As part of their 75th Anniversary celebrations, the ACBL took a major step forward, at the Spring NABC in their home city of Memphis, to provide pre-dealt boards for all of their Pairs events. What’s new might be the cry from Europe where pre-dealt boards are now just accepted and expected but this was not the case in the USA, so the ACBL should be congratulated on taking such a brave step forward. It was estimated that a total of 25,000 boards would be needed to see them through the 10 day event and it was PlayBridgeDealer4 that the ACBL chose for this important task.

As can be seen from the photograph the task was certainly a daunting one but the dealing room swung into action. I had previously been asked by the ACBL’s Senior Director, Jeff Johnston, to recommend the best way of tackling the task and I suggested that we should start the event with 2 days of boards already dealt, this being done over a couple of weeks by staff at the ACBL’s offices. We then had two PlayBridgeDealer4 machines to see us through the event itself. We believe that the most efficient use of resources is to work with two people to one machine, reducing the need for banks of machines but efficiently producing a steady flow of 350 boards per hour per machine. So overlooking the mighty Mississippi, the task started and we soon saw light at the end of the tunnel and another success for PlayBridgeDealer4.