gambling your masterpoints!

[PriorKnowledge]

Let's look at some scenarios:

 

1. You are a young, brilliant bridge player. You play with a young, brilliant partner. But you don't have the money to play in Nationals and few Regionals. After 2 years, you have close to maxed out on your bridge playing ability. You only have 400 MP. You see players with 600-1000 MP that still don't know how to use Stayman properly.

 

You claim the bridge MP system sucks.

 

2. You are a middle-aged bridge player with a middle-aged partner. You play in many Nationals and Regionals. You have slowly grown in ability with experience. After 30 years, you know how to kick the pants off most players, including those brilliant youngsters. You have 6000 MP.

 

You think bridge MP system is perfect.

 

3. You are an old chess player. You love playing in tournaments and won many when you were younger. You know some openings so well, you even remember the analysis. Unfortunately, your mind is too slow now and you have watched your rating fall over the last 5 years from almost Master to Class C player. Where is the respect for your knowledge and experence?

 

You hate the ELO chess ratings and wish chess used the bridge system of accumulated points.

[pclayton]

Well, I think even Justin would admit that platinum points matter, and reaching Grand Life Master IS a big deal, even to the top tier of players. However, these are the result of going to the nationals and playing well. The Player of the Year is based on the highest number of platinums, and the Crane Trophy is just the highest number of points, including (gasp!) golds, reds and blacks. (wtf are silver anyway? :rolleyes: )

 

To the 99% of the league that aren't in the top tier, points are a cheap and easy way to help league market itself.

 

Even a new player who just made 'rookie master' (5 MP!) feels pretty cool about that . Life Master IS a big deal, and even I feel a sense of pride as I approach my Silver.

[EricK]

When you enter a tournament you want to win. And when you win (or place highly) you get Masterpoints. So in that sense we all want to win Masterpoints.

This conclusion you make out of the previous 2 sentences is completely unlogic, total rubish in fact!

 

"We want to win" - ok, but why? We want to win because of the honour, the fun, the prices,...

 

"If we win (or place highly) we get Masterpoints" - true, but it's just some bonus we didn't ask for

 

"So in that sense we all want to win Masterpoints" - NO, we want to win for the reasons I mentioned above. The second statement doesn't change anything to what we want, or why we want to win.

 

Consider this example (it's similar): If you want to win a car, and you get 1$ pocketmoney as a bonus, do you want to win that 1$? :) No, you want to win that car, that dollar doesn't interest you! You won't cry when you don't get your dollar, you might cry because you didn't win the car.

 

 

Ok, some people want to win because of the Masterpoints, but I think it's a small group :unsure:

I must have expressed myself badly, because I agree with you.

 

I want to win the Masterpoints (or the $ in your case) because (and only because) it means I won the tournament (or the car).

 

Eric

[EricK]

Let's look at some scenarios:

 

1. You are a young, brilliant bridge player. You play with a young, brilliant partner. But you don't have the money to play in Nationals and few Regionals. After 2 years, you have close to maxed out on your bridge playing ability. You only have 400 MP. You see players with 600-1000 MP that still don't know how to use Stayman properly.

 

You claim the bridge MP system sucks.

 

2. You are a middle-aged bridge player with a middle-aged partner. You play in many Nationals and Regionals. You have slowly grown in ability with experience. After 30 years, you know how to kick the pants off most players, including those brilliant youngsters. You have 6000 MP.

 

You think bridge MP system is perfect.

 

3. You are an old chess player. You love playing in tournaments and won many when you were younger. You know some openings so well, you even remember the analysis. Unfortunately, your mind is too slow now and you have watched your rating fall over the last 5 years from almost Master to Class C player. Where is the respect for your knowledge and experence?

 

You hate the ELO chess ratings and wish chess used the bridge system of accumulated points.

In the chess scenario, your grade is a reflection of your current ability. Your knowledge and experience is certainly keeping it higher than it would be otherwise. The grade allows you to find a game where you can compete on equal terms (or on winning terms if you prefer that!).

 

How would having a grade which doesn't reflect your current skill, but is an amalgam of your past skill, current skill, number of years playing etc help (except in an ego-boosting capacity)?

 

Eric

[luke warm]

i think the difference is this... in bridge, masterpoints aren't *necessarily* a standard that shows the relative skill disparity between players... in chess they invaribly are

 

a 500 masterpoint player may or may not be a more skilled player than a 10 masterpoint player... a 1900 chess player is *definitely* a better player than a 1500 player... so in that sense, masterpoints don't mean much... however, i'd say that once you start getting up around silver lm, it starts to give a more accurate picture (tho i know some of those whose skill isn't as impressive as it might be)

 

i can't speak for justin, but i think he was saying that masterpoints are simply a byproduct of winning bridge events, and in that sense don't mean much... if you have tourney A that offers $5000 plus 500 masterpoints and tourney B that offers $20,000 and no masterpoints, i imagine more top tier players will opt for B... but that's just a guess