Letters
In the last 16 months, there were 9 letters to the editor published in the ACBL on the disparity between team and pair events.Oct. 2003: "At the Penticton Regional, which again drew more than 3000 tables to a city of about 25,000, I again observed a classic example of how knockouts have completely skewed the masterpoints system.
To use our team as an example, with about 8000 total masterpoints we would up in bracket two of the only KO we entered, got to the final and lost, to win 17 gold points!
On Sunday we entered the Senior Swiss, which we led for a while but eneded up third to win about 7 MPs (the winner won 12)! Now, which is easier, beating three teams of your approximate level, or winning a two-session Swiss about about 40 teams?
There was a new KO every day, with anywhere from four to nine backets. Many of my friends and clubates picked up substantial numbers of gold points, several becoming Life Masters in the process.
Although I have no serious objections to the ACBL's throwing around gold points so freely -- apparently to be sure that no member shall die before becoming a Life Master -- I am concerned that if this trend continues, tournaments will attract people only to KOs and there will be less and less interest in the traditional pairs and Swiss teams, which until recently were the backbone of regional and sectional tournaments.
I honestly don't know the answer. Clearly the ACBL does not want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, but something should be done to level the award differential between KOs and other events." (Doug Cowan)
May 2004: "Too Easy" With a goal of someday becoming a Life Master, I started collecting masterpoints in 1963, then took a long hiatus beginning about 10 years later. I began playing in tournaments again about six months ago, 40 years after I won my first MPs. Last week I collected more than 20 gold points in three bracketed knockout events at the Albuquerque regional, simply by winning against two teams in each event.
I am now a Life Master, but the gold has lost its luster. No one should be able to earn that much gold simply by winning six 24-board matches, some against not-very-strong teams. In one Bracket IV event, we tied for third-fourth, although one of our teammates had zero masterpoints, and another had fewer than 50.
I felt like I had earned the points when I was getting two or three at a time by coming in overall in a multi-section open pairs game. It was entirely too easy in Albuquerque. I wonder now whether I really proved anything at all. I was prepared to play for several more years to earn Life Master status. I've lost a lot of my incentive to attend regional and national tournaments.
My conclusions as a relative newcomer to tournaments:
1. Soon most people will play in pairs games only because they were knocked out of KOs or couldn't find a team. Pairs games will be moribund. It's much harder to win points in a pairs game, but wins are comparatevely much more satisfying.
2. The Life Master designation will have been cheapened to the point that it fails to attract. It is an insidious process, and we won't realize it is happening until the thrill is gone -- and the members are gone, too." (Carl Spencer)
May 2004: "My wife and I met about 20 years ago because we were both bridge players. When we started playing together at a local club, we found we preferred the matchpoint events. After a few months we decided to play at a nearby regional. The opportunity to play in a field of more than 200 pairs was exciting. Through the years, we found that placing in the overalls in a large pair event gave us a thrill that could not be duplicated at a club game.
In the last five years we have noticed that the pair games at the regionals we usually attend have dwindled to about 50 pairs, sometimes fewer. Playing in such a small regional event is not nearly as exciting.
In fact, our Monday night unit game is roughly the same size and is much more enjoyable than the regional events are now. After being disappointed a few times at regionals by the small size of the pair games, we have reluctantly decided to stop attending.
You have published letters from members expressing concern that people are losing interest in the once-popular regional pair events. I think the concern is legitimate. My wife and I have certainly lost interesting in attending regionals" (Mike Johnson)
July 2004: Entitled "Pairs Disparity" The winner of a Flight A Open Pairs (130 pairs) at a regional I attended recently received a lower masterpoint award than the winner of a Bracket 8 in the knockout teams and less than the second-place team in Bracket 5.
There is dissolution of the pairs game in ACBL. We play pairs in our local club game, fine-tune our game in sectionals, then go off to regionals and are almost compelled to enter the KOs.
There are enough different types of events that if they were offered people would play in them. Why not have a side-by-side Howell scored as teams? The Smith team is pair No. 1 in section A and section B with their scores being the matchpoint total for the two pairs.
More emphasis should be placed on pairs events. The measure of a KO event is who has the strongest "weakest" player or pair on their team. Life Master status seems to be a function of how many KO events a player can enter.
Tournament chairmen should schedule a variety of events. It is disappointing to look at a schedule and see a bracketed KO beginning every day. Why not "teams of twos" or Random Bracketed Handicap KOs, or Random Bracketed BAM/Pairs. If you offer it, they will come. (Bruce Miller). [The editor correctly notes that people will not attend just because something is offered.] (Bruce Miller)
July 2004: "I agree with the depressing conclusions in Carl Spencer's letter regarding the cheapening of the thrill of attaining Life Master status. The following suggestions may not be new, but it still bears consideration..." (Louis Joseph).
December 2004. "In the July 2004 issue, Bruce Miller writes about the huge discrepancy in masterpoint awards between knockout events and pairs events, and goes on to bemoan the fact that pairs events are rapidly disappearing in favor of KOs. The editor replies that tournament organizers schedule events according to what they believe to be the preferences of the majority of plyers.
This is undoutedly true, but it completely misses Mr. Miller's point. The popularity of KOs is the result of the discrepancy in the awards scales, not its cause. If the discrepancy were to be reversed, so that it became much easier to win masterpoints in pairs games than in KOs, our tournaments would see an increasing number of pairs events, and it would the KO events that would largly disappear." (Eric Landau)
December 2004: "... [Knockouts] have certainly taken over. Players are accumulating gold points in record numbers and becoming Life Masters with little comprehension of the game.
It is sad to see a regional completely taken over by the KOs as the pairs events become a poor relation. The ACBL should revisit the system that awards gobs of gold points for lower brackets and strats of team events...." (Beverly Carter)
January 2005: "The observation that becoming a Life Master is nowhere near the challenge it was in the past is obvious. I think there is a way to shift the movement at tournaments back to pair games...." (Len Urban)
January 2005: "I have won or finished high in the overalls in a number of pair events in Flight A in recent years, so it is discouraging to note that losing teams in the seminfinals of knocokout teams, even low brackets, receive more masterpoints than I have for doing well in pairs.
When I mention this inequity to tournament directors they unanimously agree, stating that the ACBL is working on it. I don't care if you continue to award meaningless bonanzas of masterpoints fo mediocre KO play -- as long as you upgrade pairs events overall awards. Please. (Bob Bainter)