[blindsey]

In his recent autobiography "Bridge's First Hippie", Peter Weichsel says his team won an Open Board-a-Match event by 0.01, a hundredth of a board.

How is this possible? As I understand BAM scoring, the narrowest possible margin is 1/2 a board (0.5).

[smerriman]

When there are qualifying rounds and then final rounds, you'll get a fraction of your qualifying score carried forward.

[Cyberyeti]

smerriman, on 2025-January-18, 22:14, said:

When there are qualifying rounds and then final rounds, you'll get a fraction of your qualifying score carried forward.

That's one way, weighted rulings can do it too if there are more than one, but that is less likely

[mycroft]

Actually, so could straight Artificial Adjusted Scores. 0.6 on a board that's scored 1, 0.5, 0. Okay, it won't do 0.01 board, but it does do 0.1 board.

(wait, does the "A+ is 0.6 or percentage of the rest" apply to BAM? If it does, then 16 on a 13 average is 62%...)

But yeah, the right answer here is carry-over from the qualifying day(s).

[mike777]

 blindsey, on 2025-January-18, 21:18, said:

In his recent autobiography "Bridge's First Hippie", Peter Weichsel says his team won an Open Board-a-Match event by 0.01, a hundredth of a board.

How is this possible? As I understand BAM scoring, the narrowest possible margin is 1/2 a board (0.5).

One of my all time favorite players.
On top of that he lives in my very favorite city.
Just finished both of his bio books.
Interesting bridge hands
Interesting behind the scenes stories of bridge.

[blindsey]

Yes, I enjoyed the book(s) too. In Sontag's "The Bridge Bum" Weichsel sounded like an interesting fellow with some sort of good back-story. It took almost 50 years for Weichsel to tell his own story but it was worth the wait.

About the hundredth of a point: Weichsel says at one time small differences in such events were discarded and teams were deemed tied.

I don't get it. Why carry over such scores and then ignore them? Either don't carry scores forward or round them to half-points after the qualifying.

[mike777]

 blindsey, on 2025-January-19, 18:31, said:

Yes, I enjoyed the book(s) too. In Sontag's "The Bridge Bum" Weichsel sounded like an interesting fellow with some sort of good back-story. It took almost 50 years for Weichsel to tell his own story but it was worth the wait.

About the hundredth of a point: Weichsel says at one time small differences in such events were discarded and teams were deemed tied.

I don't get it. Why carry over such scores and then ignore them? Either don't carry scores forward or round them to half-points after the qualifying.

Goes to show how infinitely large something so small can be.

[mycroft]

I am not as old as Weichsel, nor as old in bridge as Weichsel's story, but as long as I have been in the game, "a difference of 0.01 of a matchpoint is sufficient to break ties."

It would not surprise me at all if the event in the story was a catalyst for the Board of Directors.

[mikeh]

blindsey, on 2025-January-19, 18:31, said:

Yes, I enjoyed the book(s) too. In Sontag's "The Bridge Bum" Weichsel sounded like an interesting fellow with some sort of good back-story. It took almost 50 years for Weichsel to tell his own story but it was worth the wait.

About the hundredth of a point: Weichsel says at one time small differences in such events were discarded and teams were deemed tied.

I don't get it. Why carry over such scores and then ignore them? Either don't carry scores forward or round them to half-points after the qualifying.

At the time, fractional scores did matter…win by .25 and you win, iirc. But, back then, really small fractions were deemed to small to matter. The Latin would be de minimis non curat lex….the law doesn’t cure minuscule defects