Mbodell, on Jul 31 2008, 02:54 PM, said:
mycroft, on Jul 31 2008, 09:25 AM, said:
We had the same problem with the KO trying to find our level. We tried a couple of NABC events, and didn't do so well. I played 4 bracketed KO and won brackets 9/10, 19/19, 12/12, and 13/20 all fairly comfortably, even though for some of the matches myself or my team mates weren't playing that well. I like team events and IMP scoring but it would be nice if we could say I know our team is only 1,300 MP but really we play more like 13,000 MP could we try say bracket 6 or 7.
I agree that the Swiss offers more chances to find your level but unfortunately we didn't play as many this time and by the time the final weekend rolled around our team mates had left.
One tactic that worked for us in the past was just to inflate your actual matchpoints. Add an extra 1 in front of your masterpoint total or something and you'll get to play against better players Its something that in theory you are not supposed to do but a lot of people do and the directors don't really care. Inflating totals to play up is no big deal whereas deflating totals to play down is a MAJOR no no.
As for the KO vs matchpoint thing.. I think its sort of a progression. When I played in my first KO in the Dallas NABC, I was way excited to win 11 gold points for making it to the semis. Even last year I was still playing mostly KO events because it was cool to get all those "points". Once you start worrying about national events though, matchpoints is the next logical step (imo). Its a lot easier to place in a national pairs event than it is to make it to day 3 of the Vanderbilt/Spingold. Soooooo I'll work on my matchpoint game. Another reason I see some people play matchpoints is they acquired more masterpoints than their skill level can accommodate. So rather than playing bracket 1 and losing constantly they switch over to matchpoints where sometimes they win stuff and sometimes they don't.
I think it will always be the case that newer players all flock to KOs though. At least until pair rewards are increased to be a bit more comparable to KOs.
Eric