[Vilgan]

Mbodell, on Jul 31 2008, 02:54 PM, said:

mycroft, on Jul 31 2008, 09:25 AM, said:

My problem is the reverse.  I'm a 600 MP player (because most of my travel to tournaments, I get to wear a suit, mostly) who *wants* to play against the best.

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

[paulg]

Matchpoints dominate the clubs in Scotland. However, unlike my experiences in England, many of the clubs will use aggregate scoring for at least one or two club competitions. At my local club, I reckon 20% of the evenings are scored using aggregate.

Paul

[NickRW]

cardsharp, on Aug 1 2008, 05:49 PM, said:

Matchpoints dominate the clubs in Scotland. However, unlike my experiences in England, many of the clubs will use aggregate scoring for at least one or two club competitions. At my local club, I reckon 20% of the evenings are scored using aggregate.

Paul

Yup. Don't know how far south you travel into Sassenach land, but I'm south of London and it is pretty much solid matchpoints here - I think about 3 team events during the year - and one of them is the random teams in the Christmas week. Given the prevalence of computer scoring these days it is perhaps surprising that people don't experiment with other forms of scoring at least once in a while.

Nick

P.S. Edit - I don't want to lose MP - it is a very good form of competition.

[NickRW]

Vilgan, on Aug 1 2008, 01:32 PM, said:

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.

Yeah - I can see why that would be of course. But there are

a) older people who perhaps were good players but whose skills are not what they were - perhaps they'd be better off if allowed to slip back down the rankings and

b] there are folks who just play lots and accumulate more points than their actual skills would really suggest.

Without a better ranking system these sorts of things will be something of a problem. That, or just have open competition and qualifying rounds where necessary.

Nick

[Vilgan]

NickRW, on Aug 1 2008, 02:43 PM, said:

Vilgan, on Aug 1 2008, 01:32 PM, said:

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.

Yeah - I can see why that would be of course. But there are

a) older people who perhaps were good players but whose skills are not what they were - perhaps they'd be better off if allowed to slip back down the rankings and

b] there are folks who just play lots and accumulate more points than their actual skills would really suggest.

Without a better ranking system these sorts of things will be something of a problem. That, or just have open competition and qualifying rounds where necessary.

Nick

I don't think anyone ever argues that the ranking system in the ACBL is absurd. The problem is getting anyone up at the top to actually DO something about it. The current system is good for revenue stream and messing with that in any fashion seems to be taboo.

Hell, I just finished 13th in the Fast Pairs in Vegas and picked up 25 platinum that week. However, at many regionals I am still considered a "C" player if I play a pair event. Is that absurd? Yes. Are they ever going to do anything about it? Probably not.

The people who drop down in ability as they age but are not dropped into a lower strat I think are the ones who lose out the most. There is one guy in our unit with over 10000 masterpoints who was a hell of a player once, but can barely even play now. Every KO he enters he is automatically put in bracket 1 and gets crushed even though he definitely does not belong there anymore.

[Stephen Tu]

Vilgan, on Aug 1 2008, 06:32 AM, said:

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.

Some of them do ... I've gotten some stern lectures from trying that sort of tactic in the past and being discovered. If they move you & others up, other teams get moved down & may be unhappy, plus the teams in the brackets below those teams pushed down may get unhappy also.

Now in local tourneys I can get accommodation sometimes (directors told me to ask to play up instead of putting fictitious attendance points down) but nationals is tough so I try to avoid bracketed events at the nationals.

[Mbodell]

Stephen Tu, on Aug 1 2008, 12:18 PM, said:

Vilgan, on Aug 1 2008, 06:32 AM, said:

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.

Some of them do ... I've gotten some stern lectures from trying that sort of tactic in the past and being discovered. If they move you & others up, other teams get moved down & may be unhappy, plus the teams in the brackets below those teams pushed down may get unhappy also.

Now in local tourneys I can get accommodation sometimes (directors told me to ask to play up instead of putting fictitious attendance points down) but nationals is tough so I try to avoid bracketed events at the nationals.

Yeah, we play up sometimes in local sectional like tournaments, and asked about it in Vegas but were told it was a big no-no. We played one opponent who said they'd won their first match when their opponents were eliminated for being out of bracket even though they had only mis-estimated by like 500 or 600 points. I don't know if it was up or down.

Really the long term answer for us is to get better so we are competitive in the NABC events and earn the odd MP along the way so we can eventually make the higher brackets legitimately.

[Stephen Tu]

Mbodell, on Aug 1 2008, 02:21 PM, said:

Yeah, we play up sometimes in local sectional like tournaments, and asked about it in Vegas but were told it was a big no-no.  We played one opponent who said they'd won their first match when their opponents were eliminated for being out of bracket even though they had only mis-estimated by like 500 or 600 points.  I don't know if it was up or down.

It had to be underestimating the points. They only kick you out if you put under your actual total for those amounts. If you overestimate by that much they definitely aren't going to care. If you overestimate by 5000-6000 then you get the lecture , don't know if you get kicked out, I was allowed to play on and told very specifically not to do that anymore.

[paulg]

NickRW, on Aug 1 2008, 07:35 PM, said:

cardsharp, on Aug 1 2008, 05:49 PM, said:

Matchpoints dominate the clubs in Scotland. However, unlike my experiences in England, many of the clubs will use aggregate scoring for at least one or two club competitions. At my local club, I reckon 20% of the evenings are scored using aggregate.

Paul

Yup. Don't know how far south you travel into Sassenach land, but I'm south of London and it is pretty much solid matchpoints here - I think about 3 team events during the year - and one of them is the random teams in the Christmas week. Given the prevalence of computer scoring these days it is perhaps surprising that people don't experiment with other forms of scoring at least once in a while.

Nick

P.S. Edit - I don't want to lose MP - it is a very good form of competition.

I think the aggregate is pretty unique to Scotland, I never encountered it when I lived west of London.

And ScoreBridge had to add aggregate scoring to be become a viable product up here.

p

[pigpenz]

xcurt, on Jul 31 2008, 09:57 PM, said:

Agree with the comments about KOs, mps and bracketing. When I was starting to play tournaments I could only play on the weekends, and I played a lot online. So I got good without accumulating the mps, basically locking myself out of KOs -- which is the route to even more mps. I'm not interested in going to a tournament to play random 1200 mp players for four sessions, nor am I interested in going to a tournament to play a 17-table Flight A pairs on Saturday. There probably aren't many people in my position though, so there's no pressure for the ACBL to change the status quo.

yes, I dont care to pay the travel expenses but would for sure be willing to play in an online sectional or regional 2 session event even if it cost $5-$10 per session. Granted there is always the talk about cheating etcetra but it has to be coming one of these days.(online full acbl tourneys).

question is what is stopping it from happening?
1. jobs for acbl TD's
2. microeconomy built on tourneys-hotel etc

dont know maybe it would put alot of people out of work but does seem eventually it has to work and will come sometime.

[JoAnneM]

I know at least one flight A pair in my area who don't attend Regionals because the pairs events are not large enough, but they attend lots of Sectionals. Unfortunately those planning these events have to react to what the players want, and they want KO's. What I would like to see go away is all Senior events. It issilly to see 2 or 3 sections of open pairs and one section of Seniors with 8 tables.

And Open and Senior Swiss and the same time is really ridiculous. Almost everyone is senior, just have one event that pays more points!!

[Vilgan]

JoAnneM, on Aug 2 2008, 12:43 AM, said:

What I would like to see go away is all Senior events.

Yes, I am looking forward to playing the National KO event in Boston. OH WAIT, it excludes the 10% of us who are not over 55 yet.

Senior events are retarded. If they are going to have senior events, they should at least move the age up to like 75 and stop treating them like open national events.. with platinum and a win considered a qualifier for grand master. I think there are like 20 people out of 640 in our whole unit who would not qualify for a senior event. Even the "young working crowd" can still mostly play in "senior" events.

[blackshoe]

I'm a Senior, even (I think) by WBF rules (I'm 61). I don't see the attraction to Senior events. All they mean to me is that I won't be playing against (or with) the small percentage of players who don't qualify. Why would I care?

As for the more (or less) masterpoints aspect, masterpoints are a joke anyway.

[Winstonm]

nige1, on Jul 29 2008, 04:22 AM, said:

Arguably, Matchpointed pairs is a completely different game from X-Imp or Butler Pairs; but I think MP is more fun and more skilful.

I am not convinced MP is the more skillful game unless concentration level is counted as a skill.

To me the scoring differences don't require higher skills but different skills.

[fred]

I personally think matchpoints is a much harder game than IMPs because a much higher % of the decisions you make turn out to be important.

Aside from that, to be really good at matchpoints you need to be good at figuring out what you expect will happen at other tables. IMO the situations in which such thinking is appropriate and relavent at IMPs are few and far between.

I believe that one of the main reasons why so many experts and near-experts are dismissive of matchpoints is because they do not play bridge well enough (or are too lazy) to be successful in pairs games.

IMO the most challenging bridge on planet earth is played in the finals of the Reisinger and the World Open Pairs. Just qualifying for the last stages of these events means that you are GOOD. If you are successful you are VERY GOOD.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Winstonm]

Quote

I personally think matchpoints is a much harder game than IMPs because a much higher % of the decisions you make turn out to be important.

Although each decision is crucial at MPs, it always seems, I am not so sure that by itself makes MP the more skillful game - I reflect that Bob Hamman has no great record in MP pairs. And I am reminded of the defense Hamman played by refusing to overruff when holding 3 small trumps that led to +800 that in his book Zia admitted "would never occured to him".

I would rather have Hamman as my partner than the late Barry Crane, even if Hamman didn't win so many matchpointed events.

[fred]

Winstonm, on Aug 2 2008, 05:21 PM, said:

Quote

I personally think matchpoints is a much harder game than IMPs because a much higher % of the decisions you make turn out to be important.

Although each decision is crucial at MPs, it always seems, I am not so sure that by itself makes MP the more skillful game - I reflect that Bob Hamman has no great record in MP pairs. And I am reminded of the defense Hamman played by refusing to overruff when holding 3 small trumps that led to +800 that in his book Zia admitted "would never occured to him".

I would rather have Hamman as my partner than the late Barry Crane, even if Hamman didn't win so many matchpointed events.

Hamman doesn't play as many matchpoint events at the rest of us because he is invariably still playing in the team events when some of the big pairs events are taking place. When Hamman does play in pairs events he tends to do so with someone other than his regular partner.

But he has still done pretty well for himself. As of 1994 Hamman had won the Blue Ribbon Pairs 4 times, the Life Master Pairs 3 times, the Reisinger 6 times, and the World Open Pairs once.

I am not sure how well he has done since 1994, but I believe he has won the Reisinger at least a couple of times since then.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

Jlall, on Aug 2 2008, 05:24 PM, said:

fred, on Aug 2 2008, 12:02 PM, said:

I personally think matchpoints is a much harder game than IMPs because a much higher % of the decisions you make turn out to be important.

Aside from that, to be really good at matchpoints you need to be good at figuring out what you expect will happen at other tables. IMO the situations in which such thinking is appropriate and relavent at IMPs are few and far between.

I believe that one of the main reasons why so many experts and near-experts are dismissive of matchpoints is because they do not play bridge well enough (or are too lazy) to be successful in pairs games.

IMO the most challenging bridge on planet earth is played in the finals of the Reisinger and the World Open Pairs. Just qualifying for the last stages of these events means that you are GOOD. If you are successful you are VERY GOOD.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

The problem to me is that there is a higher luck factor in PAIRS than TEAMS (especially knockouts) by a lot. So while I would much prefer to play MP pairs to IMP pairs and BAM knockouts to IMP knockouts, if my options are IMP knockout teams or MP pairs as it usually is I would much prefer to play the knockout because of the lower amount of luck involved.

IMO people confuse the variables involved and associate imps with teams and MP with pairs and then think that MP has a higher luck factor, and thus think they prefer imps. Really I think knockouts are a much preferable form of scoring to pairs. I think the ACBL should start having some BAM knockouts.

Agree luck is much more important at pairs vs. teams, regardless of the form of scoring.

But I feel strongly that there is a lot less luck involved in matchpoint pairs than there is in IMP pairs. The reason is that top of a board is always the same at matchpoint pairs and this is not even close to being the case at IMP pairs.

If you start a petition urging the ACBL to run some BAM knockout events, I will be the first time sign it!

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com