Bridge Professional / Sponsor

[RunemPard]

It is too easy to cheat in bridge, so there will never be a tour-like pro bridge circuit with big prize payouts. When this was tried recently, it was an individual format, so presumably the organizers realized this, but lol individuals and all that.

 

Obv you see cheating at the top of all major games/sports if they have huge payouts (steroids), even with vast resources to try and make sure this doesn't happen. In bridge it would be far worse since there are so many different ways to cheat/it's a partnership game/etc. Maybe if it were all done on computers with tight monitors and technology controlling the tempo, hrothgar style, but I doubt that will happen.

 

How do you feel about turn timers being used in major bridge events?

[Heron]

It is worth noting that there are many lower level pros than just those at the top level. You could make a reasonable living just playing in NYC at the club every day and not even playing tournaments, and many people do that.

Indeed! An acquaintance worked as a pro for a while while being a student. The formula was simple and far from unique: play lots in local clubs, often with pickup partners, and get known as a good and personable player. Somebody will sooner or later ask if one wants to go play in thus-and-such big event. "I'd love to, but I really can't afford it." Negotiation ensues. Once one has done this a couple of times word gets around. The bread-and-butter clientele here isn't looking for super-high-profile team games, just enough red and gold ($20 per point to the hired help, happily paid) to finally scrape over the "life master" mark, and bridge skills are important but being able to coddle and manage a sub-par partner and generally schmooze is just about as important.

 

For whoever asked about the youngest player to become a pro, if you're looking for anyone who's being paid to play (not just who's on the big international-level teams) it's probably some broke junior high school student somewhere with a good head for bridge.

 

For another account of what it's like to play as a pro outside the world of the big international team games, Sontag's Bridge Bum is a fun read.

[JLOGIC]

How do you feel about turn timers being used in major bridge events?

 

Do you mean to regulate tempo (like if I bid instantly, the electronic device takes some predetermined amount of time before showing my bid), or to combat slow play like a chess clock (just recording how much time each action took), or something else?

 

In general I would be against anything that makes the game slower, and pro things that make it faster/punish people who take more than the allotted time fairly, fwiw.

[aguahombre]

The best team possible; not the best possible team.

And furthermore, who will say that the best possible team is the best 3 pairs? Team dynamics and personalities enter into it.

 

Certainly the best pair is not the two best players.

[nigel_k]

My view is that representing your country is special and there are plenty of other ways for professionals to get paid. So if they allowed teams of four only in the trials that would be an improvement.

[JLOGIC]

My view is that representing your country is special and there are plenty of other ways for professionals to get paid. So if they allowed teams of four only in the trials that would be an improvement.

 

The second thing would not help, you would just have teams with 1 sponsor and 3 pros instead of 1 sponsor and 5 pros. Also, our trials are very long, at least 3 120 board matches plus another 100+ boards or so, there is no way anyone could play their best 4 handed at the end of that.

[mycroft]

My view is that representing your country is special and there are plenty of other ways for professionals to get paid. So if they allowed teams of four only in the trials that would be an improvement.

I can pretty much guarantee that at least the U.S. would get a weaker team that way. The same players who boycotted a regional when there wasn't a team match available every day for their sponsors to half-time in, and many more, would just sit it out (or as Justin says, would play 1+3 instead, and probably lose to a weaker 2-pro-pair team).

 

Remember, they can make money during the two weeks of the Trials and the two weeks of the BB playing in concurrent Regionals instead of exhausting themselves trialling for their country for free.

 

I mean, carrying a client in the Reisinger has to be more trouble than even the other two prime ACBL events, and the glory of Reisinger winner should be worth similar amounts in "I'm this skillful, pay me this much" to a National win and a BB 4th; but we don't see the top pairs teaming up 3-deep to play that. The ones without an obvious client pair are the level 3 pros, where making a name for themselves for later by trying to finish top 10 is currently worth more to them than getting paid for 2 days to finish 37th.

[RunemPard]

Do you mean to regulate tempo (like if I bid instantly, the electronic device takes some predetermined amount of time before showing my bid), or to combat slow play like a chess clock (just recording how much time each action took), or something else?

 

In general I would be against anything that makes the game slower, and pro things that make it faster/punish people who take more than the allotted time fairly, fwiw.

 

 

I was thinking along the lines of a set amount of time to make a call. You must wait x amount of time, but take no longer than y amount of time to make the call. (bidding). If used during play, this would be a little more tricky and would mostly fall on the defense in regards to information. I have never played a higher level event, but at club level it is common that an opponent will tank and come out with a play, where at times the other will have a very good idea about what they are thinking about.

[mrdct]

The second thing would not help, you would just have teams with 1 sponsor and 3 pros instead of 1 sponsor and 5 pros. Also, our trials are very long, at least 3 120 board matches plus another 100+ boards or so, there is no way anyone could play their best 4 handed at the end of that.

I tend to agree that it may not be the optimal format for the USA trials which are longer and harder, although it would make it a little bit harder for a weak sponsor to qualify if that is an objective of the NBO. The Australian trials only go for six days comprised of:

 

Day 1: 3 x 16 boards - qualifying

Day 2: 3 x 16 boards - qualifying* (4 x 16 for teams outside the top 4 seeds)

Day 3: 4 x 16 boards - repechage for teams 3-6 and rest day for teams 1-2

Day 4: 4 x 16 boards - semi-final

Day 5: 3 x 16 boards - final

Day 6: 3 x 16 boards - final

 

So the workload is similar to WBF events with 48-boards per day with the occassion 64-board day thrown-in. It is not at all unusual for some countries to have an anchor pair that plays virtually throughout, so why not test everyone's capacity to do that during the trials?

[Quantumcat]

For whoever asked about the youngest player to become a pro, if you're looking for anyone who's being paid to play (not just who's on the big international-level teams) it's probably some broke junior high school student somewhere with a good head for bridge.

I also played for money for a while as a student, at a large club which had a few members who were either really old and senile and yucky or just very unpleasant to play with so they couldn't find partners. They would give me some pocket money in exchange for a pleasant game with a nice young girl :-) I think my rate was about a third or a quarter of the next lowest ranked pro who played at that club. A fantastic way to make a few dollars. You just have to live in the eastern suburbs of Sydney where the rich housewives are (or equivalent - from watching movies, would that be Manhattan in NY?), and be able to be nice and cheerful even to yucky people. Don't have to be particularly good, slightly better than the client is enough.

[mrdct]

I was thinking along the lines of a set amount of time to make a call. You must wait x amount of time, but take no longer than y amount of time to make the call. (bidding). If used during play, this would be a little more tricky and would mostly fall on the defense in regards to information. I have never played a higher level event, but at club level it is common that an opponent will tank and come out with a play, where at times the other will have a very good idea about what they are thinking about.

Sussing-out what the defenders hold based on their tempo is completely kosher, but is obviously UI to the respective defenders. The laws deal with this reasonably well and I think any enforced tanks during the play with slow things tremdously and be very difficult to manage. The only exception is that I believe it should be a clear breach of the proprieties for declarer to make an insta-play when dummy comes down. My suggested law change is that if declarer insta-plays when dummy comes down, a tank by the third hand is AI for the defenders and UI for declarer.

[VMars]

I don't think this is true at all. For example, two of the last four Vanderbilt winners have included sponsors who are far from being "very good".

 

I'm sorry I was clear.

 

By "U.S. Nationals", I didn't mean NABC championships like the Vanderbilt. Even though those are colloquially referred to as "nationals" they are actually not the events that directly pick the U.S. team. I meant the USBF event for picking the U.S. national team.

[barmar]

I meant the USBF event for picking the U.S. national team.

It's called the Team Trials.

 

Winning an NABC+ event is arguably harder than winning the Trials, since there are many good international teams entered in the former. The field in the Spingold is not that different from the field in the Bermuda Bowl.

[Mbodell]

It's called the Team Trials.

 

Winning an NABC+ event is arguably harder than winning the Trials, since there are many good international teams entered in the former. The field in the Spingold is not that different from the field in the Bermuda Bowl.

 

Depends a lot on the NABC+ event. Wernher pairs or Imp pairs, the field is still quite strong, but it is obviously not the same as the trials or the premier NABC+ events. If you restrict it to just Spingold/Vanderbilt/Reisinger than yes, or at least so I've heard people say.

[Vampyr]

It is not at all unusual for some countries to have an anchor pair that plays virtually throughout, so why not test everyone's capacity to do that during the trials?

"Why" is a more obvious question here than "Why not".

[pigpenz]

I thought the last two articles in Bridge World about Professionalism were interesting on how it has changed over the years.

Before Justin was born there were hardly any sponsored teams in the main National Teams events now some of those players from the

seventies who aren't that old now would have to maybe pay to get on teams with players they used to play with back then for free.

[ash1968]

A concept that I've been advocating for the Australian open team trials is to keep running them in a team-based format (as it currently is three years out of four) but limit entries to teams-of-four with the winning team then required to pick a pair to append to their team from, say, the semi-finalists. I see a number of advantages in this method:

 

- player stamina is tested to ensure that if called-upon to do so each pair has the capability to play unchanged for several straight days;

- reduces the chance of a demonstrably weaker pair (which may or may not contain a sponsor) being carried on to the national team by two stronger pairs;

- will reduce the risk of an incompatible team being thrown-up (a la pairs-based trials) as the winner will presumably only append a pair with whom they are comfortable;

- sponsors are still able play in the trials and if they play well they could still make the team and it would be hard for the anti-sponsor lobby to claim they weren't there on merit.

 

The obvious downside is that some sponsors may cease to hire pros if they don't think they'll have a chance of making a national team, which may lead to a decline in the bridge ability of the top pros if they don't get to play as much. However, I don't think that's a huge issue in Australia with many of our top experts choosing to play on all-expert teams in the trials anyway (or at least do that some years) and there being plenty of other events that the sponsors can try to win with their pro teams before they start aspiring to make a national team. I appreciate, however, that this model may not work for all countries.

I like the idea but one possible downside (irrespective of sponsors) is that you may have three pairs hoping one team wins - ie the odd pair know they will be picked if they get to the (say) semi-final. That would create a peverse incentive. Cheers, Stephen

[mrdct]

I like the idea but one possible downside (irrespective of sponsors) is that you may have three pairs hoping one team wins - ie the odd pair know they will be picked if they get to the (say) semi-final. That would create a peverse incentive. Cheers, Stephen

I'd be really surprised if a professional pair deliberately played below their best with a view to losing the trials and then getting appended to an all-expert foursome; particularly if they are on a sponsored team with bonuses for winning the trials.

 

I think the more likely scenario is that an all-expert foursome enter the trials hoping that they can win it and then strengthen their team by adding a gun pair that was playing pro in the trials.

[mich-b]

I'd be really surprised if a professional pair deliberately played below their best with a view to losing the trials and then getting appended to an all-expert foursome; particularly if they are on a sponsored team with bonuses for winning the trials.

 

I think the more likely scenario is that an all-expert foursome enter the trials hoping that they can win it and then strengthen their team by adding a gun pair that was playing pro in the trials.

 

Would you really be surprised to hear that , for example , in a final match of the trials between two 4 handed teams a top level pair played less than their top level game, when they knew in advance (because they agreed with the other team , or just assumed that would happen) they would be in the national team in any case? (either by winning , or by losing and being selected as 3rd pair by their opps). Don't you think a pair might play less than their best (even if not deliberately) when they know they will be selected whatever the outcome of the match?

How do you think their teammates might feel , when they hear 2 hours after they lost the final , that their teammates have actually joined the winners, and that was discussed or assumed in advance?

[Mbodell]

I'd be really surprised if a professional pair deliberately played below their best with a view to losing the trials and then getting appended to an all-expert foursome; particularly if they are on a sponsored team with bonuses for winning the trials.

I think the more likely scenario is that an all-expert foursome enter the trials hoping that they can win it and then strengthen their team by adding a gun pair that was playing pro in the trials.

 

Wouldn't the danger be an all expert team and a pro pair and client are all part of the same "team" and once the pro pair and client make it to the semifinal, if they face off against the 4 pro team they would intentionally lose, knowing that team is stronger, and then knowing that team will pick the sponsor pair (and get paid by the sponsor). That way in the finals, the client doesn't need to play any boards, and they maximize the chance that the client advances. Particularly if there is only one other really good team they are worried about. And if they don't face each other in the semifinal, they have 2 chances to beat that other arch rival team (which ever team plays them in the semi-finals, and then the revenge match in the finals).

[mrdct]

Would you really be surprised to hear that , for example , in a final match of the trials between two 4 handed teams a top level pair played less than their top level game, when they knew in advance (because they agreed with the other team , or just assumed that would happen) they would be in the national team in any case? (either by winning , or by losing and being selected as 3rd pair by their opps). Don't you think a pair might play less than their best (even if not deliberately) when they know they will be selected whatever the outcome of the match?

How do you think their teammates might feel , when they hear 2 hours after they lost the final , that their teammates have actually joined the winners, and that was discussed or assumed in advance?

Under existing augmentation rules in Australia, when a team-of-four wins the trials or a pair withdraws from a winning team-of-six, the winners actually need to provide a ranked short-list of eligible pairs (usually pairs from the semi-finals) to the ABF who are the ones who actually make the choice, but they give heavy weight to the preferences of the winning team. The only way of being certain of selection is to win the trials (even then technically the ABF does have a veto right to refuse to ratify the team but I don't believe they have even done so).

 

Of the top pairs in Australia who would be in such a position of confidence that they would honestly believe they would be automatically appended to the team if they lost in the trials, I would be absolutely staggered if any of them would even dream of doing such a heinous things as not play at their absolute best. It sounds like a very good way to not get hired again.

 

Mbodell's scenario is adequately controlled by the ABF's right of veto.

[ash1968]

Under existing augmentation rules in Australia, when a team-of-four wins the trials or a pair withdraws from a winning team-of-six, the winners actually need to provide a ranked short-list of eligible pairs (usually pairs from the semi-finals) to the ABF who are the ones who actually make the choice, but they give heavy weight to the preferences of the winning team. The only way of being certain of selection is to win the trials (even then technically the ABF does have a veto right to refuse to ratify the team but I don't believe they have even done so).

 

Of the top pairs in Australia who would be in such a position of confidence that they would honestly believe they would be automatically appended to the team if they lost in the trials, I would be absolutely staggered if any of them would even dream of doing such a heinous things as not play at their absolute best. It sounds like a very good way to not get hired again.

 

Mbodell's scenario is adequately controlled by the ABF's right of veto.

I am not sure that any of this really addresses the incentive that is created. Being staggering or heinous doesn't prevent it ocurring. Look at the cheating that happens in high level competiive activity.

 

For example - What if the sponsor's team was in the final and one of their opponent's was a regular in their NOT or GCC team? Or the regular pair had lost to the sponsor in the semi-final and the sponsor won, or the regular pair lost a match which meant in the round robin their sponsor qualified for the semi or final. Because the standard of expert bridge includes mistakes who knows whether a pair tanked or not? Can the ABF judge something like that?

 

As I said in my original post - I like the idea but I wonder about creating a peverse incentive.