The Easiest Gold Points: Bracketed Round Robin

We previously discussed various ways to win Masterpoints online. Today’s post is all about getting gold points, the usual last hurdle for most players to reach Life Master. For most players, 500 Masterpoints is easy enough to reach using clubs or virtual clubs. For New Yorkers, the 75 silver can be a challenge, but easier with all of the silver linings weeks, STaCs, and new local sectionals. So how do normal players win the required 50 gold points?

Try Bracketed Round Robin

Bracketed Round Robin at a regional is the most generous and stable way to earn ACBL gold Masterpoints. You register as a team of 4 and the director will put you in a bracket of 8 teams all having a similar team masterpoint average. The top 3 teams will win overall gold points, with the prize proportional to the Masterpoint strength of your bracket.

Put another way, you only need to beat 5 teams in order to win a pile of gold points. Contrast that with a pair game, where there might be 32 pairs and you need to beat 22 pairs just to bring home a few fractions of gold.

Also, pair games tend to have a wide range of skill. An open game has world champions in addition to players who just crossed the 750 mark. Even a gold rush game can have 99ers playing alongside Life Masters with 700 points. With a bracketed team game, you can have a bracket of all players with under 200 points, or a group of 600-900 teams. Either way, you don’t need to worry about the arbitrary 750 Gold Rush boundary disqualifying you from playing in a limited field.

NYC Regional Oct 11-14

For the upcoming NYC Regional this October, we will offer a 0-3500 Bracketed Round Robin every day of the tournament. Any players under 3500 hoping to win gold points should try it out. There will of course also be a gold rush pairs, open pairs, and open swiss. But the bracketed team game is the only event that actively limits your competition to a small group of similarly-skilled teams. In some cases, your bracket could be a little larger, say 9 or 10 teams, but in those cases the top 4 spots win gold, still excellent odds.