Online pts count 100%

[billw55]

Would it be best if the whole system were pointless, colorless, and tasteless?

Some might argue that is in fact pointless ;)

[jeffford76]

This is almost certainly the reason that open qualifier-and-final games have all but disappeared from the calendar in the ACBL.

 

I find this a pity - it used to be the standard Saturday game at our sectionals, and my first "step up" bridge memory was the first time I qualified for the final. In next-to-last place, and we got hammered in the evening, but just qualifying was an achievement. I think a lot of people miss out on that kind of low-level achievement (it's just not the same as "first in C" or "first in B" or whatever). I try to play in it whenever I see it (and am not working the game), because I want to keep it around!

 

The events that get run at ACBL sectionals are up to the units running the tournaments. If you (generic, not mycroft specifically) want to see a particular event, either convince your local board, or run for a position.

 

In Seattle we did a revamp of our sectionals a couple years ago to add variety to the schedule. Over the course of the four sectionals we have a 1 and 2 session BAM, a two session qualifier pairs, an IMP pairs, and a four session KO in addition to the normal 1-2 session MP pairs and 2-session Swiss games.

 

We also have several 0-750 and 0-2000 events that have greatly increased attendance in that crowd.

[mycroft]

Well, it might be time for the pendulum to swing back...

 

The problem is that the stratified games are the only way to keep the large body of B players playing against the As. For instance, that Seattle tournament list; I'm betting that in order to get the good variety of games, they *needed* those 0-750 and 0-2000 games (and, of course, the size to make all those games work).

 

I don't think that the rank-and-file Bs actually *want* to ever play against the "good players" - they didn't want to when they had 500, and they still don't want to when they have 1100, 1600, 1950,...

 

But, yeah, pushing for more different games by the Tournament Organisers is a good start.

[vuroth]

Those coloured point requirements are REALLY easy and shouldn't hold anyone back unless they are under house arrest.

 

I understand what you're saying, but I bet it would be easier for me to get 50 points online than 5 silver points.

 

I have no problem with the ACBL holding the fact that I have 0 silver points over my head, holding me back. It's not going to motivate me to attend sectionals or even club games, but I suspect it works on most of the membership, which is fine.

[wyman]

Those coloured point requirements are REALLY easy and shouldn't hold anyone back unless they are under house arrest.

 

Purely on-line poker players don't have the same status as face to face players either nor should they.

 

 

Not sure if serious.

 

 

This was certainly true until the many successes of online poker players in major events. And I would say that most traditional poker players grant respect to online players on a case-by-case basis based on success in brick and mortar tournaments.

 

Perhaps this is best discussed in another thread, but since we're here...

 

In poker, the scorecard is measured in dollars, so an online player need not be concerned about the opinion of a B&M player -- or any player for that matter -- whereas bridge achievements (at least the ones in question) are pretty much only to stick on the refrigerator, so if a large portion of the community discounts your achievement, this somehow tarnishes it.

 

However, in my experience, only the terrible B&M players discount the achievements of online players these days. Online players see so many more hands/situations, and they have the technology to analyze stats and ranges at their fingertips. Obviously you lose the software when you move to B&M, but many things that you've quantified with your software become instinctive after seeing them enough times -- sort of like how bridge experts just know the right way to play a suit without thinking about it.

[ArtK78]

I understand what you're saying, but I bet it would be easier for me to get 50 points online than 5 silver points.

 

Getting 5 silver points is so absurdly easy that it barely moves the bridge skill needle.

 

However, if by easier you mean that it is easier to log onto BBO and earn online points than it is to drive to a sectional and play, yes, it is easier to earn the online points.

[mycroft]

In certain places (and the NJ/NY corridor is not one of them, sorry ArtK) silver points are *absurdly* difficult to get (well, 50 of them, anyway; 5 I agree with). We have 4 sectionals a year - this time, the two-session 0-1000 pairs payed 4.something *to win*, and the two-session 0-1000 teams payed 5.02. The nearest next sectional (2 of them) is a two-hour drive, and likely pays 7 to win the two-session *open* pairs. The nearest next is three hours away, there are 4 of those, and they're smaller than ours here in Calgary. After that (and a couple 3 hours the other way), you're leaving the province - a province you could dump the entire New England megalopolis into and never notice (even the southern, "populated" end).

 

If one is willing to go to Penticton and play in Bracket 7, 8 of 9 all week, you can likely, with ordinary results, make your 25G-25R/G in two years (not counting the other couple of regionals you could go to). But that's an 8-hour drive, and we're lucky it's for some reason really popular, and the largest regional in Canada. If the average NLM makes more than 5 SP a year (and most of those are .20/match on Sundays) I'd be surprised. The best NLMs are different, of course, but it's still harder to get 50 silver than 50 red-or-gold.

[jeffford76]

The problem is that the stratified games are the only way to keep the large body of B players playing against the As. For instance, that Seattle tournament list; I'm betting that in order to get the good variety of games, they *needed* those 0-750 and 0-2000 games (and, of course, the size to make all those games work).

 

This is certainly true for some of the events. We weren't going to run a qualifying pairs which by rule can't be stratified without something in parallel for the B players who would stay home rather than play without strats. Similarly although the BAM is stratified, we found that a lot of the B players were more comfortable playing pairs or Swiss.

[ggwhiz]

Getting 5 silver points is so absurdly easy that it barely moves the bridge skill needle.

 

We have a New Zealand transplant in Canada that won 3 (I believe) National Championships before making life master.

 

Her local berg had a once a week 7 table game and she couldn't get black points. Every time she visited and played in clubs here they announced a special game with silver, red, gold whatever points and she would scream Damn!

[ArtK78]

In certain places (and the NJ/NY corridor is not one of them, sorry ArtK) silver points are *absurdly* difficult to get (well, 50 of them, anyway; 5 I agree with). We have 4 sectionals a year - this time, the two-session 0-1000 pairs payed 4.something *to win*, and the two-session 0-1000 teams payed 5.02. The nearest next sectional (2 of them) is a two-hour drive, and likely pays 7 to win the two-session *open* pairs. The nearest next is three hours away, there are 4 of those, and they're smaller than ours here in Calgary. After that (and a couple 3 hours the other way), you're leaving the province - a province you could dump the entire New England megalopolis into and never notice (even the southern, "populated" end).

 

If one is willing to go to Penticton and play in Bracket 7, 8 of 9 all week, you can likely, with ordinary results, make your 25G-25R/G in two years (not counting the other couple of regionals you could go to). But that's an 8-hour drive, and we're lucky it's for some reason really popular, and the largest regional in Canada. If the average NLM makes more than 5 SP a year (and most of those are .20/match on Sundays) I'd be surprised. The best NLMs are different, of course, but it's still harder to get 50 silver than 50 red-or-gold.

I guess I am spoiled. To me, the fact that I am in Atlantic City and have to drive an hour to reach Philadelphia or 2 1/2 hours to reach New York City is an imposition. I didn't bother to attend a sectional in suburban Philadelphia last weekend as it would have been more than an hour trip for me. You have much more difficult problems.

 

Of course, I never needed silver points, having become a life master in 1977. Not that it would have been a problem to get them. According to my masterpoint total on the ACBL website, I have over 1100 silver points, and I won a lot of points at sectionals before silver points were invented.

 

I also learned to write by using a chisel on stone. :)

[Phil]

In certain places ..... silver points are *absurdly* difficult to get (well, 50 of them, anyway; 5 I agree with). We have 4 sectionals a year - this time, the two-session 0-1000 pairs payed 4.something *to win*, and the two-session 0-1000 teams payed 5.02. The nearest next sectional (2 of them) is a two-hour drive, and likely pays 7 to win the two-session *open* pairs. The nearest next is three hours away, there are 4 of those, and they're smaller than ours here in Calgary.

 

TWO HOUR DRIVE!!! OMG! In Montana we used to regularly drive 4-6+++ hours. For sectionals too.

 

It can't be that easy to get gold either. Back in the day, Montana would frequently go a full calendar year without a regional, so you had to go to Spokane, or Boise.

[wyman]

I'd jump on the bandwagon for a summer NABC in Bozeman. I'd take a day or two off of play for Yellowstone, and I'd tack a few on at the end for Glacier, but whatever.

[mycroft]

TWO HOUR DRIVE!!! OMG! In Montana we used to regularly drive 4-6+++ hours. For sectionals too.

 

It can't be that easy to get gold either. Back in the day, Montana would frequently go a full calendar year without a regional, so you had to go to Spokane, or Boise.

Heh. Still just as bad. I'll tell you a secret: Calgary's closer than Spokane from a lot of Montana - but it only has one regional every three years. If you're in the Eastern part of Montana, Saskatoon or Regina are definitely closer than Spokane.

 

Having said that, you are correct - at least in Alberta, it's guaranteed to have a regional in the province (and 2 every fourth year). But people make the 7-hour drive to Regina/Saskatoon, or the 8-hour drive to Penticton, every year (or the 6ish hour drive to Cranbrook, or the 5ish to Shelby, MO, for the sectional) every year.

 

I was just pointing out the *closest* ones.

[blackshoe]

ROFL, Art!

 

I know squat about professional poker, on line or off, but I did read somewhere several years ago about an online player who'd done very well in that milieu, who then went to Vegas to play in a tournament there, and got his head handed to him. Of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer, but... :lol:

[Phil]

I have the best memories of Shelby. It was the 1st sectional I ever attended when I started in 1980.

 

(For the uninitiated), Shelby was frequently a stop for many players traveling coast to coast or back across the border immediately following the Spring NABC. It was a pretty strong tournament for a little podunk town of about 2,000.

[Zelandakh]

I know squat about professional poker, on line or off, but I did read somewhere several years ago about an online player who'd done very well in that milieu, who then went to Vegas to play in a tournament there, and got his head handed to him. Of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer, but... :lol:

Perhaps you also read about the Finnish online poker player who qualified for his first (major) F2F tournament via an online qualifier (Pro-Am) and won the amateur section outright. He then played heads-up against the winner of the pro section and outplayed him to win very quickly (around half a dozen hands). He has since had success in other F2F tournaments. I daresay the player you read about could become a good F2F player with some practise on controlling his tells. It seems pretty obvious to me that an online player should work extremely hard on this aspect of their game before playing against F2F pros.

[cherdano]

See, things in the ACBL are so much easier. We just have platinum points, and gold points, and red points, and silver points, and black points. No online points anymore though. Oh and seeding points for the USBF. Oh, and Blue ribbon qualfiers. Oh, and NABC+ wins (needed for GLM).

 

But we do still have online points. They are still going to be colorless, not black, and still not count towards Ace of Clubs, as far as I can tell - the only thing that changed about online points is that all of them count towards one's rank.

 

Actually, I also forgot eligibility points...

[gnasher]

There are also "equivalency points", which are what they give to overseas visitors for seeding purposes.

[JLOGIC]

ROFL, Art!

 

I know squat about professional poker, on line or off, but I did read somewhere several years ago about an online player who'd done very well in that milieu, who then went to Vegas to play in a tournament there, and got his head handed to him. Of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer, but... :lol:

 

Lol. The highest stakes games were for several years online. The live pros who played in it, including the TV celebrities that the average pros knew got completely owned as per online tracking sites of the highest stakes games over sample sizes that would take a lifetime to play in real life (literally), with the exception of Ivey who is just the nuts and is the biggest winner online also. Conversely, the online players who were smart enough to get themselves into TV cash games consistently destroyed the former TV celebs at NLHE, some of them becoming very famous in their own rite (durrrr for example). It was funny to watch Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson and Chris Ferguson against guys like Tom Dwan and Scott Seiver. The top online tournament specialists became some of the biggest winners in live tournaments, guys like elky and jason mercier and annette. Not that that really matters, online results are far more relevant since they have such a massively larger sample of hands/tournaments.

 

The truth is, the best online players became far better than the best live players after the poker boom at no limit hold em, limit hold em, and PLO, both tournaments and cash games. Poker theory was really in its infancy, nobody knew anything, and those who knew something kept their secrets to themselves. Even if you spent a lifetime playing poker like Doyle Brunson, you could not see as many hands as top volume online players played in a few years, and you certainly would not play against competition as tough (in the absolute sense), or have anyone else to talk to. The game evolved tremendously because you now had a ton of smart people analyzing poker seriously and playing millions of hands. It would be like bridge before there was much theory, and all of the sudden you had a ridiculous amount of people play a million bridge hands. The game would evolve enormously.

 

As a result, the best online players had the strongest fundamentals, had faced the best competition, and had the most experience. They salivated at the thought of playing someone like Hellmuth or Brunson heads up, literally if one of those guys would show up online at a 200/400 NL game, there would be a waitlist of 20 online pros long just to take a shot even if they normally wouldn't play that high. Guys like Ivey who were just great poker talents played online and evolved with the games.

 

It is a huge joke that someone could win a lot of money online, and then go play in one tournament, and "get their ass handed to them." Do you realize how silly that is? In one tournament, the best player int he world is less than 50 % to make the money. They are very unlikely to win. Poker has a lot of variance, there is a lot of luck in the short term. That is why the online tournament grinders play 30 tournaments a day, every day. It would be like saying someone played one hand of blackjack while the count was good but lost so they got owned.

 

But it is not a coincidence that far more players have successfully transitioned from online to live than from live to online, despite there being much more money in it online at that point in time (for cash game players). As someone who played online a lot and now plays only live, I can tell you that live is really a joke compared to online. The general rule is that the skill level in stakes is about a 10:1 ratio for live to online, so 5/10 NL is like .5/.1 online.

 

Yes, the live players will be better with the live tell stuff, but this is not really as much of factor in poker as people think unless you are completely inept. Poker is a game of strategy, betting patterns, etc. If you "get a read" on someone, it is usually on an imbalance in their betting patterns in certain situations that you can exploit, not that they twitch when they're bluffing lol.