[pescetom]

I will be directing regional pairs (F2F) this weekend and it looks likely there will be 28-30 pairs.
I need to identify a single winning pair but the indications are to not make it too long.
My first thought was a Mitchell of 13 rounds x 2 boards with an arrow switch before last two rounds.
Does anyone see anything wrong with that, or a better alternative for some reason?

[jillybean]

web?

I've never run one, but here's a movement from Patrick Cater, NZ Bridge. I can put you in touch with Patrick if you want more info

Hi Kathryn,

16-22 tables playing 7 rounds you would need 4 sets of boards

3 sets of boards would be enough for 16, 17, 19 and 21 tables

If 4 sets is too many play 20 boards with 2 boards per table for the others

All of the movements you will need to set up a scoring file

I will just give you the 7 round movements

Let me know if you need me to detail the 10 round movements for 20 boards

15 Tables 7 Rounds

One set around tables 1-7 in normal layout

One set at tables 8-11 with feed ins in sequence coming in to table 11

Boards can flow right through tables 1-11 feeding out at table 1

Table 12 Boards 7-9

Table 13 Boards 4-6

Table 14 Boards 1-3

Table 15 Boards 19-21

Feed-ins at table 15.... 16-18.... 13-15.... 10-12

This set is flowing from 15 and feeding out at table 12

The players in this part of the movement play the sets in reverse order

[McBruce]

Considerations for pairs events to take into account:

How many sessions/boards? Here it sounds like we want one short-ish session of 20-24 boards
How many expected pairs? The estimate here is 28-30. Seldom in ACBL-land can we estimate that closely, but we'll go with it.
How many sets of boards can we have made, and is it enough for the movement we want to run? Not given, we'll assume more than one is possible and give options for only one.
What movements can the scoring software handle? Also not given, we'll assume that someone asking for movement advice can handle anything with whatever scoring software is in use.

What we want here is a one-winner movement that is as fair as practical. With one session and 28-30 pairs you can't have anything close to an all-play-all, but you should at least try to have each pair play as many different opponents as practical. I would certainly go with a movement with two-board rounds. Any sort of 'regional pairs' championship should not object to short rounds as some local club games, where people would rather move six times than eleven or twelve, seem to.

The advantage of a Web movement is that every board is in play the maximum number of times for a large top. If you have an even number of pairs, a Web movement will see each board played once at every table, instead of having [#tables x 2] boards that only go part-way through the room before the game ends, resulting in the post-mortem at the restaurant leaving a portion of the table out of the conversation on any single board. I usually explain Web movements' advantages by describing the post-game bar scene at a local final-day NAP qualifying game many years ago where the director was surprised at the attendance and ran a 44-board Mitchell with the help of masking tape over the board numbers in a second set: players spent more time drinking than discussing deals and needed cabs to take them home.

Arrow switching is, I am told, common in Europe and reviled in much of the ACBL, where players who have not sat East-West since 1957 will launch angry campaigns to have the Director hung, drawn and quartered if they don't get to play a North-South slam because of it. The purpose of arrow-switching is to intermix the matchpoint comparisons so that all comparisons are not between two groups, the N-S players, and the E-W players, making for a fairer result and reducing the advantage that can happen when the assignments are hastily made as the majority arrive with ten minutes to spare, and one of the groups is stronger than the other.

The combination of arrow-switching and Web movements is not as well-documented online as arrow-switching Mitchell movements. Since Webs have multiple sets of boards in play at one time, arrow-switching certain rounds in a Web makes it possible to overswitch some of the boards and underswitch others. An extreme example, in a 19-table, 12-round Web, there are 24 boards in play and in round 12, a round that is often arrow-switched, there are four copies of boards 3-4 in play and only one of boards 7-22.

The best solution for a game of this type is to see if you can get a list or an estimate of the pairs participating in advance and assign starting positions that:
--prevent one direction from having a clear majority of the pairs in any of the classes. It is just as important to distribute the best pairs as it is to distribute the worst!
--prevent one 'street' (consecutive tables in one direction) from having a 'murderer's row' of good pairs to be faced in consecutive rounds, or a 'power play' of the less experienced to be beat up on in consecutive rounds: since some will play against the whole 'street' and some will not.
--if you can successfully distribute the pairs in this way, there is less reason to worry about whether an arrow-switch is needed and you can concentrate on a good Web movement with a high top.

This is what we try to do in ACBL tournaments, with entries pre-marked for strat A, B, and C. My plan for most open pairs is to place the A+ pairs at 3 and 9 (by tradition, apparently originally set so that the seeded pairs would not skip one another after seven rounds in a 14-table Mitchell), and in a larger Web, also at 15, 21, 27. Put the rest of the A pairs at other odd-numbered tables, put the C pairs at tables divisible by 4, and the B pairs at the other even-numbered tables.

It doesn't always work out perfectly. Sometimes you end up erasing the strats pre-marked on your entries (hopefully in pairs) to change one number to another strat. Often the Cs and Bs arrive early and the As and A+s arrive late (or not at all) and you need to scramble. Sometimes the need for stationary pairs intervenes with the system and solutions need to be found (there's always someone who walks the room and then announces that they will only accept table 12 for some reason and the strat never fits...). But starting with a plan and minimizing the number of adjustments usually results in a well-balanced field, which is equally as important as choosing a good movement.

I think if you have the capability to make two full sets of boards, an 11-round Web for 15 tables is excellent. There may be a few rounds (usually in the middle and at the beginning and end) where you will need three copies of one or two sets, but these can easily be shared, or made from higher numbered-boards as needed (any board number 16 higher will work for dealer and vulnerability). An 11-round web for 14 tables is even easier, with tables 1-7 getting one set and 8-14 getting a second. If the players want to play a longer session or don't want to play only 20 boards if they are sitting out, there is a complication: Webs of odd-numbers of tables and even numbers of rounds do not work, so 15 tables and 12 rounds would be complicated (14 tables and 12 rounds are fine.) There are workarounds for these problems but they are either quite complicated, or imperfect, or both.

My link for Web movements is here:

https://www.bridgewe...d=display_page5

There is a pdf explaining how Web movements work as well as pre-sets for Web movements of all types for ACBLscore.

If only one board set is available, a Mitchell of 14 or 15 tables (possibly with a sitout) will be fine. Pairs will miss only 2-4 boards each and an arrow switch will create a fair single winner. Do what you can to balance the field; don't rely on the arrow switch to do it for you.

Good luck!

[mycroft]

Very nice McBruce!

I would state that (all signs to the contrary noted and ignored :-) if you do have two sessions, you're in great shape. You can put all the N-S into a 7 table Howell (unless you require more than one absolute stationary and one "could move once"), and all the E-W into another one, and play another 13 rounds. With 28 pairs, you play 26 of them (you can do the Web or the Skip Mitchell the first session; Web gets you a matching top and no complaints about "missing the slam we obviously would have found"); pretty much the best result possible.

With 30, you have either a sitout in both Howells or the Interwoven Howell (which ACBLscor has, not sure about anywhere else), where the two "sitouts" play each other. With 15 tables and 13 rounds of the Mitchell, you can arrange (if you're *very* careful, but if you get it right the first round, the rest will follow) to have that "playback" be one of the two they didn't play the first time.

With 29, the goal (of course) is to find a pair you can stick in the hole, whether it's one session or two :-).

One more thing that is possible; if 28 (or 30!) boards are acceptable in a 1-session event (a serious enough 1-session event might be okay with this), you can play the share-relay 14 (two sets of boards best here) or the full straight Mitchell 15. Yeah, yeah, "indications say 'not too long'". If that's the prime criterion, do two sections, 7x3 Mitchell, arrow-switch the last round and call it a day :-).

[pescetom]

Thanks very much to all. A web movement sounds the way to go, but it's not in our software and I wouldn't like to risk a first attempt in an important tournament anyway. Sometime later in my club.

I know the number of pairs fairly precisely, as this is the regional final and 30 pairs were qualified of whom 27 (currently) are turning up.

What I didn't know until this afternoon is that there is also a Final B to be run at the same time with another 13 pairs, and obviously they have only one PC available and one BM Server

So fancy movements go out the window this time, I will already be at my limit running two tournaments one of them without BM (and without experience with BM in this context, although I did handle 140 of them with different SW for WBF).
Mitchell with arrow switch (and well balanced lines to start with) it is (and if NS beef about missing a slam because the movement had them playing EW that round, I will ask if they ever complained about a Howell).
Maybe I could handle the final B with a 13 x 2 board Howell and thus run both tournaments with the same start, finish and round changes... think that through tomorrow morning as I have a tournament to play now

[pescetom]

The post-mortem: still alive, but Murphy rules as we all know well even the night before.

The final B turned out to be a non-issue from the Directing point of view, as only 8 pairs turned up and 2 of those opted out at that point.
The remaining 6 were understandably sour (maybe someone could have warned them about numbers and at least proposed cancellation) but agreed that there was little point in playing a "tournament" of 3 tables to establish 28th place... I swiftly negotiated with the club president that they play (for free) in the simultaneous tournament that was due to start soon later.

The final A was better set, as 26 of 27 did turn up and on time too. But despite my being there 90 minutes before the start, it turned out to be impossible to duplicate the boards in time, as the (by me) dreaded Dealer 4 machine repeatedly gave problems and the person promised to deal with it had no solutions. So the last three boards dealt manually by TD and a 10 minute late start for the first (and last) time in my life

After that it was plain sailing, too much so from the TD point of view - one MI with no damage, 3 revokes of which only one toxic, a few agreed score undos. The arrow switch (which is unfamiliar in this region of Italy although widely used further south) was accepted by most with curiosity and trust - although one stationary player did indeed rage that as a result of the switch he had missed 7NT NS and then that playing only 26 boards to establish a winner was ridiculous... I somehow avoided comment on his consistent slow play, 44% score and chances of improving it

I did manage to send them off home after little more than 3 hours at 6pm, which many told me they appreciated, including two of the first three pairs. I'm at least happy with that as well as the clear result.

[jillybean]

Kudos for running a successful event and appeasing the 6 pairs left without a game. Great move giving them a free play.

Dealing machines and duplicating boards is definitely the weak link in the process. I have the luxury of having a dealing machine dedicated to the club, we usually duplicate the boards a week in advance. I could not cope with trying to duplicate boards on the day of the event! The nice thing is the players have little idea of the activities and chaos that can be happening before and during a game so as long as they play their boards and get a result, they are happy.

Haha the 44% players are always loudest to complain.

[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2024-December-01, 12:32, said:

Kudos for running a successful event and appeasing the 6 pairs left without a game. Great move giving them a free play.

Dealing machines and duplicating boards is definitely the weak link in the process. I have the luxury of having a dealing machine dedicated to the club, we usually duplicate the boards a week in advance. I could not cope with trying to duplicate boards on the day of the event! The nice thing is the players have little idea of the activities and chaos that can be happening before and during a game so as long as they play their boards and get a result, they are happy.

Kudos to the club president for the free play, I only asked although it clearly seemed appropriate.

On reflection (and after a lifetime of dodging Murphy) I was wrong to take the small risk of duplicating the boards on site rather than doing it in my own club and taking them with me. But it was the largest club in Turin (12+ tables every day of the week) and I was there with the .dup file and promised technical support 90 minutes before the start. Lesson learnt all the same.

I can't help reflecting that had we bid and played electronically I could have arrived an hour later and there would have been no problems of any kind, even all the Director calls except the MI could not have occurred. The bridge would have been the same (except for "table feel"/UI), they would have gone home half an hour earlier and with a record of the auction and play to post-mortem.

[jillybean]

pescetom, on 2024-December-01, 16:37, said:

I can't help reflecting that had we bid and played electronically I could have arrived an hour later and there would have been no problems of any kind, even all the Director calls except the MI could not have occurred.

Yes, it would be a game changer and it will be good to see the creativity unleashed. It would be possible to run any movement at the touch of a button and as you say,
no problems. I think MI would also be eliminated if you made it mandatory to upload a CC, auction information would be available in real time. But I'm not holding my breath

[mycroft]

Big one for me for electronic play for a serious event: yeah, all the stuff bad about online, but at-the-table with tablets kills a lot of that. AND you get barometer (even if you don't display the scores) for free. Which means that what you *don't* get is people "finding out" about board 24 for later (via peeking at scoresheets, or overhearing the previous table, or being asked "did you play 24 yet?" as a "hey, this one's interesting" flag, or...) And the incessant post-mortems (or the "it's getting loud, must be time for a round change") gets a little less as they *clearly know* that every table is playing the board they're discussing.

I am used to "on the day" dealing (well, mostly "go build boards for the next session about round 5" dealing), but that definitely involves showing up *early* the first day to test out the dealing machine and work out how long it's going to take. Frustrating way to learn.

Of course, one of the tournaments I run is amazing - the "Lord of the Supplies" shows up with 25 sets of boards pre-dealt for the weekend. I don't know what they do for her, but it's *not enough*.

[sanst]

mycroft, on 2024-December-02, 10:01, said:

Big one for me for electronic play for a serious event: yeah, all the stuff bad about online, but at-the-table with tablets kills a lot of that. AND you get barometer (even if you don't display the scores) for free. Which means that what you *don't* get is people "finding out" about board 24 for later (via peeking at scoresheets, or overhearing the previous table, or being asked "did you play 24 yet?" as a "hey, this one's interesting" flag, or...) And the incessant post-mortems (or the "it's getting loud, must be time for a round change") gets a little less as they *clearly know* that every table is playing the board they're discussing.

That's true, but don't forget the negatives. You need a program that runs smoothly on al kinds of operating systems, not just Ios and Android. Think of Chrome, Windows om a Surface laptop or an Amozon Fire. Not only that, it should run on quite old versions of the operating systems as well as the latest ones. That's quite a challenge for what is essentially a niche market.
Next to that you must have a network that's 100% reliable with all these devices and is safe. It should be impossible, just to mention one problem, that players can connect to outside support, not through the network, but neither through a (built in) mobile connection.
Of course you can provide the necessary devices, but that's a very expensive solution.
And, last but certainly not least, quite a few players won't play in an electronic tournament or dito club. Even among the best players in the world there were not a few that were more than happy to play with cards in their hands after the pandemic. Besides, it could be difficult to lure people to a venue if they have the feeling that they could more comfortable play from home.

[pescetom]

sanst, on 2024-December-03, 03:46, said:

That's true, but don't forget the negatives. You need a program that runs smoothly on al kinds of operating systems, not just Ios and Android. Think of Chrome, Windows om a Surface laptop or an Amozon Fire. Not only that, it should run on quite old versions of the operating systems as well as the latest ones. That's quite a challenge for what is essentially a niche market.
Next to that you must have a network that's 100% reliable with all these devices and is safe. It should be impossible, just to mention one problem, that players can connect to outside support, not through the network, but neither through a (built in) mobile connection.
Of course you can provide the necessary devices, but that's a very expensive solution.
And, last but certainly not least, quite a few players won't play in an electronic tournament or dito club. Even among the best players in the world there were not a few that were more than happy to play with cards in their hands after the pandemic. Besides, it could be difficult to lure people to a venue if they have the feeling that they could more comfortable play from home.

Our current tournament app runs cheerfully on any phone encountered so far, be it Android or iOS. But it's not yet extended to play and my own strong feeling is that a 10 inch tablet is the minimum for that. The going price for a budget Android 10 inch is currently 70€ on Amazon, so anyone with a quirky iPad knows what to do.

But yes, there are security issues with a "bring your own device" approach and more serious play would probably involve tablets managed and supplied by the organiser. It's a significant investment but not prohibitive, up to €70 per device plus another few hundred for multiple chargers and storage. So the investment for 10 tables is about the same as a dealer machine.

Software development/rental costs are a much bigger issue, but that's a national level problem and the RA collects quite enough money to cover it.