[jdulmage]

Jlall, on Oct 22 2004, 09:20 AM, said:

Here's my take on the masterpoint thing... yes, they are meaningless to expert players. What expert players care about is winning regionals and placing top 5 or 10 in national events. That is what they play for, and that is fine. What would compell new players or players that cant travel to tournaments to play? If it was a rating system and they simply werent that good, they may get discouraged and quit. They may feel bad about themselves. However, having a goal like life master and winning masterpoints is a very good incentive for newer players to play bridge, and progress to the point where they can compete at regional levels or above. The masterpoints arent for the experts, they are for the less capable or newer players. Please remember that these people are the majority in bridge, and should be catered to.

LMFAO. That's the most outright silliest comment I have seen on this forum in a long time.

Masterpoints are *NOT* for experts? Some of us enjoy getting awarded masterpoints, winning trophies and races and so forth. I can honestly tell you I would not travel around and play in tournaments and pay *THAT* much money if nothing was awarded out of it.

The idea of saying "I've achieved something" is really good for the health.

I'm only 20 years old, got my life masters when I was 19. Now I teach others how to play and compete professionally whenever I can.

So what you are saying is because I enjoy masterpoints and like to think of them as "achievements", especially in tournament play, that I am automatically NOT an expert?

Your comment is a generalization and frankly, a stereotype. Get your facts straight.

[EricK]

When you enter a tournament you want to win. And when you win (or place highly) you get Masterpoints. So in that sense we all want to win Masterpoints. But what is meaningless is one's total number of Masterpoints.

I know plenty of players who play at least three times a week at various clubs, and go to weekend tournaments as well. Some of them are good players but many of them aren't. But even the bad players have bucketloads of masterpoints. Much more than certain excellent players who don't play nearly as often.

Eric

[Free]

EricK, on Nov 18 2004, 07:20 AM, said:

When you enter a tournament you want to win. And when you win (or place highly) you get Masterpoints. So in that sense we all want to win Masterpoints.

This conclusion you make out of the previous 2 sentences is completely unlogic, total rubish in fact!

"We want to win" - ok, but why? We want to win because of the honour, the fun, the prices,...

"If we win (or place highly) we get Masterpoints" - true, but it's just some bonus we didn't ask for

"So in that sense we all want to win Masterpoints" - NO, we want to win for the reasons I mentioned above. The second statement doesn't change anything to what we want, or why we want to win.

Consider this example (it's similar): If you want to win a car, and you get 1$ pocketmoney as a bonus, do you want to win that 1$? No, you want to win that car, that dollar doesn't interest you! You won't cry when you don't get your dollar, you might cry because you didn't win the car.


Ok, some people want to win because of the Masterpoints, but I think it's a small group

[EarlPurple]

The downside of having ratings (such as the Lehmann ratings at okbridge) is that it takes time to build one up, and newcomer will find it impossible to get a decent game. When this happens they will simply leave.

Chess works better because after playing 10 or so games against players way below my standard and winning them all easily, I should have moved up to a high enough rating to get some games against players who can beat me.

I don't think it works the same way though with bridge if you are going to play with pick-up partners. Fine, if a regular partnership has to work their way up the ladder a bit (though should only be for a very short period of time). But having individual good players refusing to play with partners of a lower rating is not good for the game.

[PriorKnowledge]

Let's look at some scenarios:

1. You are a young, brilliant bridge player. You play with a young, brilliant partner. But you don't have the money to play in Nationals and few Regionals. After 2 years, you have close to maxed out on your bridge playing ability. You only have 400 MP. You see players with 600-1000 MP that still don't know how to use Stayman properly.

You claim the bridge MP system sucks.

2. You are a middle-aged bridge player with a middle-aged partner. You play in many Nationals and Regionals. You have slowly grown in ability with experience. After 30 years, you know how to kick the pants off most players, including those brilliant youngsters. You have 6000 MP.

You think bridge MP system is perfect.

3. You are an old chess player. You love playing in tournaments and won many when you were younger. You know some openings so well, you even remember the analysis. Unfortunately, your mind is too slow now and you have watched your rating fall over the last 5 years from almost Master to Class C player. Where is the respect for your knowledge and experence?

You hate the ELO chess ratings and wish chess used the bridge system of accumulated points.

[pclayton]

Well, I think even Justin would admit that platinum points matter, and reaching Grand Life Master IS a big deal, even to the top tier of players. However, these are the result of going to the nationals and playing well. The Player of the Year is based on the highest number of platinums, and the Crane Trophy is just the highest number of points, including (gasp!) golds, reds and blacks. (wtf are silver anyway? )

To the 99% of the league that aren't in the top tier, points are a cheap and easy way to help league market itself.

Even a new player who just made 'rookie master' (5 MP!) feels pretty cool about that . Life Master IS a big deal, and even I feel a sense of pride as I approach my Silver.

[EricK]

Free, on Nov 18 2004, 09:18 AM, said:

EricK, on Nov 18 2004, 07:20 AM, said:

When you enter a tournament you want to win. And when you win (or place highly) you get Masterpoints. So in that sense we all want to win Masterpoints.

This conclusion you make out of the previous 2 sentences is completely unlogic, total rubish in fact!

"We want to win" - ok, but why? We want to win because of the honour, the fun, the prices,...

"If we win (or place highly) we get Masterpoints" - true, but it's just some bonus we didn't ask for

"So in that sense we all want to win Masterpoints" - NO, we want to win for the reasons I mentioned above. The second statement doesn't change anything to what we want, or why we want to win.

Consider this example (it's similar): If you want to win a car, and you get 1$ pocketmoney as a bonus, do you want to win that 1$? No, you want to win that car, that dollar doesn't interest you! You won't cry when you don't get your dollar, you might cry because you didn't win the car.


Ok, some people want to win because of the Masterpoints, but I think it's a small group

I must have expressed myself badly, because I agree with you.

I want to win the Masterpoints (or the $ in your case) because (and only because) it means I won the tournament (or the car).

Eric

[EricK]

PriorKnowledge, on Nov 18 2004, 04:05 PM, said:

Let's look at some scenarios:

1. You are a young, brilliant bridge player. You play with a young, brilliant partner. But you don't have the money to play in Nationals and few Regionals. After 2 years, you have close to maxed out on your bridge playing ability. You only have 400 MP. You see players with 600-1000 MP that still don't know how to use Stayman properly.

You claim the bridge MP system sucks.

2. You are a middle-aged bridge player with a middle-aged partner. You play in many Nationals and Regionals. You have slowly grown in ability with experience. After 30 years, you know how to kick the pants off most players, including those brilliant youngsters. You have 6000 MP.

You think bridge MP system is perfect.

3. You are an old chess player. You love playing in tournaments and won many when you were younger. You know some openings so well, you even remember the analysis. Unfortunately, your mind is too slow now and you have watched your rating fall over the last 5 years from almost Master to Class C player. Where is the respect for your knowledge and experence?

You hate the ELO chess ratings and wish chess used the bridge system of accumulated points.

In the chess scenario, your grade is a reflection of your current ability. Your knowledge and experience is certainly keeping it higher than it would be otherwise. The grade allows you to find a game where you can compete on equal terms (or on winning terms if you prefer that!).

How would having a grade which doesn't reflect your current skill, but is an amalgam of your past skill, current skill, number of years playing etc help (except in an ego-boosting capacity)?

Eric

[luke warm]

i think the difference is this... in bridge, masterpoints aren't *necessarily* a standard that shows the relative skill disparity between players... in chess they invaribly are

a 500 masterpoint player may or may not be a more skilled player than a 10 masterpoint player... a 1900 chess player is *definitely* a better player than a 1500 player... so in that sense, masterpoints don't mean much... however, i'd say that once you start getting up around silver lm, it starts to give a more accurate picture (tho i know some of those whose skill isn't as impressive as it might be)

i can't speak for justin, but i think he was saying that masterpoints are simply a byproduct of winning bridge events, and in that sense don't mean much... if you have tourney A that offers $5000 plus 500 masterpoints and tourney B that offers $20,000 and no masterpoints, i imagine more top tier players will opt for B... but that's just a guess