ACBL Speedball tournament

[A2003]

Why is speedball game is popular for ACBL tournaments?

Is it good for bridge to play at this pace?

Looking at the record, there are lot of unfinished boards at each round for board 3, board 6, board 9 and board 12.

Each unfinished teams get average score for unplayed hands and it affects other teams score also.

There are some regular games getting canceled.

It appears 10-15 minutes more time needed to finish all the boards for all the teams.

[TylerE]

The people who play at a reasonable pace find the normal tourneys unbearably slow. Who wants to wait 10 minutes after every round?

[glen]

There are some regular games getting canceled.

Please explain or provide details - do you mean tourneys are being cancelled?

 

In the last slowball we played in, opps at each table complained how slow the event was - what was happening was that the 4 at each table was playing at speedball pace (for better or worse) - so we finish each round with 7 to 11 minutes to spare - with the writers strike, there was no material to fill in the gaps.

[uday]

do you mean tourneys are being cancelled

 

N, but at some specific times we are finding that there just isn't much interest in slowballs ( 11AM leaps to mind) . If there are not enough registrants, any tourney (acbl or otherwise ) will not start up.

 

U

[glen]

I suggested moving the 11 slowball for 10:30 for this reason - imo it is mistake to start a slowball and speedball at the same time

[mike777]

speedball is indeed killing off slowball. See midnight game est. The speedball game is huge, over 70 pairs at times. This is bigger(more pairs) than many open regional MP games.

 

btw the unfinished hands are often adjuted by director. I have no idea how the directors can do this, handle typical director calls and handle typical latenight rudeness calls all at speedball pace.

 

btw2, in f2f bridge I find myself playing at speedball pace..sometimes 45 minutes early in a tg or at mp claiming on the opening lead.

[tbr]

One saving grace in speedball is not having time to get coffee between rounds.

[A2003]

One saving grace in speedball is not having time to get coffee between rounds.

No break between the games. Suggest to stagger the games by 15-30 minutes at least.

This will allow to take a break or do something else.

[PassedOut]

I love the speedball games, except for the all-too-frequent stalling by opponents about to have a bad result on the last board of a round.

[Guest movingon]

I play speedballs because the regular tournaments played at the times I play always seem to have very few registrants. If that weren't the case, I would likely play more regular tournaments.

 

I am normally a fast player, so, although I DO make some errors that slower play might prevent me from making, I generally do ok.

 

I don't like it, however, when opponents or partner dally on the first two boards and we are under pressure on the third board to finish or take an average minus if we don't.

 

and I really don't like the fact that the last round isn't given just a minute or so more so that the final results are actually the final results.

 

I have noticed that one pair that I have suspected of cheating doesn't play the speedballs. I like that.