[han]

The title of this thread was written by Ben in another thread. I thought it would be a good idea to start a new to discuss this.

I think it would be best to give some of the people who did not compete before a chance this time. A lot of names come to mind: franceshinden, mikeh, helene_t, clayton, mike777, ... Most fun would be to have two forum posters bid together, did anybody say pclayton-mikeh?

If there are a lot of pairs that want to join, perhaps we organize a matchpoint tournament, the winners enter challenge the champs. Actually, I like that idea.

[hrothgar]

Please note: I would consider the following system to be the best of all possible worlds.

Step 1: Decide on the optimal frequency to run this thing. (Every two months or so?). Also determine a reasonable number of boards.

Step 2: Some "celebrity pair" and the winner of the previous month's forum contest bid the hands privately (no spectators)

Step 3: Members of the forum compete with one another, playing the same hands

Step 4: In an ideal world, the celebrity pair and the forum "Champs" release their sequences along with some annotations describing why various bids were chosen

Step 5: Scores are assigned. A new forum champ is crowned. Wash, rinse, repeat...

For What its Worth, I think that several forum posters are strong enough to be considered as members of a Celebrity Pair...

[Fluffy]

I Think along the lines of richard, but since Ben will not be willing to determine who is celebrity and who isn't I think it is best to have all pairs that wanna compete bid all boards, separated on 2 brackts: 1 bracket with 2 pairs: champion and low bracket winner on previous round, and another bracket with anyone else.

[hrothgar]

 Fluffy, on 2010-December-04, 07:58, said:

I Think along the lines of richard, but since Ben will not be willing to determine who is celebrity and who isn't I think it is best to have all pairs that wanna compete bid all boards, separated on 2 brackts: 1 bracket with 2 pairs: champion and low bracket winner on previous round, and another bracket with anyone else.

My theory about "Celebrities" is that we should be trying for folks like Fred/Brad, Cayne + Co, etc...
The same sorts that the Bridge World gets for regular CtC...

Part of the draw for participating in the forum version is the chance to compete against the best...

[Phil]

Well I'm flattered my name is mentioned along with Frances / MikeH and the others.

Let me see if I can get one of my regular partners to get involved, but if MikeH wants to try I'd be game.

[Phil]

Thinking more about this, what is sacred about having a full-blown competition? If we had a bi-weekly head-to-head, that would seem to be enough to keep things running, although periodically have a regular competition.

I also happened to think the previous contest was too long.

[TimG]

 Phil, on 2010-December-04, 14:30, said:

Thinking more about this, what is sacred about having a full-blown competition? If we had a bi-weekly head-to-head, that would seem to be enough to keep things running, although periodically have a regular competition.

I also happened to think the previous contest was too long.

My opinion is that there will be less interest in the "contest" if it is demonstration only -- people want to participate rather than just watch.

Phil makes a good point about the length of the contest, while it was not too long for me (and I think my partnership was the only one to participate in all the rounds), I can see how some might not want to make the commitment to a contest that could last months. So, it would be good to set it up so that people could drop in and out, bid one month if they want to, not the next.

[han]

I agree with Tim, this will be much more interesting if everybody will be able to participate regularly. I like Fluffy's idea very much. Every round there are two "champion" pairs that bid against eachother. All other pairs are invited to bid the hands as well, and the pair with the highest score will be bidding against the winner of the champions next month.

I don't think it would be more fun to have external "stars", there is a long list of very strong players posting on these forums. I'd be more interested to see MFA (to name somebody I didn't mention earlier) bid the hands and explain his choices afterwards, then to compete against some Cayne or Co who never posts here.

[Free]

I like the concept Fluffy.

1 possible problem may arise: Suppose there are 3 superb pairs A, B and C who constantly win the bracket with everyone else. Then we'll have the same 3 pairs bidding the champion match every time. A possible sequence may be: A-B, A-C, A-B again, B-C, A-C again,... On the other hand, is this actually a problem?

[gnasher]

 Free, on 2010-December-06, 04:00, said:

On the other hand, is this actually a problem?

No it's not a problem. If we didn't want the best pair to win, we could just play bingo instead.

One slight oddity is that in any given month the winners may not be the pair with the highest score in that month. In order to unseat the holders, you have to:
- In month n, score better than everyone except the current holders and the current challengers
- In month n+1, score better than the current holders, regardless of how anyone else does.

Similarly In order to remain the holders, you just have to score better than one specific pair each month. There may be other pairs who have scored better than you in that month.

[Hanoi5]

I think there is also the problem of choosing the hands, the 'Director' and the helpers. Will Ben be the only one choosing the hands and directing the proceedings? What if he wants to participate? I like hrothgar idea, having a World-Class pair bidding the hands, but who's gonna find them? Frequency is also important, one contest every two or three months sounds fine, but also the dates should be set so that people don't take AGES to bid the hands.

[han]

 gnasher, on 2010-December-06, 04:29, said:

No it's not a problem. If we didn't want the best pair to win, we could just play bingo instead.

I agree with this. And I think that just as in real bridge there is enough randomness so that weaker pairs have a good chance as well. (I'll leave it to others to point out the obvious)

I also think that it is best if inquiry keeps running this thing, if he is willing to off course. I don't know how Ben does it but after every discussion we have a hundred contradicting ideas, yet Ben suggests something and everybody accepts it. That's very important and I'm afraid we'd lose that if somebody else ran it.

[TimG]

 Free, on 2010-December-06, 04:00, said:

1 possible problem may arise: Suppose there are 3 superb pairs A, B and C who constantly win the bracket with everyone else. Then we'll have the same 3 pairs bidding the champion match every time. A possible sequence may be: A-B, A-C, A-B again, B-C, A-C again,... On the other hand, is this actually a problem?

I think this is somewhat taken care of by the single round qualifying format -- the challengers have to beat the entire field in a single round in order to move to the feature table. I wouldn't be surprised to see a pair win a few feature matches in a row, but I would be surprised if the same pair always topped a field of 8-10 in the contest to get to the feature match. I would expect the highest score each round to typically come from the qualifying pool.

On top of that, any pair can have an off day.

[Free]

Not sure if we're all on the same line. What happens when the champion pairs have the best 2 results? Will they compete against each other the next time again, or will the loser of these 2 be replaced by the best of the other bracket?

The way I see it, most ideal would be 2 brackets: the champion bracket with only 2 pairs (the so called "champion pairs"), the other bracket with everyone else. Rules for determining the champion pairs:
- The winner of the champions bracket stays a champion pair
- The winner of the everyone else bracket becomes the second champion pair
- The losing champion pair goes to the everyone else bracket (even if they outscored everyone else)
This way you always get a different lineup in the champions bracket. This avoids getting boring with the same lineup over and over again.

[TimG]

 Free, on 2010-December-06, 07:02, said:

Not sure if we're all on the same line. What happens when the champion pairs have the best 2 results? Will they compete against each other the next time again, or will the loser of these 2 be replaced by the best of the other bracket?

The way I see it, most ideal would be 2 brackets: the champion bracket with only 2 pairs (the so called "champion pairs"), the other bracket with everyone else. Rules for determining the champion pairs:
- The winner of the champions bracket stays a champion pair
- The winner of the everyone else bracket becomes the second champion pair
- The losing champion pair goes to the everyone else bracket (even if they outscored everyone else)
This way you always get a different lineup in the champions bracket. This avoids getting boring with the same lineup over and over again.

That's the way i see it.

[gnasher]

 TimG, on 2010-December-06, 07:05, said:

That's the way i see it.

Me too, although I think Free's concern about having the same pairs in the final over and over again shows excessive faith in the ability and consistency of the contestants.

[hrothgar]

 gnasher, on 2010-December-06, 08:28, said:

Me too, although I think Free's concern about having the same pairs in the final over and over again shows excessive faith in the ability and consistency of the contestants.

As I recall, The Bridge World needed to change the way that they ran Challenge the Champs because one pair had a rather unprecedented run...
(This might have been back in the old Ultimate Club days)

Unclear whether any of the forums pairs are able to achieve this same level of precision, however, there is precedence for these types of issues to crop up.

[gnasher]

Personally I'm not very interested in having a pair of invited experts bid the hands. We already have Challenge the Champs, plus an assortment of similar features in other magazines.

Of course, if Meckstroth and Rodwell wanted to enter the competition on the same terms as the rest of us, they'd be welcome. We might possibly waive the mimum-postings requirement.

[Fluffy]

 Free, on 2010-December-06, 04:00, said:

I like the concept Fluffy.

1 possible problem may arise: Suppose there are 3 superb pairs A, B and C who constantly win the bracket with everyone else. Then we'll have the same 3 pairs bidding the champion match every time. A possible sequence may be: A-B, A-C, A-B again, B-C, A-C again,... On the other hand, is this actually a problem?

I don't think this should matter, bidding only 16 boards there is a high enough random factor, specially when you bid against a large field where anyoen can just do a superb set.

[gnasher]

 han, on 2010-December-06, 06:29, said:

I also think that it is best if inquiry keeps running this thing, if he is willing to off course. I don't know how Ben does it but after every discussion we have a hundred contradicting ideas, yet Ben suggests something and everybody accepts it. That's very important and I'm afraid we'd lose that if somebody else ran it.

It might be a good idea for other people to provide a set of hands and a script from time to time. In fact, I'd quite like to do one at some point, if only so that I can find out how hard it is.