Judy Kay-Wolff

“RANDOM” DRAWS

This week I was reminded of Barry Crane’s solution to bearing the brunt of being at the mercy of the directors’ match-ups for Swiss Team pairings. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to come up with a master plan. Barry would simply pull his chair up to the Directors Table and observe how the pairings were decided — especially when team standings were bunched and the victory points were close to indistinguishable. Amazing how quickly the match-ups became more equitable.

I attended a recent tournament where the knockout bracket match-ups were advertised as ‘random.’ And — that may be indeed what happened. However, if that is the policy and format decided upon by those in command, I would like to introduce a new concept! Rather than await your team’s table assignments being posted on the wall sheet – there should be no objection if the participants watch as the directors draw the team numbers from the hat. I promise you no rabbit will appear!


1 Comment

Danny KleinmanOctober 1st, 2008 at 11:53 am

Swiss Team Pairings, beyond Round 1 (or beyond Rounds 1 and 2) can be done by an algorithm (probably one that has already been developed) to ensure that no director discretion is involved. If no such algorithm has been developed, there are mathematicians capable of developing one in the world of bridge. I could develop one, but I am sure that there are others whose math is less rusty than mine and who could do a better job.