There is just so much changing day to day, it’s hard to keep up. Only last week, we had our first 0-3500 game. For those who were waiting for the dust to settle, we are nearing what should be a steady-state very soon.
Wider Field vs. Familiar Players
There are daily, human-only ACBL games on Bridge Base open to the entire nation. Then there are virtual private clubs that consist of only local players. To ensure a relatively large field of tables, the local players include 8 surrounding clubs, spearheaded by what used to be Honors, Aces, and Cavendish. They are calling it “All For One”. Apparently one proposed name was “Divided We Stand”, which has the double pun of social distancing, and surprising your opponent with poor trump splits on defense (or perhaps passing with balanced hands).
How Do The Masterpoint Prizes Stack Up?
Normally a bigger game means bigger rewards, but the nationwide ACBL games tend to have 240 tables with a maximum prize of 4.0 points. In fact, just yesterday a pair got a 68.28%, 5th overall of 235 tables, and still only ended up with 1.50 points for a section top.
The only way to get 4.0 is to get overall 1st in your strat, either A, B, or C (how they do the strats is still a mystery, do they use ACBL or BBO points?). If you are strat A, you would need to beat GNYBA members Joe Grue and Gillian Miniter, who scored a 74.23%.
If you ARE going to go the nationwide route, note the 7:30pm ET game tends to get 120 tables, while the 10:00am and 5:30pm ones have twice as large a field with 240. In case you want to research yourself, here is a link to recent, nationwide ACBLSYC hosted games.
The virtual private club games will have an upgraded formula this week. It’s not yet clear exactly what formula they use. If they are treated as a club championship game with membership restriction, you would hit 4.0 points after 25 tables.
Formula Needs Updating
Unfortunately, ACBL seems very lagged on giving us clarity on how the masterpomt formulas will adapt to the new BBO system. We can only wait and see – but you can bet we will be among the first to point out any weirdness in the masterpoint awards.
For the record, it seems insane to award only 1.50 black points for getting a 68% in a field of 235 tables. But I see why you would want to cap the award of an 18-board, one-session online game. Maybe the right solution is to have 3 regions, each with convenient time zone options. But that would be a mistake if the table count eventually dies down in the coming weeks.
One last nitpick – right now 18 boards is still considered a full pairs session. Just like with the Freaky Swiss, do we need to update the formula so that 18 vs 21 vs 24 vs 27 boards pays different amounts for a one-session pairs event?