[Lobowolf]

shintaro, on Mar 29 2009, 11:48 AM, said:

Well if anyone considers 'Dumping' to been anything but a disgrace then perhaps they should NOT play Bridge

Hey, have you ever considered posting in the Water Cooler?

[JanM]

I'm in the camp that believes the fault is with the Conditions of Contest drafters if it is advantageous for one team to dump to another. And I note (a little unhappily) that it is that position that gives us the first day of the NABC KOs (Vanderbilt, Spingold, Wagar, Seniors) where many teams get byes and the day is used to eliminate 7 or 8 or even fewer teams. We do that so that it will be in each team's best interest on the first day to win each match it plays.

In the USBF events, the last 3-4 matches of a Round Robin are played with no score comparison, to reduce the possibility that a team would know they had qualified and that by dumping against some other team they could increase the chance that a good team would fail to qualify. I'm the one who has to respond to complaints that scores from those matches don't appear on the internet until all of the matches are over, but I don't think anyone else suffers, and it does decrease the possibility of "sportsmanlike dumping."

A few years ago, I was in the unenviable position in the Women's Trials of playing the last match in a 4 team Round Robin with 2 to advance when it was mathematically impossible for my team to advance. We won that match, but I can imagine situations where we would not have played our best. Since I'm also involved in drafting the Conditions of Contest for that event, this won't happen to anyone in the future - we now use a double elimination KO when we have 4 teams, 2 of whom will advance.

In Shanghai, Italy lost a late (maybe the last?) Round Robin match to South Africa, which allowed South Africa to qualify for the Quarterfinals. Italy then chose South Africa as its Quarterfinal opponent. We all know what happened next.

[Phil]

Apollo81, on Mar 29 2009, 12:05 AM, said:

How can dumping possibly ever be sportsmanlike or ethical?

It depends on your definition of 'sportsmanlike'.

If your objective is to win the event, then 'dumping' is part of the game. Think of it as 'Survivor' where you lose a small competition to a weak opponent, so that it insures the demise of a strong opponent who the weak opponent might be vying with for the last spot.

When the top team is losing after the 3Q to an unknown, how do you think the other teams are reacting? They are rooting for the unknown in most cases.

In most cases, its the event organizers that are to blame for establishing a format where losing can be beneficial to a team.

I remember speaking to Jon Brissman about this subject in the mid 80's. His comment was, "Would you ever willingly lose a trick to guarantee your contract"?

[mikestar]

I'm with Kaplan. If losing a match enhances your chance of winning the event, do it. How is this fundamentally different than losing a trick to guarantee the contract.

If this type of behavior is not wanted, devise different conditions of contest.

I recall an incident from ice hockey in the early 70's. In those days the first place team in each conference would play against the third place team in the first round of the playoffs while the second place team would play the fourth place team. The St. Louis Blues were the class of the Western Conference and were certain to beat whoever else in the West they played they were first by a mile. The LA Kings needed a win or a tie in their final game against the worst team in the league to finish third so they could be slaughtered by the Blues in the playoffs. Unaccountably, they lost and finished fourth, then went on to beat Oakland in the first round of the playoffs, the first time they won a playoff series. Then they were slaughtered by St. Louis in the conference finals.

It was widely believed that the Kings dumped their final regular season game--but it was clearly in their best interest to lose that game. For the following year, the NHL changed the playoff system that had been in use for half a century so that henceforth the first place team would meet the fourth place team and the second place team would meet the third place team. This eliminated any incentive to dump and it has never been alleged since.

So for bridge organizations--find incentives to dump and remove them from the conditions of contest.

[dburn]

I recall that in the 2000 Olympiad in Maastricht, the Netherlands, the Conditions of Contest addressed the problem of sportsmanlike dumping by attempting to make it illegal. The form of words they chose was along these lines:

Teams may play whatever line-ups they want for tactical reasons, but for the players at the table, failure to play other than as good bridge as possible is not permitted.

I think I was the only person present who worked out that this meant it was mandatory to play badly. The question that has troubled me since is: when the Italians beat us in the semi-finals by playing well, should I have called the Director?

[pzpp]

Free, on Mar 28 2009, 02:21 PM, said:

What do you mean with dumping? Playing bad on purpose? Only in a Swiss event you could do this in the first round, but you might end up losing too much VP's.

If you never met dumping cases in bridge or in any cometitive game, just come to China, and you will see them all

[hanp]

..

[JLOL]

hanp, on Mar 30 2009, 11:28 AM, said:

..

LOL

[Gerben42]

Every team should try to maximize its chances to be successful in a tournament.

Unfortunately, the conditions of contest are sometimes such that this means losing IMPs. I think the player in question is allowed to play to lose in this position.

Like Jan, I think the CoC are at fault.

I've also seen "dumping to friends", unfortunately. Unlike the previous, that is very unsportly.

[Cascade]

dburn, on Mar 30 2009, 11:08 AM, said:

I recall that in the 2000 Olympiad in Maastricht, the Netherlands, the Conditions of Contest addressed the problem of sportsmanlike dumping by attempting to make it illegal. The form of words they chose was along these lines:

Teams may play whatever line-ups they want for tactical reasons, but for the players at the table, failure to play other than as good bridge as possible is not permitted.

I think I was the only person present who worked out that this meant it was mandatory to play badly. The question that has troubled me since is: when the Italians beat us in the semi-finals by playing well, should I have called the Director?

Only if they played the perfect game would they have violated the condition "as good as possible".

Therefore even if this happened you might only expect a small adjustment - "We should have slipped an overtrick on that last board to avoid playing 'as good as possible'". So a TD call might have been useful in a close match in which the opponents had had otherwise the perfect game.

[ASkolnick]

If you are interested in stopping dumping, change the conditions of contest. If it is in your best interest to do x, do x.

Classic Dumping Soccer Style:

I believe it was the Gold Cup about 8 years ago. To move on to the qualifying stages, Team B had to win by two goals. For some strange reason, there was a rule which stated if you win in a shootout the score was 2-0. They were up 2-1 in the second half and realized they couldn't score on the other teams defense. So, instead of shooting at the opponents goal, they shot at their own goal. The other team caught on and each team kept shooting at its own goal.

Solution: Change the conditions of contest.

[gwnn]

ASkolnick, on Mar 30 2009, 10:41 PM, said:

If you are interested in stopping dumping, change the conditions of contest. If it is in your best interest to do x, do x.

Classic Dumping Soccer Style:

I believe it was the Gold Cup about 8 years ago. To move on to the qualifying stages, Team B had to win by two goals. For some strange reason, there was a rule which stated if you win in a shootout the score was 2-0. They were up 2-1 in the second half and realized they couldn't score on the other teams defense. So, instead of shooting at the opponents goal, they shot at their own goal. The other team caught on and each team kept shooting at its own goal.

Solution: Change the conditions of contest.

Actually, that's a very interesting situation because team A could have "won" after 2-2 by scoring in either goal! It's a very peculiar situation. Apparently, they didn't realise that and/or there was insufficient time.

[dburn]

For the actual story, see here.

[deffe]

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

[mycroft]

Watching the late games in the opening pools of the football World Cup is always amusing. There's always at least one game where the teams will both qualify - but only if a certain (set of) score(s) is achieved. If not, one or the other gets in along with a third team. Of course, you're not allowed to "dump".

It's amazing how hard it is to get past that defence in the 1-1 tie after 35 minutes. One would almost think both midfields became stone walls.

[Gerardo]

That's why the last round matches in the group stages are played at the same time.

After Germany 1 - 0 Austria left out Algeria (who had defeated Germany) out in Spain 1982.

[Walddk]

This is how I recall the Germany vs Austria match.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/851637/www_v...ython_football/

[PeterGill]

Jan referred to an Italy - South Africa match in her post. There is absolutely
no evidence of any dumping on any of the 16 hands in that Round 20 (out of 21) match. The match was well played and low scoring. You can look at the 16 hands, and compare with the results in every other match at:
http://www.worldbridge.org/tourn/Shanghai....?qmatchid=23249

Why then did Italy choose South Africa? The only other surprise qualifier was Australia, which had at least one slow pair in its team (Italy knew this), and
who had also just played a recent close match with Italy. Italy prefers to play
the faster players in matches they expect to win, so that might have been
one of the reasons why Italy chose South Africa rather than Australia.

There have been a few real cases of probable dumping....

In the 1991 Bermuda Bowl, Iceland was winning one section comfortably, with powerhouse USA team about to qualify 4th. In the last qualifying match in the other section, teams might therefore want to qualify as lowly as possible, and Poland made some very strange bids in their last match, e.g. 1H raised to 6H on a four count and so forth, in an apparent (and unsuccessful) attempt to draw Iceland in the quarter-final. Alas I don't have the 1991 World Championship book handy so I cannot give you the actual deals. Ironically Iceland beat Poland in the Grand Final. The WBF has to some extent fixed these problems by giving teams who do well some choice of Final's opponents. Ref 1991 WC Book for further details.

In Australia's 1978 National Open Teams, two strong teams locked into the
semi-finals both lost their last qualifying match "minus 1 to 20" to unheralded opponents who thus made the semis, triggering a three page discussion of dumping in the Feb 1978 editorial of Australian Bridge magazine.

During the semi-final of the 1991 Playoff for the Australian Open Team,
my team's captain discovered that we had to lose either the Semi or the Final
in order to play for Australia (to our amazement), so he saw the Tournament Organiser, who told him we all had to play our best according to the rules.
"Do I have to play my best partnerships?" my team captain asked him.
"No," was TO's reply. Such oddities happen sometimes in the tournament world.

Overall I think dumping occurred quite often in the 1970s, but is less common now. My examples are from Australia, not because Australia is a cesspool of dumping (it isn't), but because Australia is the country which I'm familiar with.

Peter Gill
Australia.

[Gerben42]

A popular tournament approach around here is to play a qualification with carryover to the A- and B-final. When it is clear that you are "close" to qualifying, which can be determined rather well with Bridgemates, it may be best for you to not qualify and then try to win the B-section rather than qualify last for the A-final. This is also a classical dumping situation.

[gnasher]

Gerben42, on Apr 3 2009, 01:16 PM, said:

A popular tournament approach around here is to play a qualification with carryover to the A- and B-final. When it is clear that you are "close" to qualifying, which can be determined rather well with Bridgemates, it may be best for you to not qualify and then try to win the B-section rather than qualify last for the A-final. This is also a classical dumping situation.

I'm not saying this doesn't happen, but I don't understand why anyone would do that. If they'd rather win a weak event than play in a strong event, why don't they just find a weaker event in the first place, instead of polluting the scores in a competition they apparently don't want to play in at all?