By Ken Monzingo
National Board Representative
"There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them." –Denis Waitley
I'm having nightmares regarding a full court press the Strength Of Field (SOF) creators are pushing down my e-mail's esophagus. I'm against this attempt to overhaul a good working masterpoint system, that has served us very well since forever, with a new formula that may reduce MPs available in lower brackets. Why change? What could be gained? The only people I know who think we currently have major problems are these who want to change it. Not the players I hear from; not the directors I talk to.
We're told there is, "no doubt the current system is badly broken." Where? Bridge out here in District 22 and the entire Western Conference is on the upswing, players are coming out in happy droves, tournaments are booming, and the next complaint I hear about our current masterpoint formula will be the first since the infamous triple decker giveaways; and will be only the second I have ever heard. Best of all, our lower brackets and up-and-coming members are really happy. Do you think we should add a new formula that might confuse our players? Or, heavens, one to lessen the points available in our escalating Gold Rush Pairs? Not me (we just added Gold Rush to the Orange County Regional and had 102 pairs in the first 0-750 B/C Strat, en route to our largest OC Regional ever!).
Although I am against this change, there is a lot of support SOF and a lot of thought has gone into it. I believe those in support – those with x's and o's and numbers spinning in their heads – are purists who will always be searching for a more perfect system. But masterpoints are the key to our success in bridge, and the current formula has stood the test of time. It's not only working great, but is tweaked often to keep up with our changing new events.
I'm not an actuary, barely know what the word means – I'm a simple tournament chairman concerned about our players. So if I chose to buy into their SOF concept I cannot see how it would be true unless each player (or pair) could remove themself from consideration and then compute the strength of the remaining field they are competing against. That way everybody would have their own confusing little SOF to play in. Now there's a layman concept.
Another landmine: our players pretty much understand the current masterpoint formula. Every time we tinker with it there is an uproar, and when something goes haywire the roar is louder. We're in the masterpoint-for-sale business and the market is currently very good – under this formula there are bargains to be had, and Americans do love a bargain.
I don't believe the masterpoint wheel is broken. I don't think we need to recreate it, nor fix it. Can we improve on it? Sure, why not? That's what our ACBL Board (MP Committee) is constantly doing – adjusting and tweaking to fit the times. It 'aint broke – just needs a little fresh paint and axle grease occasionally. I've discussed SOF in detail with both of our D22 head directors (who contributed to this column) trying to understand if there was any reason we wanted – or needed – a change. Their answer was no.