mink Posted May 31, 2003 Report Share Posted May 31, 2003 A tourney is divided into rounds. A round is defined to be the period of time where players dont change tables and play a predefined number of boards together, which is the same for all rounds. The idea of a tourney is to play against as many opps as possible, as the fewer opps you play against the greater is the difference between the average skills of your opps and the average skills of all pairs competing. I think therfore it is fair to say that the fewer opps you play against the more your results are influenced by luck. There are 2 ways to increase the number of opps in a tourney: either by playing more boards, or, if it is desired to have a tourney of a specific length, by playing as many rounds as possible. This is reached by playing as few as possible boards per round. In face to face brigde, moving for the next round is a real overhead, so there is virtually never only 1 board per round. But whenever possible I use movements where we have only 2 boards per round, provided that you do not play more than one round against any opp pair. Tourneys in BBO appear to be so big that you even can have 1 board per round, and there is no overhead in moving for the next round - the system does it for us. The only disadvantage I can see is that as long as we have an absolute timelimit for each round, not finishing a board is likely to occur more often in 1-board-rounds than in 2-board-rounds, as if the first board needs more time you have still the chance to play the second board faster. However, if in the second board the other pair needs more time, they are under greater pressure - unfair. I suspect that this problem is even more severe if you play more than 2 boards per round, as you always find pairs that play always slow so their opps are even worse off if the have to think hard in the 3rd board. In the meantime I have seen quite a lot tourneys where more than 2 boards per round are played. I really do not understand why, and I strongly suggest to stick to 2 boards per round and maybe test 1 board per round. Karl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRG Posted June 1, 2003 Report Share Posted June 1, 2003 Strikes me that if (a) you have never played against a particular pair before or (b) (like me) your memory is so lousy you wouldn't remember the pair if your brother was part of it, that it takes at least one board just to get to know their skill level and how aggressive they are. If playing in a tournament, it may be much more important to exact penalties against silly contracts; if you have no idea of the skill level of the opponents, you have no idea whether or not you can trust their bidding (and play). I find I get a bit of a feel for the opponents after a couple of boards; but one board? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mink Posted June 1, 2003 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2003 John said: "I find I get a bit of a feel for the opponents after a couple of boards; but one board? " You have this problem always with the first board, and many times with the second, if opps couldn't do anything wrong in the first board. So only really many boards would help. There are other hints, however: do they have a convention card, what is their system, what gadgets, what kind of nicknames? But in online game, you are missing things like what do they wear, how do they behave, how do they sort their cards. In my oppinion this is a minor issue. I was just watching the end of a tourney, and a pair that I thought to play quite well endend with -46 IMPs. My impression is that most pairs in the tourneys are quite good bridge players as compared with bridge in the local club. Karl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cave_Draco Posted June 1, 2003 Report Share Posted June 1, 2003 I have to agree with John; 1 board is not enough unless you know opps! System & convention card are no guide as to play but one hand of play, even a lay-down 7NT ;), gives a feel. Two boards is a minimum, at a local club you do at least see the same faces week in week out. It always amused me that I know the defence to "The Principle of Restricted Choice" but never get a chance to use it, ;D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karma Posted July 11, 2003 Report Share Posted July 11, 2003 In the meantime I have seen quite a lot tourneys where more than 2 boards per round are played. I really do not understand why, and I strongly suggest to stick to 2 boards per round and maybe test 1 board per round.I have run several clocked tourneys with 1 board per round. The prediction became reality. More boards did not get finished. Two problems occured: 1) bad connection that didnt recover in time to finish the hand. 2) dropped connection at the round change. There was no cushion time and the net result was a lot more director calls. Having 2 or 3 boards per round has a nice averaging effect so that the rounds go smoothly. One board with a complicated auction to slam or competitive auction to the 5 level will result in a ton of incompletes and director calls.It is OK in a small field where I could handle the calls but in a larger field .... I am still working on trying to find an ideal format (boards, rounds, boards/round, minutes per board). cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erkson Posted July 12, 2003 Report Share Posted July 12, 2003 I read with great interest your efforts to get tournaments results which more reflect players'skill. My impression at the present time is that results are far from it, and I am not interested in participating. I will when there are -in each section- a ranking for NS and a ranking for EW, and when nearly all NS meet nearly all EW. That supposes short sections.Approx. 12 tables and 12 boards. I'm afraid I will never get that.No problem. Erkson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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