GCC and Bracketed KOs

[perko90]

As for the game invitational 3 card support, I agree with the others who suggest putting it into the 2♣ response. Do this regardless of whether you switch to non-forcing NT. After recent forum discussion on this topic, I now play that 2♣ is any one of 3 card support 11+, natural 5 card 13+, or any 16+ that has no 5 card suit. Unless opener is 55xx or a 15+ 5 card minor, he bids 2♦, and the 11/12 3 card support bids 2M. Now a weaker opener can pass the game invitation and play in 2M rather than the usual 3M. A stronger responder with 3 cards agrees the suit with 3M and then you are in your normal GF zone, with serious/non-serious or whatever.

 

It's worth noting for those of us in the USA, including a 3-card LR in the 2♣ response to 1M is not GCC legal, unless it also always shows 3+ clubs. Conventional 2m responses to 1st or 2nd seat 1M openers need to be game forcing.

[Vampyr]

It's worth noting for those of us in the USA, including a 3-card LR in the 2♣ response to 1M is not GCC legal, unless it also always shows 3+ clubs. Conventional 2m responses to 1st or 2nd seat 1M openers need to be game forcing.

 

Are there alternatives to GCC events at most tournaments?

[JLOGIC]

Are there alternatives to GCC events at most tournaments?

 

If you prefer teams to pairs, you will basically never play in a GCC event in USA unless you are in a low bracket. If you prefer pairs at a regional then you often will I think. The only GCC I can even remember playing is the one session swiss (AKA the beer game, the event you play if you get knocked out in the semis or first round of a knockout and decide to ply at night, without fail the worst field ever).

[blackshoe]

"Low bracket" means, afaik, any bracket below the top one. Also, it assumes the game is "bracketed", whatever that means. B-)

[JLOGIC]

"Low bracket" means, afaik, any bracket below the top one. Also, it assumes the game is "bracketed", whatever that means. B-)

 

No, I think it's about how many points the average (or lowest?) team has in a bracket. I have been in bracket 2 in gatlinburg a while ago and obv that was not GCC. Heck, I was recently placed into bracket 2 in Ft Lauderdale with a team of 4 grand life masters (the highest acbl rank!). We were then put into bracket 1 because a team including Larry Cohen and Joel Wooldridge had reported more points than us but forgot to put that they were 5 handed (likely thinking they would never be in bracket 2 lol). Larry Cohen said he was not sure if he had ever played a bracket 2 event in his life. Also in Bracket 2 was Zeke Jabbour with 33k points lol.

 

Anyways, I was under the impression that if the team averages 1000+ points in your bracket (either the lowest team, or the average team, I am not sure) then it is a midchart event. I am certainly not an expert on the matter but I am 100 % sure that it is not just bracket 1 = midchart, others = GCC.

 

I do not know if Vampyr has played in USA but no doubt she could request a few thousand points for being an international expert/having english masterpoints and would get them, they are very liberal about giving these and err on the side of giving too much if they do not know the person.

[blackshoe]

You're right, I had misremembered. The actual rule, from the Mid-Chart, is

This chart applies to:

1. All NABC+ events with no upper masterpoint restrictions played at an NABC.
   
2. All unrestricted Flight A regionally rated events at an NABC.
   
3. Any bracket of a bracketed KO at an NABC which contains no team with an average masterpoint holding of less than 1500 points.
   
4. Provided it has been included in tournament advertising, this chart (or any part) may apply to any sectionally or regionally rated event or tournament at the sponsor's option. The requirement for advertising does not extend to use in Flt. A or KO brackets which contain no team with an average masterpoint holding of less than a 1500.
   

#4 would apply at Regionals and Sectionals. I note two things: the fact that advertising is not required does not mean that the default is that the Mid-Chart is allowed, and the tournament will have to be large enough (as Gatlinburg is) to have brackets that "contain no team, etc."

 

Typical for sectionals around here: One day of stratified pairs (two sessions); one day of Swiss Teams. No KOs.

Typical for regionals around here: six days of KOs, six days of stratified pairs (no flighted or strati-flighted), one day of strati-flighted Swiss Teams.

 

The next regional is next month. I'll ask the Tournament Chair if the Mid-Chart is allowed in any of the events.

[JLOGIC]

It seems that if there is no team in a bracket without an average of 1500 points, midchart is default. Rule 4 just says that they can advertise midchart if they want and allow midchart for lower point totals than that. I don't see why rule 4 is a big deal?

 

Directors also frequently make brackets based on how many points a team has. For instance, in the NYC tourney recently held there were basically 4 pro teams and a bunch of other teams (but all with low msterpoints) in a compact knockout. They made bracket 1 the top 4 teams and had them just play 2 longer matches, rather than 4 shorter matches. Sometimes they will make a 4 session event a 3 session event (ie, have an 8 or 7 team bracket 1), because the 8th or 9th team would be significantly lower than the first 7 or 8 teams. This is not that uncommon.

 

Directors are pretty smart and don't often let a team with a hugely lower amount points than the next team up play in that bracket unless they don't want to. If there is only one bracket and there is a big discrepancy, they will usually make it a handicapped event.

 

edited cuz i misread rule 4

Edited June 19, 2012 by JLOGIC

[TimG]

It seems that if there is no team in a bracket without an average of 1500 points, midchart is default. Rule 4 just says that they can advertise midchart if they want and allow midchart for lower point totals than that. I don't see why rule 4 is a big deal?

I don't think Rule #4 makes midchart the default for 1500+ events, it just means that the sponsoring unit or district can make such an event midchart without advertising it as such.

 

Districts and units are in charge of determining which convention chart applies to their regional and sectional events. For instance, it was not that long ago that multi was allowed in the top flight/bracket of District 25 KO events (midchart), but not in regional Swiss events (GCC). It's been a couple years since I have played in a District 25 event, so it may have changed without my notice.

[Vampyr]

...they are very liberal about giving these and err on the side of giving too much if they do not know the person.

 

Those who play in the USA all the time are less fortunate though. I have done a very small amount of research, and found that bracketed knockouts award more masterpoints to those in the higher brackets, with a particularly large discrepancy between brackets I and II. I am certain that this is not the right thing to do, but it is what is done, and it seems to me that this will make it fairly difficult for those stuck in lower brackets to advance, as the goalposts recede too fast for the player to keep up (and it seems that trying to get the required masterpoints by another route is doomed to fail, because the bracketed KOs give out larger quantities of masterpoints than other events, unless the few sets of results I looked at were anomolous.)

 

So some people may have fewer Midchart events available to them than others. It seems a shame that players are not permitted to choose.

[perko90]

Are there alternatives to GCC events at most tournaments?

 

Almost my whole tournament experience is GCC compliant. As JLOGIC pointed out, pairs events usually require GCC compliance and I admit at teams since the MP payouts are so good (compared to pairs), I don't often compete in the unlimited bracket, although I enjoy the competition. (Mid-Chart or higher is only allowed in unlimited events).

[chasetb]

Vampyr, you are allowed to 'play up' as long as you ask the director; most permit you to move up, especially once you get to know them from several tournaments. At smaller regionals (in my area) where there are 2-3 brackets, I've had the option to move up to Bracket 1, or even Bracket 2. Unfortunately, teammates have always restricted me to the lowest bracket. At larger regionals like Gatlinburg or Nationals, it's pretty much you jump all the way up or play in your bracket. I have read on here that a few directors have advised certain players that wanted to play up several brackets to 'add' so many masterpoints.

 

The link below shows the breakdown of masterpoins, by percentage. In my rather limited experience, it's not until you reach 2000 masterpoints that you generally see and can guarantee a higher standard of play, and at smaller regionals they are in Bracket 1. It isn't hard to accumulate a bunch of masterpoints quickly even if you are under 2000, but you have to have skill, dedication, and be able to play a lot. Living in a high-density bridge population helps enormously as well, as you can gain far more MPs at bigger clubs if you don't, or can't travel a lot.

 

Finally, it helps greatly to know people. We all know that Justin is the youngest person to ever gain Grand Life Master in the ACBL, and is on my list of top 5 American players at the moment, but I think he would agree that his dad helped enormously in gaining masterpoints in his early years. Now all in all it probably only added up to a few hundred, but that might have made the difference between youngest GLM ever and losing out to Joe Grue.

 

http://www.acbl.org/about/membersByMPs.php

[Mbodell]

I don't think Rule #4 makes midchart the default for 1500+ events, it just means that the sponsoring unit or district can make such an event midchart without advertising it as such.

 

Districts and units are in charge of determining which convention chart applies to their regional and sectional events. For instance, it was not that long ago that multi was allowed in the top flight/bracket of District 25 KO events (midchart), but not in regional Swiss events (GCC). It's been a couple years since I have played in a District 25 event, so it may have changed without my notice.

 

This is correct. A sectional or regional can decide to have no midchart if it wants, or can decided to have midchart even in the 299er game. Often, they'll default to the same thing as the NABC regional events where the 1500 is the cutoff. It is worth noting that you need each and every team in the bracket above a 1500 MP average, and that in the ACBL 1500 MP is around the top 10% of players. So really most events that most people play in are GCC, and if you play in sectionals you'll often be in GCC pair events - at least around here - as most sectionals only have one sort of event (sometimes there are separate 299er events, but there usually aren't team matches).

 

It was a PITA for me when we were playing a midchart system and had to change system in the event. And then they moved multi to 6 board and then we needed 2 different midchart systems as well as a GCC system. A big pain. So now we play only a GCC system.

[fromageGB]

It's worth noting for those of us in the USA, including a 3-card LR in the 2♣ response to 1M is not GCC legal, unless it also always shows 3+ clubs. Conventional 2m responses to 1st or 2nd seat 1M openers need to be game forcing.

That's tough; here it is OK if 2♣ is invitational or better.

 

I suppose the restriction is not too onerous, though, if you have a way of showing an invitational 5 card hand (I guess in GCC legalities this has to be a jump bid?), because a 3xx3 can bid 2♣, and a 3xx2 will have a 5 card suit to bid, even a lousy one, with the understanding that you may later bid the major with 3, and opener rebids 3M in preference to going beyond this if not accepting a game invitation. If you have no 5 card suit, then you will have a 3442 precisely and bid 1NT over spades or spades over hearts (also 1NT if KI). That way you can still put invitational 3xx3+ hands through the 2♣ bid.

[blackshoe]

In my rather limited experience, it's not until you reach 2000 masterpoints that you generally see and can guarantee a higher standard of play, and at smaller regionals they are in Bracket 1.

Heh. 2000 MPs is the 93.03 percentile*. I'm in 58.86. :o

 

I never considered accumulating masterpoints as an "entry fee" into a higher standard of play. I might have to re-think my disdain for the things. :D

 

*People with 2000 MPs have more MPs than 93.03% of the ACBL membership. Seems odd considering the "all you need to do to get MPs is keep playing" mantra I keep hearing.

[mycroft]

But note that People with 1000 MPs are in the 81st percentile. To an extent, it is a matter of "keep playing". Unfortunately, to get into a higher bracket, you have to "keep playing" more than the people above you - and they're the ones who "keep playing", too. Witness my perenially hopeless attempt to get out of Stratum C(*).

 

You'll also notice a huge bump at the 300-400 category (I wonder why?), and, frankly, at the 0-1 category. And 20% of ACBL members are <20MP. One assumes that is more "not playing much, or not playing at tournaments much", rather than "can't play".

 

(*) I worked very hard to get to 500 in and around my directing, because 500 was the local C limit. At 440, they raised the limits to 750. I got to 700, and they moved it to 1000. I'm nearing 1000 now, and they switch to "pair average". I wonder what will happen next?

[JLOGIC]

Those who play in the USA all the time are less fortunate though. I have done a very small amount of research, and found that bracketed knockouts award more masterpoints to those in the higher brackets, with a particularly large discrepancy between brackets I and II. I am certain that this is not the right thing to do, but it is what is done, and it seems to me that this will make it fairly difficult for those stuck in lower brackets to advance, as the goalposts recede too fast for the player to keep up (and it seems that trying to get the required masterpoints by another route is doomed to fail, because the bracketed KOs give out larger quantities of masterpoints than other events, unless the few sets of results I looked at were anomolous.)

 

This is the opposite of what is true. Basically every teams masterpoint EV would be higher in a low bracket. I just pulled up this regional (which I didn't go to to avoid cherry picking).

 

http://web2.acbl.org/tournaments/results/2012/05/1205001.htm

 

You'll notice that in the first knockout, a team including steve weinstein, gavin wolpert, 2 polish pros who are on the polish national open team, another pro, and the sponsor won their first 2 matches. They then lost the semis, netting them 17.01 points

 

The winners of bracket 2 got 20.94 points. Do you think that team could ever lose in bracket 2 lol? Even 2nd in bracket 2 got 14.66 points, so if they lost the finals in bracket 2 it would be a similar amount that they got in bracket 1

 

How about the bracket 3 champions? Those guys got 19.94 points!

 

Now what about those braket 4 guys? 17.76 points.

 

So the weinstein team won 2 tough matches, then lost the semis to meckstroth, rodwell, pepsi, lev, zaremba, blaiss. And they get less points than the bracket 4 winners. And they had definite risk of losing earlier than the semis, in which case they would get 0 points.

 

If you are good enough to consistently win braacket 1, then yes, bracket 1 will have a higher edge. But to say that the bracketed knockouts cause people with less masterpoints to get them LESS fast? No, it is their skill level that causes that. I mean give me a break Vampyr, if you came over with a pretty good english team do you think your best bet for masterpoitns would be to try and beat Meckstroth, Rodwell, Lev, Pepsi, Berkowitz, Sontag, Buras, Gregorz, Weinstein, Wolpert, Compton, Morgan, Seamon, Cappelletti (names at the regional I gave you) 4 matches in a row every event, or would it be to win a lower bracket which you'd probably be 100 % to do? I know you don't care about points, but even as the biggest anti america troll I can't see how you can come to the conclusion of your quoted post.

 

Put the bracket 2 people into that bracket 1 and see how they do!

[JLOGIC]

If you guys are so good that you win bracket 2 very easily then you can go to a regional and win 100 points. You could crush at a national. If you should be in bracket 1 then probably you can easily impress bracket 1 players and they will play on teams with you. It is not like young players can not get onto bracket 1 teams because they have no points but are very good, look at adam kaplan.

 

I do not understand why people feel entitled to play against bracket 1 players when they will just be cannon fodder. Sorry, we don't want to play against you, because you suck and its not fun for us. If you don't suck, prove it, and then you will be in bracket 1. Sometimes you will stop sucking and it will take a year or so to adjust itself. Everyone had to go through that.

[JLOGIC]

Also, when a large majority of bracket 2 players don't want to play against midchart stuff, then they make stuff like GCC. I don't know why people feel like they are so special that their desire to play midchart is more important than the vast majority of players at their level who do not want to play against it.

[ArtK78]

Some years back I played in a bracketed KO in a summer NABC in Washington, DC. My team was placed into Bracket 2. A mistake by the directing staff resulted in there being 17 teams in Bracket 2 (apparently, a team that should have been in Bracket 2 was incorrectly placed into Bracket 3. After the 1st round, that team was added to Bracket 2 - I believe that the team that lost to the incorrectly placed team was allowed to advance to the second round in Bracket 3). This resulted in 3 3-way matches in the second round (2 survivors from each), 3 head-to-head matches in the semifinals and a three-way final. My team won, beating both of the other finalists.

 

The masterpoint award for winning the 17-team Bracket 2 was just under 50 masterpoints. The winners of Bracket 1 received just under 52 masterpoints. While this is certainly not typical, I don't believe that the masterpoint discrepency between Bracket 1 and Bracket 2 is as large as was represented above.

 

EDIT: I checked my masterpoint records. The date of this event was July 20, 2002. The award for winning Bracket 2 was 49.07.

 

I found the results of the event in the Daily Bulleting from the Washington NABC. Here is the report:

 

Bracket 1 16 Teams

 

50.60 1 Peggy Kaplan, Minnetonka MN; Dick Bruno, Dulles VA; Kenji Miyakuni, Tokyo, Japan; Yasuhiro, Tokyo, Japan

37.95 2 Norb Kremer, Schenectady NY; Simon Erlich, Forest Hills NY; Steve Nellissen, Ramsey NJ; Alan Schwartz, Fairfax VA; Ai-Tai Lo, Reston VA

25.30 3/4 Ken Gee, Regina SK; Dixie Hsu, San Luis Obispo CA; Franky Karwur - Denny Sacul - Tim Ayers, Victoria BC

25.30 3/4 Sally Wheeler, Spring TX; Cindy Bernstein - Robert Bernstein, Memphis TN; Georgiana Gates, Houston TX

 

Bracket 2 17 Teams

 

49.07 1 Peter Filandro - Marie Filandro, Smyrna DE; Michael Gilbert - Susan Gilbert, Sarasota FL

49.07 1 Arthur Korth, Brigantine NJ; Howard Krauss II, Vienna VA; Samuel Marks, Atlanta GA; Richard Popper, Wilmington DE

36.80 2 Thomas Gardner - Beverly Gardner, Southfield MI; Kathy Newman - Bert Newman, West Bloomfield MI; Sharon Jabbour, Boca Raton FL; William Arlinghaus, Ann Arbor MI

24.54 3/4 Jack Diskin - Maria Mitchum, Hampton VA; Barbara Heller, Decatur GA; Joe Rickman, Maryville TN

24.54 3/4 Gail Bell, King of Prussia PA; Bobbie Gomer, Willow Grove PA; Gila Guttmann, Cheltenham PA; Antoinette Lutz, Wilmington DE

24.54 3/4 B Wayne Stuart III, Santa Cruz CA; Cathy Strauch - Rick Roeder - Riggs Thayer Jr, San Diego CA; Wafik Abdou, Bakersfield CA

 

Just as they screwed up the event, they screwed up the reporting of the results. My team was 1st, the Filandro team was second, and the Gardner team was third. The other three teams - Diskin, Bell and Stuart - finished tied 4/6.

 

However, the interesting thing was the masterpoints awarded. The award for first in Bracket 1 was 50.60 - just about 1 1/2 points more than the 49.07 that I received for first in Bracket 2.

 

The event was held July 20-21, 2002.

[JLOGIC]

They recently (2 years?) changed the MP formula for knockouts. It used to be ridiculous how many points bracket 2 awarded compared to bracket 1.

[wyman]

I do not understand why people feel entitled to play against bracket 1 players when they will just be cannon fodder. Sorry, we don't want to play against you, because you suck and its not fun for us. If you don't suck, prove it, and then you will be in bracket 1. Sometimes you will stop sucking and it will take a year or so to adjust itself. Everyone had to go through that.

 

Not disagreeing with you, but I get to play like 1-2 regional swisses and about 3 sectional swisses a year, and I might make it for 2-3 days to a national. And most of these events I don't get to play with a regular partner.

 

Now I show up to Fayetteville because I have 3 days off of work and because my hypothetical regular partner and our hypothetical regular teammates live there. We all have under 500 MP.

 

We want to play a KO, but we'd be in bracket 6.

 

Now I am definitely cannon fodder in bracket 1 (this isn't a general statement about me in regional bracket 1s, but I probably am not going to win against steve and gavin and the poles or against meckwell in a long match) , but do I really have to play in bracket 6 against the LOLs? Because usually when we ask to play up, these are the choices we get.

 

I understand the argument that we have to "level up" in order to play against the big boys, but it's not fun (hell, it's hardly bridge) to play in these total **** brackets, and I can't justify taking time off to do it.

 

So I'm stuck with trying to run good in all the open swisses I can for 10 gold a pop, so that maybe someday I can justify an entry into a bracketed KO. Just seems like a really long and arduous road when I could be very competitive right now in B2 or B3 of 6.

 

Just sort of stream-of-consciousness'ed this, so sorry if it's at all incoherent.

[JLOGIC]

You have a strong internet presence and are a good player. No doubt you have impressed some people with your posts. If you are going to a tournament, I'm sure you could parlay all that into arranging ahead of time to be on a team with someone who has some masterpoints. I think this can help solve the inefficiencies created in the masterpoint system (being good with few masterpoints, but someone will probably partner/team up with you who has a few thousand points).

 

Do you/have you networked while at these local tournaments? Just reach out to someone and say you are a good player who plays online a lot that doesnt get to play much in real life but would like to start playing against tougher opps. I bet you can do it.

[JLOGIC]

If your team is really made up of people with your amount of points that you don't know, odds are they are at about the level their points would suggest (ie much worse than you). It's not clear you could be competitive in bracket 2 with that team. Yes, a team of 4 wymans could be obviously, but to me it seems like the bigger problem is you don't know enough people in your area, and you don't have good enough teammates to get into the bracket you desire/that you are fit for. That is what I'd work on.

[ArtK78]

You have a strong internet presence and are a good player. No doubt you have impressed some people with your posts. If you are going to a tournament, I'm sure you could parlay all that into arranging ahead of time to be on a team with someone who has some masterpoints. I think this can help solve the inefficiencies created in the masterpoint system (being good with few masterpoints, but someone will probably partner/team up with you who has a few thousand points).

 

Do you/have you networked while at these local tournaments? Just reach out to someone and say you are a good player who plays online a lot that doesnt get to play much in real life but would like to start playing against tougher opps. I bet you can do it.

He could ask me to play in Philly. :) Seriously, so far I am playing only in the Spingold, so I should be able to play in most of the rest of the tournament. Besides, Danny Sprung has been bugging me to work Sunday evening in the Casino night that the Philly unit is putting on after the evening session, and I am certainly not going to do that if I am not playing on Sunday.

 

What do you say, Wyman?

[wyman]

If your team is really made up of people with your amount of points that you don't know, odds are they are at about the level their points would suggest (ie much worse than you). It's not clear you could be competitive in bracket 2 with that team. Yes, a team of 4 wymans could be obviously, but to me it seems like the bigger problem is you don't know enough people in your area, and you don't have good enough teammates to get into the bracket you desire/that you are fit for. That is what I'd work on.

 

No, mostly I meant like I have a team from back in Ann Arbor, where I'm pretty confident I'm not the best on the team, and our avg MP is < 500. And it's probably pretty close to a team of 4xMe on average. We'll try to meet up at a regional like once a year (say, Cleveland or Detroit), and here we end up playing in the B1 KO (in the bracket with like Bill Arlinghaus, Bert Newman, Chuck Berger, Zeke Jabbour, Howard Piltch, Jade Barrett, the Granovetters, the Kranyaks, etc). These are like my favorite games, but it makes me a little uncomfortable to think that there are teams that we are -EV against who scoff at the fact that we're playing in that bracket, and that's part of the point I was addressing. We're not there because we're arrogant, and we're not there to luckbox a win and claim we're better than all these really good players. And we don't like it if it pisses you guys off that we're playing up. We just think it's pointless to play against total droolers, and the only alternative we have from the directors is B1.

 

Your point about networking is well-taken.