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Regina Duplicate Bridge Club
Player of the Year
June 1, 2010 - May 31, 2011
Last Updated - 09/05/10
This race is for all club members.
1. Nelson Sunshine 30.53
2. Dick Anderson 25.59
3. John Groves 25.16
4. Gil Lafreniere 23.24
5. Ilsa Krukoff 21.24
6. Cal McLeod 17.44
7. June Lind 16.55
8. Art D'Entremont 16.20
9. Rae Hart 15.52
10. Don Norman 14.21
August Player of the Month
Nelson Sunshine - 9.81
U100 Player of the Year
June 1, 2010 - May 31, 2011
This race is for all members
who started the year with
less than 100 masterpoints.
1. Don Norman 14.21
2. Sandy Bingaman 9.73
3. Barb Miller 6.94
4. Shirley Strohan 6.68
5. Ron Miller 6.02
6. Jim Rogers 4.80
7. Byron Seymour 4.59
8. Rae Lindsay 4.25
9. Buddy Lindsay 4.25
10. Nancy Welta 3.83
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For the past three years I have been taking the information
available on the internet from the Game Results section of the RDBC web
site and entering it into spreadsheets. During that time I have
been constantly refining my spreadsheets and statistical categories in
an attempt to generate information that is interesting and accurate in
measuring the skill level of players at the RDBC. This portion of
the web site chronicles the evolution of the statistics as well as
giving you my reasons for creating and believing in some of the
categories.
So, back in 2006, I started with the idea of using Average % score as
the best statistic to compare bridge players. I quickly soured on
this idea though for a number of reasons. Consider a game in
which three pairs score 60% or higher (this happened on 22 separate
occasions in 2006). Then consider a game in which the winning
score is less than 60% (32% of the winning scores in 2006 were less
than 60%). Should the third place finisher in one game be
rewarded more than the first place finisher in another game? I
said no because duplicate bridge is about comparing your results to the
results of other people playing the same cards. So if on one
particular day you played your cards better than everyone else then you
should get a fixed reward for that regardless of your % score.
Or, to
put it succinctly, “A win is a win.”
Besides this main reason, also consider that I am trying to compare
partnerships that have played 70 games in one year with those that have
played 10. If a 10 game partnership happens to record a 75% game
(a big score like this requires a fair amount of luck as well as skill)
then their average % score will be much higher than it probably should
be. However, if each win counts for the same amount then this
problem disappears.
So, I came up with the idea for a category that I call Score.
Essentially, Score is an approximate measurement of how many pairs you
beat during a round. Imagine a game in which there are 11 pairs
participating. If you play in this game and your % score is
higher than that of 9 of the other pairs (i.e. you finished second)
then you are awarded a Score of 0.90 ((Pairs - Rank) / (Pairs – 1) so
11 - 2 / 11 – 1 = 9/10 = 0.90). In this 11 pair game the Scores
would be as follows: first = 1.0, second = 0.90, third = 0.80, fourth =
0.70, fifth = 0.60, sixth = 0.50, seventh = 0.40, eighth = 0.30 ninth =
0.20, tenth = 0.10 and last = 0.00).
Score is only an approximate measurement of how many pairs you beat in
a round. Consider a game that only has 6 pairs
participating. In this game the Scores would be as follows: first
= 1.0, second = 0.80, third = 0.60, fourth = 0.40, fifth = 0.20, sixth
= 0.00. Then consider a game that has 25 pairs
participating. In this game the Scores would be as follows: first
= 1.000, second = 0.958, third = 0.912, fourth = 0.875, fifth = 0.833,
sixth = 0.792... 23rd = 0.083, 24th = 0.041 and last = 0.00. As
you can see, I am following the principle that a win is a win and a
last is a last but finishing second or third in a big field gets you a
much higher Score than finishing second or third in a small
field. Does my method generate the most accurate Score
possible? I don't know but the simplicity of the method appeals
to me and it requires less work to calculate so I have been using it.
After I came up with Score I started to wonder just what a win
was? When there is a low number of tables and a Howell movement
(every pair plays every other pair) then there is one obvious
winner. But what about a game where a Mitchell movement takes
place and you stay sitting North/South all night. Should the
highest % N/S score be awarded second or third place overall if there
are one or two higher E/W percentages? Consider an imaginary game
in which the 10 best pairs in the club sit N/S while the 10 worst pairs
in the club sit E/W. Assume that the highest score N/S is 58%
while there are 3 scores E/W higher than 60%. Should the N/S
winner be ranked fourth out of 20 pairs and earn a score of 0.842 or
should
they be ranked first and earn a score of 1.000? I decided to
award one first place Score to the winner of the N/S side and one first
place Score to the E/W winner. This means that in a one section
Mitchell movement
there are 2 separate winners while in a two section Mitchell movement
there
are 4 separate winners.
Of course, my imaginary example above raised an interesting
question. Should the winner of the difficult N/S section get the
same Score as the winner of the easier E/W section? I decided
that the answer was no and I set out to develop a way to rate the
difficulty of winning any particular bridge game. Eventually, I
ended up with a new category called Handicap Score (H.Score) but the
explanation for how I calculate it is not an easy one.
First, I calculate an average Score (the average of the Scores you
earned in each game you played during the entire year) for each player
in the bridge club. I use these average Scores to assign each
player in the club a number from 1 (highest Score) to 200 (lowest
Score). I then take the results form each bridge game and replace
everyone's name
with their number. The sum of the numbers for one game determines
the difficulty rating of each particular game (a lower sum is
considered more difficult than a higher sum). Next I take all of
these sums and use them to determine a difficulty rating for each game
(in 2007 the most difficult game played was rated 1.60 and the easiest
game played was rated 0.31). Then I multiply the difficulty
rating (H.Cap) by the Score to determine the H.Score for each player
and in each game played in the club. As you probably had trouble
following that explanation, please consider the table below.
2007 Average Difficulty levels for all games played at the club
Monday Afternoon = 0.75
Monday Evening = 0.35
Tuesday Afternoon = 0.40
Tuesday Evening = 0.95
Wednesday Evening North or East players = 0.60
Wednesday Evening North or East players = 0.45
Thursday Evening = 1.00
Friday Afternoon = 0.80
Friday Evening = 0.40
Essentially, I (or the statistics themselves) am saying that it tends
to be twice as hard to win on Friday Afternoon as it is to win on
Friday Evening so my system awards the Friday Afternoon winner twice as
many points as the Friday Evening winner. Now, at the time I was
developing these difficulty ratings, I was playing in all of the games
and just from personal experience I can say that the relative
difference between the difficulty ratings shown above feels right to
me. This leads me to believe that the math I am using to
calculate them is also fairly accurate.
So there you have it. In my 3 years of playing around with these
statistics, H.Score is the best single measure I can come up with for
how good a bridge player or partnership you are. Fortunately, I
don't expect you to agree with me on this and in fact there are days
when I don't agree with myself on this. So I am including a
number of different statistical categories in the tables of my results
sections. When they appear on your screen the players or pairs
will be ranked from first to last based on H.Score but you can easily
click on the headings of any of the other columns and the table will
rerank itself based on that category.
Brief explanations about each of the other
categories.
H.CAP
If you were to add up all the difficulty ratings for all the games you
played during the year and then divide that sum by the total number of
games you played during the year then you would have your Average
handicap (H.CAP) which is the number you see here.
G
This is the total number of games you played during the year.
Note that if you are looking at the 2008 Tuesday Evening Pairs results
(for instance) then this is the total number of games that you and your
partner played (counting only Tuesday Evening games) in 2008. If
you are looking at the 2008 Tuesday Evening Individual results then
this is the total number of games that you played (counting only
Tuesday Evening games) in 2008. In most cases these are different
numbers.
RANK
If you were to add up all the finishes (first = 1, second = 2 third =
3...) for all the games you played during the year and then divide that
sum by the total number of games you played during the year then you
would have your Average finish (RANK) which is the number you see here.
AV.%
If you were to add up all your % scores for all the games you played
during the year and then divide that sum by the total number of games
you played during the year then you would have your Average percentage
(AV.%) which is the number you see here.
AV.PTS
If you were to add up all the master points you earned in all the games
you played during the year and then divide that sum by the total number
of games you played during the year then you would have your Average
points (AV.PTS) which is the number you see here.
T.PTS
If you were to add up all the master points you earned in all the games
you played during the year then you would have your Total points
(T.PTS) which is the number you see here.
%.PTS
Let's say you play in a bridge game and the first place finisher earns
1.00 master points while second earns 0.70 points and third earns
0.50. In this game the first place finisher has earned 100% of
the master points available to her while the second place finisher has
earned 70% of the available master points and the third place finisher
has earned 50% of the points available. I am calling this total
your percentage points for that game. So, if you were to add up
all the percentage point totals you earned in all the games you played
during the year and then divide that sum by the total number of games
you played during the year then you would have your Average percentage
points (%.PTS) which is the number you see here.
SCORE
If you were to add up all the Scores you earned in all the games you
played during the year and then divide that sum by the total number of
games you played during the year then you would have your Average score
(SCORE) which is the number you see here.
H.SCORE
If you were to add up all the H.Scores you earned in all the games you
played during the year and then divide that sum by the total number of
games you played during the year then you would have your Average
H.score (H.SCORE) which is the number you see here.
Rating
This is the total number of master points held by the individual player
or the total number of master points held by the partnership. In
case you were unaware of it, these master point totals are updated
every January and they are available for all to see on the internet at
(http://www.wasumi.org/Masterpoint%20Races/2008SaskatchewanMasterpointHolders.htm)
WINS
If you were to add up all the first place finishes you earned in all
the games you played during the year then you would have your total
wins (WINS) which is the number you see here.
WIN%
If you were to add up all the first place finishes you earned in all
the games you played during the year and then divide that sum by the
total number of games you played during the year then you would have
your winning percentage (WIN%) which is the number you see here.
G<50%
I created this category (as well as the next two) in an attempt to
measure consistency at the bridge table. As all of you know,
there are days at bridge when you can't do anything wrong and you end
up with an easy 60% and there are days when the opponents can't do
anything wrong and you have to struggle to stay out of the 40's.
I believe that you can identify the best bridge players by seeing how
well they do when nothing is working for them. So, if you were to
add up the number of games during the year that you scored 49.99% or
lower and then divide that sum by the total number of games you played
during the year then you would know the percentage of times you scored
less than
50% in the year (G<50%) which is the number you see here. In
this case, a score of 0 means that all of your games were 50.00% or
higher.
G>60%
If you were to add up the number of games during the year that you
scored 60.00% or higher and then divide that sum by the total number of
games you played during the year then you would know the percentage of
times you
scored higher than 60% in the year (G>60%) which is the number you
see here. In this case, a score of 0 means that all of your games
were lower than 60.00%.
+/-
If you take your G>60% score and subtract your G<50% score then
you will be left with the number that you see here. In theory,
the possible scores range from +100 (all your games were higher than
60%) to -100 (all your games were lower than 50%) but in practice if
you can score above 0 then you had a very good year.
$/PT
If you were to add up all the money that you spent on bridge entry fees
during the year and then divide that sum by the total number of master
points that you earned during the year then you would know how much
money it cost you to earn each of your master points ($/PT) which is
the number you see here.
So there you have it. That is a complete list of all the
statistical categories that I think you will find interesting.
Over the past three years I have been adding and deleting many
different categories. If there is a new category you would like
to see or an existing category you think I should modify then please
write me at jlarrivee@hotmail.com and let me know. My current
goal is to discover the perfect system for ranking bridge players and
partnerships but I
know that I am not there yet so any help you can offer would be much
appreciated.
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