glen Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 So the Gatlinburg "regional" established a new record: Gatlinburg regional web page For many regionals, one would be happy to have the average daily table count from Gatlinburg, for the whole regional. The last day big drop-off in table count repeats what we are seeing in regionals all over. In North America, with more and more bridge players retired, one wonders if the Tuesday-Sunday model needs to switch to a Monday-Saturday + bonus day Sunday model. Also are Swiss events in the first five days a thing of the past - are Bracketed KOs the team event except for the last day? Speaking of Swiss events, Justin was on winning team in the tough Sunday Swiss (Meckwell on the 3rd place team) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclayton Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 This would be a very tough A/X Swiss to win. Does anyone else share my indignation that this Swiss only pays 31 points while the Bracket I KO that wrapped up on Friday paid 63? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 The KO is a 4-session event, right? It makes sense that you would get twice as many masterpoints for winning 4 sessions than winning a 2-session Swiss. What is it about the Gatlinburg regional that consistently makes it so popular? Its table count is the same as nationals, despite the fact that it's about 5 days shorter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclayton Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 The KO is a 4-session event, right? It makes sense that you would get twice as many masterpoints for winning 4 sessions than winning a 2-session Swiss. What is it about the Gatlinburg regional that consistently makes it so popular? Its table count is the same as nationals, despite the fact that it's about 5 days shorter. Yes the KO's are 4 sessions. Maybe a more apt comparison is that the Bracket EIGHT paid the same masterpoints as the winning the A/X swiss. I don't care if the KO's are 4 sessions, or 40. The skill level between Bracket 8 and the A/X swiss are vastly different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulg Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 Phil, I think you are saying that the ACBL is doing an excellent job in responding to the requirements of its members. Those in the A/X Swiss largely do not care about masterpoints, they care about winning. And they get their reward by winning, or not, with a small masterpoint award. Those who do care about masterpoints are playing in the KOs, where they can win shedloads without playing outside their comfort zone. Seems fair to me! Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cherdano Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 Does anyone else share my indignation that this Swiss only pays 31 points while the Bracket I KO that wrapped up on Friday paid 63? No, I don't care. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bid_em_up Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 What is it about the Gatlinburg regional that consistently makes it so popular? Its table count is the same as nationals, despite the fact that it's about 5 days shorter. My top 10 list of why the Gatlinburg tournament is so popular: 1) With spring arriving, the area is quite beautiful. 2) It is fairly centrally located in the Southeast US. It can be reached within a 3-4 hour drive from a wide variety of parts of the country. Cheap plane fares can be found to Atlanta/Charlotte/Memphis/Knoxville, that allow a flight, combined with a week's car rental to still be reasonably priced.3) It is usually held right before the Spring Nationals, so people are practising for them.4) The costs of attending there are comparitely inexpensive vs. other tournaments.5) The town of Gatlinburg has a unique feel/atmosphere to it. It is quite homey and down to earth, compared to other major metropolitan cities. The population of the town itself is in the neighborhood of 3500 people total. There are a lot of specialty shops in the area (most with a mountain theme), Ober Gatlinburg (a ski resort/amusement park) that has America's longest aerial tramway, Dollywood, the Great Smoky Mountains, and is about an hour away from the Cherokee Indian reservations (on the other side of the Great Smoky Mountains National park) where the only casinos in the central Southeast US are located. 6) The tournament is held in one location.7) There are lots of hotels within walking distance. These are usually reasonably priced, as well.8) It is usually held right around spring break.9) It has become the "tournament" to go to, if you can't make it to any of the other Nationals (or even if you could). 10) The hospitality is fantastic. Every year, this is the one Regional I would like to attend. Unfortunately, I have only been able to make it to two. I will make it next year, hopefully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 I share Phil's outrage. We just finished a regional here in Victoria.. I'm not sure of the table count but probably a little over 2000 would be my guess. We had a KO start Monday night, to finish Tuesday night. Another KO started Tuesday pm, another Wednesday, another Thursday and the last on Friday. Sunday was the Stratiflighted teams. And for those who got knocked out early, we had compact KOs... 4 12 board matches in one day. What this meant was that the pair events were tiny. Tuesday's stratified had 28 tables.. with a concurrent Seniors adding maybe 20 more. Winning the pairs event (which we didn't do) was worth less than finishing 3/4th in the top bracket of any of the KO's and, I suspect, worth less than finishing 2nd in a lesser bracket. I love imps.... it is a form of the game I think I understand better than mps... but the ACBL has gone mad with this incessant flood of KOs... matchpoints is still a viable and delightful form of the game... but it doesn't pay masterpoints to bad players.. while incredibly unskilled players can 'win' or do well in the 5th bracket of a 2 day KO. Bring back the matchpoint games... please!!! It used to be that there was one big KO that ran most of the week.. playing in the mornings...and winning it felt like a major accomplishment. It used to be that the Saturday Open Pairs was also a big deal, and, again, winning it was a major accomplishment. Now, if you choose to enter a pair event, the odds are you won't play against a single professional player and only a handful of experts.... And with the demise of the Sunday attendances, there was not one event in the entire tournament where there was a big field... not one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awm Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 Perhaps one issue with the current masterpoint scheme is that it places a very high value on winning (in other words placing first). While on the surface this seems reasonable, it encourages people to play in small fields where they can win, rather than play in large fields where winning is very difficult. It also encourages people to play in the lowest flight they can get into (figuring they will have a better chance to win) rather than hope to "hold their own" in a higher flight or a stratified event. It's a fairly easy calculation that if I'm in a KO, my bracket will include at most 16 teams. No one on these teams will have a lot more masterpoints than the people on my team, so we will avoid the professional players. Surely my chance of placing first in this event must be substantially better than my chance of placing first in a pairs field, where even a small regional event has around 50 pairs. At some point in the past, Fred indicated that if he attends an entire regional he expects to win over a hundred masterpoints. I'm sure that playing KOs he would have no real trouble doing this. I'd be curious though, if he played in the open pairs throughout an entire regional (with Brad Moss or any of his other regular partners), whether he would win nearly so many points. My guess would be not, even though the pairs fields are by most measures weaker, because it is simply hard to consistently place first out of 50-100 competitors no matter how much better than the average you might be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jlall Posted April 16, 2007 Report Share Posted April 16, 2007 Does anyone else share my indignation that this Swiss only pays 31 points while the Bracket I KO that wrapped up on Friday paid 63? my client :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edmunte1 Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 Congrats Justin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 Does anyone else share my indignation that this Swiss only pays 31 points while the Bracket I KO that wrapped up on Friday paid 63? my client <_< funny, but really.... How does your client feel about this issue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glen Posted April 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 How important would cost be as a reason for popularity: For the Gatlinburg regional, lots of space was available in the $55-70 range (and some lower, and some relative luxury at higher). Session rates were $10. Nashville rates are: "The host hotels are the Renaissance Hotel ($119 plus taxes), Sheraton Downtown ($100 plus taxes) and Courtyard by Marriott ($107 plus taxes)." These are quite reasonable compared to the upcoming fall NABC: "The host hotel is the San Francisco Marriott with a rate of $149 plus taxes s/d. Additional guests are $20 per person". Session rates at the NABC for ACBL members are $18 (national event, no upper limit), $16.50 (national event with upper limit), $15.50 (regional events), $14.50 (other). So if one stayed in Gatlinburg Tues to Sunday night, and played Tuesday to Sunday two sessions, one would pay, say $60 a night and, for two people, $40 a day in session fees, for a total of $540 (not including food, extra taxes etc.). In Nashville, at the Sheraton, playing in regional events for six days (five night stay), one would play $100 a night, and $62 a day in session fees, for a total of $872 (not including the other stuff). For the fall NABC, assuming the $149 room rate covers two people, cost for a Gatlinburg-type stay would be $1117. Edit: these costs do not include parking which will be quite expensive in the middle of a big city. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclayton Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 How important would cost be as a reason for popularity: For the Gatlinburg regional, lots of space was available in the $55-70 range (and some lower, and some relative luxury at higher). Session rates were $10. Nashville rates are: "The host hotels are the Renaissance Hotel ($119 plus taxes), Sheraton Downtown ($100 plus taxes) and Courtyard by Marriott ($107 plus taxes)." These are quite reasonable compared to the upcoming fall NABC: "The host hotel is the San Francisco Marriott with a rate of $149 plus taxes s/d. Additional guests are $20 per person". Session rates at the NABC for ACBL members are $18 (national event, no upper limit), $16.50 (national event with upper limit), $15.50 (regional events), $14.50 (other). So if one stayed in Gatlinburg Tues to Sunday night, and played Tuesday to Sunday two sessions, one would pay, say $60 a night and, for two people, $40 a day in session fees, for a total of $540 (not including food, extra taxes etc.). In Nashville, at the Sheraton, playing in regional events for six days (five night stay), one would play $100 a night, and $62 a day in session fees, for a total of $872 (not including the other stuff). For the fall NABC, assuming the $149 room rate covers two people, cost for a Gatlinburg-type stay would be $1117. I'm guessing eating out in Gatlinberg is a pittance compared to San Francisco too. For the fixed-income crowd, these differences really add up. My estimate for Nashville is about $200 per day - all in; hotel, card fees, food and...scotch :rolleyes: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jlall Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 Does anyone else share my indignation that this Swiss only pays 31 points while the Bracket I KO that wrapped up on Friday paid 63? my client :rolleyes: funny, but really.... How does your client feel about this issue? I doubt she cares. If she cared she would have played all the matches in the swiss rather than half (so she would get more masterpoints) like most of the clients did. I don't understand the big deal here, if it's so easy to win these KOs and so hard to win these swisses then maybe we should have won a KO while we were there. The bracket 1 KOs are much harder events where you always play a reasonable length match against a very strong team. The A/X swiss is mainly a turkey shoot where you just have to blitz the bad teams and get some small or medium wins against the good teams in short matches. I have no problem with a bracket 1 KO of that caliber paying twice as much as the A/X swiss, that seems totally fair to me. If I could change anything I would award less masterpoints to the lower brackets, but I don't really care if they award the lower brackets a lot of points for winning, it keeps people coming back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclayton Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 Does anyone else share my indignation that this Swiss only pays 31 points while the Bracket I KO that wrapped up on Friday paid 63? my client :rolleyes: funny, but really.... How does your client feel about this issue? I doubt she cares. If she cared she would have played all the matches in the swiss rather than half (so she would get more masterpoints) like most of the clients did. I don't understand the big deal here, if it's so easy to win these KOs and so hard to win these swisses then maybe we should have won a KO while we were there. The bracket 1 KOs are much harder events where you always play a reasonable length match against a very strong team. The A/X swiss is mainly a turkey shoot where you just have to blitz the bad teams and get some small or medium wins against the good teams in short matches. I have no problem with a bracket 1 KO of that caliber paying twice as much as the A/X swiss, that seems totally fair to me. If I could change anything I would award less masterpoints to the lower brackets, but I don't really care if they award the lower brackets a lot of points for winning, it keeps people coming back. The Bracket I KO's can frequently be a bitch. Even at a small regional its not uncommon to have 3-4 pro teams, and I'm guessing at Gatlinberg nearly every team entered in the Bracket I, and maybe a lot in Bracket II were pros. What I find disgusting is the lower brackets - say 6 through 12, that benefit greatly from #13 through 33 (yes, 33), since the masterpoints for "x" bracket are calculated by the number of brackets below. If Justin's client only wanted points, she could have hired some other capable pros with less points; 3-5,000 points and been placed in Bracket II / Bracket III and cleaned up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finch Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 I love imps.... it is a form of the game I think I understand better than mps... but the ACBL has gone mad with this incessant flood of KOs... matchpoints is still a viable and delightful form of the game... but it doesn't pay masterpoints to bad players.. while incredibly unskilled players can 'win' or do well in the 5th bracket of a 2 day KO. What we have seen in England over the past 10 years or so is a proliferation of Swiss Pairs events, which i) give masterpoints to lots of people, based on short matches won and ii) are matchpoints, the most familiar form of scoring to people brought up on local club duplicates. OK, I hate them, because one day Swiss pairs events are a completely random lottery. But they are massively popular compared to long matchpoint events with a qual, semi and final which have mainly now been edged out. So I suggest you petition the ACBL to bring in absurd short swiss pairs events. p.s. are ACBL nationals ever in Canada? Two of my regular teammates want to go an play in a NABC, but my husband doesn't want to go to the USA... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jlall Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 p.s. are ACBL nationals ever in Canada? yes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexOgan Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 p.s. are ACBL nationals ever in Canada? yes Most recently in summer 2001, and next in summer 2011... Both in Toronto. There was one in Vancouver in 1999, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo81 Posted April 18, 2007 Report Share Posted April 18, 2007 Every year, this is the one Regional I would like to attend. Unfortunately, I have only been able to make it to two. I will make it next year, hopefully. I would vote for Palm Springs CA in December Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclayton Posted April 18, 2007 Report Share Posted April 18, 2007 Every year, this is the one Regional I would like to attend. Unfortunately, I have only been able to make it to two. I will make it next year, hopefully. I would vote for Palm Springs CA in December Vegas is big too. I'll try to get away for a day or 2 in June. Palm Springs is nice; I go every year, but you still don't have that same atmosphere as the nationals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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