Author Topic: INTRO  (Read 5643 times)

Curls77

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INTRO
« on: July 12, 2019, 02:26:07 PM »
I recently (two years ago) started subscribing to The Bridge World, the world's leading bridge magazine.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of my subscription is the monthly MASTER SOLVERS CLUB. The Bridge World's MASTER SOLVERS CLUB is the world's longest-running and most popular bridge feature. New problems in bidding and sometimes play are presented each month. The great thing about the MASTER SOLVERS CLUB is that it does not require a subscription to enter. The contest is free and is open to all.

Each month there are eight new problems that require careful consideration. Usually they are extremely difficult bidding problems and you, the bidder, are asked to find the best, most descriptive bid. The highest scoring bid is very often doubling, cue-bidding, or bidding a three card suit.

Recently, I started a back-and-forth e-mail exchange of MSC ideas with two other IAC members. While I have done well on my own, twice making the "Honor Roll," I find the "discussion" stimulating. By starting this thread, I thought we might expand the "discussion" to others who might also enjoy the difficulty of the problems, but especially the discussion!

The link to the MSC problems is here:  https://www.bridgeworld.com/indexphp.php?page=/pages/msc/mastersolversmainpage.html

The deadline for replies is the 10th of each month at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Unfortunately, that is in just a few hours, so we will not see much participation due to time constraints. But maybe going forward we could generate a monthly discussion?

P.S. The reason I put this post in the 2/1 folder is that the MSC uses Bridge World Standard, a basic 2/1 system often used as a beginning template of agreements by experts. On most problems, the system used does not necessarily come into play. The problems are generally bidding judgement problems with more than one (sometimes several) viable answer.

P.P.S. I have not yet submitted my July answers, but I intend to do so later tonight. I'll post my thoughts on this month's problems soon.

jcreech

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Re: INTRO
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2019, 11:08:11 AM »
As suggested by Sanya, the Monster Points for BW MSC will be as follows:
20 to winner, 15 and 10 for best scored 3 posters, 1 for all rest that participated. And 10 MP bonus to who makes Honor Roll.


Ties will receive the highest MP for the earned placement.  For example, if two tie for first, both will receive 20 MP, and third place 10 MP.  A maximum of three places (plus ties) will be awarded - effective for the October contest.

For partnerships to be considered for the partnership bonus, each member will need to identify the other member of their partnership.  The partnership bonus will only be awarded once a month, so the partnership with greatest agreement for an individual will receive the bonus.  For example, if I declare three partnerships, and I agree 80% with A, 75% with B and 50% with C, A and I will each receive 10 MP for that agreement, B will also receive 10 MP for our agreement, and C will not receive any MP from our agreement, but might still be eligible with another declared partnership.

Anyone wishing to participate anonymously may send their submissions to Masse24 or jcreech.  Their submissions will be posted without identifying the participant, but will be eligible for awards.

If Oliver makes an adjustment to the scores to allow larger awards, we will use those values, but until that occurs, awards will appear as multiple 5's with a notation of the reason for the award.


Note:  partnership bonus is no longer available due to lack of participation beginning with the April 2020 problem set
« Last Edit: February 11, 2020, 09:32:01 PM by jcreech »
A stairway to nowhere is better than no stairway at all.  -Kehlog Albran

kenberg

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Re: INTRO
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2019, 12:07:14 PM »
I have been thinking a bit about this new format. We will need a September thread and since Todd has been the  originator we could keep that approach  with Todd, each month, starting the thread. I always intend to post my thoughts earlier than I do, and others might wish to as well, so maybe soon after BWS posts the score for one moth and the problems for the following month, Todd could start the thread for the new month. I don't mind doing it, anyone could do it, I was just thinking that we could standardize the procedure.

And then this got me to thinking about the purpose.  I hope we continue to share our thoughts on the problems, and I hope this takes precedence over any competition for masterpoints. At a club game I would not chat with the other S players before selecting my bid, here we do exactly that, and I hope we continue in that way. Masterpoints are fine, but they should not have priority.

Anyway, Todd? Is that ok? If not I will probably start the September thread sometime soon. Or someone will. I have not yet thought about the problems but I will try to get to them soon.

Ken

jcreech

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Re: INTRO
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2019, 11:46:17 AM »
There have been questions on how to participate.  There are two parts to the process.

First, you have to be a registered member of IAC.  To do that, the prerequisite is that you belong to Bridge Base Online (BBO).  Both organizations are free to join.

To join BBO, go to https://www.bridgebase.com/client/currelease6/bbo.php and sign up.  You will need your BBO identity to join IAC.  However, you will also need to develop a history of play with other players before you will be allowed to join IAC.

To join IAC, you begin by going to the home page (iac.pigpen.org.uk) and look for a pull down at the top center of the page the says "Welcome".  "Register" will be one of the pull down options; click on that, fill out the form, and submit.  You will be contacted about your membership status.  Once you become a member, you will be allowed to sign in and participate in most of the forums, including MSC.

Second, you will need to go to the Bridge World site (https://www.bridgeworld.com/indexphp.php?page=/pages/msc/mastersolversmainpage.html), on the left side of the page, there is a button to enter solutions.  Part of the submission process includes providing your email to Bridge World.  You have a choice between copying the page with a summary of your solutions or copying the same information from an email that will be sent to you by Bridge World.  To submit to the forum, you will hit reply for the month that you are submitting answers, paste in your answers, then click on "Post".  To submit anonymously, you will need to paste the same information into a message sent to either me (jcreech) or Todd (Masse24).  We will compile the information so that your choices are known, without identifying made the submission. 
A stairway to nowhere is better than no stairway at all.  -Kehlog Albran

jcreech

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Re: INTRO
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2020, 12:27:46 PM »
From the March 2020 thread

There are two ways of entering answers to the MSC problems. 

The first is formal, by posting your answers on the Bride World website and receiving a receipt by email oy your selections.  We regard those as "written in stone"  because you have taken the extra step of joining the international poll of responses to the series of problems.  Those results are sent to use either by posting them publicly on the forum or privately by sending to either Masse23 or jcreech.

The other is informal.  You only post your answers to the forum on IAC.  Those answers may be subject to a change of heart.  We don't close these responses as final until you can no longer submit answers formally through Bridge World.

If IAC solvers have noticed, a number of us who go through the formal process, also post preliminary thoughts, and if you compare the initial thoughts to the final formal submission, we have often changed at least one answer, if not more.  Sometimes our formal submission is very close to the 10 Eastern deadline because we are still mulling over some problem until we are afraid the poll will close without our votes.

There is no reason to not give the informal voters the same benefit of preliminary vs. final selections as the formal players receive.
A stairway to nowhere is better than no stairway at all.  -Kehlog Albran