i didn't mean for all the IAC players to be on the ame team. Let me illustrate with a hand, board 9, from the USBC
http://usbf.org/docs/vugraphs/USBC2017/html/USBC2017_F_1_s1.htm#bd9Let's say you and I are at the live table, sitting NS, playing against yleexottee and whiterabbt as EW.
The open room result is at the other table.
Our partners would be the EW pair, Diamond/Platnick. Joe and Anne are partnered with Nickel/Katz.
We play the boards at the IAC table. At the other table, Nickel/Katz, blast their hides, have bid and made 6H.
If we bid and make 6H, it's a push. If we are in 4H making 6, Anne and Joe get 11 imps. At the actual event, it was 4H making 6 at the other table so there was an 11 imp swing, but that part of the history is irrelevant to us. We are simply the replacement team here, playing in the closed room aganist whatever happens in the open room.
So that's the plan, if it can be done. I have no idea whether we could set a match where one table would play live, and then imped against a hand from the files.
Yes, it is a lot like what hoki does but there are some differences. In actual play, Hampson and Greco (or Hansel and Gretel as I like to think of them) stopped in 4H. Now it is safe to say that they will not be calling me to ask my advice. But we have a hand where one very good pair reached 6H, the other very good pair did not, and we can draw whatever conclusions we wish.
Here it seems to me that the discussion is apt to be pretty straightforward. A trump trick must be lost. If we pick up the
Q we make 6, if we lose to the
Q we go down. This would be a hand where there is no reason for NS to fret about not reaching 6
. One could look at the play and see if there were clues as to how to play the spades, but basically I would say that 6
is about a fifty percent shot. No reason to apologize for not being in it.
Other hands will no doubt be more subtle.
So yes, it is a lot like what hoki does, but there is a difference that appeals to me, namely that my role is lessened. The hand is there as it was actually bid and played at the event, the IAC players see what actually happened, and at the highest level of play.
There was a hand I kibbed the other day where a pair reached a no-play 4
. No-play double dummy that is. But the defense, good players, did not beat it. Should they have? Well, they didn't. I may put it up to illustrate something or other. I don't have it handy right now.
Anyway, that's what I have in mind. If it can be done.