helene_t, on Aug 30 2004, 02:46 AM, said:
The_Hog, on Aug 27 2004, 12:47 AM, said:
An example of wanting to lose: You're in the qualifying rounds where the top 10 pairs qualify for a 5 table Howell in the finals without carryover. You have a 74% game going into the last round when your opponents are a pair you've scored 47 consecutive near tops against because they can't handle your system and you have them totally psyched out. Seems to me that this is one of the nine other pairs that you would like to be in the finals against you.
Exactly this happend last year in a prestigeus tournament in the Netherlands. The TD thought it was OK but the appeal comite decided to disqualify the pair that used this strategy, allthough they were in good faith since they got the TD's aproval before they started losing. AFAIK there still is no concensus as to whether this strategy is allowed.
This was a BIG issue in the US about 20 years ago. Don't know how or when or if it was resolved.
You are playing in a round robin qualifier, where two of the 3 teams advance to the head to head play against a very good team and a very weak team. You are beating the weak team by a small margin, and beating the strong team by a huge -unsurmountable (for argument's sake - lets say you can't lose). Certainly, there is an incentive to 'dump' to the weak team, effectively stopping the stronger team from advancing.
I asked the question of a pro player, who was on the ACBL's Law (I think)Commission at the time.
His answer was: "Would you sacrifice a trick to guarantee your contract"?