought your phone, using Wi-Fi will save you having to pay a roaming internet fee.

Joining the game

Start BriAn, and tap “Duplicate client”.

If you have not used BriAn before in a duplicate, you will see a screen with white boxes, labeled “Game code” and “Pair number”. The director will tell you how to fill these in.

If you have used BriAn before, the game code for the event you last played at will already be filled in. You can change it by tapping the blue wedge and selecting from a list of game codes which you have used in the past. You can also enter a new game code, by tap-typing it in the white box.

You can now set your pair number by tap-typing in the white box labeled “Pair number”. If your pair number involves letters (11A, 2B, 1EW etc), use the blue “ABC” button to change the keyboard from numeric to alphabetic. Tap elsewhere on the screen to get rid of the keyboard.

When you have set the game code and pair number, tap the yellow “Enter duplicate” button which appears or swipe the screen leftward.

You will now be shown your match-up for the first round. Check that the pair number sitting N/S and E/W at your table are the same as shown on the screen, and check that the board numbers and table number are correct.

The director may advise you to enter the correct names of the players at your table. To do so, touch one of the default pair names for about 2 seconds, then release. The names will become editable. Tap-type the correct names for the pair, using ‘ & ’ (space-ampersand-space) to separate the names within the partnership. Finish by tapping the enter key on the keyboard.

If you and your partner played at the club before, you will be able to select your names from a list. Tap the default pair names, and select the name of first member of your partnership from the list provided. Then repeat to select the second member of the partnership.

To enter the correct team names, touch one of the default team names for about 2 seconds, then release. The team name will become editable. Tap-type the correct name for the team, and finish by tapping the enter key on the keyboard.

Entering scores

Tap “Enter round” (or swipe the screen leftward). The score input screen will show.

Make sure the number shown at the top of the screen is the board you are playing first. If it is not, correct the board number by swiping the screen leftward or rightward, or by tapping on the board label and selecting from the list that appears.

Bid and play the board against your opponents. When you have finished, enter the contract and result into BriAn – see the sections Entering a contract and Entering a resul to find out more.

Press OK. BriAn will then ask your opponents to check whether you entered the result correctly. Show them the score on the phone and ask them to check it, responding either by verbal (dis)agreement, or by tapping “Yes”/“No”.

After a moment, a result screen will show for the board you have just played. When you have finished looking at this, continue to the next hand. BriAn will automatically return to the score input screen for the next unplayed board in this round after a few minutes. Use the back button (or swipe right) if you need to go back to the input screen immediately.

When you have played all the boards in the round, BriAn will show an “End of round” message, along with movement instructions for the next round.

Reviewing and cancelling scores

If you input a score and your opponents verify it, and you then realize it is wrong, you can cancel and correct it provided you are on the same round. Swipe left or right, or tap one of the small black arrows on either side of the board number to find the completed result, or tap the board number to select it from a list. Then tap the “Cancel score” button in the middle of the screen. Your opponents will be asked to confirm that they agree to cancel the result.

If a score has been adjusted by the director, the cancel button will not appear.

Call the director to correct a past score which you did not realize was wrong until after you had already entered all the scores for that round.

The results screen

Every time your table inputs and verifies a score, BriAn will show a results screen for that board. Initially BriAn will flash up a headline for how well you did, as two numbers separated by a “/”. If the tournament is matchpoint-scored, the two numbers will be N/S’s and E/W’s respective percentage of maximum matchpoints available. If the tournament is IMP- or aggregate-scored, the two numbers will simply be N/S’s and E/W’s respective score. Tap “OK” to dismiss the headline and reveal the results screen.

The results screen is divided into two sections:

· Analysis section: This contains a diagram of the cards held by North, South, East and West, and a note of the dealer and vulnerability. Beneath the hand diagram is a short table of the number of tricks available to each side as declarer (N/S and E/W), with each of the possible suits as trumps and with no trumps. These available trick counts are calculated by computer on the basis of declarer and defenders being able to see each other’s hands, and each side trying to maximize their trick count. Most of the time, North declaring can make the same number of tricks as South, and East the same number of tricks as West. When there is a difference, two numbers will be given in the table, separated by a “/”. For instance if East can make nine tricks declaring no-trumps, but West can only make seven, the table entry for E/W by NT will read “9/7”.

· Results table: Below the analysis section is a list of what happened when the board was played by other people so far in the game. The result which was just entered is displayed in bold against a blue background. The results table is sorted from top to bottom in decreasing order of the N/S score column by default, but to sort by the values in a different column, click on that column’s heading. To reverse the sort, click on the same table heading twice.

To leave the results screen after score input, tap “Continue” at the bottom.

You can re-enter the results screen at any time and browse the results on boards you have played. Simply tap “Results” on the menu. On the iPhone/iPad, the “Results” icon looks like a stack of three duplicate boards.

Board mode

To browse different boards, tap the small black arrows on the left and right of the board number for the next lower- or higher- numbered board respectively, or tap between the arrows to select from a list of boards. Tap on any result line to display the names of the pairs involved and other details about the result. BriAn will only permit you to see the results for a board if both you and your current opponents have already played it or will never play it. Otherwise “Access denied” will show.

Scorecard mode

Tap on the “Scorecard” button to the right underneath the board number to display all the results so far for any of the pairs participating in the game. To browse different pairs, tap the small black arrows on the left and right of the pair for the next lower- or higher- numbered pair respectively, or tap between the arrows to select from a list of pairs. Tap on any result line to go to “Board mode” and show the board played. BriAn will only permit you to see scorecard entries for boards already played by both you and your current opposition; other entries will show as “Access denied” in the scorecard.

To return to board mode, tap on the “Boards” button to the left underneath the pair number.

To leave the results screen, tap the Back button.

Viewing the current rankings

Tap “Current rankings” on the menu, (icon man in front of three horizontal lines on iPhone/iPad). A table will show the pairs or teams in the current game with their current scores, starting with the highest. Use Back button to leave.

“Global settings” - display preferences

You can choose how the BriAn app should display things according to your taste.

These options can be accessed using the “Global settings” menu option on the start screen of the app. They can also be accessed in “Duplicate client” mode by tapping the “Settings” menu option, followed by “More settings”.

Here you can choose:

· Brightness: You can ask BriAn to run at a lower screen brightness to conserve battery life. This option only applies to duplicate mode.

· Screen orientation (Android only): You can set the screen to automatically change between portrait and landscape mode based on the gravity sensor, or you can fix it in portrait or landscape.

· Display results as: You can decide whether to show overtricks/undertricks (e.g. 4H N -1) or trick count (4H N 9 tricks)

· Exactly made contracts: Whether to represent a “making” contract as a tick mark or an equals sign.

· Analysis: When a mathematical analysis of a hand is presented, you can choose whether to show the number of available tricks (e.g. NS can make 9 tricks in hearts), or the level of contract (e.g. NS can make 3 hearts). In the latter case, if fewer than 7 tricks are available, a dash will be shown. This option only applies to duplicate mode.

The global settings are personal to your device, and they do not affect any other devices in the duplicate game you are playing. Changes to them are automatically saved and will still be in force next time you start up the app.

BriAn for club and tournament directors

BriAn can be used at your club to wirelessly score any duplicate event. In contrast to expensive, bespoke hardware with low-resolution, low-contrast displays and multiple failure modes, BriAn allows club players to use their own mobile devices as terminals for score entry, resulting in no hardware outlay for the club.

BriAn can also be used to Entering results from paper travelers. This is particularly useful for a director who is playing, since they can begin to enter scores at their table during the final rounds.

Setting up a basic club game using BriAn

What you need:

· An account on www.brianbridge.net . See Slots for more details.

· A working internet connection for your and the players’ mobile devices.

Creating the game

From the BriAn app home screen, tap “Duplicate client”.

If you have not used BriAn before in a duplicate game, you will be prompted for a “game code” and a “pair number” or “table number”. Under “game code”, enter your slot username.

Next to “pair number”, tap the text field and enter any number, e.g.’1’. Tap “save”.

When you have set the game code and pair number, tap the yellow “Enter duplicate” button which appears or swipe the screen leftward.

If this is your first game, you will immediately be asked for the director password. If not, tap “Director” on the menu (key-shaped icon) to show the login prompt.

Tap-type your director password. This is the same as your slot password.

On the director control screen, tap “Create game”.

Select the type of game from individual, pairs and teams. Select the number of tables and sections (all sections must currently be identical copies, and multi-section movements may not have half-tables).

Tap “find movement” (or swipe left). Wait a short time while BriAn loads the current movement dictionary from the internet.

Browse the movements by tapping below the current movement name to bring up a list, or by swiping left and right or tapping the left and right arrow buttons,. When you find the movement one you want, tap “select”. You will be shown the “New game options” screen. If you change your mind about the movement, tap the Back button to return to the movement browser.

You now have the chance to change various settings for the game. When you are done, tap “Create game”. After a short time, BriAn will confirm with a “Game created” message.

Check the game settings by tapping “View slot info”. Check the movement, by tapping “movement” on the menu (two diverging arrows icon on iPhone/iPad menu bar).

Setting up the players’ mobile devices

Ask the players to make sure they are connected to the internet, then to start BriAn and join your game with the appropriate pair number:

From their BriAn app home screen, tap “Duplicate client”

If they have not used BriAn recently in a duplicate game, they will be prompted for “game code” and “pair number”. In “game code”, tell them to enter your slot username.

In “pair number” tap the text field and enter their pair number. If the pair number involves letters (11A, 2B, 1EW etc), use the blue “ABC” button to change the keyboard from numeric to alphabetic. Tap elsewhere on the screen to get rid of the keyboard. Tap “Enter duplicate”.

If they have used BriAn before in a duplicate game, tap “Settings” in the menu (control knob icon on iPhone/iPad). If the last game they played was not under your slot, tap the menu button again, followed by “settings”. Tap “join game”. Tap-type your slot username and tap “OK”, then enter “Settings” again. Next to “Pair number”, use the plus and minus buttons to choose the correct pair number for the players in question, or tap on the shown pair number to select it from a list. Tap ‘save’.

Players’ devices should all display their match-ups for round 1, with default names.

Entering the players’ names

Log in as director and tap “Game settings”. Scroll to the bottom and enter the names of each player from each pair in turn. If any of the players is in your BriAn slot’s Player database, you can select their name from a list, rather than tap-typing it. Tap on the pair name, and select the name of the pair’s first player from the list which comes up. Repeat to select the name of the pair’s second player.

Tap “Save” when you have finished entering names.

Player name entry may be done on any device, by the director or by the players themselves, and at any stage during or after the game.

You can also enter names in a web browser if a laptop is present. Navigate to www.brianbridge.net, log in with your slot name and password, and click “game”. Enter the names of all the players, using Tab to progress to the next one, and Shift-Tab to go back to the previous one. Click “Save” when finished.

Running the game

At the beginning of each round, ask the players to check that their names and pair numbers, and those of their opponents, match those displayed by BriAn. The players will then tap “Enter round”, and play will proceed.

Monitoring play

There are several ways of monitoring play within the app.

· The movement screen: Tap the “Movement” menu option (diverging arrows icon). Match-ups which have been started but not completed will be displayed in bold in an olive colour. Match-ups where no scores have been entered despite other matchups in the round being finished appear in red; these tables may need special attention either for slow play or for help entering scores. Tap on any match-up within the movement table to show the pairs and boards involved, and the completion status of that match-up.

· Spectator mode: If you are in director mode, tap the Back button. Now tap the “Settings” menu option. Tap the pair number, and select “Spectator” from the list. Tap “Save”, and “OK” to confirm spectator mode. You can now watch the results as they come in.

· The leaderboard: Tap the “Rankings” menu option (man in front of three horizontal lines icon). The current rankings will be displayed.

Your app will updated automatically with scores entered by the players. To make sure you are looking at the most up-to-date information, tap the “Refresh” menu option (two arrows going around in a circle).

Clearing, entering and adjusting results

To clear, enter or adjust a result from a board, first locate the board as follows. Tap “Edit results” on the director screen. Then tap “Adjust a result”. Navigate to the result using the the two spinners underneath “Finalize game” (the top spinner selects the board, and the bottom one selects the specific match-up).

To clear, the result, tap the green “Clear” button, and tap “Yes” to confirm.

To enter a result for a board, tap the green “Enter result” button, and enter the result using the interface provided.

To adjust a result, tap the green “Adjust” button. This will bring up the adjustment screen.

Use the spinners to select the type of adjustment as applied to N/S, and the adjustment applied to E/W.

· To indicate that a board was played in the wrong orientation, select the “Reverse” spinner item for N/S and E/W.

· To remove a board from play entirely, select the “No play” spinner item.

· If the adjustment has a numeric parameter, e.g. 60% of matchpoints, tap-type it into the text field below the spinner.

· To award a “zero-sum” adjustment, specify the adjustment for N/W and then tap “Balance”. This will impose an E/W adjustment which is the complement of the N/S adjustment, i.e. both no-play, or both reverse, or matchpoints summing to 100%, or IMPs summing to zero, etc.

When you have finished specifying the adjustment, tap “Apply”.

If you don’t see the green “Adjust button” for the board you have selected, tap “Enter result”, and enter any score, e.g. a pass-out for the result. Tap “OK”. You will be taken back to the previous screen and the green “Adjust” button should now appear.

Shortcut for entering an “average result” adjustment

Use the “Not played” button on the screen which the players use to enter their results to pass over a board and award a 50% score to both pairs. You can then revise the adjustment later using the adjustment interface described in the last section.

Altering the movement

To introduce an arrow-switch, a rover or a missing pair, or to remove a round, firstly make sure you are logged in as director. Then tap the menu button followed by “Movement”, or tap “Adjust movement”. You may now make the following alterations:

· Arrow switch a round: Tap on the round number at the head of that round’s table row, and select “Arrow switch”. You may not arrow-switch a round for which results have already been entered; clear these results first. To remove an arrow-switch which you introduced, simply repeat what you did to put it in.

· Arrow switch a specific table in a round: Tap on the entry for the table in the appropriate round, and select “Arrow switch”. You may not arrow-switch if any results have already been entered for this match-up; clear any results first. To remove an arrow-switch, simply repeat what you did to put it in.

· Specify the missing pair: Tap “Players” at the top of the movement screen. Then go to “Missing pair” at the bottom and tap on the long button to the right. Select the missing pair number. You may not introduce a missing pair if the movement already has a rover; remove the rover first. You may not introduce a missing pair if results have already been entered for any matchup involving the proposed missing pair, nor change the missing pair number if results have already been entered for any matchup involving the putative new missing pair; clear these results first. You may not introduce a missing pair to a movement with a rover; remove the rover first if possible.

· Remove the missing pair: Tap “Players” at the top of the movement screen. Then go to “Missing pair” at the bottom and tap on the long button to the right. Select “−“.

· Introduce a rover pair: Tap “Players” at the top of the movement screen. Then go to the bottom of the screen and click “Add rover”, or “Add cuckoo”. BriAn refers to rovers as cuckoos for non-Mitchell movements, since they are stationary rather than roving. When adding a cuckoo, BriAn will calculate the allowed table numbers and directions where the movement can admit the cuckoo pair, and prompt you to select one of them. Mitchell-movement rovers are seated in the standard locations given in e.g. Manning’s the EBU Manual of duplicate Bridge Movements. You may add a rover or cuckoo at any stage in the tournament and it will take effect immediately. You may not add a rover nor cuckoo to a movement with a missing pair; remove the missing pair first. Some movements do not admit a rover.

· Remove a rover pair: Tap “Players” at the top of the movement screen. Then go to the bottom of the screen and click “Remove rover”, or “Remove cuckoo”. You may not remove a rover if any results have been entered in which the rover participated; clear these results first.

· Remove a round from the tournament: Tap on the round number at the head of that round’s table row, and select “Remove”. You will be prompted if you are sure. Deleting a round is permanent and cannot be undone. You may not remove a round if any results have been entered in it; clear these results first.

Changes to the movement will be picked up by each device the next time it is used to enter a score, or when an explicit refresh is done on it (tap “Menu”, then “Refresh game”). It is almost always ok to just allow devices to pick up the movement alteration in their own time, particularly if it is done well in advance of the round which is being altered. Rarely there is a possibility that a result may be entered by a device for a matchup which has been altered before the alteration is reported to it. In this case the director can explicitly refresh the devices.

Boards per round

The boards per round must be set during the game creation process. After selecting the movement, tap “Edit movement”, followed by “Boards” (near top of screen). Use the “Boards/round” spinner to modify the default boards per round and produce a shorter or longer event.

If you wish to change the boards per round after creating a game, the only way is to create a new game.

Entering results from paper travelers

You can enter results from paper travelers in quick succession, sending them to the server only at the end, rather than one by one. Entering scores can be done by more than one person at a time, allowing the work to be divided.

Some travelers come with North-South pair numbers pre-printed in the first column. Other are blank, and North-South write their pair number on the first available line. Depending on what style of travelers you have, make sure either “Enter results in N/S pair number order” (for the first type) “Enter results in order played” is ticked.

We also recommend that “Show completed results” is ticked, at least the first time you enter results from traveler.

The tap “Go”.

The screen will now show a results entry layout. At the top of the screen is a label showing which traveler line is currently being entered.

Tap this label to switch between travelers by selecting from the list which appears.

Step through the lines on each traveller by swiping left or tapping the “Next” button. Stepping through from the last line of a traveler shows the first line of the next board’s traveler. Stepping from the last line of the final traveler goes back to the first line of board 1. To step back a line, swipe right or use the “Prev” button.

Enter the relevant score. If you are reading sequentially down a traveler, press “Next” to step through to the next one.

At the top right corner of the screen, a count is shown of traveler lines which have still not been entered. If you have entered nearly all the traveler lines in your event, but are having difficulty identifying which ones you haven’t entered yet, long-press the “Next” button, and it will fast-forward to the next result which has not been entered, or for which the entry is incomplete.

After you have entered some scores, tap “Send all results” to commit them. If you are working as a team, you can now update your device with scores entered by your colleagues: tap the

Back button twice followed by the “Refresh” menu option.

At a certain point, your device or one of your colleagues will have all the scores in the event. You can now go back to the director screen and use the “Rankings” menu option to read off the winners. You can also finalize the game in preparation for upload or a mailshot.

Finalizing the game

To prepare the result pages for web upload, log in as director, and tap “Edit results”. Then tap “Finalize game”. A game may be finalized before all the results in the movement have been entered, and it may be re-finalized as many times as wanted thereafter. The act of finalizing the game does not prevent further input of results, and can be used to generate intermediate result pages. Every new “Finalize” permanently overwrites any previously generated result pages.

To access the result pages, use a computer to navigate to www.brianbridge.net , and log in using your slot name and password. Click on the “Upload/download” tab underneath the login bar. You can then process the results various ways.

· Bridgewebs upload: To upload to a Bridgewebs account, click on the “Bridgewebs” button. Enter the director and event names in the text boxes provided, then enter your Bridgewebs ID and Bridgewebs password (not your BriAn slot name and password). Click on “Upload”, and wait up to 10 seconds. The results page will now be on your Bridgewebs site, and you will be invited to click a button to view it there immediately and check it over.

· Html/pdf: To generate an html page, click on the html/pdf button. Enter the director and event names in the text boxes in the form on the left. You will then be able to preview your results, or download the html source to your computer. You can deploy the downloaded html to your website and send it as an E-mail. You can use the same form to generate a pdf of the results. Pdf does not render hand diagrams and personal scoresheets well, so they are not included by default, but you may choose to include them by checking the boxes.

· English Bridge Union P2P file generation: To generate the XML file accepted by the EBU or Pianola, click on the “EBU P2P file” button. Set the various parameters for the game using the form on the right. Fields in bold are mandatory. When ready, click “Download” to save the file to your computer.

Payment and the credits system

You pay for the server time to run a game using “credits” from the credit balance on your slot. You can fund your credit balance by making an online payment from your main account screen on logging into www.brianbridge.net. Games are valued according to their size (the number of boards, tables and rounds) as follows:

Small game:

2-10 tables

Medium game: 10½ - 20 tables

Large game:

21½ - 30 tables

Huge game:

More than 30½ tables

Credits per traveller line

100 credits is worth approximately one British pound, but you get a progressively better rate if you buy more at once. Regular customers also benefit from a loyalty scheme as described below.

When you create a game, BriAn will show you its calculated credit cost. However, these credits will not be deducted from your balance until and unless 50% of the results have been entered. So if you made a mistake and want to re-create the game, or if your game has to be abandoned early on, your balance will not be touched. If you create a game, and subsequently remove half a table, or remove an entire round from the movement, the credit cost will be reduced to reflect te change, provided you make your changes before the billing point of 50% result entry.

The credit cost is based on the number of results in the completed movement. Repeatedly cancelling and re-entering a result, or adjusting it to e.g. “No play” has no effect on the credit cost of the game.

Example game prices

· 2-table 15-board Howell: 90 credits (30 traveller lines @ 3 credits)

· 6-table 24-board Hesitation Mitchell: 432 credits (144 traveller lines @ 3 credits)

· 14½-table 30-board Mitchell, 14 rounds of 2 boards played: 1,568 credits (392 traveller lines @ 4 credits)

· 48-table 24-board café bridge, 7 rounds of 3 boards played: 7,056 credits (1,008 traveller lines @ 7 credits)

New slots are “primed” with a credit balance of 1,000.

Managing your credit balance

You have access to an up-to-date formatted statement of credit purchases and deductions. Log into your slot at www.brianbridge.net and click View or Download next to Activity.

Loyalty factor

Regular purchases will result in an increase to the slot’s “loyalty factor”. The loyalty factor starts at 1.00, and acts as a multiplier to the nominal credits purchased. So when an account whose loyalty factor is 1.2 makes a nominal purchase of 2000 credits, its balance will in fact be increased by 2000 x 1.2 = 2400 credits. A large bridge club using BriAn for most of its duplicates can expect a loyalty factor of 2.

Redeeming credits

You are entitled at any stage to redeem unused credits in your account, at a rate of 85% of the money which you originally spent on those credits. This includes an administration fee. We will try to honour your preference in terms of how you would like to be paid. Credits bought most cheaply (e.g. because of loyalty factor) must be redeemed before others.

Game settings

We now go through the choices and options available for an event, game security, what the players are allowed to see and do, and how the devices are set up. Some game settings must be made before the game is created, and to change them subsequently requires the game to be created from scratch. However, most game settings can be changed at any point during the event. To access the game settings options during the creation process, tap “Advanced options” directly after selecting a movement. To access these options after game creation, tap “Game settings” on the director control screen.

The game settings screen is divided into six sections: “Security”, “Scoring”, “Players can see”, “Players can change”, “Spectators”, “Naming”. Tap on one of the section titles to reveal the settings in that section.

Any changes made to settings after game creation must be committed by tapping the “Save” button at the bottom of the screen. The other devices being used in the game will adopt the new settings the next time they communicate with BriAn’s server computer, which will be either when a score is entered or when the user hits “refresh”.

Security

If you are concerned that people on the internet may impersonate players in your game and enter bogus results, you can generate a PIN to be given to players at the start of the game. It will not be possible to join the game without entering either this PIN or the director password.

To generate a PIN, tap the “Require PIN” checkbox. By default, this will set a numeric PIN of length 3. You can increase the length up to 10 using the “length” slider next to the “Require PIN” checkbox. You can also specify that the PIN should be made out of letters rather than numbers (tap “Word”) or in addition to numbers (tap “Mixed”).

After you have created the game, immediately tap “Slot info”. The PIN will be displayed on the second line from the bottom.

Security may only be set during game creation. Changes to security require the game to be created from scratch.

Scoring

You can now use the “Scoring” spinner to choose the scoring method for the game, e.g. Butler IMPs or matchpoints. If matchpointing is selected, a option will appear allowing you to turn off the widely-used Neuberg correction. (The Neuberg correction increases the spread of matchpoints on boards which have been played by fewer pairs). The scoring method setting may be changed at any point during the game.

“Players can see”: visibility settings

In this section you can specify what players will have access to on their devices. Change each parameter by clicking on the yellow settings text. The following options are supported:

· Rankings – allow players can see the leaderboard. Default setting is “allowed”. If not, then the “Rankings” option will be greyed out on players’ devices.

· Hand diagrams and analysis – visible by default. Show the table with hand diagrams and available tricks on the players’ results screen.

· Own results – visible by default. If not, then the results screen will not be shown to players at all after each result is entered.

· Others’ results – visible by default. If not, then the results screen will not display the table comparing the different outcomes for each board, and the scorecards of other players will not be visible.

· Post mortem timeout (secs) – 30 secs by default. After this time, the screen showing the hand diagram and results table will disappear, as a signal to the players to move on to their next board.

· Flash up results – yes by default. Displays a prominent sign showing the current percentage or IMPs when the players enter a result.

These options may be changed freely during the event. If the director is logged in on any device, everything will be visible, regardless of the game’s visibility settings.

“Players can change”

In this section you can decide what players will be able to modify. The following options are supported:

· Device assignments – allowed by default. Players can change the pair number or table number associated with their device during the game.

· Player names – allowed by default. Players can change their names by tapping on them on the layout which they see at the beginning of each round.

These options may be changed freely during the event.

Spectators

In this section you can specify whether the ongoing game can be viewed, using the following options:

· Phone spectators – allowed by default. If not, then people will not be able to use “spectator mode” on their phones.

· Web spectators – allowed by default. This determines whether internet users can access an auto-refreshing leaderboard for their web browser. It can be set to “Yes”, “With PIN” (users can only see the leaderboard if the know the game’s PIN), “With password” (the director password must be supplied to access the leaderboard display) or “No” (web leaderboard completely prohibited).

Spectator options may be changed freely during the event.

Player/Team/Table names

This section contains various naming options:

· EW add: this is only available in Mitchell movements. You can choose to refer to the EW pairs (e.g. for a 6-table Mitchell) as 1EW, 2EW etc. (based on their starting table), or 7, 8, 9 (add the number of tables), or 11, 12 ,13 (add 10) etc. Adding 10, 20, 30 will be offered depending on the number of tables. You can change this at any point in the event although it may cause confusion for the players.

· Section table names: In multi-section games, you can choose to add a letter to the table number to identify its section (e.g. 1A, 1B), or to add some multiple of ten depending on how many tables there are in each section. You can choose whether the first section should be 1, 2, .. or e.g. 21, 22 (if adding 20 per section).

· Player defaults: The players are names by default. This option allows you to select the style of these default names. It is only available before the game is created, since the default names are generated then.

How the devices are set up

By default, players carry around their own mobile phones, and each phone knows what pair it is attached to. However, the director may opt that every devices remains on a fixed table, even when players move. This is generally desirable for devices belong to the director or club. To specify that a device will remain on a table, log out as director if necessary and use the “Settings” menu option.

The director login and password

Your director password is the same password as for your BriAn slot account. You may have to enter it regularly using your phone’s small on-screen keyboard, so we recommend that you keep it short and easy to type. The minimum length is four characters. For security purposes it is better to avoid dictionary words. Punctuation and numbers are permitted.

Changing the director password

You can change the password either using your phone or by logging into your account on www.brianbridge.net.

To change your password using your phone, log in as director, then tap “change password”. Tap-type your new password.

To change your password on www.brianbridge.net, go to the site and log in using your slot name and password. Fill in the password change form on the right-hand side of the main window area.

Director-only functions

During a game, logging in as director on your phone gives you the following abilities:

· Create games

· See all the results to date and hand diagrams for every board (useful if a hand has been mis-boarded and needs to be put right)

· Alter the movement in play

· Adjust, clear or enter any result

· View a summary of all the current game info, including the PIN if any

· Generate results pages for the game so far

· Change the director password

Hand records

If you have access to hand records for your game, BriAn can show a hand diagram and available trick analysis to the players after they have completed each hand.

Uploading a hand record file

Go to www.brianbridge.net and log into your slot account. Click on the “Upload/download” below the login bar. Click on “Upload new”, and navigate to the .dup or .dlm file which you want to use for your next game.

BriAn will then calculate a table of the available tricks in each suit and no-trumps with N, S, E and W as declarer, for all the hands you upload. During the game, this table will be shown on the players’ devices after they have played each hand. You can upload the hand record file at any time before the game, and the computer that you upload it from can be anywhere in the world. If you wish to run several consecutive games based on the same hand records, they only need to be uploaded once. Since the available tricks calculation may take up to an hour, it’s advisable to upload the hands well in advance. Calculating available trick counts costs 1 credit per hand.

Deleting a hand record file

If you are running a game without hand records, click on “Delete current”, otherwise BriAn will wrongly use the most recent hand record file you uploaded.

Player database

Your BriAn slot comes with a player database, which stores the names of players who have taken part in games in your slot. For each player, the database stores their name, the date they were added to the database, and the date of their most recent finalized game. You can also attach contact and other details to the player’s record using the database editor accessed through the Brian website.

Editing the database

Go to www.brianbridge.net and log into your slot account. Click on the “Game” tab followed by the “Player database” button. You will now be shown the player database and you can make edits. A “Save” button is provided; if you do not click “Save” after you have edited the database, and before you leave the website, all your intervening edits will be lost.

The following edits can be made:

· Add a player: Type the new player’s name into the box next to the “+ Add player” button, then click “+ Add player”.

· Remove a player: In the database, find the player’s row, and click on the “x” button at the far right end of the row.

· Change a player’s name/E-mail/phone number: In the player’s row, click in the box that you want to change and type in the new text.

Remember to click “Save” frequently.

Common questions from players

There follow some questions which often arise from players when they first use BriAn:

Someone else at my table also has BriAn on their phone. Which one of us should score?

It doesn’t matter as far as BriAn is concerned.

If both players enter the same score into their phone, there will be no problem. If second scorer enters a different score to the first, then the first score will stand, and BriAn will notify the second scorer of the discrepancy. If the first player entered an incorrect score, they should simply step back to the board in question using the small black arrows on either side of the board number at the top of the screen. Then they should tap the “Cancel score” button the the centre of the screen.

If only one player enters the scores, other players with BriAn on the same table should refresh the game at the end of the round, so that their devices know that the round is complete. This is done by tapping the “Refresh game” menu option. Refreshing the game is a useful thing for players to know how to do, and it solves many problems straight off.

I accidentally quit BriAn on my phone. What should I do/did I lose all my scores?

Nothing is lost – the player should just start BriAn up again. We have designed this to be as quick a step as possible – the game code and id will all be remembered, so it should just be a matter of tapping “Duplicate client” followed by “Enter round”.

Will using BriAn cost me a lot in data packet fees?

BriAn’s data messages are very small. A session with BriAn is roughly comparable to writing a few E-mails in terms of amount of data transferred.

I put the names for my pair into BriAn on my smartphone last round, but it didn’t remember for this round.

This may indicate that the game or the device is set to remain at a fixed table, when it should be set to move with its owner. This can be changed on the player’s device by using the “Settings” menu option; tap “Table number” till it changes to “Pair number”, then “Save”.

Things to try when it’s not working

There follow some suggestions for recourse which are often enough to solve problems.

Internet connection

Make sure the device you’re having trouble with is connected to the internet. This may involve:

· Switch on its WiFi

· Switch off its WiFi, i.e. to force a phone to use mobile internet

· Specify a new wireless network

· Switch on the WiFi, then open a browser to log into the gateway,

· Use another phone in the room to create a local wireless access point (WAP) which other devices can then log in to on WiFi.

Refresh the game

If the device is not letting the player proceed to the next round, not showing results which have been entered, showing an obviously out-of-date leaderboard or pair names, refresh the game using the “Refresh game” menu option. This asks the server for the latest game information.

Update BriAn

Make sure the device is using the most recent version of BriAn. The phone should notify its owner if an update exists. Encourage your players to respond to these messages, and to keep their version of BriAn up to date.

Battery life and screen brightness

Certain tablets may lose power during a duplicate, even if they started with a full battery, unless their screen brightness is dimmed. BriAn automatically dims the screen to a certain extent, but some manual adjustment is recommended because of the differences between brands of tablet.

It is recommended that you find the dimmest setting at which BriAn is still comfortably visible as soon as you take delivery of a tablet. BriAn will then remember this setting and you will not have to adjust it again.

When BriAn first starts up, press menu followed by “Global settings”. Reduce the brightness gradually until you feel you have reached the minimum that can be seen. Then press “back”. BriAn will remember the brightness setting which you just selected, and apply it whenever “Duplicate client” is tapped on that tablet.

It may be that as you are reducing the brightness, the tablet goes into suspend mode. This means that you have passed below the minimum brightness for that tablet. Restart your tablet and set the brightness to a level just above the minimum.

Slots

A slot is an account on BriAn’s server, www.brianbridge.net . With a slot, you can run as many games as you wish of any size, although trying to run two or more games simultaneously will not work. Use of the server is paid for via your slot via an easy-to-use and transparent credits-based system. If you run out of credits, the ability to create games and upload hand records will be suspended until you buy more. The slot itself will however remain in existence and you will still be able to log in, manage your account, and look at your most recent game.

How do I get a slot?

Go to www.brianbridge.net and click on “Pricing/trial”. Fill in the form for an account. You will be sent a password to the E-mail which you specified (if this doesn’t happen please get in touch).

You now have a slot account. You can log in to www.brianbridge.net, upload hand records, and create a game.

If you wish to buy more credits, log in and look for the “buy credits” button next to the expiry date. Click on this and follow the instructions for electronic payment.

What if I am about to run a game and I discover I do not have any credits?

This shouldn’t happen, since BriAn will have warned you when you have less than 1000 credits left, which is enough to run a very large game. Nonetheless if you buy more credits, your account will be credited immediately and you can create your game without further ado.