mrdct, on 2011-May-30, 21:52, said:
That's an interesting attitude which certainly seems to be the prevailing point-of-view in ACBL-land and no doubt saves the tournament convenors quite a bit of money in dealing costs and volume of boards required to run an event.
I haven't played bridge in Europe for several years, but I can certainly say that in Australia there would be virtually no congresses, national events or state events that don't use pre-dealt boards and I'd say the vast majority of bridge clubs these days either have a dealing machine or get their boards dealt by a third-party such that the overwhelming majority of club duplicates played in this country are with pre-dealt boards. I'd suggest that if someone put on a tournament here and asked the players to shuffle and deal there would be people asking for their money back and a lot less people turning up for the next event run by the same convenor. Whilst you might consider "stupid small events" unworthy of pre-dealt boards, if anything it's those events which provide good opportunities for lower-flight players to improve through going through the hand records and discussing them with their partners and more experienced players. Quite a lot of clubs in Australia, particularly the privately-run clubs, do formal talks after the duplicate to quickly whiz through a few interesting hands which is a bit of a selling point. I think it costs about $15-$20 to get a set of boards dealt, so you only need one extra table showing up because they like hand-records to make it profitable to do it. If I was running a private bridge club, I'd hand-duplicate the boards if necessary until I could afford to buy a dealing machine.
As it happens, I was playing in a little country event a couple of weeks ago with my daughter and because of an odd number of teams they needed to have a triangle which brought boards 33-40 into play which came to the table flushed* so we had to shuffle and deal. This was the first time since 1993 that I'd played bridge with hand-dealt cards.
*As an aside this was quite funny situation as the cards in the flushed boards were face down so we initially all took our hands out and sorted them (I had the ♣ suit) and we all had poker faces except for the clown sitting east who decided to call the director and spoil everyone's fun (especially his partner's who held the ♠ suit). I went a little bit Secretary Bird on him suggesting that it was inappropriate for him to call the director and give UI to his partner that he is holding an extraordinary hand and that what he should've done is shut-up and bid and play the hand and then when we get to the next board call the director and say "I think I recognise this hand".
I still don't get the point. I admitted that American tournaments suck, and I'm shocked more like you don't just boycott until you get hand dealt hands in all club games. It is really shocking anyone plays bridge in America having to deal with this. As we know, bridge in America is virtually dead right now anyways.
I mean honestly all I keep hearing about is how awesome bridge in every non american country is. Yet you admit in your post that some clubs in Australia don't have pre-dealt boards, while most do. In USA, the big clubs that make a lot of money have pre-dealt boards, and the small clubs that don't probably don't. There are a lot of bridge clubs in USA, we are a big place, and a large majority of our land is in places like the midwest which don't have that many people and aren't going to be making much money.
Almost all of the boards in our nationals a preduped, however some aren't. Do you really know the cost of preduping huge events like NABCs here? It would probably cost a lot of time and money, because those tournaments are really big! Most NABC events do have preduped boards, all pair games, the main events starting from the round of 32+ etc, and the swisses on the last day (for the 2 day events, only the top 10 teams or so get them). So basically, the boards are not preduped when the event is still huge. Maybe the reason Australia or [random european country] would always have preduped boards is because your events are never that huge. America has shown that when the event is not super huge, we always predupe at our nationals.
Similarly at regionals there are always preduped boards for pair games. Knockouts and swisses which often have hundreds of tables do not. If it's in a place without hundreds of tables, it's because it's a small regional, which probably doesn't make much money. It might even lose money. So they don't predupe.
The ACBL is not a for profit organization. We have full time directors who are competent and paid, and I appreciate that, I've heard some horror stories from other countries with volunteer directors, but you get what you pay for. Bridge is already expensive. If you preduped the huge NABC events, or a regional knockout, the directors would need to be paid more money since they do more work. Or more would have to be hired. This would cause a rise in the prices of entry fees. Perhaps this is not what the membership wants.
Likewise, if clubs bought a dealing machine and bridgemates, even if they were small, the only way they could make money (clubs are not ACBL run and are FOR profit) is to charge a higher entry fee. Probably the members don't want this. Someone has to eat that cost, and most clubs (especially the ones without these things, since they are in small locations) are barely making ends meet. AFAIK most are acutally losing money.
Going over the hands after takes time. Someone has to be paid. The members or the clubs barely making money would have to eat that. Hand preduping takes a lot of time. This would cause the club owners to make less money per hour worked. Perhaps they don't want this. They run a private club and they're trying to make money, it's up to them what is worth it to them.
For all american-bridge haters talking about how awesome your country is I would really try to remember the following:
1) Our tournaments are bigger, and more frequent than yours. The ACBL is nice enough to organize tournaments all around our country, all the time, even in places with not much people. They are trying to offer all americans the chance to play at all levels at an affordable and semi-frequent rate. It would cost the ACBL far more money total to predupe bigger and more frequent events.
2) Our major national events all have predupe boards. There are a few exceptions, and they are always when the event is still massive. Perhaps your country would find it hard to find the time and money to predupe these boards if you had events this big. Yes, if they were making money per person played, then the extra money you make by having more people might make it cost effective. However the ACBL loses money on many tournaments, because of point 1. Also because they pay full time directors, and they have the tournaments at very nice locations mostly. Perhaps you think it would be better to have worse director and location quality in order to have predupes for ALL events, but I don't, and many probably agree with me.
3) Our big clubs also have preduped boards, and our small clubs don't. We have a lot of clubs. This sounds the same as it is in many countries. Perhaps you have more profitable clubs because you are less spread out. To act like everything is preduped everywhere else and nothing is preduped in america is a huge exaggeration.
4) The average expense for an american to play at a tournament like an NABC is very high since our country is very big, and most people have to travel very far to do this. Charging more money in order to pay for these costs is not something most can afford.
5) I'm sorry, but at the end of the day in America you get extremely frequent games everywhere despite how many locations there are in USA, nice venues, full time paid directors, and predupes in almost all important events or in locations that make a lot of money. If you want you get to play against the best competition in the world (I am not saying that America has the best bridge team, but if you wanted to take the top 50 teams each country could produce, obviously USA would win. The talent pool is very deep.) This is not meant as an "America rocks at bridge" thing, we are a huge country, but if you want every week you can play against top players in the world. Right now I am in florida and there is a team with Meckwell, a team with John Hurd/Sontag, a team with the Ekeblads, Seamon, Demuy, a team with Berkowitz and Jacobus, a team with Cheek and Hampson, among others. At a huge tournament in a beautiful venue (there is a PGA tournament here every year). You have this option every week. If you don't want to travel, you get this chance a couple of weeks a year. And no one is complaining that the knockout matches are not preduped (who cares in a knockout anyways?). The pair games are preduplicated (obv much more important). And yeah, the 1 session swiss side game will not be preduped... big deal. This is what the ACBL has managed to offer americans (and many foreigners who come here every year), and I really do not believe that the situation is much better in every other country.
But keep going on about how bridge in America sucks, and as a bridge player you would much rather be on the other side of the pond, since you get to play multi in pair games and have preduped boards in non-serious swiss team events. I am sure you're right.
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ing) tr. v. - Any bid made by bridge player with which partner disagrees.