Freaky Knockouts and Freaky Masterpoint Awards

Posted on January 27, 2020 by Lee Lin

The Tarrytown regional just concluded their very successful week-long tournament, including a return of the Freaky Knockout Teams events (previously known as Far Out Knock Out In A Day).

(EDIT: The Masterpoint formula has changed following the Tarrytown event)

DISCLAIMER: This post is about the quirks in the ACBL formula, from the point of view of a data nerd. The directors and folks from District 3 did an amazing job running the tournament. The Freaky KO format is an innovative solution to knockouts in one day, and GNYBA is considering a similar format for the upcoming regional.

Masterpoint Payments Very Freaky

The current ACBL Masterpoints formula requires adjusting the points when knockout matches are shorter than the usual 24 boards. For example, a compact knockout with 12-board matches pays half as much as 24-board full knockouts. A freaky knockout with 18-board matches pays 3/4 as much as 24 boards. Simple and linear until you reach 24.

A Swiss, however, has no such adjustment, as long as the swiss qualifies as “2 sessions”. Technically, the swiss that lasts 4 rounds with 9 board matches beginning at 12:30pm and ending 6:45pm qualifies as two sessions. It’s a creative solution and works well with the Freaky KO format. However, shouldn’t we adjust the award to account for only 18 boards per session? (EDIT: Yes, we should and will from now on)

The Knockout Formula has the “L” factor, which redues the award if the boards played per match is less than 24 boards.
The Round Robin formula has no such factor – they assume the tournament will fill the entirety of the two sessions with 7 rounds of 7 boards.

(EDIT: Following the Tarrytown regional, the formula has been changed. The 36-board swiss will be multiplied by the 0.75 factor as well. However, it is still possible for the swiss winners to win more points than the lower brackets of the KO contributing to the swiss)

Transcending Brackets Becomes Freaky Too

With bracketed round robin events, a team can either choose to play in the top bracket or the bracket mandated by their team masterpoints. However, with 7 brackets of 7 teams on Saturday of Tarrytown, 3 teams from each bracket were knocked out in the first round. The Freaky Swiss afterward had two brackets, one with teams knocked out of brackets 1-3, the other one with 12 teams from bracket 4-7.

For teams hoping to play in a wider field or play slightly above or below their bracket, losing the first round of the Freaky KO becomes an awkward way of getting an A/X Swiss and a B/C/D Swiss. You CAN skip the morning festivities, sleep in, and register directly for the Freaky Swiss at 12:30pm. I don’t think any teams took that route.

Losing the Freaky KO and Winning the Freaky Swiss

This part is mind-blowing. In the very top bracket, the eventual KO winners won 19.38 Gold. The winners of the higher Freaky Swiss with 9 teams from brackets 1-3 won 18.33 gold (much more than 2nd place in the KO).

In the lower brackets, things get even more odd. The winners of bracket 4 won 8.37 Gold. The winners of the lower Freaky Swiss won 8.69 Gold! That’s more than the winners of all the KO brackets who sent their knocked out teams to the swiss! As it turns out, the winning team came from Bracket 7, the very bottom. That same team would have won 3.94 points, half red half gold, had they won all their matches that day.

It’s a bit of a fluke because the original KO bracket had 7 teams, and the swiss afterward had 12 teams. But something seems weird about losing the first round and eventually getting more points than all the teams from much higher brackets.

As it turns out, running all 7 brackets as a Brackted Round Robin would pay more points to the eventual winners than what the knockout recipients received. However, if you add the points paid in both the Freaky KO + Freaky Swiss, the tournament ends up paying much more, which is a nice perk. We created a spreadsheet showcasing the two scenarios for the lower brackets, but the findings hold for higher brackets as well.

Tarrytown January 25th Freaky KO vs Round Robin Data

Are Knockouts In A Day Successful?

I had lots of fun participating, as did 200 other people each day they held the event. Any regional team event with 7 brackets is a success, especially with concurrent gold rush and open pair events. And this is across two different days back to back! Granted, it’s hard to know whether attendance would be unchanged holding the usual Bracketed Round Robin. Some people enjoy Knockouts more than Swiss. Some vice versa. But without a doubt there are more Swiss events than Knockouts, especially at regionals. Outside of NABCs, there are limited chances to enjoy the longer matches of a Knockout.

As a reminder, the Freaky Knockouts attempt to solve 2 problems – that the entire bracket is complete in just one day, and any teams knocked out early have events to play. Freaky Knockouts shrink a full 4-round knockout with up to 16 teams into only 3 rounds with brackets up 8. You can finish 3 rounds and 54 boards all in one day. Teams eliminated in round one automatically join a 36-board swiss with 4 rounds and 9 boards per match. In all cases, teams just pay for two sessions, $176 in this case, to play a guaranteed 54 boards. At every point in the day, the team is technically eligible for gold points.

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Bad Claims At The Pro And World Class Level

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Lee Lin

Interesting timing – shortly after posting yesterday’s thoughts on strange bridge claiming habits, I wandered over to the BridgeWinners forum. I’m only playing in two days of the Tarrytown Regional, but one is with a first-time partner and I love the online convention card editor they have!

Bad Claim Story

Right in the top of my news feed, a posting about a top level bridge player making an erroneous claim, with possibly a bad ruling by the director. Again, we are only hearing one side of the story, but apparently the declarer in a slam claimed on trick 3, representing that he started with 7 spades (trump), 2 hearts, 3 diamonds, and a stiff club (KQx clubs in dummy to pitch a heart loser). Don’t feel too bad for the protagonist though, shortly after he found out he was the lucky $100 winner of the GNYBA frequent player drawing.

What Happens In A Bad Claim?

I’ve heard too many horror stories on what happens during a bad claim. Even when the players call the directors immediately, it’s stressful for everyone. The player making the claim should have provided the line of play (prior to director call). When crucial details are not provided, things get interesting. Clearly the defenders can’t argue you will play stupidly and clash your aces on your kings, or ruff your winners. But if there is a guess involved (two reasonable ways to finesse), then you won’t be given the benefit of the doubt.

Too Trusting?

At least in the mid-flight levels, I’ve found most defenders are too quick to show their hands during a claim, prior to hearing the line of play. Sometimes players say “play it out”, which is also technically not proper (it gives back rights that I surrendered after claiming).

Even if 95% of the time the claim is rock solid, should we be a little more careful?

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Claiming By Not Claiming?

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Lee Lin

Seen and heard recently at a local game. A declarer just finished the 9th trick and said, “I’m not going to claim, but I will show you my hand.”

Apparently, he heard that officially claiming means he loses some rights. That’s true, he is required to give a line of play, and if there are any disputes to the claim, play has already ended (the table would need to call the director to resolve). The declarer has seen and made enough bad claims that his habit is to show his hand and hope the defenders concede without asking for a line of play.

Claiming Without Showing

Amazingly I’ve seen the opposite. A declarer claims by taking the rest of his face down cards, mixing it with the tricks already played, and putting it back into the board! The opponents of course raise objections, and he said “the dummy is obviously good”. I wonder how many times this claim has gone awry – problems with a blocked suit or transportation problems, for example.

Claiming by Defender

I’ve been guilty of this one myself. As a defender, you assume you know all the relevant remaining cards, so to speed things up, you claim for the declarer! I can remember two different professional players doing this to me, and in each case they were gifting me a trick (in one case partner spoke up, the other I only saw it looking at hand records later).

Concede Then TakeBack

Another pro once played through 10 tricks and conceded the last two. We agreed and showed our cards. Then he stopped us and said, “Wait!” Looks like your Ace and King clash, and you are forced to lead back into my winner.” We accepted that, being nice people in a friendly club game. I’m curious what the official ruling is when declarer concedes, then sees defenders cards and realizes there is a way to make an extra trick

Conditional Claim

There is nothing wrong with this one, except it removes room for bad defense. The most common being an early claim conceding a few tricks, but also asking if a side suit breaks or a finesse is on. Apparently in Fast Pairs, which is not my cup of tea, people will make insanely complex claims – “if the squeeze is on and the repeated finesse works, I get two more tricks.”

Any Other Bad Claim Stories?

Claiming generally saves time and moves the pace of the game along – but we probably all have some claiming horror stories. I’d be curious to hear some.

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GNYBA Board Meeting Minutes Jan 9 2020

Posted on January 19, 2020 by Lee Lin

We have posted the meeting minutes from the Jan 9, 2020 Board Meeting.

May 2020 Regional

Most players should be interested in the proposed schedule for the May 2020 regional. A full discussion will be reserved for another day – however the tournament will likely feature some variant of the Knock Out In A Day. There will be Gold Rush pairs every day – which means NOT having a flighted swiss day (A/X + Mid-Flight + Gold Rush Swiss). There will be bracketed round robin every day, excluding the featured Knock Outs day.

Stand-alone NYC Sectional?

We are gaining more momentum for reviving a stand-alone NYC Sectional. Everyone in NYC and Long Island knows silver points can require significant travel to obtain. Players who love two-session team events have no silver-point options other than Woodbridge, Allendale, and Poughkeepsie.

We continue to explore options for attempting a weekend sectional, and thankfully a few reasonable options have surfaced. If it works, we could usher in a new era of GNYBA minting silver points without detracting from the STaC calendar.

Not sure why BridgeFinesse suggests a Singapore cruise as a nearby silver point option

December Regional Attendance 2019

The winter regional only saw a slight decline in year-over-year attendance, better than expected given the adverse calendar. In 2018, Dec 26-30 ended with the final day on Sunday Dec 30th. We were concerned Monday Dec 30th, 2019, would not see the same success. Fortunately, Monday saw solid attendance – 5 brackets of round robin, 19 tables in open pairs and 14 tables in the Gold Rush, all taking place alongside a large side game.

Financials

Nothing interesting to report, which is good news. We are a non-profit organization operating at a slight loss of a few thousand dollars against a positive, low six-figure balance sheet. The primary expenses are operating the regional tournaments, including the venue, ACBL director fees, marketing, and hospitality. We also sponsor the lower flight grass roots pairs and teams at NABC with small stipends. All of the board members volunteer their time and energy to keep the ship sailing smoothly.

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What Is The Name Of the Sturbridge Host Hotel?

Posted on January 16, 2020 by Lee Lin

First off, huge round of applause to the District 25 folks for quickly dealing with the Red Lion Cromwell abrupt shutdown. Planning a regional takes many months of lead time and planning. It’s amazing that everything will continue as scheduled, at a tried and true location (and a cheaper hotel rate).

So what is the name of the new Sturbridge host hotel? Surprise! The venue is actually called, Sturbridge Host Hotel. For a moment I thought the hotel was named “Convenient Hotel”. Anyway, they have updated the Presidential Regional tournament flyer with the new phone, name, and address of the venue.

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New England Regional Moved To Sturbridge, MA

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Lee Lin

Followup to our news that Red Lion Cromwell is no longer hosting the New England Presidential Regional.

It is now at Sturbridge, MA – more information below. For New Yorkers, that adds about 45 more minutes to the drive. But the room rate is almost 20% lower than Red Lion.

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Cromwell Tournament and Red Lion Hotel?

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Lee Lin

Breaking news – a trustworthy source told me that the annual Cromwell regional tournament will no longer be held at the Red Lion Hotel! That conflicts with the email I received from Mike Wavada and District 25 just last week. It also conflicts with the latest tournament flyer and the nebridge.org webpage.

(Edit: Confirmed, Red Lion Cromwell has been knocked out – updated location to be announced very soon).

Edit: The Hartford Courant, WFSB, and Middletown Press report the abrupt shutdown occurred last Friday over some sales tax issues. Also, locals heavily impacted – we wish the best for the town and impacted employees . Updates from D25 coming soon.


Calling The Red Lion

I called the phone number for the Red Lion Hotel Cromwell. No answer twice. That’s not the best sign for a hotel with over 200 rooms. Granted, it was 12:30am Eastern Time, but it isn’t THAT late for what should be a 24/7 establishment (no voicemail either).

We will keep digging to find out more. Maybe there is a perfectly good explanation…

KIKO Format and Monster Knockout

Because we haven’t yet talked about it, Cromwell features both regular knockouts and Knock In Knock Outs. The regular knockouts are called Monster Knockouts, because they traditionally attract a monstrously high number of teams and brackets for a regional event. If you are knocked out Saturday, you can join one of my favorite formats, the choose-your-flight swiss teams day (Gold Rush, Mid-Flight, A/X Swiss).

So what is KIKO? Earlier we talked about the Tarrytown Knockout In A Day held in the upcoming Tarrytown / Westchester regional.

In constrast, Knock-In Knock Out is a two-day event where the first day is a qualifying swiss, and the second day completes a Knock Out with seeding based on the swiss victory point results. Specifically, directors form many brackets of about 8 teams, all with similar masterpoints. The top four teams advance to the next day and play semi-final knockout matches (then finals if they win that).

KIKO solves the two primary Knock Out problems – if your opponent in the first round happens to be a much stronger team, you will get tied last place for losing right away. And problem number two, if you lose in the morning, you suddenly need to fill your day with a single-session event (or go home early). With KIKO, the opening swiss ensures you play All day against most of the teams in your bracket, hopefully reducing some randomness and eradicating the early elimination possibility.

Good Practice for Grand National Teams

All told KIKO is a very exciting and fair format, and closely mimics the Grand National Teams District 24 Finals. For those practicing for GNT, you might give KIKO a try! The NABC GNT finals is also very similar, just at a larger scale. The “Knock-In” is a massive swiss with 1 or 2 teams from each of 25 districts, and then 16 surviving teams enter a knockout.

The Soloway KO Teams also incorporated two days of swiss “Knock-In”. The main benefits are knockout brackets are no longer seeded by masterpoints, but through the swiss knock-in day. It allows teams with lower masterpoint totals a better chance to progress, because they aren’t stuff playing top pros in the first round!

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Anyone Prefer The Old Club Results Format?

Posted on January 14, 2020 by Lee Lin

As a software guy, I know it is very difficult to make significant interface changes that please everyone. Some faction of users will complain about something the old system did more effectively. We always hope the new features heavily outweigh whatever complaints crop up. People come to appreciate the new design, and then all is good.

ACBL Live For Clubs?

That said, what does everyone think about ACBL Live for clubs? It certainly is better for tracking individual performance, as I can quickly find all of my games and results going back to last May. If I happened to be the result-stalking type, then I could also look up other players just as easily.

Here is what isn’t ideal about the new interface:

  • It is noticeably slower regardless of internet connection
  • It is not as efficient for recapping all concurrent games
  • You need to click on other each section to see all the results
  • For board recaps, it’s much harder to see what people did in other sections
  • It does not mention whether your award is section or overall, and which stratification, the old (SA) (OB) etc.
If the open game had sections A and B, you start off only seeing section A. If there is a 0-750 concurrent game, you won’t even see it without clicking to a different file

All told, there are clear benefits to the new ACBL Live for Clubs. But there are cases where I wish for the old mode – unfortunately that may no longer exist. What does everyone think?

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New York City 2020 Key Event Dates

Posted on January 13, 2020 by Lee Lin

Allendale Sectional Apr 17 – 19

Big Apple Spring 2020 Regional May 25 – May 30 (Flyer)

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Ways To Practice Bridge Solo?

Posted on January 12, 2020 by Lee Lin

For those going to Allendale this weekend for yet another NJ sectional, good luck!

We are back from our travels and jet-lagged for quite some time. That means no 2-session events for me, and no driving. Even the usual Honors evening circuit will be a stretch. But it gives plenty of time in the odd hours of the night to practice alone.

How To Practice Alone?

There are plenty of ways to sharpen your game without a dozen tables of opponents, and possibly even without your partner! There is a crowd that enjoys reading books, and the monthly bridge bulletin has excellent columns for developing and advanced players.

For those who want a more interactive experience, almost everyone has their own favorite online lesson set. I happened to get my start using Audrey Grant’s BetterBridge interactive lessons – and I still pay for my subscription years later!

Enter BridgeBase

The big game changer is BridgeBase. Some people absolute hate playing bots for various reasons, others love it and play too much. The most common objections are that players who score well against bots know how to trick the bots with strange bidding plays. Next most frustrating, defending with a bot partner means receiving seemingly random carding signals, with almost no regard to your carding. One last objection is that playing with bots is generally not free – but it’s only $1 a week to fill your table with 3 basic bots!

A No Bidding, No Carding, Free Technique

Get it while it lasts – you can actually play 100% for free, for as many boards as you want, all day and every day, and you never have to learn how to bid or defend with a bot.

Log into BBO, click on Challenges, and try Challenge a Robot. You can set it to Just Declare mode, and try your best for free against the Basic bots. In fact, I recommend keeping a running tally of your results over many short matches against the bots, again with Just Declare mode turned on – hat tip to Jordan Lampe for the idea.

As soon as your 8 boards are complete, you get a comparison against the robot opponent. Try enough times and most players will lose – but at least you can review the boards to see what the bot did differently! Uday once reported that the Basic bot beats 91% of humans, and the Advanced bot beats 98% or so.

Is the Challenger Opponent Also Basic or Advanced?

The one question where I’m still unclear – when you pay the extra $0.25 for an advanced bot, it certainly applies to the defenders at the table (and your partner if it were not Just Declare mode). But how about the other table, with your bot opponent? I have a suspicion that even without paying the premium, your opponent is an Advanced bot playing against Basic bots, but I could be wrong. Can anyone confirm?

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