Your Flights

The ACBL Board of Directors is considering a motion about additional stratification and flighting in bridge events.  I would like to consider your opinions and input about this change.

Please read the motion below.  Then, any thoughts you might have about whether this change would be beneficial or not - and why - would be greatly appreciated!

Item 093-34: Additional Strats and Flights in Bridge Events

Moved that:

That at sponsor option, in club games or tournaments, the allowable number of strats in a stratified event be increased from three to five, and that the allowable number of flights in a flighted event be increased from three to four (or five).

Effective date:
Estimated cost/savings:
Committee: Bridge with input from tournaments.

Discussion:

The only argument I've heard against doing this is that ACBLscore will have to be changed. OK, let's change ACBLscore.

The strats for most of the regional tournaments that I looked up were 2000+, 750-2000 and 0-750. Some are 2500+, 750-2500 and 0-750. 0-750 expects novices to compete with players who are almost halfway to silver life master! Crazy. The "norm" used to be 0-300. If you're at the bottom of any of the established strats, you're at a disadvantage, particularly because the spread is so huge.

In effect, bracketed KOs are stratified games with a whole bunch of strats - almost 40 in Gatlinburg. Undoubtedly this has quite a bit to do with the popularity of these events, and I think it sends a strong message

Comments

[Rich Newell]

I think we need to rethink our strats. I like the Saturday setup at our club. There is a 500/300/100 section and a Unl/3000/1500 section. Obviously I want to win by playing good bridge, but sometimes it feels like success is too much a result of collecting gifts from inexperienced players. For me the quality of the game goes up when I get to play in an A/X flight. The downside is that the newer players get to live in their <500 world for as long as possible, and they would probably stand to benefit from playing against more experienced players.
For two or more sections in a tournament, I think it would be nice to have a bracketed open pairs. If you have 26 tables, seat the least experienced 13 tables in one section and the more experienced 13 in the other section. Overalls in both sections, with the more experienced section paying more obviously. The problem with all of this is the seating. Online tourney play makes it easy to get a good, even stratification but in real life people may need to refer to a seating assignment chart before play rather than sitting down at the table they will start at. I think the idea of additional strats, possibly different than anything I've imagined, could be good for the game.

[Steven Gaynor]

It comes down to the size of the game in general. In a 20+ table tournament it may not be so bad if everyone plays together, but we often offer separate I/N games so there are actually 6 strata!

At the club the games are often not big enough for 3 strata let alone 5. You really need about 6 pairs per strata to make it a decent event. That would be 15 tables with 5 strata.

On Wednesday evening when I direct I break it 750/2000/unl., and it splits the field pretty evenly. In the future I can revise this upward since ACBL regulations allow you to place strata in a club game anywhere you want. When he ran the Hopkins game Dennis Higdem averaged about 15 tables, and he would make the top 5 A, next 5 B, etc., no matter how many MP's anyone had. Totally legal!