Swiss Team Scoring

[rduran1216]

Now I dont know if this has been hashed out in the past, but I played in a single session swiss. We won all matches (every team played every other team) and still finished second in the standings. Now I understand going to VP scale to determine tie-breaks when the leaders have the same number of match wins, but to me it seems ridiculous that a team who lost a match to another, can still be first in the event once their conquerors win out also.

 

Has this been discussed before?

[JLOGIC]

This was probably discussed when swisses used to be win-loss, and then became VP.

 

Which team performed better: A team that won 3 6 board matches by 30, and lost one by 1, or a team that won 4 6 board matches matches by 1? It is not even close in my opinion that the first team performed better, and I would consider a format where the 2nd team won to suck. The difference in this, and say, a season of baseball games, is that the matches are so short that it is not meaningful to win one in my opinion like it is to win a baseball game. With such short matches, I would prefer for it to be scored like it was one 24 board match, with perhaps a compacting of the weight of killing a bad team, which is exactly what the VP system does.

 

Also in other sports when you are playing to win the game it affects your strategy etc, whereas in bridge where you don't have a running score, it's not like you make strategic decisions in order to try and win your 6 board match (even if it was win-loss this would be rare).

 

If there were some hypothetical 4 team swiss that lasted 3 days, and had day long matches, I would be in favor of it being scored as w/l rather than VPs since winning a long match is meaningful, and might call for strategy adjustments and what not (swinging), but I could still see an argument for this being VP.

 

I imagine if there were forums 20 or 30 years ago, someone might have posted the opposite complaint "win-loss is so dumb, we killed 3 teams and lost one match small, and they lucksacked into winning all of their matches by overtricks, we certainly outplayed them and should be the winner, lets change the system!"

[rduran1216]

The counter to that is that no matter what the disparity in ability, the nature of the boards in a 6-board match could be the determining factor in how wide the victory margin is.

 

At one table, you have 5 cold games, and one partscore. So you make a good decision to buy the contract on the partscore hand and pick up 5 imps lets say winning the match by 9 (overtricks in the other hands)

 

At the other table, a team has 3 hands where game can be made by either side, and a slam out which only one side bids. They similarly outplay their opponents, but because of the nature of the hands, blitz and eclipse the other winning team's results.

 

I similarly dont think its close, and that a premium should be put on doing the best with the hands you are dealt, not taking advantage of mismatches when the boards invite more excitement.

[JLOGIC]

There is an inherent luck factor in bridge, especially in short events/matches. That will never go away.

 

I am not sure why you think if teams A and B beat all the other teams, their 6 board match will not also have a large element of luck. Effectively, you are having those 6 boards decide the event. Yes, it's possible that team A is beating the other teams by more than team B is because they are having action boards. But the more boards there are, the less likely it is that they are winning by luck versus skill.

 

If we had to use all 24 boards of info to decide who played better/more skillfully that day it is possible we'd get it wrong, but it is more likely we'd get it right than using only the other 6 boards. I do not know how you can decide that a team that beats 3 teams by a lot is only doing so because they had action boards as opposed to the other team that won small vs those 3 teams, but when they played head on in a massive 6 board match and team B won small, luck had nothing to do with it.

 

Let's look at this another way. Say you beat 2 bad teams by 30, and lost to one bad team by 3. You probably had bad luck to lose by 3 to the bad team, it was 6 boards afterall. Luckily you demonstrated your superior skill in the other 2 matches by winning by 30. Would you really want that demonstration to not matter, and for one unlucky hand in a 6 board match to cost you the event? It is insane to think that you did worse than beating all of those teams by 3.

 

So yes, there will be luck, but factoring in all the boards and the score of all of the boards so luck is less of a factor is a reason I'd rather use VP than W/L. There is no doubt in my mind that the best team will win less often in a w/l format than in a swiss format, I'm very surprised you think otherwise, and I think the fact that you were on the team that never lost and ended up second might be clouding your judgement.

[gnasher]

The counter to that is that no matter what the disparity in ability, the nature of the boards in a 6-board match could be the determining factor in how wide the victory margin is.

 

At one table, you have 5 cold games, and one partscore. So you make a good decision to buy the contract on the partscore hand and pick up 5 imps lets say winning the match by 9 (overtricks in the other hands)

 

At the other table, a team has 3 hands where game can be made by either side, and a slam out which only one side bids. They similarly outplay their opponents, but because of the nature of the hands, blitz and eclipse the other winning team's results.

 

I similarly dont think its close, and that a premium should be put on doing the best with the hands you are dealt, not taking advantage of mismatches when the boards invite more excitement.

That's an argument for using duplicated boards, not for changing the scoring.

[shintaro]

The counter to that is that no matter what the disparity in ability, the nature of the boards in a 6-board match could be the determining factor in how wide the victory margin is.

 

At one table, you have 5 cold games, and one partscore. So you make a good decision to buy the contract on the partscore hand and pick up 5 imps lets say winning the match by 9 (overtricks in the other hands)

 

At the other table, a team has 3 hands where game can be made by either side, and a slam out which only one side bids. They similarly outplay their opponents, but because of the nature of the hands, blitz and eclipse the other winning team's results.

 

I similarly dont think its close, and that a premium should be put on doing the best with the hands you are dealt, not taking advantage of mismatches when the boards invite more excitement.

 

 

 

not an issue nowadays surely We can and Should all play the same Boards

 

Scoring is a different matter do you think winning by total imps is better than using a VP scale my vote would be for VP scales as it stops really outlandish amount of imps being a factor B-)

[Gerben42]

Well in Europe and in WBF events, people always play the same boards. Okay, sometimes they play the same boards as the week before (this has happened on national level!), but otherwise this is way more fair. If one team is playing for overtricks and play perfect for a 17-13 whereas the other team has 3 slam swings and wins 25-2, that's a bit unfair.

[Hanoi5]

That's an argument for using duplicated boards, not for changing the scoring.

 

I was going to suggest that. Playing the same boards will solve the 'luck' factor in this case. How many tables were there? Sometimes you just need to duplicate at the table one board (the first they played) and then have all the tables take their boards from a place in the room (of course in case you don't have a duplicating machine).

[campboy]

Now I dont know if this has been hashed out in the past, but I played in a single session swiss. We won all matches (every team played every other team) and still finished second in the standings.

If each team plays every other team, that's an all-play-all (aka round robin) not a Swiss. If anything the case for VPs is stronger in an all-play-all than a Swiss.

 

In a Swiss with one very weak team only one of the top teams will get a chance to play against the weak team (who will likely be too far behind after the first round to play against any of the top teams from then on). That team will have an advantage over the others by having a good chance of lots of VPs in that match. I agree with other posters that VPing a Swiss is worth it despite that, but that problem doesn't exist in a round robin.

[rduran1216]

Let's look at this another way. Say you beat 2 bad teams by 30, and lost to one bad team by 3. You probably had bad luck to lose by 3 to the bad team, it was 6 boards afterall. Luckily you demonstrated your superior skill in the other 2 matches by winning by 30. Would you really want that demonstration to not matter, and for one unlucky hand in a 6 board match to cost you the event? It is insane to think that you did worse than beating all of those teams by 3.

 

So yes, there will be luck, but factoring in all the boards and the score of all of the boards so luck is less of a factor is a reason I'd rather use VP than W/L. There is no doubt in my mind that the best team will win less often in a w/l format than in a swiss format, I'm very surprised you think otherwise, and I think the fact that you were on the team that never lost and ended up second might be clouding your judgement.

 

Well I'll give you the sypnosis of last night. We won 11-9, 14-6, 15-5, 20-0.

 

In the 14-6 match, RHO held AJxxx AQJxx - xxx. After opening 1H, then bidding 2S over 2D, they ended up in 4H, with dummy holding Kx Kxx KQxxx xxx. Our partners had a much harder time finding 4H after the standard 1S opening.

 

Now you can say we erred by playing the wrong contract (4S -1) but this bad team was rewarded for a ludicrous auction. those 12 imps were eclipsed by the 25 or so we picked up in the other 5 boards.

 

In the 15-5 round, we got every imp we possibly could, taking a 5C save against their vul 4S game, bidding a slam that the other table didn't bid, and beating their 1NT contract that our teammates played better and made.

 

So perhaps im clouded because I was on the losing end, but I'm not sure I would've celebrated as much if our roles had been reversed. These are not pre-duped boards in a 5 team, 6 board swiss, and with 3 decent teams and two lousy ones, we just got fixed on one board which cost us the overall. Now that kind of thing is true in MP scoring as well, but still even if its 6 boards, I can't imagine a game where a losing team goes higher in the rankings. In any sport or competition, winning is the premium. World cup uses goal differential for tiebreakers, most sports use the margin of victory only as a last resort tiebreaker. Using it as the means of determining who wins I think is unreasonable.

[campboy]

So perhaps im clouded because I was on the losing end, but I'm not sure I would've celebrated as much if our roles had been reversed. These are not pre-duped boards in a 5 team, 6 board swiss, and with 3 decent teams and two lousy ones, we just got fixed on one board which cost us the overall. Now that kind of thing is true in MP scoring as well, but still even if its 6 boards, I can't imagine a game where a losing team goes higher in the rankings. In any sport or competition, winning is the premium. World cup uses goal differential for tiebreakers, most sports use the margin of victory only as a last resort tiebreaker. Using it as the means of determining who wins I think is unreasonable.

It is true that in most sports winning is a premium and the margin of victory barely matters, but by no means all. And it is a feature of bridge that it often places more importance on the margin of victory. We can play a 16-board match against another team and win 10 boards to their 6, but that doesn't mean we win the match. Of course there are forms of competition where winning is all-important (point-a-board, in that example), and they are also fair and interesting. I would be happy to play in an event scored on VPs or on matches won (so long as I knew which it was in advance!).

[zasanya]

I have been in similar situation, where my team won all 3 matches (in the final round robin) and yet we were placed 2nd.On the other hand there was a tournament where we scored 25 and 25 in 2 matches and were drubbed 21-9 in third and yet we were placed first because the team that beat us could manage only 21-9 and 16-14 in the other 2 matches.So you win some you lose some.We may or may not agree with some of the bridge rules but there are pros and cons and better to accept the rules and enjoy the game.BTW the same boards must be played in the 'final place deciding phase' of a tournament.

[rduran1216]

It is true that in most sports winning is a premium and the margin of victory barely matters, but by no means all. And it is a feature of bridge that it often places more importance on the margin of victory. We can play a 16-board match against another team and win 10 boards to their 6, but that doesn't mean we win the match. Of course there are forms of competition where winning is all-important (point-a-board, in that example), and they are also fair and interesting.

 

I agree that winning 10 boards to 6 may not be an indication of doing better, but winning the match overall versus how much you win the match overall seems like a poor way to judge who "won."

[campboy]

I agree that winning 10 boards to 6 may not be an indication of doing better, but winning the match overall versus how much you win the match overall seems like a poor way to judge who "won."

Essentially it goes back to rubber bridge being a money game and the aim is to win by as much as possible or lose by as little as possible. One of the great things about bridge, which not many other games have, is that being able to reduce the magnitude of a loss is worth a lot.

 

In a recent match in the local league (all play all, VPs, 24-board matches) we were 68 down after the first half. If it had been scored on wins we'd've gone home. As it was we played on and pulled back 42 which was worth 4 VPs.

[aguahombre]

Am I hallucinating in my old age, or wasn't there a 30-point scale once upon a time --where there was a big bonus for merely winning because it started at 18-12?

[Bbradley62]

Well I'll give you the sypnosis of last night. We won 11-9, 14-6, 15-5, 20-0.

And what were the scores of the team that won the event?

[Bbradley62]

I imagine if there were forums 20 or 30 years ago, someone might have posted the opposite complaint "win-loss is so dumb, we killed 3 teams and lost one match small, and they lucksacked into winning all of their matches by overtricks, we certainly outplayed them and should be the winner, lets change the system!"

You imagine correctly... In the early 1980s it was common for Flt A events to be scored on VP while Flt B events used W/L. (There was no such thing as stratified yet, and those were the only non-rookie divisions.) As a young Flt B player, I asked our Sectional DIC (Sol Weinstein) why this was the case, and he said "because Flt B players don't understand how they can win all their matches and not win the event". After getting elected to our Unit Board in 1985, I repeated this story to the 10 or so Flt B players on the Board (out of 27 members) and we unanimously insisted that the rule be changed to have all events be VP. I know that message had not yet reached Memphis by 1991, because on the last day of the Fall 1991 NABC, the regionally-rated events included Flt A Swiss (VP) and Flt B Swiss (W/L). And yes, we all commented about how dumb we thought that was...

[Bbradley62]

Am I hallucinating in my old age, or wasn't there a 30-point scale once upon a time --where there was a big bonus for merely winning because it started at 18-12?

You are not hallucinating.

[cherdano]

Well I'll give you the sypnosis of last night. We won 11-9, 14-6, 15-5, 20-0.

 

In the 14-6 match, RHO held AJxxx AQJxx - xxx. After opening 1H, then bidding 2S over 2D, they ended up in 4H, with dummy holding Kx Kxx KQxxx xxx. Our partners had a much harder time finding 4H after the standard 1S opening.

 

Now you can say we erred by playing the wrong contract (4S -1) but this bad team was rewarded for a ludicrous auction. those 12 imps were eclipsed by the 25 or so we picked up in the other 5 boards.

 

In the 15-5 round, we got every imp we possibly could, taking a 5C save against their vul 4S game, bidding a slam that the other table didn't bid, and beating their 1NT contract that our teammates played better and made.

Bridge is random, especially a 24-board event involving 6 teams. W/L scoring makes it more random, not less random.

 

So perhaps im clouded because I was on the losing end, but I'm not sure I would've celebrated as much if our roles had been reversed. These are not pre-duped boards in a 5 team, 6 board swiss, and with 3 decent teams and two lousy ones, we just got fixed on one board which cost us the overall. Now that kind of thing is true in MP scoring as well, but still even if its 6 boards, I can't imagine a game where a losing team goes higher in the rankings. In any sport or competition, winning is the premium. World cup uses goal differential for tiebreakers, most sports use the margin of victory only as a last resort tiebreaker. Using it as the means of determining who wins I think is unreasonable.

Bridge has more randomness than other sports. That's why it's more important to use a scoring method that doesn't add additional randomness (such as W/L scoring rather than total points in a 336 minutes basketball playoff, or sets and games in tennis).

 

Evidence suggests that yes, you were clouded because you were on the losing end. (What if you had won the first three matches 20-0, but then you had lost the last one 9-11 because of two such accidents, despite playing better than the other team?)

[manudude03]

I've been in the wrong end of that a few times. The most annoying one was probably in a 19-round swiss winning 18 and losing 1 coming second when the winners won 16 lost 3. I also remember a rather funny league standing where out of 9 teams, 3 had won 7 and lost 1. I was in one of those teams, and finished 4th.

 

And yes, I've won every match and come 2nd before.

[rduran1216]

I dont understand people who think w/l is more random then accounting for margin of victory. Please name for me some kind of competition where you have head to head matches, and instead of winning those, its the margins of victory that determine outcome. Who were the NFL champions in 2007? Who were the world cup champions in 2006, was it teams who blasted their opponents?

[cherdano]

I dont understand people who think w/l is more random then accounting for margin of victory.

Well, by now even the dumbest basketball writer has started to understand that average margin of victory is a better predictor for winning future games than the win/loss record. So maybe there is still hope for you, too.

Please name for me some kind of competition where you have head to head matches, and instead of winning those, its the margins of victory that determine outcome.

Chess Olympiad.

Ok that's in a way a flawed example but in any case I don't understand what this question is trying to prove.

[kayin801]

There's more than one format of bridge and there are formats that are won based on the criteria you prefer. Just like there's matchpoint vs. IMP events there's also Swiss vs. head-to-head events.

 

If someone thinks matchpoints are dumb, I'm not convinced they should crusade to make the scoring of all games of that format similar to the format they prefer :P

 

Matchpoints is probably an appropriate analogy in this situation. In a 12 board match a team could win 11-1 at BAM and lose 14-11 at IMPs. (Yes I know people will play differently under the different formats)

[awm]

First, swiss team scoring is just very random, especially in a short event. It will always be the case that a single "lucky" board where opponents do something anti-percentage can decide a match, or prevent you from blitzing, or whatever. This has little to do with whether the scoring is W/L or VP.

 

As for comparing to football, in the NFL playoffs when a team loses they are out. In the world cup (after the initial group phase) when a team loses they are out. But in swiss teams, we want everyone to continue playing until the end of the event, and we want to make sure that teams who suffer an unlucky close loss have the chance to come back and win. A W/L system makes this impossible; once you lose a match you are (probably) out of contention.

 

If you look at baseball's regular season for an example (or the NBA), you might notice that the same pairs of teams are playing each other multiple times. At the end of the season, you don't add things up and say, well the Yankees won ten out of eighteen games with the Red Sox so we give the Yankees a "WIN" for that series... and the Yankees won two out of eighteen games with the Rays so that's a "LOSS" and they are 1-1. No, you count every single game separately even if it's against the same team. If you look at a bridge event in this way, and say that every single board should count in the standings rather than somehow combining into a "total result against that team"... well, you get BAM scoring... but it's a lot closer.

 

This also makes sense from the standpoint that you don't usually know what your "match score" is and can't adapt strategy to sacrifice a "big win" in order try to win by a narrow margin (i.e. running out the clock).

[rogerclee]

Aaron you have provided a lot of evidence that the 20VP scale is capable of selecting a winning team which did not play the best bridge. If this is your only point, then I think we can all agree with you and move on.