Carryover in BB Final

[DenisO]

USA1 take the maximum allowed 20 imp carryover into the BB final. Do you think that is fair based on result of one match in a round robin series of 21 matches ? Personally, I think the final of the world championship should start all square.

 

Denis

[Walddk]

Personally, I think they should dump any carryover. When you reach the knockout phase, you should start from the scratch. The higher ranked teams already have the advantage of choosing their opponents.

 

That should be it. Let a new match begin.

 

Roland

[pclayton]

I thinks it fair, and I like the idea that its only a portion of the RR result. Having a different fraction for the winners and losers is also logical.

 

When I played in the GNT's last year, teams that advanced to the bracketed rounds were saddled with 100% of the carryover from the round robin. If you have a choice of opponents, thats somewhat fair. But why should you face an opponent that you had a bad match against (and the resultant carryover) even though you finished higher than them in the RR?

 

I don't like the idea of a USA1 or Italy sleepwalking through the RR phase when it would take an act of God to pull them out of the top 8. There needs to be an incentive to play bridge.

 

Furthermore, no carryover can lead to situations of 'unsportmanslike dumping'.

[Chamaco]

USA1 earned their carryover, given the rules of the events, I see nothing unfair: both teams knew that their RR match would be calculated for the eventual carryover, and they played consequently.

 

 

Should I pick a different formula, I'd still use some carryover, but calculated on the basis of the overall standings rather than of the single match.

[helene_t]

I don't like the idea of a USA1 or Italy sleepwalking through the RR phase when it would take an act of God to pull them out of the top 8. There needs to be an incentive to play bridge.

 

Furthermore, no carryover can lead to situations of 'unsportmanslike dumping'.

Without carry over, the strong teams could choose to loose to some mediocre team that is close to qualifying to the quarter finals, in order to get rid of more serious competition.

 

On the other hand, with carry over, if a strong team has lost to some team that is on the edge of qualifying, the strong team could choose to play 15-15 or something against another team that is on the edge.

 

Then there is the statistical aspect: carry over adds twenty "free" boards to the match, thereby making the result more statistical significant.

 

Mauro's suggestion, to let the carry over be based on over-all results, seems to me to be a better solution, both in terms of incitement and in terms of statistics (allthough it is not clear how much the carry-over should be). Even better, make it a Swiss tournament.

 

But for some reason, spectators want the big clash between the two strongest teams, and carry over (as well as Swiss) dilutes this. I think this way of organizing sports events is due to instincts that we share with other social mamals, where the clash between the reigning alpha male and a challenger is the key to reproductive success and therefore watched carefully by other group members.

[Guest Jlall]

Furthermore, no carryover can lead to situations of 'unsportmanslike dumping'.

Exactly. Trust me guys the organizers have given this a lot of thought and have come up with a very good formula. You really think no carryover is best?

 

Here is a scenario. Italy has a nice lead in the round robin. With 1 match to go the Netherlands and India are in the hunt for to top 8. Italy plays India it's last match. There's no carryover, so Italy has nothing to lose. It get's blitzed on purpose and the Netherlands is knocked out. Is that fair? Did Italy do anything wrong? No, it would have been the fault of the conditions of contest.

 

How could Italy/USA playing a fair match and the winner getting a carryover capped at 20 be construed as unfair? I cannot see it, sorry.

[barmar]

This is something that gets debated every year or so in rec.games.bridge. I don't think there's any real answer to it, it's like religion, or like trying to decide which is better, IMPs or Matchpoints.

 

You can decide for yourself whether you think it's a good way to conduct a tournament, but I don't think it's appropriate to call it "not fair". As long as the players are aware of this detail of scoring, how can it be unfair? Something is unfair if it gives certain players an a priori advantage, but the carryover rule applies to all teams equally. It's a slightly different game than a no-carryover tournament, but it's no more or less fair.

 

If you're a player and you don't like carryover, then don't enter tournaments that use it, just like you might not enter Matchpoint tournaments if you think that matchpoint strategy requires you to play "bad bridge". If enough players boycott events with carryover, the organizers should get the message.

[paulg]

In this case I think it is particularly fair to have a carryover. Italy played a wild game in the final round of the RR in order to try and knock USA1 out of the competition, knowing that if it backfired then they could have a 20 IMP deficit in the final (Italy already knew that they could only play USA1 in the final at that point).

 

Paul

 

[italy supporter]

[EricK]

The problem of deliberately dumping is overstated IMO. For one thing, teams hate losing so I doubt most would be prepared to do it. Secondly, the situation will arise rarely anyway. And thirdly, if Team A are in a position to throw a match to knock out Team B then that is a testament to the strength of Team A and the weakness of Team B. For if Team B had played better in the early rounds they wouldn't be in a position to get knocked out.

 

Eric

[Rain]

What about adding a time decay element to carryover, such that carryovers in Finals is less significant than in quarters. I hate carryovers, but this is from a fan perspective. My team always seem to enter handicapped! GRRRRRRRRRRR

[hrothgar]

A board is a board is a board...

 

I really don't see anything wrong with carryovers.

As other people have noted, introducing carryovers is equivalent to increasing the number of boards in a match. Increasing the size of the sample improves the accuracy of the testing process.

[EricK]

A board is a board is a board...

 

I really don't see anything wrong with carryovers.

As other people have noted, introducing carryovers is equivalent to increasing the number of boards in a match. Increasing the size of the sample improves the accuracy of the testing process.

This is not quite true. Playing two shorter matches both of which you are trying to win is not the same as playing to win one long match.

 

If you are trying to win a 32 board match and are find you are losing by quite a lot at the half way point you might very well take swingy actions in the second half as it is your best chance of winning. This will likely not work so you will end up losing by more than you would otherwise. But still it was your best hope.

 

But I think this might discredit the whole idea of a carryover: In the example above, the team which were doing their best to win the first match are effectively punished for that by conceding a larger carryover than they otherwise would have. Why have a system which discourages teams from trying to stage a major comeback in the RR stage?

 

Eric

[cherdano]

A board is a board is a board...

 

I really don't see anything wrong with carryovers.

As other people have noted, introducing carryovers is equivalent to increasing the number of boards in a match.  Increasing the size of the sample improves the accuracy of the testing process.

This is not quite true. Playing two shorter matches both of which you are trying to win is not the same as playing to win one long match.

 

If you are trying to win a 32 board match and are find you are losing by quite a lot at the half way point you might very well take swingy actions in the second half as it is your best chance of winning. This will likely not work so you will end up losing by more than you would otherwise. But still it was your best hope.

 

But I think this might discredit the whole idea of a carryover: In the example above, the team which were doing their best to win the first match are effectively punished for that by conceding a larger carryover than they otherwise would have. Why have a system which discourages teams from trying to stage a major comeback in the RR stage?

 

Eric

I think you don't do that in a round robin anyway. You are playing for victory points, not to win matches, so taking swing actions just because you are 20 IMPs behind is a bad strategy.

 

Arend

[MickyB]

Indeed - and if you are far enough down that the sliding VP scale makes swinging attractive, you are protected by the cap on the carryover.

[pigpenz]

if its in the rules its ok, it does stop unnecessary swinging..i would assume :(

[EricK]

Why is the BB organised in this way anyway?

 

Why not have say 4 groups playing all-play-all within those groups then Winner of Group 1 plays runner up of group 2 in one quarterfinal. Winner of 2 plays runner up of 1 in another and similarly for groups 3 and 4. with the obvious semifinals and final.

 

Two teams can only meet each other for a second time in the final, there is little scope to deliberately throw matches and so no need for carryovers at all.

 

Eric

[barmar]

There are other tournaments that are organized that way. One of the nice things about bridge is that there are tournaments with just about every reasonable type of organization. Some have carry-over, others don't. Some have a full round-robin, some split into groups. Why should all tournaments be the same -- variety is nice.

[Gerben42]

Here is a scenario. Italy has a nice lead in the round robin. With 1 match to go the Netherlands and India are in the hunt for to top 8. Italy plays India it's last match. There's no carryover, so Italy has nothing to lose. It get's blitzed on purpose and the Netherlands is knocked out. Is that fair? Did Italy do anything wrong? No, it would have been the fault of the conditions of contest.

 

There is a solution to this. Don't play "important" matches in the last round. How do you achieve this? By playing a Swiss Round Robin! A what, I hear you say?

 

Swiss movement during the round robin. This means that all teams in contention for something will have met before the last round. Doesn't really matter in this case if it is one round offset Swiss or normal, the effect will be the same.

 

Besides, why are USA1 and Italy playing each other in the last round of the RR again? I thought this should and would be random.

[cherdano]

A what? I cannot imagine how a Swiss round robin would work. How do you avoid that there is no impossible pairing problems in the last rounds?

 

Arend

[Chamaco]

A what? I cannot imagine how a Swiss round robin would work. How do you avoid that there is no impossible pairing problems in the last rounds?

 

Arend

The impossble pairing in late rounds of a swiss used to be a problem when it had to be done manually, but nowadays it's over.

 

In Chess tournaments, that use Swiss pairings all the times (indeed the pairing system used in bridge was borrowed by chess events), this is routinely avoided without hassles.

There are SW programs for Swiss pairings, so that would not be a problem.

[Gerardo]

Yes, and pairing constrains in chess are more strict.

 

Would be strange to have the first playing a bottom team in a Swiss, though :unsure:

 

Now, is USA1-Italy in last round a constant?

[han]

I think carryovers are useful and they also make the picking of opponents for the quarterfinals more interesting.

 

I liked that every team got to play every other team during the round robin.

 

I think the Swiss round robin is a good idea, but on the other hand, it is nice to have a fixed schedule. This way the teams can decide somewhat in advance who plays when, and the audience also knows what to expect. Also, wasn't it exciting, that last day of the round robin? Would it be as exciting if the top teams were all playing weaker teams that last day?

[mike777]

Prefer more Zonal playoffs and then just the Zone champs play long KO matches for the Bermuda Bowl. We have the Olympiad for round robin matches.

 

Would make the Zonal playoffs exciting and the finals well rested.

[mrdct]

Prefer more Zonal playoffs and then just the Zone champs play long KO matches for the Bermuda Bowl.

That was kind of the way it used to be with early Bermuda Bowls only having 4-6 teams competing. All of Italy's previous Bermuda Bowl victories were at time when 6 or less teams competed.

 

It wasn't until the 1980s that the field started to expand with multiple teams from Europe and few additional zones taking part.

 

I think the number of teams and spread of zonal representation is about right at the moment. Interestingly, at one point or another throughout the qualifying rounds this year, teams from all but one of the eight zones were in the top eight at some point and the quarter-finalists included teams from Zones 1 (Europe), 2 (Nth America), 3 (Sth America), 4 (Asia/Mid-East) and 8 (Africa).

[Gerben42]

Agree that the zonal represenatation was about right.

 

By the looks of it the teams were somehow seeded in such a way that all the top matches were in the evenings. However there were too many top matches to have them all in the evenings :rolleyes:

 

Also, wasn't it exciting, that last day of the round robin? Would it be as exciting if the top teams were all playing weaker teams that last day?

 

Yes, it will still be exciting. Because of the swissing in a close field some teams that both might still qualify will play in the last round, however the sure qualifyers will now play weak opponents and therefore no important team will have the advantage of playing these teams when they are less concentrated.