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BGonline.org Forums
Watching BG tournaments online
Posted By: Bill Riles In Response To: Watching BG tournaments online (David Levy)
Date: Thursday, 24 August 2017, at 6:24 p.m.
I think backgammon is much better suited to streaming than is bridge. Everything is visible to everyone, players included, so no special efforts must be made to accommodate hidden cards, etc.
If you saw the recent World Championship streaming the video resolution, with a new, very high-powered graphics outfitted high-speed laptop, was superb -- you could see everything quite clearly.
It is encouraging that the Backgammon World Championship final -- on a shoe-string budget with no corporate sponsorship -- had a peak of 609 simultaneous viewers. I'm surprised the bridge streaming only has 405 -- though again I think backgammon is much better suited to streaming. This is even more amazing when one realizes the current active bridge community is orders of magnitude larger than the active backgammon community. I do note the additional 5500 bridge viewers watching the graphical representation.
In addition to the live commentary during the backgammon final there was also a very active, interesting, and informative chat log associated with the streaming of the backgammon final.
I think the live video stream of backgammon is also most interesting and informative -- though you can only see the board and the hands -- by virtue of the fact that you can note the timing (how long one is thinking on a position or a cube), you can see the play options a player may be evaluating, you know ideally when they're counting the race, etc. All of that realism is lost in a graphical representation of the match.
Hopefully the streaming will continue to improve and expand. Tara will provide single streams -- with the new equipment -- on our upcoming trip to the tournaments in Bristol and possibly in Cyprus. Check it out. We'll be providing updates at the time of the tournaments.
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