I'm starting to wonder if high level bridge is broken. Every match is such a crapshoot. Even with these super-long matches, there is so little differentiating the top teams. Big swings but no clear errors by either side.
It is pretty clear that the matches are too short for the form of scoring for teams close in ability to be differentiated (I.e., the winner deserves it as a clearly "good team", but a number of the losers are also similarly strong "good teams" that would have been deserving winners with just slightly different luck). While a stronger team is quite likely to win (see the record of amateur teams like mine against single digit seeds in spinderbilt 60 board matches in R64), 60 board matches like R16 or even 96 board matches like QF on are not really enough to swing things. A vulnerable slam/game on a finesse that is bid in one room and not the other might swing 25+ IMPs on if the finesse is on, and matches in R16 were decided by 3, 10, 5, and 5. Even the 20 and 30 in the SF are not really fully clear margins over 96 boards. If they played the same number of boards, but scored at BAM instead of IMP I think it would likely be a lot more on form for the teams - which might be a mixed bag. I feel like there have also been some teams in events that resign early down 70 IMPs so that 75-0 set in the women's for the US comeback is quite something. Normally I think the rule of thumb is 4 IMPs/board is about the most you can possibly comeback from but 75 is nearly 5 IMPs/board across that 16 board set.
thanks mon
More gratitude for these news posts.
"In the Seniors Sweden won the bronze medal..."
You do know that there's 16 boards per segment?
I'm starting to wonder if high level bridge is broken. Every match is such a crapshoot. Even with these super-long matches, there is so little differentiating the top teams. Big swings but no clear errors by either side.
It is pretty clear that the matches are too short for the form of scoring for teams close in ability to be differentiated (I.e., the winner deserves it as a clearly "good team", but a number of the losers are also similarly strong "good teams" that would have been deserving winners with just slightly different luck). While a stronger team is quite likely to win (see the record of amateur teams like mine against single digit seeds in spinderbilt 60 board matches in R64), 60 board matches like R16 or even 96 board matches like QF on are not really enough to swing things. A vulnerable slam/game on a finesse that is bid in one room and not the other might swing 25+ IMPs on if the finesse is on, and matches in R16 were decided by 3, 10, 5, and 5. Even the 20 and 30 in the SF are not really fully clear margins over 96 boards. If they played the same number of boards, but scored at BAM instead of IMP I think it would likely be a lot more on form for the teams - which might be a mixed bag.
I feel like there have also been some teams in events that resign early down 70 IMPs so that 75-0 set in the women's for the US comeback is quite something. Normally I think the rule of thumb is 4 IMPs/board is about the most you can possibly comeback from but 75 is nearly 5 IMPs/board across that 16 board set.