What are some of the reasons to play team games instead of pairs?
- Team games usually use IMP scoring. Emphasis is on making the contract instead of agonizing over every little overtrick
- You actually use the crazy safety plays from BBO’s free Bridge Master lessons
- Team games are the easiest way to earn gold points and ribbon qualifiers at the upcoming Big Apple Winter Regional (Dec 26 – Dec 30 2019)
One of the most annoying drawbacks of team games is the lack of hand records. Perhaps that’s actually better for morale, but for those who love to post-mortem, you only have what you remember. Even at nationals, team games are usually shuffle-and-play, with a network of caddies to bring boards back and forth between your tables.
The Honors Swiss game is one of the few places to use pre-duplicated boards while regularly hosting over 20 tables of Swiss teams. The directors expend great effort to create multiple sets of boards and design a complex rotation to make it all work. At the end you receive hand records in print and online. Unfortunately, teams report match scores but not the results on each board. If there is an interesting hand, you only learn how you and your teammates played it, not the usual dozen results following a pairs game.
Know of any other clubs with team games that provide hand-records? The only other club where I have seen pre-duplicated Swiss teams on a regular basis is the Yotsuya Bridge Center in Tokyo, Japan.
I highly enjoyed playing at the Yotsuya Bridge Center in Japan. (1) One key difference in the way we bid in Japan is that we don’t remove our bidding until the first lead comes down. This is very helpful for the lead to know what to play and also helpful for everyone so that we do not need a complete review of how the bidding went. (2) Another reason I enjoyed playing there is that partners are actually very nice to each other (and to their opponents) and don’t yell at each other if someone makes a mistake. This is an environment that conducive to learning and everyone is at peace. (3) In addition to pre-duplicated swiss boards, they also provide hand-held computer scoring devices (similar to the ones that we have here in the US) for actual swiss games! This is a huge difference and makes so much sense. This prevents delays and allows less margin of errors from humans who do not know how the scoring works in Swiss games. I’ve seen players get deductions because they’ve failed to turn in their scores on time.
I recently played in my first (0-750) Swiss Teams event and was surprised that the Bridgemates couldn’t be, or weren’t, programmed for this type of game. The directors did an amazing job coordinating everything and getting people to the right spots, but I imagine their jobs would be easier if “all” they had to do was make sure the boards were in the right place. It looks like this should be an option: https://www.acbl.org/clubs_page/club-administration/acblscore/
The added benefit would be hand records with specific results for a game with pre-made hands such as Honors’.
ACBL Score software does not integrate with Bridgemates. There is software in the marker that does. Some tournaments use it, but there are issues. I would guess local regionals will be using it in a year or so.
Pre dealt hand with hand records is possible, but difficult for the sponsor of a large size event to use because of the number of sets of board required. Lobby your unit or district board to try it.