Shanghai Butlers

[bhall]

I have been doing a cumulative Butler rating for USA1 & 2 and Fantunes. As might be expected, Fantunes leads with 0.92 after playing 14 sessions. Garner-Weinstein and Meckwell are very close to each other at 0.57 and 0.53, respectively.

 

The other USA pairs are not performing well, although Zia-Rosenberg had a great start. Has anyone else been looking at the Butlers? Who else is doing significantly better than average? I hope that the organizers will compile a total Butler after all 21 sessions have been played.

[TylerE]

What exactly is a Butler rating?

[BillHiggin]

http://www.brenning.se/results/2007/shangh...-qualifying.htm

 

And the good news - their numbers agree with yours!

 

There is a page with links to round by round butlers, but Fred might shoot me if I mentioned it :) (hint - think of 7-4-1-1 shaped hands)

[PeterE]

All matches are using the same boards. So this can be interpreted as playing a pairs contest as well.

Now you calculate the "datum score", that is the arithmetic mean of all scores in a board (BB, VC and SB separately).

This datum score is interpreted as your teammate's score and now you reach your own score in comparison with the datum score using the IMP table. If you add all IMP-scores of a match, you get your Butler score for this match.

 

And, of course, your can build a rating with this scores. It shows in a way the pair's part in a teams result.

 

Butler (is)was an English (?) Bridgeplayer.

[DenisO]

For USA2 Meckwell are lying 3rd and Nickell/Freeman a respectable 15th but Hamman/Lall are languishing at 69th - does this explain why USA2 are struggling to get into a qualifying spot?

 

There seems to be some correlation with team performance as I guess Ireland's poor performance must be down mainly to Hanlon/McGann ( who are probably their top pair), having such a bad time - 61st in the Butlers.

[DenisO]

What exactly is a Butler rating?

Try rgb here:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.games...arch+this+group

[fred]

There seems to be some correlation with team performance as I guess Ireland's poor performance must be down mainly to Hanlon/McGann ( who are probably their top pair), having such a bad time - 61st in the Butlers.

Not sure about that correlation...

 

It is often the case that a team's best pair will play all of the matches against strong teams and sit out against most/all of the matches against weaker teams.

 

That could put a big dent in a pair's Butler score.

 

Of course if a team's best pair is playing poorly, the team rates to be doing poorly too. But a low Butler score does not necessarily reflect poor play.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[bhall]

http://www.brenning.se/results/2007/shangh...-qualifying.htm

 

And the good news - their numbers agree with yours!

 

There is a page with links to round by round butlers, but Fred might shoot me if I mentioned it :) (hint - think of 7-4-1-1 shaped hands)

Thanks for the link, Bill. I have been getting my roud-by-round data from that unmentionable site.

 

Fred's point may be valid in some cases, but USA1 & 2 are playing their best pairs in almost every match - Meckwell has sat out only twice, while Garner-Weinstein have sat out four times. Fantunes has sat out 6 times, exactly one third of the matches played. Jacobs-Katz have only played in 7 matches so far; I think they will have to play in all three remaining matches to qualify for participation in the KO phase.

 

If fatigue becomes a factor, the Italian team is in the best shape and USA2, the worst.

 

Bill Hall

[paulg]

Jacobs-Katz have only played in 7 matches so far; I think they will have to play in all three remaining matches to qualify for participation in the KO phase.

I don't understand this comment. I've had a quick glance at the CoCs and did not spot any such regulation and, indeed, as they will have played at least a third of the boards in the round-robin (7 matches of 21) they qualify for masterpoints, prizes and titles.

 

Paul

[cherdano]

There seems to be some correlation with team performance as I guess Ireland's poor performance must be down mainly to Hanlon/McGann ( who are probably their top pair), having such a bad time - 61st in the Butlers.

Not sure about that correlation...

 

It is often the case that a team's best pair will play all of the matches against strong teams and sit out against most/all of the matches against weaker teams.

 

That could put a big dent in a pair's Butler score.

 

Of course if a team's best pair is playing poorly, the team rates to be doing poorly too. But a low Butler score does not necessarily reflect poor play.

Well and some teams prefer to have their anchor pair always play against the supposedly better pair when the team has seating rights (my guess is Auken-von Arnim usually do that in the German VC team).

 

Anyway, I don't understand why it is still common to compute butler scores instead of CrossIMPs (slightly better) or a rating (much better, would completely eliminate Fred's objection).

 

Arend

[bhall]

Jacobs-Katz have only played in 7 matches so far; I think they will have to play in all three remaining matches to qualify for participation in the KO phase.

I don't understand this comment. I've had a quick glance at the CoCs and did not spot any such regulation and, indeed, as they will have played at least a third of the boards in the round-robin (7 matches of 21) they qualify for masterpoints, prizes and titles.

 

Paul

I didn't look at the BB conditions. Some KOs with qualifying phases require each player to play at least half of the boards in order to move to the KO phase, and awards are only made to them up to the point where their participation can no longer meet this criterion in the remaining matches.

 

From what you say, the BB only requires one-third participation. That's almost as bad as the very old days, when a sponsor could play one quarter and then sit back and root for his team.

[Guest Jlall]

The butler is overrated. Often you have say the best pair, the second best pair, and the third best pair.

 

The best pair plays all the boards, and the third best pair plays the minimum number of boards vs the worst teams. Where does that leave the 2nd pair when it comes to the butler? They played every good team and none of the bad teams so will surely have the worst butler.

 

There are other dynamics you can have where the top pair gets screwed (ie, they play vs the best pair of the other team all the time), or rest vs the bad teams.

[mrdct]

The cream does seem to rise to the top though.

 

For clarity on the Conditions of Contest, the minimum board playing requirements are:

 

In order to qualify for the Medals, Title, MPs and PPs won by the team, a player, in any case, must have played at least one third of the boards in the Round Robin.

 

For first place: at least one third of the total number of hands in the final, semi-final and quarter-final combined and at least one third of the total number of hands in the final.

 

For second place: at least one third the total number of hands in the semi-final and quarter-final combined and at least one third of the total number of hands in the semifinal.

 

For third place: at least one third of the total number of the hands in the semi-final and play-off combined and at least one third in the playoff.

 

For fourth place: at least one third of the total number of the hands in the semi-final and play-off combined.