A scoring question

[gnasher]

Let's say you have ten tables. 50% of your players are stratum A. That's ten pairs. Insist that the A pairs sit either NS or EW at the odd numbered (or even numbered) tables. Half of these pairs will complain because they want a NS, but at least you've ensured that all ten pairs aren't sitting in the same (NS) field.

Are you sure about that? It seems to me that if you play all ten rounds, it doesn't matter where the strong pairs start as long as you have five in each line. If, on the other hand, you play five rounds without a share-and-relay, your strong EW pairs will play only the odd-numbered sets, so they'll compare only with other strong EWs. With an intermediate number of rounds, you will get intermediate goodness.

[blackshoe]

Are you sure about that? It seems to me that if you play all ten rounds, it doesn't matter where the strong pairs start as long as you have five in each line. If, on the other hand, you play five rounds without a share-and-relay, your strong EW pairs will play only the odd-numbered sets, so they'll compare only with other strong EWs. With an intermediate number of rounds, you will get intermediate goodness.

Part of the purpose of the method is to ensure that you do have five in each line. And I was assuming a complete movement. I grant you that's problematic with ten tables and a straight Mitchell. Off the top of my head, perhaps an Appendix Mitchell would work better.

 

Around here, if the director was going to curtail a ten table Mitchell, he'd stop at nine rounds.

[Vampyr]

Part of the purpose of the method is to ensure that you do have five in each line. And I was assuming a complete movement. I grant you that's problematic with ten tables and a straight Mitchell. Off the top of my head, perhaps an Appendix Mitchell would work better.

 

Around here, if the director was going to curtail a ten table Mitchell, he'd stop at nine rounds.

 

A form of Double Hesitation Mitchell works well for 10 tables, and you play a lot more opponents than with an appendix or curtailed Mitchel. Of course it doesn't work for 2-winner movements.

[blackshoe]

Personally, I prefer one-winner movements, but I'm in a small minority here - more people get masterpoints with two-winner movements, and that seems to be the goal (as opposed to testing your mettle as a bridge player).

[mycroft]

One thing that I find odd, given that masterpoint donation is the goal of club games, is that "everybody" would prefer a 7-table Mitchell, paying 3 places each way 0.70/0.49/0.35, to a 7-table Howell, playing 13 pairs instead of 7, and paying 6 places starting from 1.40/0.98/0.70. The Mitchell may pay another place or two with different numbers, but the *amount* awarded in the one-winner movement is hugely higher.

 

I can understand wanting to play 7x4 instead of 13x2, especially in a Howell where one slow pair will cause twice the havoc of a two-board Mitchell movement (I have never had a 7-table Howell play 26 in the time the Mitchell plays 28); but that's not the reason the "bowel movements" (yes, that's a quote I've heard) are despised. I guess there's just too many Lords of the Table that hate there not being a Table for them to be Lord of.

[blackshoe]

I guess there's just too many Lords of the Table that hate there not being a Table for them to be Lord of.

ROFL!! Good point, that. :P :lol: :lol:

[pigpenz]

That's not how I know the term "seeding" is typically used. Is it different for Bridge?

generally in ACBL events when matchpoint events used to be large before the advent of 50 brackets of KO's the only game

in town were the pairs events.

 

generally 3,6,9 were seeds with table 3 being the top seed.

[kevperk]

Actually, correcting the Bridgepad data is not that difficult to fix, but most don't know how.

 

Nobody around here holds conversations in the bar after the game any more. :o :(

 

Ideally, I think, you would seed all four fields, however many sections you have. One director here used to do that by putting a card on every fourth table that said "only A players here" or the equivalent. Of course, these days we get about half the NS's reserved for people with physical problems. It is true, IME, that if you let players randomly pick where to sit, or if you have a lot of relatively good players with physical problems, you end up with unbalanced fields.

 

Monday, we had "overalls" in our one section Web movement (17 tables, 26 boards, 13 rounds, 3 board sets). The EW pair who did best in that field got more masterpoints than the NS pair who did best in their field. There was no arrow switch. This makes no sense to me, but the program (ACBLScore) allows it, so the directors here assume it must be okay. I suppose it is, if your purpose is to give away masterpoints. :(

 

Heh. Another interesting thing that happened, irrelevant to this thread: there was a scoring correction, and new results were sent out. On one board, two NS pairs got 1430 for a shared top. However, one table played the board in 6S by NS making. The other, according to the report, played it in 5D by EW, down one. I'm told that the problem is that while it's easy to correct scores after the game in ACBLScore, that doesn't affect what the Bridgepad system thinks happened, correcting the Bridgepad data is difficult or impossible, and the contracts come from the bridgepads. :unsure: :o

[barmar]

Monday, we had "overalls" in our one section Web movement (17 tables, 26 boards, 13 rounds, 3 board sets). The EW pair who did best in that field got more masterpoints than the NS pair who did best in their field. There was no arrow switch. This makes no sense to me, but the program (ACBLScore) allows it, so the directors here assume it must be okay. I suppose it is, if your purpose is to give away masterpoints. :(

If your NS and EW fields are reasonably balanced, a pair that has a 70% game in one direction has done much better than a pair that got "only" 60% in the other direction. Why don't they deserve a bigger award?

[blackshoe]

Well, for starters, your premise ("If your NS and EW fields are reasonably balanced") is wrong. B-)

[barmar]

Well, for starters, your premise ("If your NS and EW fields are reasonably balanced") is wrong. B-)

Shouldn't we try to avoid that? We don't want players to be significantly advantaged or disadvantaged due to the direction they happen to sit.

[blackshoe]

Yes we should. Clubs around here don't.

[barmar]

OK, a club that doesn't balance the field probably shouldn't give overall awards.

 

But of course they won't change their practices. If they cared about fairness, they'd be balancing the field in the first place. Catch-22.

[mycroft]

If you have a 10-table game, and 5 pairs are mobility-challenged (and usually they're the better, but not the best, pairs), and there are those who will come an hour early because it's their God-given right to sit North, it's almost impossible to balance the field. Arrow-switches and one-winner movements are your friend - at least when giving out overalls.

 

And in the case above, it's usually the E-W pair that wins the overalls, because the N-S field is so averagely better that the two or three sharks in the weaker pairs E-W tend to score disproportionately high.

[Vampyr]

If your NS and EW fields are reasonably balanced, a pair that has a 70% game in one direction has done much better than a pair that got "only" 60% in the other direction. Why don't they deserve a bigger award?

 

Maybe they do, but combining two lines to produce "overall" results does not make it a one-winner game.

[paua]

If you have a 10-table game, and 5 pairs are mobility-challenged (and usually they're the better, but not the best, pairs), and there are those who will come an hour early because it's their God-given right to sit North, it's almost impossible to balance the field. Arrow-switches and one-winner movements are your friend - at least when giving out overalls.

 

And in the case above, it's usually the E-W pair that wins the overalls, because the N-S field is so averagely better that the two or three sharks in the weaker pairs E-W tend to score disproportionately high.

 

Arrow-switching is messy, but I don't think the players need to wear overalls ;)

[Vampyr]

Arrow-switching is messy, but I don't think the players need to wear overalls ;)

 

Arrow-switching is messy if you want to enjoy the maximum balance and comparisons; but you can just adopt the EBU approach and arrow-switch the last round (or the last two if needed).

[mycroft]

for the purpose of this discussion (ACBL club games with overall awards), any arrow-switching would be better (except, possibly, every round - which at least is no worse, just really confusing)...

[barmar]

Maybe they do, but combining two lines to produce "overall" results does not make it a one-winner game.

Who said it does? Masterpoints are typically awarded for placing in your section/direction and also for placing in the overalls (in ACBL, you get whichever award is higher).

[mycroft]

You just did. The ACBL gives out overall awards, to pairs who have no - zero - comparisons against half the field; and frequently only 1/3 boards-played comparisons against some of the rest of the field.

 

These overall awards are therefore similar to running two Howells, one Friday night and one Saturday night, and awarding extra points for the best score in either game.

 

If you have an unbalanced situation, and they do occur by design or accident or requirement of mobility, then the winner is likely to be the strongest pair in the weakest line - even if they have no better a game, potentially a worse game, than the strongest pair in the stronger line.

[blackshoe]

I said at one of the games recently that what clubs ought to do is make a bunch of small slips of paper with some number of masterpoints on them (about 60% of them would be "zero" by current ACBL rules). Put them all in a bowl. Mix well. When the players come in, they pick a slip out of the bowl, and that's their MP award for the day.

[barmar]

You just did. The ACBL gives out overall awards, to pairs who have no - zero - comparisons against half the field; and frequently only 1/3 boards-played comparisons against some of the rest of the field.

It's not a one-winner event, it's a 3-winner event. There's a NS winner, an EW winner, and an overall winner. And even more when it's stratified, since there are awards in each strat.

These overall awards are therefore similar to running two Howells, one Friday night and one Saturday night, and awarding extra points for the best score in either game.

You mean like the side game series at regionals and NABCs? These are 4 or 6 single-session games. All the players who played in at least 2 sessions then get their best two results combined, and these are ranked to produce series winners (the series masterpoints are gold, versus red for the session awards).

[pigpenz]

ACBL is in the business of selling points

Case:

1...club game 14 tables stratified 9/14 pairs got awards

2...sectional 2session pairs we come in 3rd overall get less than pair who come in first in B strata...both with 1500Mp

 

Of course BBO gets to cash in on this too cause it sells

[blackshoe]

We have a club here that once or twice a year runs a "continuous pairs" over several sessions. Then he computes the best total matchpoint score for each individual, and the top players get extra masterpoints. So you can play with different partners and still be "in the money" for the "extra" masterpoints. Yet the laws say "the contestant in a pairs game is the pair". I'm still trying to figure out why this club's method makes sense. :o

[Vampyr]

We have a club here that once or twice a year runs a "continuous pairs" over several sessions. Then he computes the best total matchpoint score for each individual, and the top players get extra masterpoints. So you can play with different partners and still be "in the money" for the "extra" masterpoints. Yet the laws say "the contestant in a pairs game is the pair". I'm still trying to figure out why this club's method makes sense. :o

 

Interesting. We have lots of that sort of contest around here, but the top players get a prize or a trophy instead of masterpoints. I think that this club's method is interesting; I am curious about the mechanism for giving masterpoints to individuals; perhaps the event is scored as an individual duplicate with however many total tables there were. It sounds a little dodgy, though. I would be surprised if the regulations permitted it.