Why imps

[Badmonster]

Why are imps preferred over mp on bbo?

[mink]

When a new table is created, the table settings of the last table where the creator has been are taken as a default. So, all people that just click on create table and then ok will probably get an IMPs table, as it is most likely they have visited an IMPs table before.

 

As there are so few MP tables, you see less duplicate results in your MOVIE when playing MP. And after having played 16 boards, you see very few in the next boards as you probably generate a new board each time.

 

Maybe it would help to make MP the default option when creating a table. All who do not care will have MP tables then, and the ratio IMP:MP tables will be more balanced this way.

 

Karl

[Deanrover]

Lots of people play for fun. IMPs requires less concentration. If you are in 4 ♠ and have 10 top tricks you can relax, whereas in MPs you have to decide whether to try for the overtrick.

[Rain]

The default option, when you haven't been at any table, is IMP. I suspect this is the main reason. Change default option to MP and you'll have unbalanced ratio skewing towards MP.

[helene_t]

At the Dutch site StepBridge, MP is default. When the site was free of charge, there was a strong (but not overwelming) majority of MP tables. After it became a pay site, it drifted towards 50-50. I suppose paying users make more concious choices. This is consistent with the fact that many TDs (who probably make concious choices for IMPs or MPs) choose MPs. Also, it apperas to be the trend that stronger players play IMP. At least in the Netherlands, most strong players prefer IMPs and weaker players are more used to MPs which is played at most clubs.

 

I think MPs make sense only in a strong and homogenous field. In a weak field or a field with a lot of pick-ups and subs that cause a lot of crazy bidding and signalling misunderstandings, you may as well reason:

- "6NT and/or 7♣ is probably cold but since most of the field will either not be in slam or mannage to go down somehow, 6♣ is enough", or

- "I could probably make an overtrick in this no-brain 3NT contract but since most of the field will either be in some silly contract or mannage to go down, I'll play safe anyway".

 

And in a small, heterogenous field, that sort of decisions become pretty random. IMPs is more robust, when playing IMPs you follow more or less the same strategy regardless of the field.

[mink]

Hi Helene

 

All what you say is true. However, in bridge clubs usually there are players with significantly different skills, and they are played MP everywhere. Why? Because outstanding results have a much greater impact on the scores of the others at IMP than at MP. This makes everything more random. And this is true for the IMPs at BBO, too. So in my opinion, MP results tell you more exactly what you achieved than IMP results do.

 

I agree that MP is also more challenging.

 

Karl

[hotShot]

Assume you are a top player and you are playing a 100 boards team match.

You know your game contract will make 60% of the time, you know you will face a similar decision again later in the match. So you bid game knowing that on the long run, your wins will be larger than your losses.

Now assume you are playing MP's. Each board counts on its own. All boards have the same weight. This also means finger faults, severe and fatal errors count the same.

Now your result does not depend on your ability to judge cards and your knowledge of statistcs. It depends on what the others do. An elaborated bidding system is not helping you, because the question is no longer: "Can the contract be made?"

It is: "Will the others bid game too?"

As an example think of a hand where you have to decide beween 3 and 4♠. If you think you can make 10 tricks with good play, it does not matter much if you bid 3 or 4, because if "the field" stops in 3♠, 3+1 is the same top as 4=. Bidding 4 might bring you from a shared top to a unique top gaining 1MP. But it can cost you all MP's for that board, if you are the only one in 4♠-1. It depends on the field which decision is right.

You can gain or loose 1MP in a MP tourney just to the movement. If you are the best pair in the field, and the 2nd best pair is playing the board the same side as you do, you will share the top, loosing 1MP. If they are playing it on your opps side, both of you can have a (unique) top. This introduces some sort of randomness to a tourney.

 

Note that you can see the quality of an MP tourney just looking at the percentages of the winner and the last. In a mixed field like on BBO one gets results from 80%-20%. In a strong field errors are rare so the result difference between the first and the last of a tourney will be small. A good tourney will have results between 55% for the winner and 45% for the last. This also means that every MP might make a difference. So loosing MP's to the movement can ruin your result.

 

If you have a score programm avaible make this little test. Introduce the pairs champ1 and champ2 who win the top each board they play, except againt each other where they get 50%. Fill up the tourney to 7 tables with pairs of equal skill eq1-eq12. They will loose against the champs and play 50% against each other.

What should we get? The champs should be shared 1st and the others shared 3rd.

What do we get? Well the champs win, but the others get results that differ between 48% and 42% just depending on the movement. Because those who happen to play a board the same side as both champions will get less MP than those pairs playing on the other side.

 

On the other hand in a mixed field, playing IMPs a weak pairs can make you win big numbers, introducing randomness to the result.

 

All this summes up to:

1) In a very strong field (and playing a lot of boards) IMPs are a better measure of skill than MP's.

2) In a mixed field (and playing only a few boards) MPs limit randomness caused by opponents skill, but introduce a bias (by the movement) that the TD has to compensate by seating the top pairs.

[pigpenz]

Hi Helene

 

All what you say is true. However, in bridge clubs usually there are players with significantly different skills, and they are played MP everywhere. Why? Because outstanding results have a much greater impact on the scores of the others at IMP than at MP. This makes everything more random. And this is true for the IMPs at BBO, too. So in my opinion, MP results tell you more exactly what you achieved than IMP results do.

 

I agree that MP is also more challenging.

 

Karl

thats what i have noticed playing in tourney's at imps. Especially individual ones. Thats what lead to my question about weak 2's bid. Some players are more interested in creating imp swings in these tourneys. The rewards are greater when it works. Also what is different on the individual imps ones some hands def. have nore value in the final score than other ones. So matchpoints all the hands are equal in value.

 

In long extended matches generallly(imps) the better players will most likely win out, generally their technique is better. Safety plays etc. that some players would never dream of at matchpoints.

 

Sontag in his book the Bridge Bum said that Granovetter told him he like to not eat all between sessions of matchpoint events cause he didnt want to waste any blood flow on digestion and to have sex before imp sessions so he would be more relaxed :(

[the hog]

Hi Helene

 

All what you say is true. However, in bridge clubs usually there are players with significantly different skills, and they are played MP everywhere. Why? Because outstanding results have a much greater impact on the scores of the others at IMP than at MP. This makes everything more random. And this is true for the IMPs at BBO, too. So in my opinion, MP results tell you more exactly what you achieved than IMP results do.

 

I agree that MP is also more challenging.

 

Karl

I disagree with this Mink. MP requires different skills and often involves taking dangerous or unsound action for the lead etc, but I would not argue that "it is more challenging".

 

A thorough knowledge of safety plays and squeeze technique is an essential skill set for the successful Imp player.

[keylime]

MPs to me seems to be a little more of a crapshoot than IMPs - I think IMPs is a much more pure test of skill.

[Deanrover]

MPs to me seems to be a little more of a crapshoot than IMPs - I think IMPs is a much more pure test of skill.

Surprising. I always thought it was the other way round.

[andych]

I have no preference between IMP and MP. But I would love to play some MP in MBC. Currently there are just too few MP tables. Though one could always open a MP table at wish, there are just too few results for comparison. And I have to switch back to IMP mode.

 

Support any idea to make MP more popular !!!

[Deanrover]

I have no preference between IMP and MP. But I would love to play some MP in MBC. Currently there are just too few MP tables. Though one could always open a MP table at wish, there are just too few results for comparison. And I have to switch back to IMP mode.

 

Support any idea to make MP more popular !!!

Would be interesting to see MPs as the default and see how that changes things.

[Guest Jlall]

to quote a vugraph commentator "This is MP at its finest--bad." I feel I'm playing good bridge when I'm playing IMPs. When I play MP I feel disgusted and dirty.

[MickyB]

Agree with Justin, except that I've never had the feeling that I'm playing good bridge. Well, maybe two years ago when I didn't know how little I knew...Anyway, yes, matchpoints doesn't feel like proper bridge to me, and for me one of the great things about BBO is that it is nearly all IMPs.

[mycroft]

I used to be a much happier IMP player than MP; partly I didn't have the skills, partly it just didn't feel right. But then I saw the light...

 

Rubber is Bridge. IMP-scored team is Bridge. MP is not Bridge, it's matchpoints.[1]

 

To win at MPs, you have to play bad bridge. You have to play the odds, because MPs reward frequency of success/failure, not amount of success/failure. The "make or down 4, doubled" decisions are - interesting at MPs, primarily because you have to either go for it, and hope your partner understands when they go wrong, or chicken out, and trade MPs for partnership harmony. And you don't know which one it's going to be until you guess wrong.

 

As for "the field", well, that's what BAM (point-a-board) teams are for. I'd love to see more of that - including long-match BAM teams (BAM KOs? hmm).

 

Michael.

[1] IMP pairs is Craps. Pachabo is incomprehensible.

[Guest Jlall]

BAM KOs...thats actually a really good idea. The more I think about it the more I like it,

[barmar]

MPs to me seems to be a little more of a crapshoot than IMPs - I think IMPs is a much more pure test of skill.

Surprising. I always thought it was the other way round.

In a short match, IMPs can be a crapshoot, because one big swing board can cancel out most of the rest. But in a long match, the effect of a few boards is less signficant. If you have a -10 board, a few +1 to +3 boards will get you back to even.

[luis]

The problem with BAM is that a weak team can never defeat a good one, there's 0 chance. Playing imps if the find a lucky slam or some gambled games they have a shot, specially when the other team can't find swings due to poor play.

At BAM the lucky slam or gambled games can win 1, 2 maybe 3 boards but they will loose all the others, the partscores, the games where they can't find the overtricks, the defenses where they discard badly etc etc.

As a result nobody wants to play BAM and that's why IMPs are popular.

Where I live Swiss butlers where you play 4 matches of 7 boards scored by IMPs are the de-facto format for club tournaments, it's quite obvious that this is because the results of such a tournament are at best completely random.

 

Heh, I guess I find a good place to vent...

[Free]

I find imps way more relaxing. You don't take silly risks to get an extra trick, you give away overtricks like hell if the safety improves,... Personally I find the safety-concept very interesting.

In MP's you get people who can't defend properly, who bid like crazy,... You get decent scores against good opponents, but you only get tops or bottoms aganst weak opponents. Sometimes you're playing with the biggest losers and you go away with a 15% table, because they didn't bid an obvious game which goes down due to poor splits, or they intervene with crazy hands. I hate to play MP tournament against weak opponents since they only randomize the score. If you get a top in a strong field, you've deserved it. If you get a bottom, opponents earned their top.

 

Imo, imps is real bridge, MP's is a good alternative but only when it's with players of a similar playing level.