Multiple Teams

[barmar]

Victory Points, or any method based on IMP, cannot be used when the boards are different in different matches. Some sets will be flat, others swingy. I am amazed that this was not obvious to you.

If by "cannot" you mean "should not", I suppose you're right -- it obviously can because we've been doing it for decades in the US at all levels. National Swiss Team tourneys don't switch to pre-dealt hands until the final round.

 

Although I don't see why the scoring method really matters -- using different boards mostly invalidates any comparison between the different matches, although the more boards you play per match the less significant this becomes. If you play 64 boards, winning by 100 IMPs is a whallop, winning by single digits is hardly decisive; I don't think it matters that much that the close match was different boards. The probability of getting mostly flat hands in that many boards is miniscule. Most long matches that end with close scores are still very swingy, they just have about the same number of swings in each direction (this is why it's interesting to see the raw scores, rather than just the net -- 1-0 means a boring match, 101-100 has plenty of excitement).