[rduran1216]

I dont understand people who think w/l is more random then accounting for margin of victory. Please name for me some kind of competition where you have head to head matches, and instead of winning those, its the margins of victory that determine outcome. Who were the NFL champions in 2007? Who were the world cup champions in 2006, was it teams who blasted their opponents?

[cherdano]

rduran1216, on 2011-May-28, 10:59, said:

I dont understand people who think w/l is more random then accounting for margin of victory.

Well, by now even the dumbest basketball writer has started to understand that average margin of victory is a better predictor for winning future games than the win/loss record. So maybe there is still hope for you, too.

Quote

Please name for me some kind of competition where you have head to head matches, and instead of winning those, its the margins of victory that determine outcome.

Chess Olympiad.
Ok that's in a way a flawed example but in any case I don't understand what this question is trying to prove.

[kayin801]

There's more than one format of bridge and there are formats that are won based on the criteria you prefer. Just like there's matchpoint vs. IMP events there's also Swiss vs. head-to-head events.

If someone thinks matchpoints are dumb, I'm not convinced they should crusade to make the scoring of all games of that format similar to the format they prefer

Matchpoints is probably an appropriate analogy in this situation. In a 12 board match a team could win 11-1 at BAM and lose 14-11 at IMPs. (Yes I know people will play differently under the different formats)

[awm]

First, swiss team scoring is just very random, especially in a short event. It will always be the case that a single "lucky" board where opponents do something anti-percentage can decide a match, or prevent you from blitzing, or whatever. This has little to do with whether the scoring is W/L or VP.

As for comparing to football, in the NFL playoffs when a team loses they are out. In the world cup (after the initial group phase) when a team loses they are out. But in swiss teams, we want everyone to continue playing until the end of the event, and we want to make sure that teams who suffer an unlucky close loss have the chance to come back and win. A W/L system makes this impossible; once you lose a match you are (probably) out of contention.

If you look at baseball's regular season for an example (or the NBA), you might notice that the same pairs of teams are playing each other multiple times. At the end of the season, you don't add things up and say, well the Yankees won ten out of eighteen games with the Red Sox so we give the Yankees a "WIN" for that series... and the Yankees won two out of eighteen games with the Rays so that's a "LOSS" and they are 1-1. No, you count every single game separately even if it's against the same team. If you look at a bridge event in this way, and say that every single board should count in the standings rather than somehow combining into a "total result against that team"... well, you get BAM scoring... but it's a lot closer.

This also makes sense from the standpoint that you don't usually know what your "match score" is and can't adapt strategy to sacrifice a "big win" in order try to win by a narrow margin (i.e. running out the clock).

[rogerclee]

Aaron you have provided a lot of evidence that the 20VP scale is capable of selecting a winning team which did not play the best bridge. If this is your only point, then I think we can all agree with you and move on.

[shintaro]

Just say for arguments sake that some bozo doubles you in a Rock contract which you re-double and it brings in a Shedload of imps.

Because of this abonimation should you win the overall event ????

[qwery_hi]

(move on) and play KOs and pairs.

rogerclee, on 2011-May-28, 13:07, said:

Aaron you have provided a lot of evidence that the 20VP scale is capable of selecting a winning team which did not play the best bridge. If this is your only point, then I think we can all agree with you and move on.

[Phil]

In Louisville in the final Sunday Swiss, they used a 30 point scale which put a lot weight into winning and de-emphasized the short blow-out matches you'll have against a weak team.

I enjoyed this format. If you give me the other teams match results ill tell you if you would have beat them in a 30 point format.

[JLOGIC]

In Texas they still use VP 30. I hate it and always tried to lobby against it (obv unsuccessfully).

[han]

I don't know the VP scales very well, but capping the VP's at 25 as they do in international tournaments has always seemed like a good idea to me.

[CSGibson]

They won, you finished 2nd. Rather than revamp the whole scoring system because you managed a 2 imp victory over them in your 6 board head to head, which is not conclusive proof that you would have beaten them in a 24 board heads up match, why don't you just deal with it & move on to the next one.

[JLOGIC]

CSGibson, on 2011-May-28, 15:54, said:

They won, you finished 2nd. Rather than revamp the whole scoring system because you managed a 2 imp victory over them in your 6 board head to head, which is not conclusive proof that you would have beaten them in a 24 board heads up match, why don't you just focus on learning to play better so that you win more frequently

FYP

[Vampyr]

rduran1216, on 2011-May-28, 01:12, said:

The counter to that is that no matter what the disparity in ability, the nature of the boards in a 6-board match could be the determining factor in how wide the victory margin is.

At one table, you have 5 cold games, and one partscore. So you make a good decision to buy the contract on the partscore hand and pick up 5 imps lets say winning the match by 9 (overtricks in the other hands)

At the other table, a team has 3 hands where game can be made by either side, and a slam out which only one side bids. They similarly outplay their opponents, but because of the nature of the hands, blitz and eclipse the other winning team's results.

I similarly dont think its close, and that a premium should be put on doing the best with the hands you are dealt, not taking advantage of mismatches when the boards invite more excitement.

Well, I wouldn't wish to play in an event where Swiss Team hands are not duplicated. I would avoid them if I were you.

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2011-May-28, 19:18, said:

Well, I wouldn't wish to play in an event where Swiss Team hands are not duplicated. I would avoid them if I were you.

Not easy to do the the U.S.

Edit: I lied..all you would have to do is not play swiss teams at all, except in NA+ events.

This post has been edited by aguahombre: 2011-May-28, 19:35

[rogerclee]

aguahombre, on 2011-May-28, 19:30, said:

Not easy to do the the U.S.

Edit: I lied..all you would have to do is not play swiss teams at all, except in NA+ events.

The 3-day North American swiss only has preduped boards on the last day.

The top teams on the second day of the 2-day swisses get preduped boards, but not everyone does.

[Bbradley62]

Vampyr, on 2011-May-28, 19:18, said:

Well, I wouldn't wish to play in an event where Swiss Team hands are not duplicated.

Been on the right side of The Pond for a while, huh? Sorry, couldn't resist...

[aguahombre]

Exactly, Roger. So someone advising rduran to avoid events without predupes seems to be saying, "don't play Swiss." Which I don't think is helpful. Even Gibson's advice seems more useful, even though a bit personal ---Duran frequently posts some items which less experienced people might gain from upon viewing the responses.

[shintaro]

Bbradley62, on 2011-May-28, 21:32, said:

Been on the right side of The Pond for a while, huh? Sorry, couldn't resist...

At least some of us are

[mgoetze]

aguahombre, on 2011-May-28, 21:42, said:

Exactly, Roger. So someone advising rduran to avoid events without predupes seems to be saying, "don't play Swiss."

No, we're saying "move to Europe".

[campboy]

aguahombre, on 2011-May-28, 21:42, said:

Exactly, Roger. So someone advising rduran to avoid events without predupes seems to be saying, "don't play Swiss." Which I don't think is helpful. Even Gibson's advice seems more useful, even though a bit personal ---Duran frequently posts some items which less experienced people might gain from upon viewing the responses.

Well, look at it this way. The OP doesn't like Swiss scored by VPs without pre-duped boards, because of the randomness of some teams getting swingier boards than others. There are two solutions to this (other than just ignoring the issue): try to play in Swisses with pre-duped boards or try to play in Swisses scored by pure win-loss. Even in the US I'd bet it's easier to find the former than the latter, so I think it is worthwhile advice.