Stats 9YA4 Main

Stats Discontinued

by Richard Pavlicek

Being dismayed by the state of major events, I will no longer be updating the partnership stats. The idea seemed good, and the rankings generally ran true to expectation, but “top-level bridge” has become an oxymoron. Cases in point:

WBF ruining the 2014 World Championship (Rosenblum). The event was laughable, with its greatly reduced match lengths, biased segment lengths, and the difficult retrieval of vugraph results, most of which were riddled with errors.

ACBL ruining the Vanderbilt and Spingold. Two classics, since 1928 and 1938 respectively, with ideal 64-board matches and 16-board segments, are now history. In its infinite stupidity the ACBL has cut them to 60 boards, creating uneven vulnerability conditions and biased 15-board segments. For what? (Yes, this is one for Ripley.) Now we have two joke events, a Vanderbil and Spingol. Imagine if chess followed suit.

USBF catering to wealth, not expertise, with exorbitant entry fees. In the old days the ‘Trials’ were complimentary (including travel expenses) for the year’s major-event winners; now it’s all about money. Even the format is pathetic, with matches reduced to 120 boards in biased 15-board segments. Worse yet, they play Boards 1-60 twice, which means four more boards with dealer nonvul than with dealer vul. Hard to believe this can happen.

Cheating scandals. What should I do with my partnership stats? Eliminate all the cheating pairs? Mark their results with an asterisk as tainted? And what about the results of innocent pairs? Do I remove all their results against the cheaters? And with these cases being dragged out for due process, when do I make the changes? Whatever, it’s not something I want to get involved in.

Inept vugraph records. Vugraph quality has decreased steadily, mostly a case of quantity over quality. More recorded matches require more operators, many of whom are incompetent. I also fault BBO for their inability to record a contract without an auction. For example, if the contract at the comparison table is 4 and the auction is unknown, the operator has to make up an auction (usually 4 P P P) to get the contract. You wouldn’t believe the number of bogus auctions I’ve had to remove over the years.

General public apathy. Over five years ago I put up a page “Calling Sherlock Holmes” trying to find player names that had been omitted from vugraph records. Certainly, many bridge players would know who the missing team members were, but in five years I received not a single reply; that’s right, zero. I wasted my effort, thinking people might care. Nobody cares, because the organizers have made sure of it.

What ever happened to the good old days? Somebody give me a call when real bridge returns.

Congratulations ACBL, USBF, WBF! The judges have posted your scores!

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