Certainly the ACBL has had opportunities to introduce a ranking scheme. One was touted to the ACBL by Paul Marston in the 1990s (I am sure before 1996) – and you can read one point of view in The Lone Wolff.

I’m gobsmacked by the importance placed upon masterpoints by some players (I think these players are typically intermediates or will one day become intermediate level players). Still, it’s a commodity and the ACBL (and the Australian Bridge Federation of which I am a member) does very nicely out of them. But let’s be realistic, they don’t mean a whole lot in terms of rating ability.

Nick:

I think you are overly kind in your assessment of masterpoints — especially since the sponsor/pro relationship has emerged on the scene!

I prefer to keep LM at 300 but make it impossible to collect gold points in a field of less than open pairs, open swiss, (both could be stratified but the gold points limited to section tops or overalls in bracket A [Dump A/X, use A/B/C/D]) or 2500+ average player point KO brackets. That would fix the problem.

While it is true that having bushels of masterpoints does not prove ability I think that becoming a life master (whether 300 or 500 points) for most people suggests that they have become at least somewhat proficient in the basics of the game. So that ranking still has some meaning and it is a worthwhile goal for new players. I don’t really care what the total number of points required to gain this ranking is although I can see an argument that is should be increased (based on inflation).

After that it becomes less meaningful except that generally the players at the very top of the rankings are good. Sponsors are a problem in that regard. A sponsor can earn a lot of ranking points (in any ranking system) and since in bridge we can only measure teams or pairs they are going to rank higher than they would as an individual when they are playing in a pair with a much better player. I can think of no method to solve that unless we insist that players have to earn some ranking points playing in an individual.

In the end except for honor and glory an individuals ranking doesn’t really matter. You need some sort of ranking at least for seeding purposes but the quality of the team (or pair) is more important than the quality of the individual.

And yes, I have never understood why it is so important to people to win master points. I wonder if you gave people a choice of money or points as a prize which one they would take.

Like the Old El Paso commercial, ?por que no los dos?

Some of the most fun I’ve had in bridge was playing in the now defunct Pro Bridge Tour events. $100 entry, if you make the finals you get your money back, and you could win up to $4,000 in each event. After the first few, the ACBL allowed them to run them as sanctioned games, so you could win money AND masterpoints. That was a lot of fun. It was especially fun because it was an individual event, and everyone had to play the green card (SAYC with splinters and a few carding changes). What a gas.

As an aside, I was playing against Lowell Andrews and Mark Itibashi. I reached 6S (I wanted to be in 4, but pard helped). On my right Mark doubled. I passed. Lowell redoubled. I got a kick out of it, but partner was not amused. Oh well.

I met a ton of wonderful pros and made a lot of friends in those events. Thanks Larry!

For shame, Linda — you’ve certainly met plenty of LM’s who can barely follow suit. The title is meaningless these days. You used to have to win a Regional event to achieve it, but now that too has been reduced to triviality. In the world of online gaming the term ‘nerf’ is used for what the ACBL have done to the LM title over the years (think Nerf ball — soft and harmless). Yes, the ACBL have done a brilliant job selling the master point, something that has no intrinsic value whatsoever. But I think they could actually do even better with a real rating system. I can assure you that chess players pay far more attention to their ratings than most bridge players do to MPs, because a chess rating IS meaningful, and determines what level tournament they can play in, etc. Of course, chess is an individual game, and doesn’t have to take partneships and teams into account. I’m not familiar with Marston’s system, although I believe it is used in at least some clubs in Australia — but I’ve been pushing the idea for years, and I’d love to see it in operation. Failing that, you can at least move to the WBF type of system where points decay — although that works because there is a strictly limited number of events to play in. The ACBL would still be dealing with people who play 50 tournaments a year and trying to compare them with people who play 3 — there would really need to be a factor that took that into account.

A pretty good ranking system (although currently only for matchpoint events, not for IMP pairs or teams) is at http://www.coloradospringsbridge.com/pr.htm. The ranking system is explained at http://www.coloradospringsbridge.com/pr_files/explain.htm but basically it takes into account strength of field, strength of partner, and your results.

Your ranking is basically how many matchpoints you would expect to earn against an average field. So the average player is 25 (and two average players would expect to score 50 against an average field). I think the maintainer of the site takes all the sectional, regional, and national events plus some club results from clubs that submit their result to him. But if the ACBL rank the system for every club game as well you could collect this ranking as well as the masterpoint. Then you could say player A has only 200 points but is a 24.5 whereas player B has 800 points but is a 23.5 and tell that even though player A is a NLM they are very likely a better player.

There’s one more aspect, and it’s geographical and financial. I live in the boonies near the Mexican border where Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico meet. It’s a 2 hour drive to our nearest sectional or regional in Tucson. And it’s about $150 per day to play (hotel room, card fees, food). And that’s our LOCAL stuff. If you live in LA or San Diego or thereabouts you have a regional or sectional in your backyard every week.

Life Master cost me about $30,000+. To make it 500 with the additional requirements is just insane for country folk.

I understand your point, Chris, but those of us who played bridge some years ago had to play a whole lot more to get our 300 points (and presumably spend lots of money too). We didn’t expect to make life master in 6 months or a year or something like that. It was expected to take quite a while. There were very few life masters then. Of course the reward was much bigger. We expected that we wouldn’t have to pay any ACBL dues and that we were life members. In fact, I was not a member for many years after the league asked for money because it seemed unfair.

So I do see that there is a much smaller reward (playing in the life master pairs? is there anything else?). And therefore, you wouldn’t want to do as much to get the title. But then the title doesn’t really mean as much either. Now given that Ray doesn’t think that even when you have 500 master points it proves anything about your skill then I wonder why he wants to raise the requirements.

I think Life Master should say something about your knowledge of the game. It doesn’t prove you are an expert but it does prove you know your way around a tournament. Perhaps the answer is to limit the number of points needed at tournaments to reduce the expense but raise the number of points to 500 as planned.

Master points are a very crude measurement of skill, Ray. We both agree on that. But it reminds me of other games we have played where you collect “experience” and then reach a certain level. Many games are like that. We do need to distinguish between a rating system (master points are not) and a reward for cumulative achievement (master points). The best rating system we have right now in the ACBL is probably the seeding points system which do count many factors in seeding pairs or team in major events. Not perfect but better.

As long as bridge is a pair or team game, we have to rate the pair or the team not the individual for seating purposes anyway.

My personal opinion is that it would a disaster for the ACBL to introduce a true rating system.

I believe that for every ACBL member who truly wants to know how well they really play compared to others, there are many ACBL members that truly do not want to know how poorly they really play compared to others 🙂

Fred Gitelman

There is definitely some truth in what you are saying Fred. It does work in chess however. Maybe people get used to “real” ratings and are proud of them even if they aren’t the highest possible. Almost of us feel that there are players who are better than us and some who are worse. But I do know that when I played OKBridge people were very concerned about their rating to the point it caused a lot of problems.