[akwoo]

Vampyr, on 2014-February-25, 12:15, said:

I played in one of these at one Nationals, and discovered that if you want a good game you can request to be put in the top bracket. I don't know how this works if everyone does it, though.

Frequently the directors will allow a team not only to play in the top bracket but also to declare any number of master points (as long as it's more than what they actually have) for the purposes of bracketing.

I've been on a team (when an NABC was relatively local) that discussed declaring around 2000 total instead of the roughly 300 we actually had. We decided that we'd get better competition in the lowest bracket rather than one or two brackets up, and I think we were right. The average good young players tend to get jobs that keep them from playing much before they accumulate too many masterpoints.

[aguahombre]

hautbois, on 2014-March-02, 23:20, said:

Frequently there won't be 16 teams in the top bracket so it's easy to add anyone else who would like to play up.

If 18 teams enter a bracketed KO, the brackets are best divided 9 and 9, so if one team gets elevated to the top bracket, someone else is pushed down or the brackets become 10 and 8 which is also awkward.

We are used to a different thing over here. The bracketed K.O.'s have several brackets...typically more than five and up to 11 or twelve. They are divided by 16's, with an odd number somewhere in between for an initial round robin. There is always some team qualified at the bottom of a bracket which would then be moved down if someone plays up.

However, in your situation the same thing happens. The brackets are split into two according to how many teams they want in each...and someone who should be in the top one isn't because a team which wants to be there also is taking their place.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2014-March-03, 12:29, said:

We are used to a different thing over here. The bracketed K.O.'s have several brackets...typically more than five and up to 11 or twelve. They are divided by 16's, with an odd number somewhere in between for an initial round robin. There is always some team qualified at the bottom of a bracket which would then be moved down if someone plays up.

However, in your situation the same thing happens. The brackets are split into two according to how many teams they want in each...and someone who should be in the top one isn't because a team which wants to be there also is taking their place.

Well, who "should be" in the top bracket? A team that simply declares their masterpoints probably don't mind being moved down.

Who wants to be in the top bracket? Virtually everyone, I would have thought, but luckily for me that is not the case.

[Vampyr]

hautbois, on 2014-March-02, 23:20, said:

Frequently there won't be 16 teams in the top bracket so it's easy to add anyone else who would like to play up.

If 18 teams enter a bracketed KO, the brackets are best divided 9 and 9, so if one team gets elevated to the top bracket, someone else is pushed down or the brackets become 10 and 8 which is also awkward.

Well, 8 is of course perfect, so at least this way there is only one group that requires 3-way matches. Or you could start with a multiple teams, and eliminate 2 (or 6) teams that way. Or have two 5-team round robins with 1 or 2 survivors in each group. For the last option, 10 is a lot better than 9.

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2014-March-03, 15:02, said:

Well, who "should be" in the top bracket? A team that simply declares their masterpoints probably don't mind being moved down.

Who wants to be in the top bracket? Virtually everyone, I would have thought, but luckily for me that is not the case.

This is a tough one. I don't define who I think "should" be in the various brackets. Much too subjective. The contest is allegedly set up so that the top teams (masterpoints or whatever criteria) are in the top, and so on down to the bottom.

I want to play up, always. But that isn't the point. If I play up, someone else plays down. It might not matter to that team whether they are in a lower bracket; it might matter to them.
It might matter to the teams in the lower bracket whether they are now playing someone they "shouldn't"; it might not matter to them. But, one thing is sure. The event is different from the definition of the event.

[nige1]

RunemPard, on 2014-February-24, 16:34, said:

The only stats I get excited about are the handicap system they use here [Sweden] and of course playing bridge. It has some flaws, but basically it is a rating. You start at 52 and cannot go above that. Based on the field's handicap, there is a tournament average. The number of boards and tournament level affect the change as well.

Cyberyeti, on 2014-February-24, 17:11, said:

Runem, there are plenty of older people in the UK who are the ones that pay the money to keep the events going and have accumulated many masterpoints over the years. Going to a current form system would tick off these people so it doesn't happen as a replacement, it sort of happens in parallel.

I don't like handicaps but the EBU seems to have reached a good compromise:

• Master-points for stamp-collectors. This gives some incentive to the majority of us who can't expect to win national competitions every year.
• Gold-points (aged master-points) as a current-form indicator for improving players. Each year, use a formula like

   this year's GP = previous year's MP + previous year's GP * percentage

Vampyr, on 2014-March-03, 15:02, said:

Who wants to be in the top bracket? Virtually everyone, I would have thought, but luckily for me that is not the case.

Vampire doesn't understand why anybody would want to play in a handicapped or bracketed event. Nor do I. One of the great features of Bridge is that we ordinary players can play against the best players in the world.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2014-March-03, 16:10, said:

But, one thing is sure. The event is different from the definition of the event.

Not so much. The definition of "bracketed" does not imply any criteria whatsoever.

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2014-March-03, 16:13, said:

Not so much. The definition of "bracketed" does not imply any criteria whatsoever.

Right. It implies random seeding.

[mycroft]

Vampyr, on 2014-March-03, 15:11, said:

Well, 8 is of course perfect, so at least this way there is only one group that requires 3-way matches. Or you could start with a multiple teams, and eliminate 2 (or 6) teams that way. Or have two 5-team round robins with 1 or 2 survivors in each group. For the last option, 10 is a lot better than 9.

Ah, but results or good matching isn't the issue - it's "needs to be 4 sessions for a number of reasons" (not least of which is MP allotment, but also cash, and "do we bother showing up if we don't make the final" vs "we missed the final, but we're already here, let's play in the swiss/side game", ...)

And for that, 2**3 truly sucks. 9 does too, but it goes 9-6-4-2, and "lots more" people are happy.

Agua, watch the KO brackets. Almost always, if they're short several from 16, the top bracket is small (as is the bottom bracket). Certainly, finding a good breakpoint is priority one, but "nobody" wants to be the last team in bracket 1, so if there's a good breakpoint that won't cause an extra bracket around 10-12 teams, they'll take that. Sure, there are times when it's 15-15-15-12-16-16, because the numbers work out; but over time, take a look. We certainly don't slam down 16-16-16-deal with it at the bottom without thinking.

I have several issues with KO bracketing myself (not least of which being that my 1500 MP pair (we work, and I direct, so...) who expects to be in the overalls on a Calgary night (which has its share of 10K teams), needs to find a 3K, 3500 pair to avoid being in bracket 3 of 4, or bracket 7 of 10, but is going to get blitzwalked in bracket 1 against almost anybody at our regionals. If we could ask to play up a bracket or two, where we probably belong, sure; but "1 or done" doesn't work well.) I don't think there's a perfect - or even a better - solution. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't look for it.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2014-March-03, 16:21, said:

Right. It implies random seeding.

LOL no not that either.

[jeffford76]

mycroft, on 2014-March-03, 16:35, said:

I have several issues with KO bracketing myself (not least of which being that my 1500 MP pair (we work, and I direct, so...) who expects to be in the overalls on a Calgary night (which has its share of 10K teams), needs to find a 3K, 3500 pair to avoid being in bracket 3 of 4, or bracket 7 of 10, but is going to get blitzwalked in bracket 1 against almost anybody at our regionals. If we could ask to play up a bracket or two, where we probably belong, sure; but "1 or done" doesn't work well.) I don't think there's a perfect - or even a better - solution. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't look for it.

I think the simplest solution is to allow a team to declare whatever number of masterpoints they want as their "total", so long as it is at least as many as they have. I just don't see what the big deal is if a team gets pushed down a bracket. The difference between the top team in one bracket and the bottom team in the next one up is pretty random.

For this to fully work I think you also have to allow "TOP" as a designation, and potentially run multiple "TOP" brackets drawn randomly if more than 16 teams select "TOP" or in the director's judgment should be placed there.

Many teams "overestimate" now, and there doesn't seem to be any penalty for it in practice.

[Vampyr]

mycroft, on 2014-March-03, 16:35, said:

Ah, but results or good matching isn't the issue - it's "needs to be 4 sessions for a number of reasons" (not least of which is MP allotment, but also cash,

I didn't think the ACBL gave cash prizes very often.

[Zelandakh]

nige1, on 2014-March-03, 16:12, said:

• Master-points for stamp-collectors. This gives some incentive to the majority of us who can't expect to win national competitions every year.
• Gold-points (aged master-points) as a current-form indicator for improving players. Each year, use a formula like

   this year's GP = previous year's MP + previous year's GP * percentage

Whatever happened to Green Points?(or am I misremembering?)

[campboy]

Zelandakh, on 2014-March-04, 03:08, said:

Whatever happened to Green Points?(or am I misremembering?)

It's more complex than Nigel's summary. Green points* still exist; only green points count towards gold points and even they don't count unless you get 5+ in a single event. (Also the decay of gold points is linear, not geometric.)

*premium masterpoints from national and some county-level events, required in some degree for all higher ranks

[Cyberyeti]

The EBU is actually strict on master point ranks for some events. There is a pairs event each year which you enter based on your masterpoint rank. We applied to play at the rank our number of green (national) masterpoints dictated rather than our actual ranking which was lower because neither of us play much club bridge, but were turned down, hence we didn't play it for several years, only returning when we ranked up. Other events are less strict.

[mycroft]

Vampyr, on 2014-March-03, 18:56, said:

I didn't think the ACBL gave cash prizes very often.

Ah, I was confusing. The ACBL, for major historical reasons, don't give out cash prizes ever ever, and won't certify any game that does (and will throw you out, at least officially, if they ever catch you even saying "lowest score between the five of us buys the drinks" or "informal dollar pot". Note that there are a lot of people with well trained, very selective hearing.

What I meant was "if we run 2x 9-6-4-2, the tournament gets 18+12+8+4 = 42 entries; if we do 10-6-4-2 + 8-4-2, the tournament gets 36 entries; but since the costs of the tournament are effectively fixed, that's $300 out of that event that doesn't happen. Sure they may play in other events, but if we get them in the door for the first session today, they'll play in the second session; if they don't have a game for the first session, they are much more likely to take the day off and come back tomorrow."

[ArtK78]

Years ago, the ACBL awarded "Bridge Bucks" for high finishes in regional and national events. I remember receiving a letter from the ACBL a couple of weeks after attending a national tournament with a whole lot of Bridge Bucks. Bridge Bucks could be used to pay entry fees, membership dues, and anyone else who was willing to accept them as payment. Alas, that is a distant memory.

For the most part, the ACBL never has true cash money tournaments except for a limited trial of "green point" events running concurrently with other tournaments. Green point events were individual events that awarded cash prizes ("green points" mean US currency) with strict guidelines as to allowable conventions. I never played in one. However, the ACBL was involved in some very significant individual cash tournaments hosted by Omar Sharif. The first one was held in 1990. Here are a couple of articles about that tournament:

http://www.bridgehan...hampionship.htm

http://acblstory.wor...rif-individual/

I recall that there was a funny story coming out of the tournament about how Omar could not get to his hotel room because his key would not operate the elevator (elevator access to higher floors where guest rooms are located was restricted to those with keys to the rooms). I suppose the story was not as funny from Omar's perspective.

I found a flyer from the 1998 tournament in Atlantic City. Note that the defending champion was listed as Zia Mahmood, who won the 1990 tournament. It is possible that the 1998 tournament was only the second one held, and that Zia was listed as defending champion because he won in 1990.

http://www.ny-bridge.com/omar/

The two "flights" of the tournament were not restricted in any manner. It was purely a matter of the entry fee. If you wanted to pay $1,795 to play in the "Championship Flight" you could; if you wanted to pay $495 to play in the "Open Flight" you could do that.

I don't remember if the 1998 tournament was actually held.

[mycroft]

ah, but they were (at least the latest round were) held "in conjunction with" ACBL tournaments and used ACBL materials and TDs; but didn't award masterpoints, and weren't ACBL sanctioned games. Hysterical Raisins, as I said.

[barmar]

About 10 years ago Larry King (founder of World Team Tennis, ex-husband of Billie Jean King, but not the talk show host) created a Bridge Pro Tour series of tournaments with cash prizes. The events were held at regionals and NABCs, but were run independently.

He had extremely overblown expectations, and thought he could also get bridge back on TV. Here's an old article about his plans:

http://www.greatbrid.../GBL030304.html

Quote

“The impact will be monumental,” says King.

[32519]

Exactly how many colour coded events are there and what do all the colours mean? I have read about green points and gold points?

In my own country bridge isn't nearly as big as in other countries. Here we have -
Blue Points - for club games
Red Points - for regional and national events, tournaments stretching over more than one session.