[Hanoi5]

I've read and seen that at the last round of a swiss teams event if the first team is ahead of the second one by so many VP's that it is impossible to catch up, then the first team is pitched against the last one and the second can play the third, which is a bit fairer. Or is it?

The idea behind this is that the first team might play badly 'on purpose' and let the second team win by much thus taking all hope from the third placed team.

This seems to be fairer for Nº 2, too as they could lose to a 'serious' Nº 1 and not have as much opportunity as Nº 3.

What's correct?

[barmar]

But is it fair to to the 4th place team, who now has to play No 1? This could make it easier for No 5 to overtake them. Or No 1 could throw the match to make it hard for No 5 to catch up, or allow No 4 to overtake No 3.

No matter what you do, someone is disadvataged, or it allows the leaders to dump to help someone else.

In many cases the issue doesn't even come up, because the 1st and 2nd teams played each other earlier in the session.

[ArtK78]

A little bit of a hijack, but I could not resist.

In a local sectional a couple of years ago, two teams faced off for the win in the Swiss Teams. The third place team was within a match of both of them but, as the leaders were playing each other and at least one of them had to score 10 or more VPs out of 20, the third place team could not pass both of them. So, the best the third place team could do was finish in second place.

Or so it seemed.

The two leading teams lined up improperly at the tables - one team sat North-South at both tables, and the other sat East-West at both tables. They did not discover the error until the match was over, so the error could not be corrected. Therefore, by ACBL regulation, both of the leading teams received ZERO VPs, and the third place team won.

Never say never.

[gordontd]

Hanoi5, on May 21 2010, 01:19 AM, said:

The idea behind this is that the first team might play badly 'on purpose' and let the second team win by much thus taking all hope from the third placed team.

It's an idea I've not heard before, but my experience is that I've never seen a team (or pair) deliberately play badly in this situation, though I've often seen them lose their last match by relaxing their concentration.

But why do you assume the leading team will be playing the second-ranked? Often they will have already played each other.

[Cyberyeti]

ArtK78, on May 21 2010, 01:35 AM, said:

A little bit of a hijack, but I could not resist.

In a local sectional a couple of years ago, two teams faced off for the win in the Swiss Teams. The third place team was within a match of both of them but, as the leaders were playing each other and at least one of them had to score 10 or more VPs out of 20, the third place team could not pass both of them. So, the best the third place team could do was finish in second place.

Or so it seemed.

The two leading teams lined up improperly at the tables - one team sat North-South at both tables, and the other sat East-West at both tables. They did not discover the error until the match was over, so the error could not be corrected. Therefore, by ACBL regulation, both of the leading teams received ZERO VPs, and the third place team won.

Never say never.

To go with this is the alternative situation where in a teams qualifier with two qualifying out of the group, a team is 9 behind two teams at the top who are playing each other, they win 20-0 and know they've qualified, only to find a directorial error has meant a split score and the other match has finished 12-12.

[paulg]

Hanoi5, on May 21 2010, 01:19 AM, said:

I've read and seen that at the last round of a swiss teams event if the first team is ahead of the second one by so many VP's that it is impossible to catch up, then the first team is pitched against the last one and the second can play the third, which is a bit fairer. Or is it?

The idea behind this is that the first team might play badly 'on purpose' and let the second team win by much thus taking all hope from the third placed team.

This seems to be fairer for Nº 2, too as they could lose to a 'serious' Nº 1 and not have as much opportunity as Nº 3.

What's correct?

In Scrabble this is known as Gibsonisation, after David Gibson who is a US Scrabble player. In UK tournaments it is known as Gipsonisation when applied to my wife.

It is almost always used in a Swiss event for the places where there is prize money at stake. Essentially the Scrabble players want the players who are competing for a prize to have the result in their own hands (so far as possible) rather than be decided at another table. A big difference in Scrabble though is that it is mainly a win/loss situation, so it is easier to decide who is competing for the prizes - this is far less true when you are using VPs in bridge.

One disadvantage of this method is that you can lose a lower prize while attempting to win the bigger one. At the recent European Open, after 27 rounds of 32, only two players could win the event so they played each other in rounds 28 and 29. The player lying second lost both games and was drawn into a battle for second and third place that might have been avoided with a non-gibsonised draw. As it happened she beat the person lying third in rounds 30 and 31 (as they were the only two who could win second) and he eventually lost third place because of it. But all the players would prefer to have the chance of the higher place finish, just the rub of the green if it doesn't work out.

Paul

For interest (or not), a game (round) of Scrabble takes the same time as an 8-board imps match. They played 32 rounds over 3.5 days. Repeat pairings are permitted but not on the same day, except at the end

[debrose]

My son recently started playing tournament Scrabble, and just a couple of weeks ago it occurred to me that some form of "Gibsonizing" could make sense for Swiss Teams in bridge. It's not uncommon for a team to have first place locked up going into the last round. However, before this thread, I'd never seen or heard of this concept applied to bridge. Where is this known to have occurred?

Besides the prize money element, and the win/loss variation, there is another big difference between the last round pairings in bridge and Scrabble. At least in the Scrabble tournaments I've attended with son, the last round is always "King of the Hill", and before that round the pairings are round robin, not Swiss. Unless someone is Gibsonized, 1st plays 2nd, 3rd plays 4th, etc. in the last round. This will mean repeat matchups from earlier in the event. In bridge we normally do not have playbacks, so even when nobody has the event locked up, the last round pairings often see the teams in contention facing others, because they've played already. Perhaps it would be better to allow playbacks in the last round of a Swiss, and then to add in "Gibsonizing" if a team has the event locked up.

Lately I've noticed regional tournaments in the U.S. holding Round Robin Bracketed Team events. A "King of the Hill" round might be a nice addition to that format.