[paulg]

aguahombre, on Jul 26 2009, 12:59 AM, said:

only two teams?  maybe their captains agree.

I think this shows a fundamental lack of understanding of Scottish bridge and politics

[MFA]

Gerben42, on Jul 25 2009, 11:40 AM, said:

... if you look at Italy's record on boards 17-20.

Did anyone actually make an analysis of this or is it just a hunch that they do well on the last boards?

[OleBerg]

Lobowolf, on Jul 23 2009, 08:54 PM, said:

Another vote for one long one.

"That's what she said".

[OleBerg]

A slight argument for one long match, could be to avoid trouble.

If you play 8 matches, and it is very close, somebody could feel cheated if they lost 4½ - 3½ but scored most IMP's.

I would consider it much less likely, that a team that lost by, say, 4 IMP's in one long match, would complain that they would have won, if it had been 16 board matches. (They probably wont even do the math.)

[MickyB]

5,6,4,4,5,5,5,5,5,6,6//6,6,7,7,inf - 20 board matches
5,5,4,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5//6,6,6,7,inf - 16 board matches

^----------------------^------------^
15-15..................25-5..........25-0

Those are the IMP ranges for a particular VP score (apologies for the formatting). Unlike the EBU scale, the WBF scale isn't far off being linear, so there isn't much reason to swing when you are losing unless you think you are already losing 25-0 - hopefully a rare occurance!

The main thing that you might wish to consider is that, when you are in 25 VP territory, it is desirable to reduce variance. This presents a problem, as the team that is losing shouldn't have as great a desire to increase variance - basically, the matches in the Euros aren't zero-sum, but obviously your trial does have to be zero-sum.

The closest you could get to emulating this would be to score purely by IMPs, but with two caps -

Upto the IMP total required for 25-5, IMPs count 100%
Between the IMP totals required for 25-5 and 25-0, IMPs count 50%, to reflect the fact that you only wish the IMPs to count for one of the two teams.
Beyond the IMP total for 25-0, extra IMPs do not count.

Compared with scoring by VPs, the most likely effect of this method would be to reduce the chance of a close match being decided by who got [to steal a phrase from MGB] "value for money" on the VP scale, which is clearly desirable.

[pooltuna]

cardsharp, on Jul 23 2009, 08:10 AM, said:

As one of the Scottish selectors I am looking at play-off formats for the European Team Championships next year. The play-off will consist of two teams playing 128 boards, the winner being selected for the championship.

The format of all the European Team Championships are based a round-robin of 16- or 20- board matches scored by VPs.

My question is whether it is better to have a single 128 board match, or to have eight 16-board matches each scored by VPs.

Does anyone have strong views on which method will get me the team that will perform better in the Championships?

Thanks,

Paul

You want a format that will mirror the event they are qualifying to play in.

[helene_t]

Making one long match minimizes the influence from round-off errors.

I don't see any advantage to the 8 matches. State-of-the-match considerations are not a consideration in a round robin, nor are they relevant if it is one of 8 matches against the same opp. We have been through it before (this thread)- unlike the difference between IMP strategy and Total Point strategy, which is substantial, there is barely any difference between IMP strategy and VP strategy.

[PrecisionL]

Long match wins hands down.

In the 1970 World Championship, North America vs. Nationalist China, the Final was played in 4 sets of 32 boards with Victory Points awarded for each set of 32 boards. This was the only time this was attempted in the World Championship final.

With the match 3/4 complete, NA was leading 45 - 13 in V.P. a difference of 32 V.P. and the match was over! China could not win as the biggest score they could achieve in the 4th quarter would be to win by over 100 IMPs (old scale) and the V.P. conversion would be 20 vs -5 for a difference of 25 V.P.

[rbforster]

PrecisionL, on Aug 8 2009, 11:23 AM, said:

With the match 3/4 complete, NA was leading 45 - 13 in V.P. a difference of 32 V.P. and the match was over! China could not win as the biggest score they could achieve in the 4th quarter would be to win by over 100 IMPs (old scale) and the V.P. conversion would be 20 vs -5 for a difference of 25 V.P.

many small VP matches - the format of choice for those who are getting blitzed and want to go home early. for everyone who's still playing for the match, there's total IMPs.