[awm]

It might be interesting to run an individual tournament online with the identities of players hidden.

One could argue that individual is the ultimate test of bridge-playing skill -- it should remove elements like complex bidding agreements and knowledge of partner from the equation. No possibility of fielded psychs, misexplanations, and so on.

But in reality, individual events often have much more to do with judging people than actual bridge skill. You have to know which partners bidding to trust, which partners are so bad you need to "right-side" the contracts, and so forth.

I'm curious what the results would be like in an individual where no one knows who any of the players are. One board per round, mandate a simple system like BBO basic, and hide all the player IDs. Anyone else think this would (or would not) be an interesting event?

[Al_U_Card]

Jlall, on Aug 26 2005, 12:31 PM, said:

Instead of trusting almost nobody, you get to trust nobody lol

As long as you can trust yourself, my boy, you are on your way......

[luke warm]

excellent idea... then you can find out at end of tourney who you played with

[Double !]

I think this would be a fun idea, but my wish would be to have some minimum standard in terms of bridge skills, just basic knowledge, in order to participate. Otherwise, one runs the risk of skewing results based on how many hands one person winds up playing with "extremely weak players" compared to how many another person plays with the less-experienced players (using most people's standards: in my experience, many expert/ professional/ world class players consider most other player to be extremely weak). Systematically seeding the field will result in some predictable pattern of player skill level, and using random placement might run the above-mentioned risk. Now, running a series of such games with the overall results/ placements being based on performance over the course of several sessions might reduce this risk.

[hrothgar]

Double !, on Aug 27 2005, 01:09 AM, said:

I think this would be a fun idea, but my wish would be to have some minimum standard in terms of bridge skills, just basic knowledge, in order to participate. Otherwise, one runs the risk of skewing results based on how many hands one person winds up playing with "extremely weak players" compared to how many another person plays with the less-experienced players

The variance that you discuss is not specific to a blind individual.
Any seeding system requires accurate ratings

There really isn't any "good" solution to this problem other than having balanced movements

[Double !]

hrothgar, on Aug 26 2005, 05:29 PM, said:

Double !, on Aug 27 2005, 01:09 AM, said:

I think this would be a fun idea, but my wish would be to have some minimum standard in terms of bridge skills, just basic knowledge, in order to participate.  Otherwise, one runs the risk of skewing results based on how many hands one person winds up playing with  "extremely weak players" compared to how many another person plays with the less-experienced players

The variance that you discuss is not specific to a blind individual.
Any seeding system requires accurate ratings

There really isn't any "good" solution to this problem other than having balanced movements

I am not a math/ stat. expert, but I sort of knew what you said. That's why i suggested multiple sampling (several sessions).
BTW, a belated happy birthday.
And, welcome back from Oz. You and the other V'graph operators did an outstanding job. All you guys (and lady) deserve a lot of credit, thanks, and money. Oh, well, 2 outta 3 ain't bad.