bobcandoit

Even with a spade fit, losing trick count implies game is not likely.

I enjoy the individual BBO tournament games, but I perceive that results are heavily influenced by the randomness of your assigned partner and opponents. I have an idea for modifying the scoring. I assume it would be possible to have each hand go through one of the hand analysis programs in real time. How about adjusting the score of the field for a particular game by artificially increasing the number of players and assuming they played the hand to perfection. That way when you add in your score you will be compared to a higher quality field. I think this would have the benefit of promoting better bridge - I see an increasing number of players opening sub standard hands in the 1st or 2nd seat. Also many pay no attention to basic defensive discards. In a game where "half the field" is playing at a high level, you're not going to steal many boards with such playing. I also recall seeing a study once that suggested the "randomness" of your result in a club game was about +/- 6%. So if you got a 50% result you really were playing somewhere in the range of 44 to 56%. My guess on the individual tournament games "randomness" is much higher. i'm sure there are statisticians among us who can suggest how the results of games can analyzed. My point is that I suspect online is not as good as many club and most tournament games.

Let's face it, "points" are the addictive product of the ACBL, and one of the goals is to give them out to get people at all skill levels to play, and hence pay more. But in the case cited you can make a math argument for 29% being a good result in that particular field. Grab a glass of wine. The field started as 9/10/10 and we can assume it ended as 8/9/4. Now I'm sure the 9 A players all thought the should have won. A 62% game usually wins, so let's assume that is their average. That means the 8 players would contribute 23.6% to the overall 50% average of the entire field. - 8 / 21 x 62%. The 9 B players would all assume they are better then average, so let's say they expected a 55% game - their contribution to the overall would be 9 / 21 x 55% or also 23.6% - just a coincidence. That totals 47.2% and leaves 2.8% for the 4 lowly C strata players. Solve the equation 4 / 21 x ? = 2.8%?suggests in this elite field they could aspire to a 14.7% game on average. It looks like all 4 C strata players exceeded expectations, so why shouldn't they all earn points? QED