tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7181380552290465298.post3915443021298734165..comments2024-03-14T18:02:56.265-04:00Comments on Robin's Bridge Blog: Masterpoints, or "dumb and dumber"Phasmidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09870140728729031615noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7181380552290465298.post-16968044849211022672013-11-24T14:44:34.143-05:002013-11-24T14:44:34.143-05:00My response is here:
http://slarjy.blogspot.com/20...My response is here:<br />http://slarjy.blogspot.com/2013/11/fixing-masterpoints.html<br />TL;DR version: your post is directionally correct but with some additional thought a more robust system is possible.Slarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11473385549812836620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7181380552290465298.post-27813109735778468352013-01-14T21:32:15.840-05:002013-01-14T21:32:15.840-05:00Robin,
I've likened masterpoints to the Dut...Robin,<br /><br /> I've likened masterpoints to the Dutch Tulip Bulb craze of centuries past. Tulip bulbs are nice little commodities that grow up to be nice flowers. But there was a day in time (early 1637) where they were suddenly imbued with investor craze and become, briefly, more valuable than gold and jewels. Then somebody noticed just how ... surreal ... that was and sanity was restored. <br /><br />I mean, seriously, does anybody REALLY take masterpoints seriously once they become something more advanced than a novice? I DO remember my first fractional black points. Point zero eight in my first duplicate bridge game ever. 'Cuz my high school chum and I WON a four-table game at the local library. Didn't win again for another year, but that little slip kept me coming back for more. Moved past the 20-point barrier by captaining the Novice Teams champs at the Canadian Championships a little bit less than a year later. That was 1977. And even by then, I knew masterpoints didn't mean much in the way of identifying who was the better bridge player. Sure, BIG gaps were pretty indicative. But unless talking about an order of magnitude, masterpoints were meaningless.<br /><br />Of course, joining the ACBL staff meant paying lip service to the company's main product. But that came to a crashing halt out in Portland OR for a Spring NABC. Henry Francis assigned me the task of getting a hand for the Daily Bulletin from the table where a noted celebrity was playing with a noted Bridge journalist. I've never identified the person in re-telling the story because the person is extremely likable and a treasure in that person's chosen field. But boy was this Life Master a crummy player. Would not have been in the top 30 in our little 24-person club back home. I couldn't come up with a single hand to report back to Henry. <br /><br />On that day, masterpoints and even the vaunted Life Master status ceased to have all meaning to me. I didn't send in club points (this, being the Dark Ages of last century, there were no computers doing that for me), and dawdled along without ever checking a masterpoint award ever again. Fact is, I never, ever did become a Life Master. <br /><br />Which MIGHT sound like sour grapes from a player with a self-inflated sense of capability. 'Cept I have all the gold points I need. And then some. I haven't played in less than a top flight for decades, even if I had a lower level to play at. I was so upset at winning the C Strats in a pairs at the Summer NABC's in Toronto that I quit playing. Again. All because we played lousy bridge that just happened to be the best in that stratification because few of that rank chose to play in the Open Pairs for that day. <br /><br />Once you lose the worry over the ACBL's masterpoint manipulations and satisfy yourself with how you played, Bridge goes back to being a fun game. And oddly enough, you end up winning the ACBL point 'race' more often as a result.<br /><br />The emperor has no clothes.Gary Mugfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12373692715883477861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7181380552290465298.post-71825871418475237992013-01-14T14:16:37.233-05:002013-01-14T14:16:37.233-05:00Yes, I shouldn't be so hard on the ACBL. They ...Yes, I shouldn't be so hard on the ACBL. They have a business to run whether we like to admit it or not. On the whole they do a great job. And I do look forward to reading each new Bulletin.<br /><br />And it's not that I have anything against masterpoints as such. I just think that if we don't stop and think it through, we will be tinkering with this and that forever.Phasmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09870140728729031615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7181380552290465298.post-5899467497351663132013-01-14T13:55:51.880-05:002013-01-14T13:55:51.880-05:00Interesting article. Your ideas might work, but ma...Interesting article. Your ideas might work, but masterpoints are here to stay, I'm afraid.<br /><br />"we know from the types of articles that are these days missing from the Bulletin .. that the editors are deliberately dumbing down its content."<br /><br />The Bridge Bulletin has to be all things to all men, so to speak. The experts think there is too much stuff for beginners. Beginners think there is too much stuff catering to experts, and so it goes.<br /><br />The ACBL marketing department surveys (randomly) members each year and the Bulletin staff use the results to guide many of their decisions. The average member surveyed has 500 masterpoints and is 70 years old. What they would like to read and what you're interested in are likely quite different.Memphis MOJOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12653631347560307425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7181380552290465298.post-59910009960808042762013-01-13T16:22:42.680-05:002013-01-13T16:22:42.680-05:00Assuming games were stratified instead of flighted...Assuming games were stratified instead of flighted, it would be easy to avoid promoting C players to B before they were ready. Promote them only after they've placed in B a sufficient number of times, or accumulated a certain number of points from flight B finishes. In other words, the way you get into flight B is by proving yourself against the existing flight B players, not by beating up on flight C.Adam Lallyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15866758666052406686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7181380552290465298.post-49505920115249195272013-01-13T14:08:21.868-05:002013-01-13T14:08:21.868-05:00A longer reply having been misplaced somewhere in ...A longer reply having been misplaced somewhere in cyberspace, I will re-write only the portion that I would define as the threshold question.<br /><br />When players choose to enter a "lesser" event, are they making that choice to increase their mp expectation or are they making that choice to avoid playing the sharks?<br /><br />That the mp award system needs to be reworked is pretty obvious (although I would suggest that redistribution of mps is more needed than just deflating mps). But if the core reason that players choose to enter "lesser" events is to avoid playing the sharks, then the appropriate solutions are not terribly drastic. Just eliminate most of the restricting criteria for "lesser" events (yes, especially age restrictions), and ensure that all players have the choice to enter a Relaxed Game or an All Comers game. Each can be scored across multiple strata, so choosing the game should not affect one's ability to earn mps, but rather just the probable quality of the competition one faces.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09402419741923703786noreply@blogger.com