A:  Good question.  The purpose and goal of stratifying games is to provide the best opportunity for the most players to earn masterpoints while making it as fair as possible for all level of players to earn those points.  The directors attempt to have an equal number of players in each stratification category. For example, with 6 tables the goal is to have 4 A players, 4 B players 4 C players.  To achieve this, the stratification limits for the game may be adjusted from previous games.  For Thursday mentor/mentee games, all/only pairs with a mentor are in the A stratification.  The B and C stratification ranges are divided with roughly half Bs and half Cs. On certain days when we play North American Pair (NAP) games, the stratification limits are set by the ACBL which we cannot override.

The A/B/C cards on the tables before the game are for seating purposes only and may not reflect the actual stratifications used in the game. The stratifications can only be determined by the director once the game begins and all the names and corresponding masterpoints are entered into the Director’s computer.

A: Glad you asked.  Remember, the goal of this Board is to increase the number of tables we have each month while providing a fun and friendly atmosphere to play and improve your bridge game.  The mentor/mentee game helps achieve these goals in at least 3 ways.  First is the most obvious. When mentors play, there are more players and thus more tables.  Second, mentors help increase 499 skill levels which should translate into more enthusiasm for those players to play more often.  And third, the presence of mentors assure that a game will be held. Previously we have had to cancel Thursday games due to lack of enough tables or hold the game with as few as 3 tables. Neither was beneficial to the 499s.

What about the question of whether mentors are taking away masterpoints from 499s. Not true, and in fact often it is the exact opposite – 499s who play in the Mentor game often earn more masterpoints than they otherwise would. Both B and C 499s seldom earn fewer masterpoints in a Mentor game than they would otherwise earn if the game was for 499s only.  Why?

Without boring you with the formula that determines how masterpoints are awarded, it’s important to note that more tables create more masterpoints.  And, open games (such as the mentor game) allot 100% masterpoints whereas limited games (such as 499 games) allot only 80% masterpoints. 

And there has famously been another huge advantage to our mentor/mentee game.  STaC games require at least 5 tables for players to be compared against other STaC players throughout the state in order to receive maximum extra silver masterpoints.  Prior to mentor/mentee games, we have not had five tables for 499 STaC games, which greatly limited the extra points being awarded, regardless of how well you did.

A perfect example is the March 12 STaC game.  Since it was a Mentor game, there were 10 pairs that day, including 3 mentor pairs. As a mentor game, we had enough tables to be categorized as an Open game, so all our players’ scores were compared to other Open game scores throughout the state. Larry DeGrandchamp and Thangam Nagarajan - both C players - scored a 71.30% game that day. Yes, competing against 3 mentor-led pairs.  Their score was first throughout the state and they earned more than 18 Silver points!  Let’s repeat that.  Larry and Thangam played in the mentor game and competed against 3 mentor-led pairs, beat them all by a wide margin, scored a 71% game and earned more than 18 silver points.  If there was not a mentor game that Thursday, they would have been placed in a 499 pool for fewer than 5 tables and earned about 3 silver points rather than 18 silver points. Thanks Larry and Thangam for confirming the benefit of our mentor game.

Perhaps most importantly, Board members have spoken with most of the 499 players, and without exception they indicated a preference to have mentor-mentee games with more tables than smaller games with 499s only.