[dustinst22]

I have an idea, and wanted to get some opinions/suggestions from the forum. Also, I'd obviously need some help in running this. Here it is in a nutshell:

I dont think this currently exists in online Bridge, but it may.

I'd like to create a Bridge "Team" League, which is very similar in concept to what already has existed in online spades for years with great success and popularity. I think if this is successful, it could be very instrumental in bringing new blood to Bridge from the game of Spades.

Here is the idea.

1) Create a "league" format through the cases ladder site. This would simply be a central location used to manage ranking/bracketing/scheduling, etc.

2) The league will consist of "divisions" of several players with each division having a "captain"(with some maximum # of players allowed per division). Anyone would be allowed to create a new division.

3) The divisions be ranked in a "ladder" fashion based on wins in KO tournaments (it would probably be point based, where you get something like 1 point for a win in round 1, 2 pts for round 2, etc). There could also be a separate ladder for a ranking of teams of 4.

4) The way I envision this is there will be nightly (or maybe bi-weekly at first) TEAM KO tournaments. Depending on the size of the tournaments, matches will likely be 8 boards a piece, maybe slightly longer in the last round/s. Each "division" can have up to a maximum # of teams allowed to play in the tournament. Wins for any team earn the division points towards the ladder.

I'm sure some of these ideas could be improved on or outright changed, but I think this would be a lot of fun. Having potential "rivalries" among divisions would be a lot of fun.

[RunemPard]

I have a lot of experience running leagues using myleague(cases) from when I was head admin in my spades league. Glad to help, and I had a similar idea as well. It is just tough to get everyone together at the same time...

I think the way to go is short matches as you said. Not all have time for 20+ boards online, but maybe 8, 10, or 12?

[dustinst22]

RunemPard, on 2013-February-07, 12:31, said:

I have a lot of experience running leagues using myleague(cases) from when I was head admin in my spades league. Glad to help, and I had a similar idea as well. It is just tough to get everyone together at the same time...

I think the way to go is short matches as you said. Not all have time for 20+ boards online, but maybe 8, 10, or 12?

Awesome, yeah would be great if you could help out as I've never attempted to do something like this.

Agree, would need to have a good # of players for it to work, but I think it could be popular. KO Team tournaments are fun.

[paulg]

The BBO InterCity League has been running for about nine years. Twice a year, March and October, round robin groups of around eight teams are created with sixteen teams qualifying for the KO stages. Generally around 30-40 enter, mainly teams from all around Europe.

The key to the ICL's success is that matches are played every Wednesday at the same time, 2000 GMT and that you always know who your opponents are the week before. It is very rare, almost exceptional, for a match not to be played on the set date and, for this reason, most teams have a squad of players. Matches are 16 boards except for the later KO stages.

I've played in various bridge ladders over the last decade and initial enthusiasm has waned eventually. The ICL has remained successful due to its organiser, cobRAD, and its format.

I certainly don't want to stop you organising your own event as there is plenty of space in the calendar and the ICL is very Euro-centric, but the idea of a fixed day/time for matches makes life considerably easier for organisers of the event and team captains.

[hrothgar]

paulg, on 2013-February-07, 17:19, said:

I've played in various bridge ladders over the last decade and initial enthusiasm has waned eventually. The ICL has remained successful due to its organiser, cobRAD, and its format.

I certainly don't want to stop you organising your own event as there is plenty of space in the calendar and the ICL is very Euro-centric, but the idea of a fixed day/time for matches makes life considerably easier for organisers of the event and team captains.

I think that Paul raises a very good point.

I've seen a number of efforts to set these up crash and burn.
In retrospect, I think that allow teams to arrange their own match times at their convenience is a mistake.
It seems like a good idea, but it doesn't seem to work in practice.

[dustinst22]

paulg, on 2013-February-07, 17:19, said:

The BBO InterCity League has been running for about nine years. Twice a year, March and October, round robin groups of around eight teams are created with sixteen teams qualifying for the KO stages. Generally around 30-40 enter, mainly teams from all around Europe.

The key to the ICL's success is that matches are played every Wednesday at the same time, 2000 GMT and that you always know who your opponents are the week before. It is very rare, almost exceptional, for a match not to be played on the set date and, for this reason, most teams have a squad of players. Matches are 16 boards except for the later KO stages.

I've played in various bridge ladders over the last decade and initial enthusiasm has waned eventually. The ICL has remained successful due to its organiser, cobRAD, and its format.

I certainly don't want to stop you organising your own event as there is plenty of space in the calendar and the ICL is very Euro-centric, but the idea of a fixed day/time for matches makes life considerably easier for organisers of the event and team captains.

Thanks for the suggestions, and I definitely agree with all of your points.

I think most ladders die off, this happens in the game of Spades as well. The unique thing about this ladder is that it will consist of regularly scheduled Team KO tournaments, which I think could be very popular as it's very difficult (impossible) to play in these online. I think short quick matches (i.e. 6-8 boards) will be the way to go to keep the tournament moving at a good clip. Semi-Finals and Finals could be longer.

[barmar]

If you look in the BBO Forum Events forum, you'll see that we tried to do a BBF League last year. As with other attempts, it eventually died due to scheduling difficulties.

A big problem with online leagues is that they attract people from all around the world. This sounds great at first, since it means a larger pool of players. But the problem is that they live in very different time zones. If a team is spread out, you can't get all of them together at once. And even if the team is able to get together, finding a compatible time with other teams is difficult.

The ICL league is mostly from Europe, so they don't run into these scheduling problems.

[paulg]

barmar, on 2013-February-07, 18:56, said:

The ICL league is mostly from Europe, so they don't run into these scheduling problems.

It should be said that the winners of the last edition, which started in October and finished in December, were Glasvegas, a Scottish-Canadian-Israeli team that must have covered more time zones than any other team.

The fixed schedule means that teams only enter if they can play on Wednesdays at 2000 GMT. Everyone is welcome, but clearly most convenient for the Europeans.

[mgoetze]

My recommendation would be to publicize it somewhere where people who actually like playing on BBO hang out. I don't know where that would be, but my experience unfortunately has been that BBF is not it (see the BBO Forum Events section where I struggle every week to find 4 players willing to take the excellent opportunity to play a team match against a world-class team and have organised BBF Pairs tournaments drawing all of 3 tables).

[Mbodell]

mgoetze, on 2013-February-08, 15:37, said:

My recommendation would be to publicize it somewhere where people who actually like playing on BBO hang out. I don't know where that would be, but my experience unfortunately has been that BBF is not it (see the BBO Forum Events section where I struggle every week to find 4 players willing to take the excellent opportunity to play a team match against a world-class team and have organised BBF Pairs tournaments drawing all of 3 tables).

I think that is a little unfair (about the number of people who like to play on bbo). I just think there are people for whom different days of week and time of day are good. And there are people who have regular commitments (both bridge [on bbo and irl] and non-bridge) that make certain days/times hard. That said, if you are trying to find people, of course use lots of different resources.

[barmar]

It's certainly true that the readership of the forum is a small fraction of the BBO playing community.

We could publicize it in the BBO Lobby News.