Longer tournaments

[bassaidai]

Longer tournaments (mainly ACBL) would improve perception of "seriousness" regarding online bridge, imho.

 

What do you think ?

[hrothgar]

Short tournaments might be popular, however they have an extremely deleterious effect on the quality of the bridge.

 

Look at the scores that people need to win an 8 or 12 board tournament. It almost seems as if you need to average +1.5 IMPs a board in order to have a prayer of placing. In turn, this means that players need to taking crazy risks on almost every board trying to get a big score. Lord help you if you aren't lucky enough play against one of the truly weak pairs in the event.

 

Over the past couple months we've seen a few brief discussions regarding whether the ACBL would ever start running Sectional and Regional level events on BBO. From my perspective there are some VERY big issues that need to be addressed before you should be considering this type of event.

 

1. The length of BBO events is one of the most significant issue

 

2. Selecting an appropriate movement is another very tricky. Currently BBO has nothing approaching "balanced" movements which makes events very unfair. A barometer would solve some of these issues, however, a Barometer really only works with flighted events. (The churn at the bottom of a barometer movement is really ugly. Normally, you don't care because you're only focusing on the top pairs. However, if you're running a stratified event and giving awards to A, B, and C pairs...

 

3. You need simultaneously make sure that pairs have enough of an investment that they'll take the event seriously but won't have an undue incentive to cheat.

 

Personally, I'd recommend avoiding pair events altogether. Focus on running a teams events and sidestep a lot of the nasty problems. (I think that a single elimination KO would be ideal)

 

Specify a fixed time that all games are going to start: Games start at 8:00 PM EST.

 

All matches last 32 boards

 

if you win, you play again the next night. (Alternatively, if you win, you play again one week from the last match. You have a fair amount of flexibility in how you schedule this))

 

If you lose (or your team doesn't show) you're out

 

To the victor, belongs the spoils. Losing teams can enter another event.

 

You'll need a bit of time to determine how many nights each KO should run. For example, an event that ran for 5 consecutive nights would reduce a pool of 32 teams down to a single winner.

 

I think that this format would be VERY popular and require a lot less effort to administer.

[pigpenz]

i agree in a 12 board match its hard to play down the middle if you are trying to finish in the top ten in a large event. You almost have to take every sac bid every possible game etc. If you go and look at the results there are just too many variables that it make unreasonable to not play this way.

 

Now someone can play this and get away with this type of play in a short play but statiscally it usually doesnt hold up.

[mike777]

i agree in a 12 board match its hard to play down the middle if you are trying to finish in the top ten in a large event. You almost have to take every sac bid every possible game etc. If you go and look at the results there are just too many variables that it make unreasonable to not play this way.

 

Now someone can play this and get away with this type of play in a short play but statiscally it usually doesnt hold up.

I keep seeing comments like this but when I look at my play I do not finish in the top ten because of my poor play or decisions not because everyone else was swinging and winning.

[hrothgar]

i agree in a 12 board match its hard to play down the middle if you are trying to finish in the top ten in a large event. You almost have to take every sac bid every possible game etc. If you go and look at the results there are just too many variables that it make unreasonable to not play this way.

 

Now someone can play this and get away with this type of play in a short play but statiscally it usually doesnt hold up.

I keep seeing comments like this but when I look at my play I do not finish in the top ten because of my poor play or decisions not because everyone else was swinging and winning.

Then your experience with BBO tournaments is VERY different than mine...

 

Could someone do me a favor and post some tournament results... I'm not particularly interested in who won, but rather what type of scores were necessary to place in the top three positions. It would also be interesting to know the total number of tables in play.

 

I'd do this myself, but right now, my PC is dead yet again (Note to self: RAID enabled ASUS motherboards are more trouble than they're worth). I'm accessing the Internet via a very old LINUX box and can't connect to BBO.

[inquiry]

If you want to see something that is not bridge, look at some of the 4 board touraments that cost 1 dollar to enter. Nearly every contract is doubled and redoubled. It really screws up any kind of serious study of the frequency of bids such as redoubles (if you had bridgebrowser for example). So short is bad in my mind, but some people seem to enjoy it. I like longer ones, 20 baords or more!! These are not very popular however, because you limit the population that CAN PLAY. A west coast (in US) 20 board event starting at 8PM would exclude a lot of EAST coast players, because it would end too late. An 8 board one would exclude far fewer. Then multiply this by a global community.

[1eyedjack]

Can you not filter out hands that took place in 4 board tourneys when running bridgebrowser analyses?

[mike777]

i agree in a 12 board match its hard to play down the middle if you are trying to finish in the top ten in a large event. You almost have to take every sac bid every possible game etc. If you go and look at the results there are just too many variables that it make unreasonable to not play this way.

 

Now someone can play this and get away with this type of play in a short play but statiscally it usually doesnt hold up.

I keep seeing comments like this but when I look at my play I do not finish in the top ten because of my poor play or decisions not because everyone else was swinging and winning.

Then your experience with BBO tournaments is VERY different than mine...

 

Could someone do me a favor and post some tournament results... I'm not particularly interested in who won, but rather what type of scores were necessary to place in the top three positions. It would also be interesting to know the total number of tables in play.

 

I'd do this myself, but right now, my PC is dead yet again (Note to self: RAID enabled ASUS motherboards are more trouble than they're worth). I'm accessing the Internet via a very old LINUX box and can't connect to BBO.

Well perhaps top 3 needs a bit of luck but the top ten in an ACBL tourney? I can only blame myself.

 

I think you can access recent online tourney results from online hands or bbo?

 

My guess is with the new introduction of Fast Pairs the demand is for shorter tourneys not longer despite longer tourneys being "better".

[Kaapo]

How long tournaments have there been on BBO? I saw (and played half a dozen boards of) a marathon team match of around 100 boards once. If I recall, one player played all of the boards without pauses.

 

BBOFinland is trying to set up a 40 board pairs tournament some time in December. That sounds like a long time sitting in front of the PC. No kibitzers allowed though, so the level of play on the last boards will only be revealed to active MyHands (or BrBr?) users.

[pigpenz]

Can you not filter out hands that took place in 4 board tourneys when running bridgebrowser analyses?

no, it doesnt do searches by the type of tourney

[pigpenz]

i agree in a 12 board match its hard to play down the middle if you are trying to finish in the top ten in a large event. You almost have to take every sac bid every possible game etc. If you go and look at the results there are just too many variables that it make unreasonable to not play this way.

 

Now someone can play this and get away with this type of play in a short play but statiscally it usually doesnt hold up.

I keep seeing comments like this but when I look at my play I do not finish in the top ten because of my poor play or decisions not because everyone else was swinging and winning.

compared to most of the people i play with in acbl games i tend to take a serious look at all the results. I dont think there is ever such a thing as a flat board :P Generally if you partner opens a weak two and you have a fit with little values and ruffing values you always have a deciscion to make. If the opps bid and make game your always headed to the -4-6 imp range. If the sac is right then you are up to the plus +3 range when vuln is favorable.

 

If you can handle playing 12 board matches and pretend its a KO and be satisfied with a +.0.65 score which is positive then there is nothing to worry about. B) I just find that alot of times they just bring about bad bridge deciscions especially on

BOARD 12 :D

[AAr]

Personally, I prefer SHORTER tourneys because: 1) Twelve board tourneys seem to be more time committing than I like (Takes about an hour and a half to play) and I like to do other things with my time, and 2) I have a computer that bugs that usually bugs out in, at most, about an hour and a half after logging on (And, often as short as 20 minutes) (Plus, it takes me about five to six minutes to get back online to BBO should my computer freeze or Windows bug out, longer than most people would be willing and/or able to wait.) and I'd like to play in tourneys that I'm likely to be able to finish.

 

I do like the four/five/six board tourneys over the twelve board tourneys, and especially in premium tourneys. Not only for the two selfish reasons mentioned above, but it puts a pressure element above: Get a good board, and the top/ large IMP gain is safer to ensuring a good score. Get a bad board, and you have less boards to recover.

 

I will not sign up for 15/16/18/20/24 board tourneys.

 

Just my opinion, but I could see the argument for longer tourneys. I prefer the shorter ones.