[dickiegera]

Don't know where to place this question
however here it is

Today only 5 pairs showed to the local unit game.
Director said that 3 tables were needed. I told her that 2 and 1/2 were enough if we had a sit out.

She said no and said we needed another pair.

Could we have played with a 5 board sit out?

Thank you

[ahydra]

Yes of course - though a horrible long wait for the sitout

To avoid this, the TD might have tried splitting each round and doing the movement twice. So first round you would play 3 boards (only using the first 3 boards of each set), and after 5 rounds you do the whole movement again but with 2 board rounds (boards 4 and 5 of each set).

ahydra

[pran]

dickiegera, on 2012-February-24, 14:39, said:

Don't know where to place this question
however here it is

Today only 5 pairs showed to the local unit game.
Director said that 3 tables were needed. I told her that 2 and 1/2 were enough if we had a sit out.

She said no and said we needed another pair.

Could we have played with a 5 board sit out?

Thank you

Of course you could.
But as each board would be played at two tables only it means that normal MP scoring for pairs will be exactly the same as BAM scoring for teams.

To have a reasonable outcome of the game you should consider scoring each board in IMPs.

And for the schedule you should (as ahydra suggests) play several short rounds so that each pair will sit out only say two boards at the time.

[blackshoe]

I used to run a small game. If we had fewer than four tables, we didn't make enough to pay the rent*, much less pay for the food we put out. As the TD, I got to split whatever was left, usually nothing, with the woman who did the shopping. The owner started running it again herself, but that lasted only two months or so. Now the game is dead.

Anyway, the point is that there may be other reasons than ACBL regulations (which specify a minimum of 2 1/2 tables) for setting a minimum number of tables.

*We had a good arrangement with our host — we only had to pay the rent if we actually held a game.

[bluejak]

Once upon a time I played at Shotton BC and there were three tables. Someone produced some Howell cards with a movement I did not know. It involved ten rounds, playing everyone twice, and the same movement worked for 24, 25 or 26 boards. No doubt someone knows it, and I think sitting out twice is better than a five-board sitout.

[pran]

bluejak, on 2012-February-25, 14:37, said:

Once upon a time I played at Shotton BC and there were three tables. Someone produced some Howell cards with a movement I did not know. It involved ten rounds, playing everyone twice, and the same movement worked for 24, 25 or 26 boards. No doubt someone knows it, and I think sitting out twice is better than a five-board sitout.

Sure such Howell movement cards exist although I doubt that they are useful for 24 or 26 boards as alternatives to 25 boards (which is the "standard"). Typically the movement includes effectively two separate movements in one for balancing purposes (The "set" of five boards to be played at one table in a round consists of two separate sets, one with two boards and one with three boards, and the same two subsets are not played "together" in a round at any of the other two tables, however the second subset can also be played separately during a subsequent schedule.

[bluejak]

Why are they not useful for 24 or 26 boards?

[pran]

bluejak, on 2012-February-25, 18:49, said:

Why are they not useful for 24 or 26 boards?

Because these numbers are not divisible by 5.

There is of course no problem skipping or adding a board in the round whenever board 25 is to be played just as one can skip or add a board in a specific round in any regular schedule, but would that be useful for any purpose? The effect will be that two pairs at a time will have a round in which they must play either one board less or one board more than the other pairs.

[RMB1]

The 24 and 26 board movements play 4 rounds of 5 boards and then in the last round all tables play 4 or 6 boards.

[mr1303]

Welcome to University bridge, where 2 1/2 table movements are standard

[Quartic]

mr1303, on 2012-February-26, 05:15, said:

Welcome to University bridge, where 2 1/2 table movements are standard

That's an optimistic point of view - when I was at uni, we were lucky to have 2 full tables.

[bluejak]

pran, on 2012-February-26, 01:39, said:

Because these numbers are not divisible by 5.

There is of course no problem skipping or adding a board in the round whenever board 25 is to be played just as one can skip or add a board in a specific round in any regular schedule, but would that be useful for any purpose? The effect will be that two pairs at a time will have a round in which they must play either one board less or one board more than the other pairs.

Of course they are not divisible by 5.

The movement is designed to play 10 rounds of 2 or 3 boards each. Just because you do not know it does not mean it does not exist, and it is designed for 24, 25 or 26 boards.

No, Robin, I know the standard 3 table movement can play a longer or shorter last round, but that is not what I cam talking about: it is a specific 10 round movement that I have played at Shotton BC, and being 10 rounds is better for sitting out.

[gordontd]

bluejak, on 2012-February-26, 08:39, said:

Of course they are not divisible by 5.

The movement is designed to play 10 rounds of 2 or 3 boards each. Just because you do not know it does not mean it does not exist, and it is designed for 24, 25 or 26 boards.

No, Robin, I know the standard 3 table movement can play a longer or shorter last round, but that is not what I cam talking about: it is a specific 10 round movement that I have played at Shotton BC, and being 10 rounds is better for sitting out.

It's listed in Manning. It's a variation on the 30 board movement with some board-sets having two boards and others having three boards.

[bluejak]

Thanks. I shall go and look for my Manning.

[RMB1]

bluejak, on 2012-February-26, 08:39, said:

No, Robin, I know the standard 3 table movement can play a longer or shorter last round, but that is not what I cam talking about: it is a specific 10 round movement that I have played at Shotton BC, and being 10 rounds is better for sitting out.

OK. Let me rephrase my previous response:

There are 10 rounds of 2 or 3 boards.
Each pair plays 5 (=2+3) boards against 4 of the other pairs,
and in the 24 board movement plays 4(=2+2) boards against the fifth pair;
and in the 26 board movement plays 6(=3+3) boards against the fifth pair.

[Oof Arted]

bluejak, on 2012-February-25, 14:37, said:

Once upon a time I played at Shotton BC and there were three tables. Someone produced some Howell cards with a movement I did not know. It involved ten rounds, playing everyone twice, and the same movement worked for 24, 25 or 26 boards. No doubt someone knows it, and I think sitting out twice is better than a five-board sitout.

you could always ring our 'JIM'

[Siegmund]

We had quite a lot of 2 1/2 table games when I was living in Alaska. (One of our two evening games a week, all winter long.)

Unless a known very slow pair was present, we usually played 30 boards rather than 25. We deliberately kept it as a 5-round game so that total playing time would be less than if we did a twice-around. We almost always finished 30 boards in less time than it took to play 28 on the nights we had 4 tables. A room adjacent to the playing area had a cribbage board, jigsaw puzzles, and a well-stocked library, which the sitout pair frequently used if they didn't care to watch another table.

Yes, the club lost money on a 2 1/2 table game. We considered it our obligation to take the loss, rather than force our ten best customers to lose a gallon of gas and an evening of bridge. (Unless we knew far enough in advance that we could phone people and tell them not to come.)

In my spare time, I did investigate the balance of the 2 1/2 table game, and we tried to arrange it so the two strongest pairs in the room did not have mutually beneficial pair numbers. The balance would have been better if we had made pair 6 the phantom, too, but that would have caused an outcry. We experimented with IMP scoring but some of the newer people were confused by it and a couple of players (including me) objected to having the game not scored in the way it was advertised, and returned to BAM within a year.

The afternoon game played only 20 boards, and they used the alternate no-relay 3-table howell.

[bluejak]

Oof Arted, on 2012-March-07, 14:17, said:

you could always ring our 'JIM'

At the Manchester Congress, while I was directing, there was a novice section which I was not responsible for. Unfortunately the lady running it decided to play a full movement, so she arranged a Hesitation Mitchell, but forgot the relay boards [I think you call that a bye-stand in North America - the boards not in play each round].

Halfway through, she asks for help. I try to think of something, and another EBU TD who happened to be playing tries, but we have no really sensible solution, apart from do something so they keep playing.

Anyway, he mentioned what had happened to Jim, whom he saw at his local event. Next day Jim rang him up and told him he had the solution, which works perfectly. "Quite interesting it was," said Jim, "it only took me five and a half hours to solve."

So if anyone is running a 7 table 8 round Hesitation Mitchell, and forgets the Relay/Bye-stand, ask Phil Godfrey: Jim wrote it all out and posted it to him.

[blackshoe]

I would be interested in seeing in posted here.

[pran]

I don't know if this is the same "problem" as described in a Norwegian guide for Directors (1973), but here goes:

Mitchell with an even number of tables:
[.....]
Should you happen to have forgotten the extra "blind" table required between the two tables in the middle of the row of tables then do not despair. When players start complaining that they have played these boards before then just ask all the EW pairs to make an extra move while all boards remain at their present tables.