Alphabet Points Return!

[McBruce]

Hi all:

 

It has been almost ten months since the end of Alphabet Points tournaments on BBO. They shutdown when my desktop began to shutdown without warning. In the interim I have acquired a new laptop, and when the desktop is finally repaired (after months of struggling in safe mode and a Windows reinstall, we now beleve it is simply an insufficient power supply that is the problem) in a few weeks, I will be ready to go again. I could just let the series fade into history, but my perception is that there is a need for free tourneys run by a single person, now that most are paid tourneys run by organizations. Also, I cannot log on to BBO without a few people asking me, in a very supportive way, when the Alphabet Point series will continue. It's hard to refuse such support!

 

The purpose of this post is to spend a few weeks working out the details for version 2.0. I hope we can avoid being bogged down on one aspect in this thread. There's a significant portion of posters here that think the format is not bridge, some who publicly advocated a boycott: despite this we averaged over 25 tables per session. (In trying to improve the format here we'll ignore the hysterical detractors.)

 

At some later post I shall announce some new dates and adjusted regulations and we'll be off again!

 

The details of Alphabet Point tournaments (version 1.0) are decribed at:

 

http://members.shaw.ca/ooga/alphacocs.htm

 

In a nutshell these are the ground rules:

 

1. Individual, 15 boards, one-board rounds, no kibitzers until all players have played 10 boards.

 

2. Militantly SAYC-only (I adjust if I am informed of an auction that features a non-SAYC bid which is fielded by partner.) No alerts or explanations are ever required since all play the same system.

 

3. Twice a week, matchpoints once, IMPs once; 7:30pm.

 

4. Unclocked with penalties for slow play.

 

5. A rating system maintained on my website which awards 'alphabet points'--which decay over time--to all above average, based not on the BBO results but on the official results which may include penalties for slow play or behavioural issues.

 

Topics for discussion (and topics I will ignore):

 

1. Individual, 15 boards, one-board rounds, no kibitzers until all players have played 10 boards.

These are all non-negotiable. I don't want all the TD trouble with "who is wired" that pairs games bring. I like at least the possibility that you can play with 15 different people, even though in practice that doesn't happen very often. I will not allow kibitzers except to allow the fastest finishers to watch at the end. I know this last is controversial and I accept that many will boycott, but my mind is made up. It''s not going to change: nobody is forcing you to play here. I will not respond here to any post that questions it.

 

2. Militantly SAYC-only (I adjust if I am informed of an auction that features a non-SAYC bid which is fielded by partner.) No alerts or explanations are ever required since all play the same system.

What could conceivably happen here is a change to BB Basic (which includes Landy), and I might allow negative doubles to 3♠ in order to smooth out some problem areas. We may even try a few BB Advanced tournaments, although I might have to restict these to Alphabet Points leaders who have demonstrated that they know SAYC/BBB.

 

3. Twice a week, matchpoints once, IMPs once; 7:30pm.

While often I can handle a twice-weekly schedule, sometimes I cannot. In the past I tried to make this up with extra tourneys following a missed one, but this won't be happening anymore. It will be twice a week when I am home, probably 2-3 missed dates each month on average. Unlike most other online tourney series, I don't think it helps to appoint a substitute TD whose decisions and experience with the format will be different. Better to be consistent. Tuesday and Fridays are likely to remain as the two nights although I will not be making up missed tourneys in order to keep Tuesday as IMPs and Fridays as matchpoints.

 

4. Unclocked with penalties for slow play.

This has a strong possibility of changing. My original idea in unclocked was to have the fast pairs stop after 5 and 10 boards to let the slow pairs catch up and allow more possible pairings and less chance of replays. Of course, nobody did this and the slowest 3-5 tables were left (along with their random victims) to play repeatedly amongst themselves.

Probably I will go to a clocked survivor movement (7 minutes per board with an extension in the first and maybe the second round) and cut about 20% of the field after 5 and after 10 boards. I really am not sure what is possible here and what the effect will be. Will this type of movement ensure (in a 20+ table field) that there are no replays in each segment?

 

5. A rating system maintained on my website which awards 'alphabet points'--which decay over time-- to all above average, based not on the BBO results but on the official results which may include penalties for slow play or behavioural issues.

This has worked fairly well. The question now is whether to start anew or continue the points over despite the ten month gap. The leader had 325 points (100 for a win in most games) when the last game ended; with the decay applied, the total today is only 111. I could find a compromise somewhere and adjust the dates of the first 46 tournaments to reduce the decay somewhat, or even adjust the dates so that the games seem contiguous to the decay formula. On the other hand, it might be better to leave the decay in and allow some new players a chance to crack the leaderboard, while still giving the old hands an advantage, albeit smaller.

 

OK. Up to you, Alphabet Points supporters! I cannot log on without a few of you sending me an encouraging private message, now I am ready to go. Let's get started again and make it even better! Tell me how...

[McBruce]

..or, if nobody wants to discuss, we could just start things up again as before and see what happens...

 

Friday, July 15, at 7:30 Pacific time. Hope to see you there.

[Gweny]

:( Welcome back McB!

[keylime]

I'd say that you've been slacking way too long, however, unlike most, you've been dealing with "life". Welcome back indeed.

 

I like the ability to have the neg dbls bumped up to 3S, with Landy too.

 

With my game I've found that the survivor movement does help the epidemic slow play problem. I use 15%.

 

OK I have two requests for the letters:

 

K = Kaplan

H = Helness

[bearmum]

I like the idea of using BBO Basic (IF ONLY I could work out how to get notes about it :ph34r: )

As I am not sure if the tourney times will suit me in Australia so please feel free to disregard my comments :ph34r: but I think survivor clocked tourneys might be better ?? as I TRULY believe some people play slowly on purpose (even in f2f -- where an IMP penalty applied after a few warnings tends to make the slow players catch up !! )