Fall Nationals

[h2osmom]

I have an idea for fall nationals, and I have written to ACBL about it, but I didn't get any response. I am wondering if anyone has similar thoughts to me. Fall nationals are BAM nationals. There are open BAM, women's BAM, and the Reisinger BAM. The limited events, like the 0-1500 Spingold are pretty popular, and I think there should be a 0-1500/0-5000 BAM event at fall nationals. I also think that 0-5000 Blue Ribbon pairs is an event that shouldn't exist. Red Ribbon pairs already is a limited qualifying ribbon event. I think the problem is in scheduling a limited BAM event. Women's BAM is concurrent with Open BAM, and National Swiss is concurrent with Reisinger. I think the women's BAM could be eliminated. 0-1500 and 0-5000 BAM events would be far more well attended, and developing players usually don't have a lot of BAM experience. It would be really nice to have a limited BAM running concurrently to the Open BAM. Please post if you have thoughts about this, and also how to better present this to the ACBL if you agree that it would be a positive change. Thank you.

[Elianna]

Didn't you write to ACBL to ask for the 0-5000 Blue Ribbon Pairs? Or was it someone else.

 

And congrats on winning your KO.

[h2osmom]

No, I never suggested a limited blue ribbon event. I don't even agree with having one. Thank you, was fun regional for me.

[peachy]

The Red Ribbon is a GCC event while Blue Ribbon and Mini-Blue are not.

I don't have an objection to Mini-Blue, at least no more of an objection than what I have to Mini-Spingold or other mini-events limited to 5000 masterpoints as long as they don't award Platinum points. But AFAIK, they do :rolleyes: I hope I am wrong about that.

[Mbodell]

I don't think the 0-5000 BR should be eliminated for 2 reasons:

 

1. It is a good and popular event (they are expanding it to 3 days this year, partially because there have been so many people playing it).

 

2. It makes the real BR better as if there were no 0-5000 BR some number of the 0-5000 players would play in the BR and water it down.

 

On the other hand, having a limited BAM is probably a good idea.

 

The fall national is a little weird in that it is all MP and also doesn't have a grass roots event (NAP, GNT) that brings some of the lower experienced folks to the other nationals. Plus the whole thanksgiving thing makes it a lot easier for some folks and a lot harder for others, so attendance is odd.

 

But doing a limited BAM concurrent with the Open BAM might work. However, there aren't that many teams in the Open BAM. In San Diego there were something like 120 teams iirc, so a concurrent limited event might pull some folks who played KO or pairs as well as a few of the stretching team from the open and could work.

 

I don't think you need to eliminate the Women's BAM, as the Women's events get used by seeding for Women team qualifications. And anyways, there were only 36 teams last year in the Women's BAM (which is more than something like the Wagner!).

[Mbodell]

I don't have an objection to Mini-Blue, at least no more of an objection than what I have to Mini-Spingold or other mini-events limited to 5000 masterpoints as long as they don't award Platinum points. But AFAIK, they do :rolleyes: I hope I am wrong about that.

You are wrong about that. You can't get platinum playing in a limited (by masterpoint) event. You can get platinum playing in a limited (by gender or age) event.

 

Platinum Points

 

Platinum points are awarded for NABC+ events (which are national-rated events with no upper masterpoint limit) and include the national-rated senior and women’s events.

[karlson]

I think the limited BAM is a great idea, and I would run it concurrent with the first open BAM. BAM is a great format and a lot of people don't get much exposure to it.

[3for3]

A limited BAM only needs to be 2 days. Make it the last weekend, and those who are unlucky in the Swiss or Reisinger can play in it.

 

Danny

[TimG]

A limited BAM only needs to be 2 days. Make it the last weekend, and those who are unlucky in the Swiss or Reisinger can play in it.

 

Danny

A "consolation" BAM is a good idea, but I bet more than a few teams would opt out on the first day of the Swiss and Reisinger and not risk qualifying.

[JoAnneM]

I think the best way to approach ACBL about something like this is through your District Director. I don't know which District you are in but you can find your Director at http://www.acbl.org/about/bod.html

[barmar]

While this sounds interesting, I wonder how popular it would be. I don't think most intermediate and advanced players really care much for BAM format. It's arguably the most difficult form of the game, and most players have little chance to play it -- it's almost never used in club and sectional games, and pretty rare in regionals (in New England there used to be a one-session side BAM in the January regional, but I think it went away). And even at the nationals, the only BAMs aside from the NABC+ events are one-session games that teams enter begrudgingly when they fail in KOs.

[awm]

Addressing at least h2osmom's problem, the district 23 (Los Angeles) regionals have recently added two-session BAM events, both at the summer "bridge week" regional in Pasadena and now in the fall regional in Marina Del Rey. Since this is h2osmom's home district (and mine, for that matter) she should have more opportunities to play in BAM events. They're even stratified.

 

As far as nationals go, I do sometimes miss the days when there were huge national events with many hundreds of tables. Continually adding more events (both of the NABC+ and the limited variety) helps people avoid stronger (or weaker) players that they don't want to play against... this has its merits, but there don't seem to be many huge events any more. On a given day at nationals, there's frequently as many as two or three NABC+ events starting (counting seniors and womens), lots of brackets of KOs, a two-session open pairs, and a multitude of limited and/or single-session events. Even the "unlimited open" field is split between the NABC+ offerings, the top KO bracket, and the pairs. Do we really need so many simultaneous events?

[aguahombre]

As far as nationals go, I do sometimes miss the days when there were huge national events with many hundreds of tables.

Speaking of the District 23 Regionals which you mentioned before this quote: Bridge Week often had open pairs events with ten or more sections. This was before you were born, but it was exciting to watch Barry Crane quckly add his score from the raw burner sheets; then he would scamper around to every sheet on the walls to see his status.

 

He also noticed the unknowns who were in the overalls ---long before the final scores were posted, and went out of his way to compliment them. It was easy to spot the really unknowns, because of their table numbers(2, 4, 8, 12), but then he would find out their names. He didn't forget them, either.

 

Sorry for the nostalgic stuff, but I really miss the huge pair games, for that and other reasons (not to mention missing Barry).

 

I know this thread is about the Fall Nationals, but the theme of creating more and more simultaneous events is applicable to regionals, as well. It is sad to see a single section, two-session pairs event ---and stratified at that :lol: because of all the bracketed K.O.'s and beginner games which encourage people to not play out of their stratum.

 

Good luck trying to eliminate the women's BAM, even though it is ill-attended and should have no bearing on seeding for international competition trials which are IMP events.

[awm]

A related observation: several regionals have two-day pair events (including the Santa Clara Regional in D21 and Pasadena Bridge Week in D23). These events are a lot of fun (especially for those of us who prefer matchpoints and/or don't have the masterpoints to get into the top KO brackets). Anyway, at points past the regionals tried to schedule these events such that there were no other "open" events starting the same day, to try and get all the good (well okay high masterpoint total anyway) players attending to participate.

 

There were a lot of complaints about this from people who wanted to play IMP teams the whole time, and eventually the tournament committees backed down and started scheduling KOs (and I think also two-session pairs) with a simultaneous start. The two-day pair events are still fun, but the field has shrunk a lot because of this.

[TimG]

I recently attended a District 25 (New England) regional. On both Friday and Saturday, they had two two-session pair events. One was at 10 & 2:30, the other at 1 and 7. Other than the starting times, they were essentially the same event. This was in addition to bracketed or compact KOs, and a few one session events. I guess it's nice to have choices, but it does seem to detract from the "premier" nature of any single event.

[bucky]

While this sounds interesting, I wonder how popular it would be. I don't think most intermediate and advanced players really care much for BAM format. It's arguably the most difficult form of the game, and most players have little chance to play it --

This almost argues for having limited BAM: for players who don't like to play in open BAM because they'd have little chance, here comes the event that they have a better chance to perform well...

[xcurt]

A limited BAM only needs to be 2 days.  Make it the last weekend, and those who are unlucky in the Swiss or Reisinger can play in it. 

 

Danny

A "consolation" BAM is a good idea, but I bet more than a few teams would opt out on the first day of the Swiss and Reisinger and not risk qualifying.

Hmmm, "risk" playing in the Reisinger semifinals or play in the limited BAM......

 

Note: I've "risked" this twice and never got "unlucky" by qualifying....

[ggwhiz]

A proper survey of the membership opinion including the suggestion in this thread is the way to go and I recall the ACBL doing such a few years ago. I believe it was supposed to be an ongoing process but has stopped.

 

The equivalent of Regional Tournaments in South Africa typically run for 4 days or so at some off-season resort and are often 1 stratified pairs event with only 1 session some days to accomodate holiday activities.

 

We have gone the opposite direction with 6 concurrent events of a few tables each and I also long for the good old days of big occassion events.