adv exp

Wow you had me and now you lost me. The attitude you just expressed above, if widely held by other BBO admin, is exactly the problem. You obviously missed the whole point, namely to be transparent about ALL of the rules so that tourney participants have the proper expectations before sitting down to play even the first time. I will cut and paste this conversation along with the "Rules" I have edited above on the site and give to my fellow partners and others so as many people as possible know all the rules and admins reluctance to disseminate them. You are welcome. Also who said I had an issue with being in A stratum except you. Putting words in people's mouths is a no-no especially when they are arbitrary and inaccurate. I merely want to know which stratum I am ASAP only. And if you go back and read the whole post, you will see that I actually said that I always want to compete in the highest stratum. You don't have to apologize to me now for your erroneous depiction of me. I know it is not in your character. adv exp

Thanks for all of your info. I now understand how all of the MPs are awarded. I looked over all of BBOs tourney info and also ACBLs and have never seen anything close to the description you have above. You and other BBO admins seem to be under the impression that all us tourney players know this stuff but I would guess otherwise. I play with several others in speedball tourneys and not a one of them knew these "rules". Also you said that "We calculate the strats when the tourney starts" so in fact you do know it pretty much at the beginning of the tourney. How hard would it be to inform players just as soon as you get the stratums, which would still be soon enough for players to know it before playing at least their second hand? One last thing. I would amend your masterpoiont award explanation slightly this way; "In each stratum, 1st place pays 1.50, 2nd place pays 1.13, 3rd place pays .84. 1st place in a stratum is defined as that team that scored the most IMPS or had the highest percentage no matter which direction they sat in N-S or E-W. 2nd place in a stratum is defined as that team that scored the second most IMPs or had the 2nd highest percentage no matter which direction they sat in, N-S or E-W. 3rd place etc. You will not necessarily win any masterpoints for finishing 1st in a division if there are at enough teams finishing higher than you in the same (or lower) strata in the other division. Even though this is duplicate scoring and you might win your division by a considerable margin, if there are enough teams scoring higher than you in the other division you possibly could not earn any MPs." If you sub in a tourney, your stratum will automatically be the highest, i.e, A stratum, no matter how inexperienced you are or low your ability". Full disclosure modeled in my description above is a good policy and should be readily available on your site somewhere. adv exp adv exp

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Jackie, thanks for the reference. I did go and read all of the ACBL material and it was completely lacking in the important details of how masterpoints are awarded when there are multiple sections. I have a call/complaint in to them and I expect it will be resolved soon. In the meantime I did a detailed analysis of the whole tournament results in question and tried to determine your method for assigning master points and I think I may have figured it out. It appears that what is done when there are multiple sections is that bbo (or bbo’s computer program) distributes teams such that each section has relatively equal distributions of talent/experience/expertise/ability, from very experienced all the way down. I would presume that bbo uses player master points (the big number after a person’s bbo name) as their measure of ability to evenly distribute talent among the sections. Already I have a big problem with this, but I will save that for later. Players are assigned a level based on how big their number is and I believe there are 3 levels/flights. Notice that I keep using terms like “it appears”, “I believe” etc. because despite my specific request for these kinds of details from bbo, they were not given!! So instead I have to intuit the specifics. BBO’s computer now ranks the various sections somehow, and my best guess is by actual average number of player master points previously accumulated/earned in that section. The section with the highest average is given a priority or “handicap”. The idea being that the level of competition in that section was tougher than in any other section. The winner of that section, no matter how many IMPs they scored (or high high their % was) relative to other section winners, earns first place master points!!!!!. Again I am guessing here and if I am wrong, please, please, please set the record straight with all of the correct specifics. If I am right, then I have a real problem with how your BBO/ACBLs method works. The most important is the assumption that a player’s masterpoint number is an accurate measure of their ability. I know, I know heretical right? However I have played enough speedball tourneys to know this truth. If anyone doubts this, go and look at any tourney results, and while you are at it, take this tourney in particular. What you should expect to see is all of the players with larger numbers clustered at the top with the highest tourney scores. But you do not. Ever. Instead the larger numbered player’s scores are randomly distributed throughout the section. Always! They do not perform consistently better than those with less “experience/ability”. So why, why, why are the sections rated in the first place??? This method for assigning priority status to a section is as arbitrary as rubber bridge scoring and, in the interest of full disclosure, you should be telling this to all new speedball players. You should also be telling the specifics details, as I have done above for example, of how you determine master point assignments. As an aside I have wondered how many of these players got such large numbers after their names when their play is not always superior. I have a couple of possible explanations. One that has been passed around by some BBO players is that they have passed their BBO identity on to relatives, friends or children. My final complaint involves my specific masterpoint award in this tourney. Again we took 1st overall among E-W teams by 12 IMPs or 33% better than the second place E-W team. This other team actually had higher numbers after their names than I and my partner did, so presumably they are in a higher rank than us. If anyone should be given a “handicap”, it is us! And yet they get the first place MPs! Go figure. I could even live with this result if I could at least know what we had to do to win 1st place MPs. All players want to know when they finish close to first is how much more they needed to get the top score. When an arbitrary section level assignment is given like this, a player doesn’t know the algorithm and cannot know what they had to do to get 1st place, nor how close they were either. They are left completely in the dark. BBO should quit using the excuse that the ACBL requires them to use their “system”, address the realities discussed above with the ACBL and take responsibility for offering fairer tourney placements. BBO can and should do better than this.

My understanding of duplicate scoring in tourneys was you compared your score to every other pair sitting your way. If you had the highest cumulative score of all hands played by those pairs sitting the same direction, you took first place and were awarded master points accordingly. I noticed early on that there seemed to be a bonus amount given to the team that had the highest score of all teams, those sitting your way and those sitting opposite. This was a little puzzling because unless you played directly against that/those teams with higher scores sitting opposite you, you really could not do anything to affect their score nor yours relative to theirs. It only made sense to me that the top teams sitting each way should earn the same amount of master points. I wrote a letter to ACBL/bbo asking about this included below: "I played a speedball tourney today, #8342 Pairs ACBL Thu 6pm, and placed 3rd overall out of about 100 pairs. However we were first of all E-W pairs by about 10 IMPs! Why is this not considered a first place and awarded master points accordingly. It’s not like we could have done anything about affecting the outcomes of those N-S pairs that had marginally higher scores than ours, unless we played against them for a set of three games. Could you please explain the rationale for this scoring which seems quite arbitrary to me? Thanks (aka adv exp)" A week later I got this reply: "Hello: This situation occurred because you were in a section, where scores are compared to *that* section and where you didn't n qualify to score in the Overalls. I'm sure you have been in face to face Regional or National tournaments where, in your Strata you scored higher than others did in their section and those players were able to finish in the 'points awards' and that you, even though you scored higher didn't score any masterpoints at all. I know that this has happened to me more times than I'd like to remember. But please understand that this was a singular situation and the next time the player in a different section will wonder why he/she scored higher than you and didn't receive masterpoints, while you did. It's really the luck of the draw as to which section you will be placed - and the others in your section and Strata and how they played vis a vis how you did. I hope this explains things as to why this happens, but please know that you can always contact me at the BBO email address, jacki@bridgebase.com if n you'd like to discuss this in more detail. Best regards, Jacki BBO Customer Support I am more puzzled than ever! Call me naive but shouldn't the responder first acknowledge my point based on the understanding of duplicate scoring and then shouldn't any explanation given not be just "you didn't qualify" without explaining in detail why I didn't qualify! If there is some magical way that determines how a person "Qualifies" please, please, please bestow on us what that way of determining/figuring qualification is!!! Is it my gender, my experience, my cumulative master points, my cumulative master points relative to my opponents, random, the level of each section that a side is divided into, what?? If it is by section, how is the level of each section determined? When I (and I presume all others) play a competitive game of any sort, I want to know ALL the rules including and especially the scoring rules so that I will know best how to maximize my score. If anyone out there knows the answers to these questions especially about "qualifying" I would really appreciate a response. I am tired of waiting. adv exp

I have started playing tourneys on bbo in the last year. Mostly speedball and a little goulash. I have been paying more attention to the numbers after a person's name and at the same time looking up their "actual" rating on bboskill.com and evaluating their actual ability myself if they are my partner. What I cannot understand is how some people can have like a 6 or higher sometimes after their name and their level of play is intermediate or lower. Can someone explain to me how they scored all of their points because it sure aint from playing speedball. they wouldhave to be at it for a lifetime to amass that many MPs. tx adv exp

I got the following reply from Jacki at BBO. I could be misinterpreting it but it sounds like she is saying that what happened to me is a simple programming mistake?? If so I do not buy it. How could my name be left off the "Results" list entirely and replaced by the person who took over for me on the last hand. I have subbed multiple times and this has never happened before. It has all the appearance of fraud. Here's her reply: Hello (my actual name): Thank you for your report. We understand that this is a situation that needs to be corrected by the programmers and I assure you it's high on their 'to do' list. In the meantime, until the programmers can fix this situation whereby the player who plays the majority of the boards (regardless of the scores on those boards) will receive any points won as a result of his substituting, we will issue refunds to the substitute player. In this vein, I am refunding your entry fee for the game and adding another as our apology. This situation will be resolved in the near future. I mostly want you to know that we are aware that this needs to be re-programmed and that it will be done as soon as humanly possible. Best regards, Jacki BBO Customer Support

I often volunteer as a sub in tourneys and participated in one today. It was a goulash one and I actually started on hand one of twelve total hands. I expected to be relieved soon by whoever initially signed up and was surprised to still be there after 11 of the 12 hands. After the first 10 hands, I was up close to 40 IMPs. My partner in the 11th hand won the auction in a hand that was easily makeable. Halfway through the hand I apparently was removed from the table because my screen went from the playing table to a view of the remaining hands being played. There was no explanation in the lower conversation window like there usually is when the signed up player returns, and it looked like the whole tourney was being canceled. So I waited for the usual white screen to come up to show me how. The white screen never did come up like it always does whether I have finished a tourney I did sign up for, or one that I played as a sub for even as few as one hand!!!!??? This puzzled me so I went repeatedly to the BBO My Hands site until the 11 hands I played did come up. There I could see the "Results" screen and to my surprise, my name wasn't even on the list, let alone near the top where I expected it. Then I wondered whether the player who I "replaced" was on the list but I had to piece it together first. I listed the top 10 players and eliminated all those who were actually playing when I was and came up with the one who wasn't and sure enough they placed like 6th and had scored master points. Go figure, I do all the work, and then they come in for one hand and get the recognition and the MPs!!! This is odd because I have subbed many times for less than half a tourney and scored master points, so it has nothing to do with being a sub. So.......Anyone out there have this experience and know anything about the rules for assigning MPs to subs? If this is the treatment you get for helping out, I think I'll stop subbing. adv exp