Bridge players can be very competitive, similar to players in all sports. Some players temper the competitive drive with an enjoyment of the game itself. Again this can be seen in most sports. For example, the tennis player can love the game itself and the excellent exercise it allows and be relatively uninterested in the outcome and whether they beat the opponent.  There are many bridge players who have that attitude, being happy to play a mental sport with pleasant and sociable opponents. For such players a grading system of ability is at best irrelevant and at worst anathema.

We have had for very many years the master point system beloved by the EBU (and its members) which is related to ability but also strongly dependent on how long the player has played in an EBU affiliated club. The number of points accumulated determines the grade such as Club Master, RegionalMaster, Intergalactic Master, etc. At the higher levels the grade seems to berelated to the strength or ability of the player. But it is probable that thereis not a straight forward (or linear) relationship between number of pointsaccumulated and present ability.

The real points addict can effectively buy points by payingto play with strong partners and avoiding weaker partners, but this is anotherstory, and most are honestly earned over the years. But I mentioned present ability or strength of theplayer and this is not so much reflected by master points.

So the EBU have tried to determine a grading system that isdependent on recent results and is modified by changes in form as the monthstick by. And a system that takes into account the strength of the oppositionand of the partner. That seems a tall order but they have put forward in recentweeks such a system.

There is an excellent account of the maths and statistics ofthe method on the EBU website. I will try very hard to summarise it in English.When you look at any range of marks, values, percentages over a largepopulation, they will often take the shape of a bell like distribution withmost of the values being in the centre and the tail ends at the extremes. Thisis likely to be the case with these values of abilities or strengths of playersand indeed is the case. They then divide the bell shape or graph into 13divisions, and allocate to each division a label, each one being the value of aplaying card, 2 at the lowest up to an ace as the highest. The strongestplayers are in the ace category. And because there is great interest in thevery best players they subdivide the ace category into 4, a club ace up to aspade ace, the very best.

How do they place you in this range and how do they takeinto account the grade or strength of your partner and of your opponents? Theylook back at the last 1000 boards you have played at a club, any club, or evenin a team and give you a mark for every time. But the most recent mark is themost important and the 1000^th mark the least important, so the marksfor each board you have played are “weighted” by that principle, the mostrecent being the most important and the earliest being the  least important. So if you had an excellentscore 1000 boards before you would not be scored as highly as if you had thesame score last week. So your score is a compound of the last 1000 boards. Theydon’t rate every board separately but group them into the evenings you played givinga single mark for each session of 24 boards.

They start everyone’s score or percentage at the average,50%, right in the middle of the grades, the card 8. Where else could they startyou, given that at the start they have no idea how good or bad you are? Theyalso assume all your opponents and your partner are average at the start forthe same reasons.

But as soon as they start to mark the 1^stsession, taking into account the strengths of the opponents and of partner,your score will change and so will the opponents’ (in the opposite directionaccording to whether they did better or worse). You do not need to worry aboutthe arithmetic itself and how on the earth they do all the sums over the last1000 boards. Computers love to do lots of calculations, they are food and drinkto the little fellows, and they never get them wrong, provided the creators ofthe sums or calculations instruct the computers correctly.

But some of you will say “I haven’t been playing long enoughat the club to have played 1000 boards”. Well they will not give you a gradeunless you have played a minimum of 300. If you have played between 300 and1000 you will have a grade but it will not be classified as a mature gradeuntil that 1000 mark has been reached. My guess is that many of you will haveplayed 300 boards at the club which will take about 30 sessions. Those of youwho haven’t had 30 sessions yet, look on it as a challenge to do as well aspossible over the next few months!

How do you find out what your grade is? Go to the EBUwebsite. Find the members’ page (top left). Type in your EBU number andpassword. Hey presto!

There are lots of questions to be answered over the teethingperiod of this grading system, some answerable now and others not answerableyet.

How do you categorise who are the opponents? Apparently itvaries according to the movements, etc. for that session. The commonestmovement we encounter is the 2 winner Mitchell duplicate. In that movement youropponents are those playing in the same direction as you, i.e. if you are E/Wthen the other E/Ws are the opponents. This kind of detail has been well workedout.

Another problem is the one that has bedevilled the clubhandicap system, namely that if you play only in the afternoons, those sessionsmay be deemed as being a little easier than the evening sessions, andpreviously that fact made the handicaps of the afternooners seem better thanperhaps they should have been. It is a phenomenon rather like having 2 clubsrather than one. If a group never mix with another group, afternooners withevening players, or one club with another, how do you establish the relativestrengths of the separate groups or clubs. They started with the same group at50% and have never been exposed to a better or worse field. This is so far anunresolved problem as far as I am aware. It will be tested out over the comingmonths and I am sure they will find some kind of answer.

There is likely to be the kind of human question that willaccompany any grading system, namely that individuals will be unhappy ordisgruntled with it. “My grade is 9 but his grade is a Jack. How is thatpossible when I am the better player?” As Carol on Little Britain said“Computer says no”. The EBU computer will only analyse the data we send it. Youmay be the better player but the grade has not identified that.

As with shares your grade can go up or down. That will posea practical problem for any handicapped competition: who should be included orexcluded? The grades will have to be taken on a fixed date and by the time ofthe competition the grades may have changed. The grading system will throw uprelatively unexpected results that previously may have been dealt with morediscretion but less objectivity. Members’ views welcome.

The system makes one type of competition easier, namely whenwe pair inexperienced players with the more experienced players. Some of thelatter may have been concerned that it would drag down their handicap but overtime it should not affect their grade, because the strength of your partner istaken into account in scoring the session.

Lastly (for me) the changing or swinging nature of thegrades can be dampened or increased according to the weighting included in themaths. Should the grades be very swingy or labile or more stable? If your gradetoday is low your answer might be to make the grade more labile but if your gradeis high today you may wish to keep the system more stable.  Answers on a postcard please but not to me.

GOM

Trivia

It is worrying that so many small things irritate me at the bridge table. I am getting to be a GOM (Grumpy Old Man). This state of affairs seems to be gender bound. We don’t have many GOWs at the club, thank goodness.

The first thing I find slightly annoying is the use of bidding cards. The rounds of bidding are complete and it is proper to leave the bids as they occurred on the table, to remind the players whose lead it should be and to remind them of whole auction and of any bids they might not have understood. The bidding cards are left until the lead has been exposed and dummy goes down. It seems to have become a habit for players to move their bidding cards to the side of their bidding boxes as soon as the bidding is complete. This has the effect of obscuring the bids ands thus not helping the defenders to review the auction and perhaps to allow them to make a lead out of turn. Why not leave the cards where they are, clearly visible?

Placement of the board: strictly according to the laws the board should be placed in the centre of the table until play is completed. Any player can insist on that. The dealer and vulnerabilities can be seen. It has the safety benefit that cards will be returned to the appropriate pockets after play. There are Norths who remove the board from the table and place it on the small table to their right side that they have kept for that very purpose. The danger is that they will replace the board incorrectly and then other players play the wrong cards. This must take place several times a month.

However bridge tables have less surface area than previously with the advent of bridgemates and the table can seem very crowded. It is a reasonable modification to move the board from the very centre of the table to a corner of the table  provided the orientation of the board is kept the same.

Then we get to the play of the cards. The general idea is that each player gets to see all the cards as they are played. That is not necessarily the objective of all players. We get the player who detaches a card from their hand, presents it face down until the last second, twists it over so that it can be seen, although very briefly, and faces it down again. This is quite a deliberate ploy and rather unfair on inexperienced players. In the classes I always emphasise that the beginner (or any other player) should let go of the card they are playing and wait until they are sure they have seen the three other cards before turning their card over. As long as your card is faced upwards you can ask to see all of the other three cards. Once you have turned your card over you cannot expect to be shown the other cards. The secret is to let go physically of your own card when it is face up. These mannerisms in playing individual cards are annoying at best but unfair at worst.

The tempo of play is very misunderstood. Each player will tend to have his or her own tempo, slow, average or fast. If you change tempo of play you are in danger of giving information away. So it is important to cultivate the ability to play at a steady tempo, an incredibly difficult thing for a beginner. It is incumbent on experienced players to play at a speed that the inexperienced player can cope with (not in the letter of the law but in the spirit of fairness). Basically he shouldn’t play too fast.

One should also try to make bids at a steady tempo so that no information is passed that is “unauthorised”. Recently on two occasions the following sequence of events occurred. The dealer passed, next hand bid, dealer’s partner thought long and hard about something (I wonder what?) and passed, next hand raised, then dealer made a bid. On one of these occasions the opposition “reserved their rights” but they were not damaged by the sequence. On the other occasion, the opposition did not reserve their rights (being too embarrassed to do so) and they were severely damaged. More fool them you might think. But the pair that benefitted from the passage of unauthorised information should think as follows. It is not wrong for any player to hesitate about a decision to bid or not to bid, but it is wrong for their partner to make use of that information. He or she should think “should I bid with my hand irrespective of whether my partner had hesitated or not? That is, do I have my own bid or not. I did not bid first time around but now I feel I can compete at a higher level. Was I influenced by my partner’s hesitation?”

Sorry about these sad thoughts.

GOM