Tournament Schedules

In this edition of tournament schedules, I’d like to bring some attention to the Olympia regional in a couple of weeks. Why? Because on Wednesday of this regional, the main event is a 2 session BAM! It doesn’t even compete with a new KO. It’s not enough to make me want to go to that tournament but during my perusal of schedules, it really caught my eye and I hope someone in the southeast will include this in a mid-Atlantic regional, just not on a Tuesday or Wednesday because I don’t really go to regionals early in the week.

If I ever decide to be in charge of scheduling for a regional, my schedule of the main events would look something like this:

Bracketed BAM KO (top bracket open to anyone) – Monday 7:30, Tuesday 9:30, 1:30, 7:30, Wednesday 9:30 (if necessary)

Stratiflighted/Gold rush pairs (3) – Tues, Wed, Fri 1:30 & 7:30 (0-750 gold rush may be 10 and 3)

Bracketed KO (2) – Tues-Wed, Wed-Thur

Open Swiss – Thur 10 & 2

4 session Open Pairs (cut after 2 sessions) - Thur-Fri 1:30 & 7:30

Open BAM – Fri 1:30 & 7:30

4 session BAM (cut after 2 sessions) – Sat 1:30 & 7:30, Sun 10 & 2

Gold rush Pairs – Sat 10 & 3

Fast Open Pairs – Sun 10 & 1

Stratiflighted Swiss – Sun 10 & 2

My rant on tournament schedules this time is about the major league baseball playoffs. As any good American knows, the format was changed this year by adding a 5^th team to the mix from each league – 3 division winners plus 2 wild cards. The 2 wild cards play 1 game to see who gets into the best of 5 series against the league’s top seed. It’s kind of messed up to have 1 game determine what team advances, except in the case of a tie-breaker. I get it – more teams are still alive in September by adding an extra playoff spot but there ought to be some clause that says there will be no second wild card team if they are, say, at least 3 games behind the first wild card team. Last year, the Cardinals finished 1 game ahead of the Braves for the Wild card spot; a 1 game playoff for both teams wouldn’t be so bad in that situation. This year, the Braves finished 6 games ahead of the Cardinals but the Cardinals get a chance to essentially overcome 6 games in the standings with 1 head to head game. Also, in the 5 game series, the lower seed now hosts the first 2 games and the higher seed hosts the last 3. That’s messed up, especially considering that the top seed has to wait 2 extra days – until after the wild card game – to find out where they are going. Previously, the higher seed hosted the first 2 and the last game.

It seems that more and more, discussions at bridge tournaments have become more along the lines of who's sleeping with who and why? Even while I was trying to point out the pros in the room last week, it digressed into a gossip session on who is whose ex rather than who is known for what in bridge.

I'm sure I'm the subject of several of these talks when I'm not around given who my most regular tournament partners are - Sean, Alli, Meg, Mili. If you've heard any rumors surrounding me, they're probably untrue.
:/

Sent from my iPhone

Various Regional Scheduling Rants

I haven’t had too many thoughts about actual bridge hands lately but I think it’s time for another rant about tournament schedules.

I personally am not a fan of the 2 session flight A Swiss/flight B bracketed round robin that many tournaments are having on Thursdays now. But I am generally against Swisses and this rarely impacts me because I rarely am at a tournament on a Thursday. If you play pairs that day, it’s tiny and the open game doesn’t get “credit” for the Gold Rush or flight B game. I think a decent argument can be made for including the flight B Swiss tables in the MP calculation for the open pairs, much like they do when they have a 0-750 pair game alongside the open pairs. Why should the Open Swiss get credit for the tables in the 0-3000 Round Robin but the Open Pairs not get credit for the 0-3000 round robin? This flighting of pair games has done wonders for reviving the open pairs and sort of curtailing the KO fever. However, these tournaments that have gone to having 0-750 games Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday have skewed the MP awards for the open pairs. Let’s take a look at the recent Chattanooga regional, which used this schedule.

Tuesday open pairs: 8 tables, 19.95 MP for first (39 tables in 0-750 pairs included for MP awards)

Wednesday open pairs: 13 tables, 24.50 MP for first (47 tables in 0-750 included)

Thursday open pairs: 11.5 tables, 7.70 MP for first (76 tables in 0-3000 Bracketed Round Robin, about 36 of which were eligible for 0-750, not included in MP awards for open pairs)

Friday open pairs: 12 tables, 18.55 MP for first (31 tables in 0-750)

Saturday open pairs: 9 tables, 14 MP for first (21 tables in 0-750)

Doesn’t it seem wrong for the Thursday open pairs to pay far fewer points despite that specific event being close to the same size every day?

Another thing I’d like to rant about today is the scheduling of BAM and Swisses for the evening side team game. Personally, I’d prefer BAM every night but that’s not going to happen except at the few tournaments big enough to support both so having some of each is almost a necessity. In Chattanooga (and at the upcoming Augusta and Macon regionals), BAMs are on Tuesday and Thursday nights with Swisses Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. BAMs and compact KOs are restricted to exactly 4-person teams while KOs and Swisses allow 4, 5 or 6 person teams. Therefore, to avoid making some team reorganize and rearrange themselves within the same day, when the main event is a compact KO, the evening event should be a BAM. Otherwise, when the main event allows 5 or 6 person teams, the side event that evening should also allow 5 or 6 person teams. So this scheduling doesn’t make sense in that regard either because Saturday is the one evening that should definitely have a BAM because the main team event of the day is a compact KO so teams are already grouped into exactly 4.

My last rant about tournament schedules for the day concerns KOs near the end of the tournament. I love the avoid-the-swiss KO – the one that starts Sunday afternoon of a tournament ending on a Monday holiday (or starts at 1pm Saturday and continues at 10am Sunday of a normal week). Attendance for this KO, however, has been substantially lower than for other Kos almost to the point of it not being worth scheduling. At the Raleigh regional, which ended Memorial Day, they had the traditional avoid-the-swiss KO that I entered but the event was delayed because teams had tried to enter that event AND the morning KO, both of which continued Monday at 10am. The Atlanta regional coming up is introducing a similar schedule for the first time – the normal Sunday-Monday KO exists but also a Saturday-Monday morning KO, both of which have semifinals Monday. I'm afraid that, while the knockouts during the week might be 7 or 8 brackets, these 2 events will be 1 bracket events.

Round robins/group play to qualify for KO

So, I think tournaments that have a round robin to qualify for a knockout are generally a good format for an event. Several big events in bridge use this format. This format ensures that every team plays a significant amount before being declared out of the competition. It also prevents a top team from being knocked out very early due to one bad day. However, as we’ve seen (or mostly read about) from badminton at the Olympics, this round robin format can lead to some tanking in the latter stages of the round robin. Sure, things like this have happened before but usually they did it for a healthy sum of money.

It seems that there was no monetary motive for the badminton players who intentionally lost their last round robin match to get what they perceived to be a better draw in the KO stage. The Chinese pair of Xiaoli and Yu were the first to be accused of intentionally losing their final group stage match yesterday. They were already assured of qualifying for the KO but thought they if they were the #2 seed from their group, it would yield an easier path to the final than if they were the #1 seed. With the #1 seed, they would play in the first round of the KO another Chinese team who they perceived as being the best team. I can’t blame them for trying to get out of that match. Is this really any different than a 13-2 NFL team resting their starting quarterback the last regular season game or a baseball team who has clinched the division title playing mostly reserves the last week of the regular season? It’s not their fault that the format of the tournament is that way and they already knew who they would draw in the next round depending on their outcome. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

I’m kind of hoping some allegations about these badminton players were being paid $100,000 to lose the match but that seems pretty unlikely. That would justify them being disqualified. Who benefited from them losing? No one. All it did was swap the seeds of the 2 qualifying teams from the group.

When money is the primary motivation (theoretically some third party paying to get a team to lose), it is clearly wrong and everyone involved should be punished. When aiding another team’s chances of winning the event is the motivation, that is also wrong, but this part can be virtually eliminated by having teams who might have that sort of motivation play each other in the first round or two of the round robin, before one team gets essentially eliminated. However, when a team’s match-throwing is solely in an effort to improve one’s own chances of winning the event, I think it is not inherently wrong. Yes, it’s not ideal and doesn’t make for a very fun match to watch, but they’re still trying to win in the grand scheme of things, and they shouldn’t be punished for that. I assume we all agree that winning the entire event, not just one’s group in the round robin, is or should be the goal of every team or individual or pair in an event.

Monday to Friday tournaments

I’m afraid that the Atlanta July sectional is going to see an attendance increase this summer with the ridiculous Monday to Friday schedule. However, I hope it drops from its normal attendance of around 1000 tables so they won’t be tempted to try this again. In case you hadn’t noticed, this summer is the first time that Atlanta has had a tournament with no weekend games and it pisses me off. Seriously. Yeah, I get that bridge players are mostly retired people but making the tournament go from 10am Monday until 5pm Friday is REALLY terrible for those of us who have to work.  I generally love the Atlanta July 4^th super sectional because it is in a great location, has a strong field, has lots of free beer and ice cream, and I can normally play 7 sessions and sleep in without using any vacation time but with only the middle day of the tournament available to me without being on vacation, I won’t be able to enjoy the tournament nearly as much as normal.

 I’m sure every person who has an office job feels this way about having weekend games and you would think the retired folks wouldn’t care much whether the tournament is Wed-Sun or Mon-Fri. However, this is clearly not the case as almost every tournament drops off in attendance toward the end – maybe it’s because people don’t like playing on the weekend but maybe it’s just that the masses prefer going at the start of tournaments regardless of what day of the week it falls on or get irritated with their partner and go home early. I bet that if someone made a tournament be Saturday through Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday would be the biggest days. For people who don’t want to play the whole tournament and have flexibility, I think going at the beginning rather than the end is what most people would prefer.

In 2011, the tournament organizers did something that only slightly pissed me off. The tournament ended on Sunday, but the federal holiday was Monday, so out of the 3 day weekend, there was only bridge on 2 of those days.

I really want to boycott this tournament in protest of this schedule that is so anti-anybody who isn’t retired or on summer break. The problem is that most people I would play with are in or near Atlanta and going elsewhere would likely mean a trip to DC for the regional there. Financially, that’s not a smart thing to do but I may do it anyway. Not playing any bridge that week would be fine too, if I had something else going on, which I don't.

Interesting tournament schedules

From time to time I like to check out tournament schedules from other parts of the country (and occasionally go to tournaments that aren't NABCs or in the Mid-Atlantic). Sometime last year I believe I wrote about how I admired the fact that a DC area tournament had a Board-a-match for flight A on Sunday of a sectional. Flight B was Swiss, which is reasonable. I still plan on attending that tournament some day, assuming they still have the Sunday BAM. Here are a few upcoming tournaments across the country that have interesting schedules.

 

This one in Halifax isn't so much an interesting schedule (although I am a fan of the 2-session pair game Saturday rather than single sessions) but take a look at the Friday evening schedule: No Midnight game. And they really thought it was important to specify that. Sure enough, they had a midnight game at the last Halifax sectional in November. They even had the finals of a proper 3 session KO starting at 11pm.

 

This Hawaii tournament is doing things backwards: 2 session Swiss on Saturday and 2 one session pair games Sunday, starting at 9am both days. Yuck. Meanwhile, this tournament in Toledo also has a 2 session Swiss Saturday but also has a 2 session Swiss on Sunday. Double yuck. At least they start at 11am. Needless to say, those are tournaments I will not be attending. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Charleston, WV sectional, where there are no team games. Sunday you get a 10:30 IMP pairs and a 3pm matchpoint pairs/BAM. If it was some place nicer than West Virginia, I might consider going out of my way to support this. All 3 of these are the first weekend in March.

 

The flyer for this tournament in Rochester, MN is lacking a bit. For 1:00 and 6:30 sessions, it says Pair/Team Games and that's all. What does that mean? I went back and looked at least year's results from this tournament and found that all those are pair games with computer-assigned teammates to score it as a BAM as well. And then I got confused because I thought masterpoint formulas for first in a 1 session event were the same regardless of whether it's matchpoint pairs, imp pairs, Swiss, or BAM, but apparently I am wrong. Winning in BAM somehow is worth more than winning a pair game of the same size. Well, technically a 28 table BAM is half as big as a 28 table pair game but first in the BAM paid 6.97 while first in the pair game paid the familiar 6.33. I like BAM but that is an injustice.

Gripes about tournament schedules

Organizing bridge tournament is hard. I get that and it's impossible to make everyone happy, but the schedule of relevant bridge tournaments for me coming up is just awful.

 

There never is a tournament in D7 that goes over President's Day weekend – maybe a small sectional somewhere not particularly close to me but that's all. Thus, I will be going to California for a tournament for that long weekend. It should be a nice change from the usual Georgia/South Carolina crowds. All holiday weekends should have a bridge tournament but the fact that there's no bridge on the MLK holiday is fine because it's just a couple weeks after the New Year's regional and the local Macon tournament is that Friday-Sunday.

 

Apparently the USBF is not sending a team to the FISU university bridge championships. This is the first time the USA will not be represented there. The excuse? It overlaps slightly with the Summer NABC (July 10-15 compared with July 12-22). I can sort of see that as a reason (even though I still think the USA should be represented there) but why would any world bridge competition be scheduled to conflict with an NABC, by far the biggest bridge event that is not technically international? Instead the USBF is sending entirely too many people (35) to the Youth Bridge Championships in China at the end of July. And the FISU competition is in France – wouldn't everyone rather go to France than China anyway? Or is it just me?

 

GNT scheduling irks me too. This happens every year – district 7 has the district final around the first of May so that it conflicts with final exams and graduation but it hasn't really affected me lately because I haven't had any school affiliation for the last 4 years. Since Stephen graduating with his Ph.D. is kind of a big deal, I guess I'm supposed to go to Ann Arbor for that, but it's the same weekend as the flight A GNT finals. I could play in the superflight GNT the following week but that is in Morganton which is kind of far and the odds of winning that are much much lower than in flight A.

 

I'm not even sure I'll be able to go to superflight GNT either because according to the school calendar, the final for my Wednesday evening class is supposed to be Saturday May 5 at 7pm. WTF? The syllabus says it's Wednesday May 2 at the normal class time, though, which makes sense. Why does the finals schedule have exams scheduled for Monday through Saturday but has nothing for Wednesday?

 

Then there's the NABC schedule with its starting times of 10:30 and 3:30 instead of 1 and 7:30. That's really going to cut into my sleeping time on ym vacation but I guess that's okay - the drinking can start 4 hours earlier but still likely not end much earlier.

 

Then there's the summer sectional in Atlanta, a Monday to Friday affair. What's wrong with the typical Wednesday to Sunday schedule so that us working people can still play 3 days without using any vacation time? I guess since July 4^th falls on a Wednesday and the NABC starts on the 12th… I dunno. It doesn't make sense and pisses me off.

 

On a lighter note, things are rolling toward planning the first Macon regional to take place just over a year from now. Since I might have some influence on the schedule for this, maybe I can get a BAM KO or a Sunday BAM instead of a Sunday Swiss (at least for flight A) on the schedule.