[Vampyr]

jallerton, on 2015-February-11, 13:28, said:

Yes, that may well be the answer; maybe 4-boards rounds would be worth considering also. This could be worth trying at an event like the Easter Festival of Bridge, in which there are not enough pairs to make it all-play-all. Although each between-round movement takes longer, you gain time back by not playing 2-board rounds.

The Easter Festival is one of the biggest events of the year. Changing the format would be risky, and maybe people will not care, but if they do I suspect that the majority would share my views.

And going back to one-round-in-arrears would be a real pity.

[Vampyr]

pran, on 2015-February-11, 16:39, said:

This is the first time I ever have heard any indication that masterpoints can be earned in events for pairs for other than ending among the top ranked pairs after a completed event (or in some special cases after a completed session).

In the EBU (small) masterpoints awards are given for winning matches in Swiss Pairs and Swiss Teams. Maybe for Multiple Teams too; I am not certain.

[Trinidad]

Vampyr, on 2015-February-10, 17:29, said:

I personally might like it as long as VPS were used rather than a running percentage, and I would be surprised if this was a minority view.

Sorry, but you are getting me confused.

Earlier on I wrote something about IMP pairs and got a response that these events were MPs. Now you write about VPs.

Why (and how) would you use VPs in a MP event?

As an aside, I can understand that players want to perceive a round in a pairs event as a "match" but their desire to perceive it like that doesn't make it one. I also don't like the idea of awards for rounds. I used to play a lot of barometers with round awards. Though I think that the idea is nice to award the pair with the best round with a price, in practice, there are two possibilities:

• Either the round award goes often to the pair that dominates the competition. That is fair and they deserve it, but there is not really a need to give the final winner of the event special recognition every second round. (I remember a tournament where my wife and I got round prices: each of us got a set of 6 glasses. We won 5 rounds and went home with 60 glasses, on top of the price money for winning the event. That is closer to embarrassing than to fun.)
  
• Or the round award goes to the pair that played against the worst pair in the field. I don't think it is particularly nice to see every other round that you got the worst score ... again.

So, I am not in favor of round awards.

Rik

[Vampyr]

Trinidad, on 2015-February-11, 18:17, said:

Why (and how) would you use VPs in a MP event?

Same reason and method as for an IMP event.

Quote

As an aside, I can understand that players want to perceive a round in a pairs event as a "match" but their desire to perceive it like that doesn't make it one. I also don't like the idea of awards for rounds. I used to play a lot of barometers with round awards. Though I think that the idea is nice to award the pair with the best round with a price, in practice, there are two possibilities

And a third, which is the reality -- half the pairs get awards, because they won their match. Not prizes, just masterpoints.

[sfi]

Vampyr, on 2015-February-07, 15:08, said:

Why do you think so? I like Swiss Pairs a lot. And it keeps interest in the event even if you are doing badly, because you can still have a moral victory (and matchpoints, if you care) when you win a match.

The big issue with the Swiss format is that the rounds don't contribute equally to the final placings. If you look at a 10 round event, I would estimate the first round has maybe 1% influence on the outcome (more than one person has told me I'm overestimating this), the last round around 30%, with an increasing percentage for each round in the middle.

Luck of the final round draw plays a huge role in the event, and the more seeds you play early in the event, the better your chances.

It may be a reasonable way to determine a winner, but Swiss is pretty dreadful at sorting out the rest of the field.

The reason so much Swiss Pairs is played in Australia is that everyone wins masterpoints, and that's what keeps people coming to the tournaments. So that's a good thing I suppose.

[sfi]

pran, on 2015-February-11, 16:39, said:

What constitutes "a particular set of opponents" for awarding masterpoints when playing Swiss Pairs? Do they really hand out masterpoints in each round?

I do wonder if they (similarly) hand out masterpoints in each round in events for pairs when playing Round Robin, Howell or Mitchell movements as well?

This is the first time I ever have heard any indication that masterpoints can be earned in events for pairs for other than ending among the top ranked pairs after a completed event (or in some special cases after a completed session).

Australia hands out masterpoints for each match (round) in a Swiss Pairs or for any match in a teams event (round robin, Swiss, etc.), as well as overall awards. For other pair events (or for the occasional Point-a-board), masterpoints are handed out per session in addition to the overalls.

One ramification is that everyone wins masterpoints in a Swiss, while in a Mitchell-movement event you may play the entire tournament and not win any. This is why matchpoint events are almost non-existent at a national level. We have one 5-session event and one other major Swiss Pairs which is MP converted to VP. Everything else is essentially Swiss Pairs and Teams.

With all the results computerised, this could be fixed by simply handing out 0.02 MP for each board where a pair scores above average in a Howell or Mitchell movement.

We also don't have the concept of stratified events in the masterpoint system. That is another way we may be able to fix the problems and increase diversity of events.

[gnasher]

Vampyr, on 2015-February-11, 17:26, said:

Also VPS are cumulative, so you can never actually go backwards like you can if you were scored by an overall percentage. True, you can lose ground against the field, but for many people this would almost always happen anyway.

That problem is easily solved: make each pair's score the sum of their matchpoints on all the boards they've played, without dividing by the number of boards. Even if you're having a really bad day your numerical total will increase after each round.

[pran]

Trinidad, on 2015-February-11, 18:17, said:

Sorry, but you are getting me confused.

Earlier on I wrote something about IMP pairs and got a response that these events were MPs. Now you write about VPs.

Why (and how) would you use VPs in a MP event?

As an aside, I can understand that players want to perceive a round in a pairs event as a "match" but their desire to perceive it like that doesn't make it one. I also don't like the idea of awards for rounds. I used to play a lot of barometers with round awards. Though I think that the idea is nice to award the pair with the best round with a price, in practice, there are two possibilities:

• Either the round award goes often to the pair that dominates the competition. That is fair and they deserve it, but there is not really a need to give the final winner of the event special recognition every second round. (I remember a tournament where my wife and I got round prices: each of us got a set of 6 glasses. We won 5 rounds and went home with 60 glasses, on top of the price money for winning the event. That is closer to embarrassing than to fun.)
  
• Or the round award goes to the pair that played against the worst pair in the field. I don't think it is particularly nice to see every other round that you got the worst score ... again.

So, I am not in favor of round awards.

Rik

We sometimes spice events for pairs with round prizes (often in the form of chocolate bars or similar). One rule I then always use is that the same pair cannot win more than one round prize during the entire event.

[gordontd]

Trinidad, on 2015-February-11, 18:17, said:

Why (and how) would you use VPs in a MP event?

You would use them in order to avoid a long mis-match having a disproportionate effect on the overall result. As such we typically use them in events with seven or more 7- or 8-board matches.

This is done by using the tables constructed for that purpose, whose aim is to make each award equally likely and so the range in match-points increases slightly the further away you get from average. Our tables are in section 3.1.7 of the White Book.

[gordontd]

pran, on 2015-February-11, 16:39, said:

What constitutes "a particular set of opponents" for awarding masterpoints when playing Swiss Pairs? Do they really hand out masterpoints in each round?

Yes. Small awards, and the overall ranking awards are correspondingly smaller.

pran, on 2015-February-11, 16:39, said:

I do wonder if they (similarly) hand out masterpoints in each round in events for pairs when playing Round Robin, Howell or Mitchell movements as well?

We do for the Ranked Master Pairs, which is scored by Cross-IMPs and in many categories has long rounds.

pran, on 2015-February-11, 16:39, said:

This is the first time I ever have heard any indication that masterpoints can be earned in events for pairs for other than ending among the top ranked pairs after a completed event (or in some special cases after a completed session).

So you don't know absolutely everything?

[pran]

sfi, on 2015-February-11, 18:44, said:

Australia hands out masterpoints for each match (round) in a Swiss Pairs or for any match in a teams event (round robin, Swiss, etc.), as well as overall awards. For other pair events (or for the occasional Point-a-board), masterpoints are handed out per session in addition to the overalls.

One ramification is that everyone wins masterpoints in a Swiss, while in a Mitchell-movement event you may play the entire tournament and not win any. This is why matchpoint events are almost non-existent at a national level. We have one 5-session event and one other major Swiss Pairs which is MP converted to VP. Everything else is essentially Swiss Pairs and Teams.

With all the results computerised, this could be fixed by simply handing out 0.02 MP for each board where a pair scores above average in a Howell or Mitchell movement.

We also don't have the concept of stratified events in the masterpoint system. That is another way we may be able to fix the problems and increase diversity of events.

Inflated masterpoints? WTP.

This reminds me of a lecture I had in primary school: Let the 50 cents coin be renamed to a dollar so that everybody has twice the money they had before. Do we get any richer?

[gordontd]

pran, on 2015-February-11, 06:19, said:

I begin to Wonder, and if I understand correct I am astonished about what happens elsewhere:

Swiss pairs in Norway are ordinary events for pairs played over several rounds, the special feature is that movements are not decided in advance but are based on the current ranking of the pairs as the event progresses.

Consequently, like in other events for pairs, no masterpoints are earned for results in any individual round, masterpoiints are given to the (so many) top ranked pairs at the end of the tournament.

Several posters have mentioned "matches" in Swiss pairs. We don't have "matches" in Swiss pairs no more than we have matches in events for pairs with Round Robin, Howell or (God forbid) Mitchell movements. So what do they actually mean when they write "match" here?

I expect it is historical: in the beginning there was Swiss Teams and there were matches of 6-8 (not duplicated) boards, so it made sense to give awards per match won in addition to (slightly reduced) overall ranking awards. Then Swiss Pairs came along and the format was organised the same way (6-8 boards, converted to VPs), so the master point awards were organised the same way. This proved popular, Swiss Pairs became the dominant format for competitions, and I can't imagine us not giving master points for matches won even if the matches were shorter and/or not converted to VPs.

[pran]

gordontd, on 2015-February-12, 03:29, said:

I expect it is historical: in the beginning there was Swiss Teams and there were matches of 6-8 (not duplicated) boards, so it made sense to give awards per match won in addition to (slightly reduced) overall ranking awards. Then Swiss Pairs came along and the format was organised the same way (6-8 boards, converted to VPs), so the master point awards were organised the same way. This proved popular, Swiss Pairs became the dominant format for competitions, and I can't imagine us not giving master points for matches won even if the matches were shorter and/or not converted to VPs.

That makes sense.
Similarly we had tournaments for pairs using Round Robin with traditional Howell-style movements and typically 2 - 4 Boards/round or barometer style movementes for up to 24 pairs playing 6 - 12 Boards/round.

Then Sweden extended the barometer style events for up to 80 pairs playing only 2 - 4 Boards/round.

The comments in a Norwegian TD-guide from 1945 is interesting: "It is strange that the Swedes has not found anything better than this".

However, this has become the standard style events for pairs also in Norway, the only variation is using Swiss movements instead of Round Robin when suitable.

And awarding masterpoints for subsections of a complete event for pairs has to my knowledge never been an issue in Norway.

(Contrary to matches between teams of four where each such match is considered a completed unit in itself, independent from any other matches possibly played simultaneously.)

[RMB1]

gordontd, on 2015-February-12, 03:29, said:

I expect it is historical: in the beginning there was Swiss Teams and there were matches of 6-8 (not duplicated) boards, so it made sense to give awards per match won in addition to (slightly reduced) overall ranking awards. Then Swiss Pairs came along and the format was organised the same way (6-8 boards, converted to VPs), so the master point awards were organised the same way. ...

I think the motivation was as much that giving master points for one of the teams in each 6-8 board round/match was a popular aspect of swiss teams, so a format was devised that would give master points for one of the pairs in each round/match at pairs, so that below-average pairs always have the expectation of winning master points towards the end of a multi-session event.

[gordontd]

Vampyr, on 2015-February-11, 17:51, said:

The Easter Festival is one of the biggest events of the year. Changing the format would be risky, and maybe people will not care, but if they do I suspect that the majority would share my views.

And going back to one-round-in-arrears would be a real pity.

I'm only really thinking about adjusting our one existing Swiss Pairs by percentages event, the qualifier for the Two-Stars pairs at the Autumn congress, with a view to making it more enjoyable for the players. Last year some players commented that the 12x4-board round format was rather slow. It occurs to me that we might be able to have more bridge, more opponents and less time between rounds if we had 17x3-board rounds scored in arrears with assignments done on time even if a few tables were not quite finished. I'd be interested to hear what people think of this as an idea.

[Vampyr]

gordontd, on 2015-February-12, 04:35, said:

I'm only really thinking about adjusting our one existing Swiss Pairs by percentages event, the qualifier for the Two-Stars pairs at the Autumn congress, with a view to making it more enjoyable for the players. Last year some players commented that the 12x4-board round format was rather slow. It occurs to me that we might be able to have more bridge, more opponents and less time between rounds if we had 17x3-board rounds scored in arrears with assignments done on time even if a few tables were not quite finished. I'd be interested to hear what people think of this as an idea.

Seems worth a try. Maybe current round assignments for the last couple of rounds?

[Trinidad]

gordontd, on 2015-February-12, 02:57, said:

You would use them in order to avoid a long mis-match having a disproportionate effect on the overall result. As such we typically use them in event with seven or more 7- or 8-board matches.

This is done by using the tables constructed for that purposes, whose aim is to make each award equally likely and so the range in match-points increases slightly the further away you get from average. Our tables are in section 3.1.7 of the White Book.

Thanks. Very informative.

I guess I simply don't understand why one would want to play a MP pairs tournament (in a large field) with few long rounds. We are talking about tournaments with, say, 50 tables, where you play something like 6 rounds of 8 boards in a day of bridge.

So all the conditions for running a fair, balanced tournament are present. Then one chooses not to run a fair, balanced tournament. Since this is not fair one tries to fix the not fair, unbalanced tournament, in a complex and vague manner, to make it marginally fairer. Now, it is still unfair, but also complex and vague. I can't imagine why one would do that, unless I am missing a boundary condition somewhere.

One example of such a boundary condition is in a "pub drive". These are fun bridge events where each round is played in a different pub and you walk from pub to pub between rounds. Obviously, 16 rounds of 2 boards would not be realistic (they would lead to blistered feet and/or liver cirrhosis ) so you typically play 7-8 rounds of 4. This means that the rounds can be somewhat unbalanced, and, together with the very mixed field, this means that these "pub drives" are somewhat of a lottery when it comes to determining the winner. But they compensate that by a great atmosphere, good food and drinks, walks through a town that one might not know and fun conversations with opponents and friends. Winning the event, or scoring masterpoints, is of very little importance.

I think the two should be kept separate:

• There are serious bridge events. They are competitive, well balanced, fair competitions and the best pair wins, taking fame, glory, the money and the masterpoints.
  
• There are less than serious bridge events. They are social and fun, and bridge is merely a tool to get people to meet. Whoever wins is not important, and, hence, should not/hardly be rewarded.

Both are valuable, but trying to make a hybrid of the two and apply a range of "fixes" seems ugly to me.

Rik

Edit: I took a long time to post this, so I hadn't seen Gordon's explanation that this is "historical", which explains a lot. Perhaps even more in the UK, where history and tradition are valued more than elsewhere.

[StevenG]

Trinidad, on 2015-February-12, 05:12, said:

Thanks. Very informative.

I guess I simply don't understand why one would want to play a MP pairs tournament (in a large field) with few long rounds. We are talking about tournaments with, say, 50 tables, where you play something like 6 rounds of 8 boards in a day of bridge.

Rik

I'm posting as a club player who has dabbled in tournament play. Quite frankly, playing MP pairs is not much fun for those who are not going to do well. Playing a series of matches (because that is how we see it) is fun. Giving masterpoints for each match means that you (almost) always come home with something. The one time I played in the National Pairs Regional Final, my partner hated it so much she refused to play in the qualifying heats again.

It's not about providing the purest bridge possible, it's about providing events the membership enjoys.

(Despite what others have said, swiss pairs is not the dominant event at basic tournament level. Swiss teams is. Bedfordshire, my county, runs three swiss teams and one ordinary (not green-pointed) MPs. It does not run a swiss pairs. On a weekend given over to county congress type events, there are usually a lot of swiss teams on the Sunday, and rather fewer swiss pairs on the Saturday.)

[akwoo]

Rik

I'm posting as someone who lives in an area more rural than any found in Western Europe.

I don't think there are more than 5 tables worth of serious bridge players who play tournaments to win within 150 miles.

We simply couldn't have a tournament without people who have no chance of winning but are willing to play for fun and to meet other people mildly interested in bridge.

For a novice who hasn't seen it much and barely remembers the default defense, having to deal with Flannery is annoying. It's less annoying if you are reminded about it and discuss your defense to it once in 7 rounds. It's more annoying when it randomly comes up twice over the course of a day. (You could of course discuss it before every pair that plays it - but that gets annoying if you're playing them for 2 boards and it's unlikely to come up.)

[sfi]

pran, on 2015-February-12, 03:01, said:

Inflated masterpoints? WTP.

I agree - WTP? If masterpoints attract more people to tournaments, I'm all for them. We all know they are a poor measure of skill, but they are the product our national organisations produce.