ACBL Changes We Hope To See Very Soon

There is a lot of discussion going on right now at the highest levels of ACBL. Covid-19 has accelerated the urgency for many issues, while also opening up new ideas we couldn’t have imagined before the pandemic.

Getting From March to Today

As a community, tens of thousands of ACBL members migrated to online bridge in the span of weeks. Club owners quickly formed alliances and many ultimately found a way to host games while maintaining their local player base. We have regular special events for earning silver and gold points that draw noticeably larger crowds. These massive paradigm shifts will never be perfect, but I’m impressed with what ACBL and BBO have accomplished so far.

What Now? What Do I Want To See?

Now that we’ve all been playing online for 5 months, there are a few things I think many others hope to see soon. Some should be easy fixes; some will be controversial. But I have in mind a wish list of important fixes that would keep the game fresh and engaging for many:

1.) Swiss Teams or Bracketed Round Robin

Easily my biggest request, why is almost every ACBL event still a pairs game? IMP scoring and team matches already exist on BBO. I understand there are some considerations with security, and some new software logic to host a swiss format, Victory Points, and potential 3-ways. But I would have hoped we would have it by the 3rd online gold point regional.

In theory, the online experience could have one big advantage over face-to-face teams: we would have hand-records of the team match, even if we aren’t using pre-duplicated boards. Each match could still use random deals, but at least every player could review the results at both tables. What a great potential learning experience!

The ACBL Management Report suggests there might be another gold point event in early October. Let’s try to have swiss by then!

2.) Nationally Rated Online Events For Limited Players

Since Covid ACBL-hosted some big online tournaments for top flight players. The feedback seems to have been very positive from each event. But why limit things to the world champions? For the rest of us, we already lost a year of NAP and GNT.

Some big 0-6000, 0-2500, and 0-500 nationwide KO events would probably draw a large crowd. It would be the replacement for Mini and Micro Spingold, and perhaps creation of a Nano Spingold. We could also have Red Ribbon and Blue Ribbon replacement events – I’m sure everyone agrees we need more ways to spend our stockpile of ribbon qualifiers.

3.) Robots That Do Proper Carding + Just Defend Tournaments

I know not everyone is a big fan of the robot tournaments. However, I have learned enormous amounts by practicing with robots. The one big drawback for BBO, and most bridge engines, is a lack of proper carding. Bridge Baron and Fun Bridge both claim to honor certain carding rules, but in my experience both still leave much to be desired.

Once we have robot partners that are capable of human-like attitude, count, and suit preference signals, there will be so much more that one could potentially practice. The next logical step would be a new Daylong Tournament: The Just Defend tournament. It will be like Just Declare, where you see the full auction, but you are always on defense.

More On The Wish List?

There is much more I could add to the wish list, but I’ll stop for now. What does everyone else think? Is there more I’m missing?