[diana_eva]

This summer, BBO will host an ACBL NABC event - the 2017 NABC Online Individual! This event awards an NABC title along with Gold and Red Masterpoints.

This is a link to the ACBL announcement. Details soon, but briefly: the event will be modeled after a Daylong (Robot Duplicate) tournament.

BBO will set up multiple free practice tournaments to help BBOers practice for the big day.

Feedback welcome.

Edit: More info and a form allowing you to sign up for updates.

Update:

• The award payout for the NABC Online Individual has been significantly increased. ACBL has just confirmed an increase in the total number of awards, to 67 places for each daily session and 187 places for the overalls.
• Points earned in the NABC Online will count towards the Mini-McKenney Race (masterpoint race for points earned at ACBL sanctioned tournaments and clubs, excluding online), as well as the Fishbein Trophy (awarded to the player who wins the most masterpoints at the Summer NABC).

This post has been edited by diana_eva: 2017-July-13, 14:22

[The_Badger]

It's a great idea, in my opinion. Serious players will go where the masterpoints are. However, there are many players who due to work or family commitments, financial constraints (students, for example), location, or perhaps like myself with disability, cannot participate in ACBL tournaments. To have an online tournament is just the way the world's going. If successful there will be more. That's for sure.

[nob turner]

The downside of this, to me, is that one must play with the BBO robots. If they actually even played by their card, it wouldn't be so bad...

[Joe_Old]

For Diana:

Would registration be through the ACBL website, BBO, or both?

Thanks. The tournament sounds like a good idea, and a natural progression in the ACBL/BBO partnership. I hope it works out. In the future, I assume consideration will be given to "stratification" like the ABCL currently does for national events. That is, separate events for 0-1500, 0-10,000, unlimited.

[mistysheil]

Yessss!!! I'm chomping with the hopes and dream of earning gold points. Realistically, my level of expectation isn't too high, given my skill level. But who knows, every dog has her day.
Mistysheil

[diana_eva]

Joe_Old, on 2017-June-16, 09:00, said:

For Diana:

Would registration be through the ACBL website, BBO, or both?

Thanks. The tournament sounds like a good idea, and a natural progression in the ACBL/BBO partnership. I hope it works out. In the future, I assume consideration will be given to "stratification" like the ABCL currently does for national events. That is, separate events for 0-1500, 0-10,000, unlimited.

Registration will be via BBO. There will be a registration page available when registration opens, and we'll try to make it as easy as possible for players to access it and spread the word.

[nwbridge31]

diana_eva, on 2017-June-14, 12:53, said:

This summer, BBO will host an ACBL NABC event - the 2017 NABC Online Individual! This is a national event awarding an NABC title along with Gold and Red Masterpoints.

This is a link to the ACBL announcement. Details soon, but briefly: the event will be modeled after a Daylong (Robot Duplicate) tournament.

BBO will set up multiple free practice tournaments to help BBOers practice for the big day.

Feedback welcome.

Quick Question - Are the master point awards tiered for this event? As a "C-Level" ACBL member, I'm just looking to understand whether newer players have any chance of successfully competing.

[johnu]

nwbridge31, on 2017-June-17, 12:40, said:

Quick Question - Are the master point awards tiered for this event? As a "C-Level" ACBL member, I'm just looking to understand whether newer players have any chance of successfully competing.

No stratification in this event. If you play really well and have the best of luck, you may have a chance of getting some section awards in one of the 4 sessions. For an overall award, you have to do really well in all 4 sessions, which as a C player is probably impossible.

Try one or more of the $1 ACBL robot matchpoint games to give yourself a basis for rating your chances.

I think there will be a lot of world class and near world class players playing that don't normally play in the daily robot games, and probably a lot of advanced and expert players that will play in this event. So, in my opinion, the level of competition will be a lot tougher than the typical ACBL robot games.

[barmar]

nwbridge31, on 2017-June-17, 12:40, said:

Quick Question - Are the master point awards tiered for this event? As a "C-Level" ACBL member, I'm just looking to understand whether newer players have any chance of successfully competing.

No, this will not be stratified.

[steve2005]

It says in condition of contest all players will not be playing the same hands (security reasons)
Will people in the same section be playing the same hands?

[johnu]

My assumption is that to the extent possible, you will only play 1 board against anybody who is compared against your result for a board. That is, you'll be compared against 24 entirely different groups for each of the 24 hands that you play in a session. If there aren't enough players, maybe you'll have 2 common boards against one of more competitors. It depends on how many players are compared for each board, and how many total players actually end up playing any session.

From what I've read so far, there is only 1 section for the purpose of section awards, and only 18 (??) section awards per session. Since ACBL masterpoint are free to hand out, this seems incredibly cheap by the ACBL. Normally there are multiple sections in large events and each section gives masterpoints to a large percentage of the players. Even if you aren't a great player, you have a pretty good chance to win some masterpoints just by scoring 50%+ in a session. If there is only 1 section, I can't see why a less than very good expert would enter since the average player will just be donating $40/$50 and not winning any masterpoints. Play in the $1 robot games and have a real chance to win masterpoints.

[steve2005]

johnu, on 2017-June-22, 17:29, said:

only 18 (??) section awards per session. Since ACBL masterpoint are free to hand out, this seems incredibly cheap by the ACBL.

"Each session awards up to 18 masterpoints"
so the most you can be awarded for 1st in session is 18 mp like most you can get in ACBL tourney is 1.5

[MrAce]

diana_eva, on 2017-June-14, 12:53, said:

This summer, BBO will host an ACBL NABC event - the 2017 NABC Online Individual! This is a national event awarding an NABC title along with Gold and Red Masterpoints.

This is a link to the ACBL announcement. Details soon, but briefly: the event will be modeled after a Daylong (Robot Duplicate) tournament.

BBO will set up multiple free practice tournaments to help BBOers practice for the big day.

Feedback welcome.

This is not actually an "NABC titled" event, despite this is what ACBL wants you to believe.

http://bridgewinners...ine-nabc-event/

Quote

Greg Lawler - I have received some clarifications (Thank you, Bob Heller. If you are reading this, feel free to correct if I say something wrong).">--- Despite what is says above, this is not a "nationally-rated game" in the sense of an NABC championship although they are using the term "NABC title" in the loose sense that it something being contested ACBL-wide attached to the NABC. --- The BoD in Orlando did vote to give management the right to experiment with regional level robot games so (except for the misleading nationally-rated term up there), it is authorized and the process seems to be fine, including the granting of the masterpoints. This really is a regional level event attached to the NABC.

[Phil]

If this is truly a regionally-rated event, it should be stratified. As a matter of fact, I don't think I have played in a non-stratified open pairs in probably 25 years.

Breaking the field into sections is tricky, since 18 players will not play entire set of the same boards. I suppose you could just 18+18+18 but that seems rather arbitrary. In a regular NABC event, you'll have 4-5 sections combined, and there will be a group winner per session that will get around 10-15 points.

[steve2005]

I think this event is a good idea. But playing where only 1 or 2 boards are the same as against only a few opponents is very random bridge.

[Mbodell]

Phil, on 2017-June-24, 15:20, said:

If this is truly a regionally-rated event, it should be stratified. As a matter of fact, I don't think I have played in a non-stratified open pairs in probably 25 years.

Breaking the field into sections is tricky, since 18 players will not play entire set of the same boards. I suppose you could just 18+18+18 but that seems rather arbitrary. In a regular NABC event, you'll have 4-5 sections combined, and there will be a group winner per session that will get around 10-15 points.

The 4 session championship pairs at the Santa Clara regional (d21) is not stratified. Neither is the 4 session championship swiss in the Sacramento regional (d21). So there can be some regional events that aren't stratified still.

[hrothgar]

steve2005, on 2017-June-24, 19:38, said:

I think this event is a good idea. But playing where only 1 or 2 boards are the same as against only a few opponents is very random bridge.

Playing "normal" duplicate F2F against real people has a massive amount of variance as well.

Play an absolutely flat board against the worse pair in the room is really going to hurt your score.
Play the same board against Meckwell is going to be a big plus for you.

In a normal game, everyone plays the same boards, but the strength of the opposing field fluctuates dramatically.
In this format, the strength of the opposing pairs is completely uniform, but pairs play different boards.

In order to argue that one format is more or less random, you need to compare the two sources of variance.

I don't have the numbers to do this scientifically.
Do you?

[nige1]

Nowadays, do ordinary players really prefer stratified events? What is their attraction? We enjoyed playing against characters like Giorgio Belladonna, Maurice Harrison Gray, Terence Reese, and John Collings.

[Mbodell]

nige1, on 2017-June-25, 08:50, said:

Nowadays, do ordinary players really prefer stratified events? What is their attraction? We enjoyed playing against characters like Giorgio Belladonna, Maurice Harrison Gray, Terence Reese, and John Collings.

I think most players do, but to be clear stratified is different than flighted. Flighted means if you aren't in the top flight, you don't play against the best players and can't win the overall most prestigious result, and are only compared against others in your flight. Stratified means you play against everyone and can, in theory, win the best overall award, but if/when you don't, you can still win awards for best result for those in your stratification. The event gives out more points to more people when it is stratified, so I think most people prefer that.

Making big championship events non-stratified makes them more like real national events and is a way of field strengthening, in theory, as people who feel they have "no chance" overall, but "some chance" in the lowest strat, might have played if stratified and might not play if not.

Stratification may also present challenges for this event in a couple of ways: 1, BBO often moves their strats around in ACBL tournaments to fit the field and this might be more difficult if each 18 person comparison section is a different field strength; 2, it will make more clear that the tournament isn't seeded (which I assume it isn't) where some player will have 90% of their comparisons against A strat players and someone else will have 90% of their comparisons against C strat players.

[barmar]

nige1, on 2017-June-25, 08:50, said:

Nowadays, do ordinary players really prefer stratified events? What is their attraction? We enjoyed playing against characters like Giorgio Belladonna, Maurice Harrison Gray, Terence Reese, and John Collings.

For people who like to win masterpoints, stratification is great. If you're a good player, you have a better chance to win because many of your opponents will be weak players, and they'll give you gifts. If you're in a lower strat, you can win points by just beating the players in your strat (it's not uncommon to win points with below-average scores); and if you happen to have a good day, you might do well in a higher strat and get even more points for that.

If, on the other hand, your goal is to be really challenged, stratification is not helpful.