[lamford]

Well done to England winning the first weekend of this. I have a couple of gripes. The PDF of the Cross IMPs:

http://www.fob.ie/wp...-W1-Final-1.pdf

leaves out the names of the pairs who were 17th and 18th, and I had to establish them by comparison with the team lists. This reminds me of the behaviour of the organiser, the Reverend Timmins, at my first whist drive with my mother. If a pair was playing without standing, it would be fine, but not when they were full members of a team.

On a related matter, it always struck me that cross IMPs is a very poor comparison when you only play around one third of the opposing pairs. If I was 0 IMPs against Forrester and Robson I would be much happier than if I was 0 IMPs against McSporran and O'Flaherty (and I hope they do not take offence if they are a regular partnership). Net cross IMPs would be a much better comparison (the difference between your total cross IMPs and the total of your opponents)

[cherdano]

And just think of the pairs that got to play two sets against Scotland!

[manudude03]

For some reason, it's not uncommon here to leave out the names of the last few pairs. I remember asking someone why that was, and was told it was to avoid public shaming/embarrassment of the players in those slots. It did always strike me as being a little odd. A few months ago, I was playing in the Inter-provincials (an all-Ireland competition between Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connaught) and in the cross-imping rankings, 3 of the ulster pairs in the senior/open section were left out. It made it somewhat awkward to find out which one it was when one of those players wanted to know which one of the hidden pairs was them.

[johnu]

manudude03, on 2018-January-08, 10:12, said:

For some reason, it's not uncommon here to leave out the names of the last few pairs. I remember asking someone why that was, and was told it was to avoid public shaming/embarrassment of the players in those slots.

While nowhere near the level of the Camrose, one of my local clubs rounds the percentages of anybody scoring below 40% of the matchpoints to 40% in the recap of the results. I assume for the same reason you mentioned.

[blackshoe]

Perhaps everyone should get a first place award.

[paulg]

lamford, on 2018-January-08, 05:23, said:

On a related matter, it always struck me that cross IMPs is a very poor comparison when you only play around one third of the opposing pairs. If I was 0 IMPs against Forrester and Robson I would be much happier than if I was 0 IMPs against McSporran and O'Flaherty (and I hope they do not take offence if they are a regular partnership). Net cross IMPs would be a much better comparison (the difference between your total cross IMPs and the total of your opponents)

I do this for interested parties occasionally and some take the results incredibly seriously. Andy Bowles occasionally does an even better job using an iterative procedure.

I feel that the problem with any cross imping of the Home International Series is the lack of comparisons and the variable standard in the event. At the European Team Championships, you play very few pairs but the number of comparisons is high and you play a lot of boards, so the final cross imping gives you a general indication of performance. That is not true in the Camrose - too few boards and too few comparisons. Selectors from all countries should be watching the play to select their teams from the second weekend rather than relying on the cross imping, at least for those countries who select for the second weekend.