A:  Thanks for asking a very important question. 

Some time ago, 2 married couples were playing bridge at a home in London.  One couple was arguing throughout the evening, each complaining about the other’s bidding and defensive play. On the final hand of the evening, they reached a 6NT contract with the husband as the declarer.  When his wife’s hand was put down as the dummy, he became furious and excused himself to go into his bedroom.  He returned with a pistol and fired at his wife, instantly killing her.

Scotland Yard was called to the home.  The Inspector, who happened to be a very good bridge player, interviewed the 3 players to determine what happened.  Upon learning the details of the final hand’s bidding and then looking at the exposed dummy hand, he jotted into his little notebook “justifiable homicide.” 

Bridge fact or bridge fiction?  Either way, it perfectly illustrates the need for a Zero Tolerance policy.

Simply put, Zero Tolerance Policy is designed to create and maintain an environment for all players to have a fun, enjoyable game of bridge. It’s easy to be “kind” to your partner when all goes well. Nobody becomes upset when your partner makes a great bid or endplays the opponents to make a seemingly unmakeable contract. A Director is never called to the table because one partner has heaped too much praise on the other for brilliant play.

So, what does constitute a violation of the Zero Tolerance Policy?  Perhaps the best authority is the Golden Rule, but the ACBL adds a little detail.

The following are some (but not inclusive) examples of behavior that will not be tolerated: 

• Negative comments concerning opponents’ or partner’s play or bidding.

• Constant and gratuitous lessons and analyses at the table.

• Loud and disruptive arguing with a director’s ruling.  

• Badgering, rudeness, intimidation, threats, or violence.

• Remark or action that might cause annoyance or embarrassment to another player or might interfere with the enjoyment of the game. 

• Gloating over good results or gloating about winning.

• Providing uninvited lessons or detailed analyses of a hand at the table.

Remember, even if your partner or opponents have bid, defended or played a hand poorly, you may not critique or criticize.  Unlike in London, there is no such thing as “justifiable homicide”.

What happens if there is a violation of the Zero Tolerance policy? On the first infraction, the violator and partner are assessed a one board penalty.  Thattranslates to approximately 4.5 percent reduction on the final score.  For an example, if you had a 54% game, after the penalty is assessed, your final score drops to around 49.5%. The penalty is severe to act as a deterrence.

By enforcing Zero Tolerance, our goal is to ensure that the only drama at the tables come from the cards themselves.

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.