[lagarf]

As a team, both of us now have an ACBL membership number.
We have always been placed in STRATUM A., playing against experts.
My partner has 0 master points, and I have 169 ACBL MP.
Will we now be placed in either B or C stratum , where we may
be better able to score against teams at our level?

[jibber01]

lagarf, on 2022-January-09, 14:28, said:

As a team, both of us now have an ACBL membership number.
We have always been placed in STRATUM A., playing against experts.
My partner has 0 master points, and I have 169 ACBL MP.
Will we now be placed in either B or C stratum , where we may
be better able to score against teams at our level?

lagarf

if you join a 199er... 299er... 399er...etc virtual club (vacb) you will always be playing vs people with roughly the same MPs as you and your partner...as a team, you are rated as the average MP total of both of you...

jm

[Butchie T]

It is not uncommon, as a "C" pair, to play 3 "A", 2 "B" and 1 "C" in an ACBL Open. Doesn't seem equitable and is THE reason we won't play in online rRegionals.

[mycroft]

The issue is, as always, that BBO breaks up the entries into 2 x sections, and then drops the players randomly from there, rather than seeding the lines.

They know this, they know it causes these problems, they haven't implemented it. Our clubs' solutions is to make the section sizes something close to the round count to minimize the potential damage. I know that section sizes for ACBL tournaments-at-home are 15; I'm guessing BBO section sizes are the same.

6/15 is just going to be biased. Even if they seeded the lines, now the complaints are going to be "I hit 2 As, 2 Bs and 2 Cs, but *my* As were the real top flighters, and one of the Bs was the 'A that hasn't accumulated enough attendance points' pair, and the people that won C got the easy pairs."

To answer the OP, if you weren't ACBL members and you played in ACBL events (including the BBO ACBL club), you were in A because they didn't know how to rate you (and zero MPs is clearly unfair to the field). When you got your membership, you were required to provide evidence of general level, if you had it in a different NBO. Assuming you did and the answer was "we don't need to give you any 'experience points'", then yes, you'll be in C now until you get enough ACBL points to graduate to B.

To answer everyone else, anything that isn't "all-play-all" will be biased. There are things that can be done that minimize that. Which ones any game does and why is up to the game owner, and your choice after they decide is "is it unbiased enough for me to play in it, or do I find another game that is better for me?" Please note, this is not a "this is the way it is, suck it up"; the games that give what the players want will be attended, at the expense of the games that give less of what the players want. The Market Will Decide. (how much that actually means "this is the way it is, suck it up" for a particular player will either be a determinant of what they believe about the effectiveness of the free market, or of how much they really like the way the "free market" currently works, and are only now finding out what it looks like from the other side).

[ThomasRush]

lagarf, on 2022-January-09, 14:28, said:

As a team, both of us now have an ACBL membership number.
We have always been placed in STRATUM A., playing against experts.
My partner has 0 master points, and I have 169 ACBL MP.
Will we now be placed in either B or C stratum , where we may
be better able to score against teams at our level?

With both of you having ACBL numbers and some recorded points you should be placed in an appropriate strat in BBO and online ACBL games.

If you play in an open game, you'll still play against a significant number of "A" pairs, as will everyone (on average). If a section of 15 pairs has five A, five B, and five C pairs, each flight will be spread out (but somewhat randomly) and so you'll typically play one pair in each strat plus one random pair in a 12-board game, and on average play two pairs in each strat in an 18-board game.

But... bbo doesn't seem to strictly distribute pairs by strat, so in any given game, it's going to be a bit random. AND, in these games, "A" strat is just the top third of the field, B the middle third, and C the bottom third... so if you happen to get into an event that's mostly, say, ACBL players with over 2,000 MasterPoints, the A and B flights are going to all be good players and even the C strat may be people much better than you. Oh well! Other days it will work in your favor.

Also, a word of advice: don't be afraid to play against the A pairs. Watch what they do. Ask them questions after completing the boards. You won't learn much from playing against C players, and in fact I've observed that most of what newer players learn from playing against Cs is bad habits. Your bad and careless plays aren't punished, so you don't learn that they are mistakes. Then when you play against better opposition, you get creamed and think you "did everything right!" It's a trap ...

If you do want to play against people more at your skill level, seek out the VACB games where they're listed as 499er or 0-299 games. You'll probably have a more enjoyable time, and have a better chance of winning ... but ... be careful not to learn the wrong lessons!

As an ACBL member, you have access to all the old issues of the ACBL Bulletin. In each issue there are about seven columns targeted at newer players, and another half-dozen for intermediates. Devote some time going through back issues and discussing them with your partner. If you're not paying for lessons, this is one of the best and most effective ways to improve your game.