Although that would provide a good competition for the weaker players side it would be very much the opposite for the other one.

Imagine a rugby world cup where NZ, Australia, England and France  don't play each other but they all play against Tuvalu, Malta, Grenada and Equatorial Guinea. And the team which racks up the most points wins the cup.

The fairest way to run a MP pairs competition is a Howell which is what they do in the finals of the NZ pairs at Congress.
The 28 pairs play against all of the other 27 over two sessions.
And any two pairs there will be playing the same way 13 rounds, the opposite way 13 rounds and at the same table for one round.

Thats not practicable for a club tournament so the next best thing is to seed the NS and EW groups so each has similar over-all strength 

Hi Nick, thanks for your feedback. I hadn't considered this point of view. 

Your rugby World Cup analogy made me think of the rugby 7's competition.

Using your suggestion of initial equal seeding of both NS and EW directions, would then reseeding based on finishing position in each direction after the first session into 3 or more Howell movement groups and rezeroing all pairs scores before starting the second session be a fair alternative club tournament format? With the highest ranked seeding group then competing for main prizes and ranking points.

Similar to a rugby World Cup where eventually the top seeds compete equally in the knockout phase regardless of how many points they scored against the minnows in their group, this would avoid anyone of the top qualifying seeds getting an advantage over the other top qualifying seeds from savaging the minnow pairs either directly or indirectly other than to qualify (generally to score 70+% you need one or more pairs playing the same way to score 30%) or from boards favouring one direction over another.

This format would have some mid point drama to see who qualified for each group from each direction and also have the advantage of providing continuing interest and prize opportunities for lesser pairs whose realistic chances of prizes would often be over after the first session, plus also the opportunity to initially compete against the top pairs and perhaps qualify for top group on a good day.

A disadvantage is that it would be more difficult to direct and require at least 4 sets of boards so it might not be suitable for smaller clubs but perhaps it could be used by a bigger club as a novelty event.

Hi Sean

I like it!

And timely because a club near me has asked if I had any bright ideas for their Christmas tournament where I will be directing 

I envisage a 2-session tournament run along these lines:

Say there are 20 tables:

Session 1: "qualifying"
12-round Web with NS and EW seeded equally

Session 2:
Top half of NS go into a 5-table Howell "final"; lower half into another "plate"
Similarly for EW

Two separate competitions "final" and "plate" matchpointed across both sections
Well THREE actually counting the qualifying (although I wouldn't award prizes to any who had a podium finish in the final as well)

Having TWO Howells means no pairs will re-play against each other (which is something I think is higher priority than some others do)

Maybe someone can spot some fishhooks I haven't thought of!

cheers
Nick 

Hi Nick,

Looks good to me (although I'm not a director). Good collaborative brain storming exercise.

I haven't played in a tournament for a couple of years but if you get the go ahead to use the new 'Whit-Ly' tournament format I'll try to come up with my wife from Palmerston North to play in the inaugural event to see how it goes if our schedules permit.

You'll have to let me know where and when.

Cheers

Sean

Hi all

I'll put my oar in here.

The idea of a qualifying, final, and plate format is not new of course. It is common place for 10A and higher tournaments and I think for that levek it is appropriate.

For a club level 8B or similar tournament I don't like it. My preferred format is always to run a Mitchell or Web in session 1 and then split the field into 2 Howells for session 2. Like Nick, I think avoiding playing any pair twice and playing all (or nearly all) of the field is a high priority. I do this, and I also seed the 2 sections so they are, theoretically, of equal strength.

But even with careful seeding there is still an element of luck involved in terms of who you play your boards against. Or perhaps one member of one of the top pairs had a rushed start to the morning and it takes them a while to settle in and the misplay a 3 boards they wouldn't normally.

How many times have we all seen a pair get a score like 44 in session 1 and follow it up with a 62 in the afternoon? Or ther other way around?

Let's say the 2nd seed pair has one member have car trouble and they arrive frazzled at 9:57am. Then on board 1 they forget a convention and miss an easy game. Two boards later the opposition bid and make a slam on a finesse which no-one else does. This is followed up by a bidding error by the opposition ion which they stop in 2NT with 28 HCP but a bad suit break means it makes 8 tricks and everyone else goes to 3NT one away. Still trying to recover they think their signals are reverse attitude when they are actually odds on and give away an overtrick for another bad board. End of session and your 2nd seeds score 46% and go into the bottom half of the field. Fully recovered after a good lunch they breeze through with 73%. Was this fair on anyone?

I reckon if you seed properly and do the Mitchell / 2 Howell split based on this then you'll get a fair result in an 8B more often than not.

When I do the 2 Howells in the afternoon I seat the pairs and peg them i.e Pairs of close to equal seeding start at the same position in the Howells so that you always play the same boards against a pair of similar ability as your pegged pair does.

Ed

Hi Ed,

You raise very good points about preparedness and seeding.

In my bridge and sporting experience the reverse is normally true. The best in most sports are the most prepared. They are the ones that know their systems and agreements weeks before an event they plan to play and have practiced beforehand. The top pairs will more often than not take advantage of the  weaker players arriving late fumbling around at the last minute to agree to play gerber or not etc in the early hands.

So your very good points raises some very interesting question about seeding? Should the field be initially seated with pairs starting with nearest similar seed,  or be in reverse order, or be randomly selected by director, or should players  be allowed to choose their starting opponent once seeded?

Without your point I would have favoured reverse as this would lead to top seeds clashing over final tables with pressure building as they play steadily harder opponents and with knowledge of their performance to date and whether they need to take risks or not to qualify05:27:21?

However perhaps for the reasons you gave it would be fairer for the top seeds to initially clash as they should be the most prepared with them playing the weakest seeds last once they have had a chance to sort out their systems?

I don't favour giving the top seeds the choice of selecting their initial opponent for the reasons you have given as they may deliberately select a weaker seed to start with.

Hi Sean

Once I have done the seeding I just tend to mix it up in terms of the order who plays who and when. There is no perfect system and cards being what they are, you are never going to eliminate the luck factor entirely.

So when I do my seating plan I split the NS and EW into top third, middle third, bottom third, and pretty much take one from each third as I go down the table numbers. Sometimes I need to fiddle this a bit - for example, pairs who have requested seating rights because they are not so mobile I try to place close to the door / bathrooms. But generally I find this as good a system as any. I have also played in tournaments that Nick has directed where he has got the players to self-seed - he has asked pairs to find another pair of similar ability to them and start with them. I have used this also in walk-ins and found it quite good.

When it comes to the Howells, as I said earlier, I just put corresponding seeds in the same starting position in both Howells to try and reduce the luck factor there.

Cheers

Ed