[blml] Thai braking [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

[Alain Gottcheiner]

At 14:36 2/04/2007 +0200, Harald Skjæran wrote:

> > My main point of contention with the current system of counting is
> > that it is so terribly complicated! Try and explain this to any
> > non-bridge player and you'll get big eyes indeed.


AG : try and explain baseball, cricket or ice skating scoring principles to 
the person in the street. Forget pelota altogether. No, this isn't the 
right argument. The only things a scoring method should strive at are 
fairness and competitive interest.

The first objective says, for example, that the highest the difference in 
total points, the highest the IMP score on the deal should be.
The second one is the basic reason for nonlinearity (as in : three 300 
swings are more than a 900 swing).

Any other feature of the scoring methods contains subjective elements - and 
that's why conservativeness is the usual attitude toward their adaptation.
I'm with Herman on that one : if you somehow succeed in your attempt to 
have adjustments adopted, it'll take decades (English ones, not French 
ones) before any other adjustment could be just thought of, so try and cook 
up something really good at once.

Best regards

   Alain



>  And the
> > complications are there to solve problems that existed in the past,
> > but no longer apply today. Why indeed do we want to have a 30-point
> > VP-scale? We clearly don't want to just tally wins and losses, that's
> > certain. But why limit a win to 25? In a good competition, everybody
> > plays everybody, and with the same boards! So why not do away with a
> > scale that is basically just a linear transformation from the
> > IMP-difference.
> >
> > And then to go one better - do we really need the IMP-transformations?
> > Yes, we do, because we feel that the scoring table overvalues games
> > and slams in realtion to overtricks. But could we not do the same by
> > altering the scoring table instead?
> >
> > I believe that for the sake of simplicity, a few small changes in the
> > scoring table should be accepted, making all further translations
> > (IMPs and VPs) unnecessary. You could come off the table, add all your
> > total points, and compare with the total points from the other table
> > and decide you've won the match by 370 points!
>
>That's really going back to the stone age (1930's).
>If you don't make a major change in the scoring table, this means that
>the big boards (slams and zip numbers from contract going several down
>doubled) will weigh far more than they do in todays IMP scale, where
>in fact overtricks and small differences are overvalued.
>
>IMO, todays IMP scale is rather OK when it comes to how the scores are
>differentiated. Using decimals is OK to me.
>
>The main point in converting to VP's is to put a limit on how much you
>can score by trounching one opponent. The VP scale works fine in this
>regard, but there's a small problem with the steps (decimals would
>work better even here, I agree).
>
>I believe we'll always want to have different types of scoring
>(MP/IMP's/other). Thus I don't think it's a great idea to change the
>scoring table to avoid conversion to MP/IMP/other.
>
>--
>Kind regards,
>Harald Skjæran
>
>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Herman DE WAEL
> > Antwerpen Belgium
> > http://www.hdw.be
> >
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