[golfacer]

Quote

Prize pool = 80% of all card fees.

Winner gets 50% of prize pool.

Next place gets half that ( but minimum must be the card fee -- $1)
Next place gets half that ( but minimum must be the card fee -- $1)
etc

if "half that" is not enough to make up a card fee, it is added to the winner's prize.

The payouts for a recent 5-player tournament were $2.00, $1.00, and $1.00, which appears to not follow the last sentence of the above quote (half of $1 is $0.50, which is below the minimum, so the remainder of the pot goes to the winner?). I think most money bridge players would prefer to have a bigger 1st-place prize and/or more places that pay more than the entry fee, as opposed to more chances to simply not lose anything. As an example:

2-4 players, 1 place
5-7 players, 2 places (65% and 35%)
8-10 players, 3 places (50%, 30%, 20%)

[fred]

Keep in mind that probably less than 1% of BBO members have version 4.7.5 (which is necessary to play in MBTs) and probably not much more than that even know what MBTs are all about.

I suspect that once we do a release of a MBT-enabled version of BBO for the general membership (tentatively scheduled for Monday) that you won't be seeing 3 and 4 tables MBTs anymore. We have done some thinking about various formulas or dividing up the prize money. Some of these produce silly results when the MBT contains a very small number of tables.

We are far from certain that we are using the best formula (or even close to the best formula) to calculate prize distribution. Most likely we will do some experimenting with different formulas (and different time limits and...) to see what our members like best.

The parameters like time, entry fee, rake, and prize distribution can be changed on the server end so we will not have to release any new versions of the client in order to experiment with these things.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[uday]

Quote

The payouts for a recent 5-player tournament were $2.00, $1.00, and $1.00, which appears to not follow the last sentence of the above quote

That's $ in entries, $4 in prizes; winner gets half ($2). Next gets half of residue ($1). The remainder is on the cusp , so the code chooses to give it to #3 rather than #1.


We will occasionally also see prizes that are smaller than entry fees. Example; last place gets $1 and is split 2 ways.

[ccccwwww]

maybe you can give NS (human and GIB p) same cards, EW hands are random. Every table play same number of boards. Results could be IMPed. Every round of action shall continue only after human players finish their bids at all tables. I can not figured out a way to cheat at this format. It will be much more exciting than current version. Luck still plays a role but much less. say u bid a 70% grand and fail, well that is life, if u dont like it, u should play chess!

tried 2 MBTs found that like bridge monkey keep click and begging for good cards

More pricy MBT should be introduced, like 20$ entry and pay back is 100$ for 20-30 brds of play. Just like money bridge in local clubs

[uday]

two S's will cheat by exchanging hand information if you use the same hands at two tables. There are other ways to increase the skill factor and we'll investigate once the basic version has been released. Agree re. more expensive mbts.

[ccccwwww]

Two Ss have identical cards, what infomation can they get?

[MickyB]

One could tell the other what cards their partner has.

[ccccwwww]

Every round of action shall continue only after human players finish their bids at all tables. Auctions are different at tables but the round is synchronized. Some might have short acution, they have to wait a little bit before they can start to play cards (or see dummy), that doesnt hurt that much comparing current version.

[Deanrover]

Longer tournaments would do well I suspect. Say you have a 25 minute sessions as normal, but then 25% of the field gets chopped, then a 5 minute break, then a 25 minute session where 25% of the field gets chopped etc. - it could prove really popular. You could have a 'big one' every week with a $200 + 15 entry fee, so the top prize would end up being very wortwhile (perhaps 6K if you got 100 entrants) - you would know better than me Fred, but I would think this would attract some well known players, which in turn would attract punters. People would buy directly into the tournament, but you could also offer satellites throughout the weak (e.g. a $22 buy in, 10 player tourney where the winner gets to the Big One).

[ccccwwww]

Still there will some information could be exchanged in the card play even if u
synchronize evey round of play. Like different open leads.

Definetely u can set S (human players) have same cards

[mpefritz]

Yes, if people want to play at the speed of the slowest player, you can make a tournament where " Every round of action shall continue only after human players finish their bids at all tables. " Maybe..

Even if your hand and (partner) GIB's hand are the same at each table..maybe one table declares and the other defends..then info can be passed. Furthermore, auctions at other tables may help you determine partner's HCP so that defending may be easier.

The other suggestion is similar S hands all around. Then you must play at same pace, else you might be ahead, know you are going to get a 4 HCP hand, and play slowly to not allow BOTs to have increased chance of a game against you.

fritz

[ccccwwww]

play fixed number of boards like 15 or 20

[mpefritz]

Playing a fixed number of boards would give a later player more info. He could know future holdings and change bidding strategy on earlier hands with that knowledge. And if the "barometer" scoring is kept, there would be even more info/advantage to the slower player. (The barometer scoring leads to some interesting strategies as is and I'd hate to see it go)

Maybe having a 2 "team" tournament for money bridge where each table gets the same cards and have 3 bots at each table. Cheating would have no benefit since it is player 1 with the cards versus player 2 with the cards. This would be a improvement on the money Bridge games.

[Patapon]

It would be cool if GIB was never the declarer- in MTB's and MB-

[uday]

Quote

Cheating would have no benefit since it is player 1 with the cards versus player 2 with the cards.

Player1 will dump to player 2 and split the prize

[hotShot]

A way to compenstate the luck factor could be to limit the GIB's score.

Lets say the average player makes 12 Boards in 25 minutes. That would be about 6 partscores and 6 gamescores. Half of that would be on the GIB axis.
So the GIBS get the trick score and 3* 50 partcore bonus and 3*game bonus e.g. 300+500+500.
So on average the GIB's get 1450 bonus points and the trick score.
If this was implemented as a bonus limit for the GIB's, the players would have a chance to compensate.

Example:
The GIBs start with a grand (7NT) for 1520 (40+6*30 = 220 trick score +1300 bonus points) and follows up with a vul. game (4♠) (4*30=120 trick score + 500 bonus points) this game would only be revarded with a 150 bonus points and for any further conract only the trick score would be assigned.
The player still has some disadvantages, he looses the time the GIBs need to play the board and he has to catch up the lost points.

[Poky]

uday, on May 8 2006, 01:35 AM, said:

Quote

Cheating would have no benefit since it is player 1 with the cards versus player 2 with the cards.

Player1 will dump to player 2 and split the prize

What do you mean by "dumping"? There is no prize, only total-points worth some ammount of cents.

Maybe calling this way of playing "a tournament" is wrong. This is a normal duplicate BFM team game where one player plays agains other in same conditions (and scores are compared in TPs, not in IMPs - to keep the existing format).

[xx1943]

fred, on May 5 2006, 01:19 AM, said:

A couple of new ideas:

1) Run MBTs where the human (South) is always dealt the "best hand" at the table.

2) Run MBTs where the South hand on each board is the same at every table, but the other 3 hands are randomized.

What do you think?

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Hi Fred,

1) Congratulations to this great new exciting MBT. Imho this is the best innovation in online bridge for the last years.

2) Your questions:
a) Both ideas are great.
B)I like the first more than the second, because human becomes declarer more often and so more challenge and less luck.

Many thanks to you and your staff, for providing us players such a great site as BBO.

Regards

Al

[mpefritz]

If you always have the human with the best hand at the table, you better allow the human to declare when the human side wins the auction. The inferences available knowing you have the "best hand" at the table would be very helpful, and, unless partner GIB was told that info, partner GIB might misdeclare by comparison.

fritz

[xx1943]

mpefritz, on May 7 2006, 10:57 PM, said:

...
Maybe having a 2 "team" tournament for money bridge where each table gets the same cards and have 3 bots at each table.  Cheating would have no benefit since it is player 1 with the cards versus player 2 with the cards.  This would be a improvement on the money Bridge games.

Great idea