MANDURAH BRIDGE CLUB

Nominations for postitions on the Management Committee that will be elected at the Annual General Meeting on May 23rd have now closed. The following nominations have been received. President - Jim McNamara     Vice President - Wal Aldridge    Treasurer - Jenny McNamara     Secretary - Vivienne Doonar  Bridge Convener - Neville Walker    Master Points & Membership Secretary - Gerald Merven    Assistant Treasurer - Merle ProudfootCommittee - Wendy Blakely - Billie Friedlander - Joe Taylor

Our current Secretary, Val Bell, will be retiring after this year's Annual General Meeting. Val has given 3 years wonderful service to our members and her efficiency, friendliness and willingness to help will be missed.

Members withan administrative background with sound word processing skills would make ideal candidates for the position. If you fit this description why not give Val a call -  she will be only too happy to give you a run down on what is involved in this crucial role.

Doug Hardman will be running another Beginners' Lesson Series commencing Wednesday morning, May 2nd at 9 am. Doug will be teaching the Standard American system.

The cost of the 8 week series is only $75 and this includes all lesson materials and temporary club membership for 6 months.

Call Doug on 0409 631 450 to register.

Following representations made to the committee by several members it has been decided to trial this scoring method during May for our Monday afternoon pairs sessions.

Your score on any particular board will be compared to a 'datum', established by discarding the top and bottom scores achieved across the field on the board, and averaging the remaining scores. The difference between your score and the datum is converted to IMPs plus or minus according to the normal scale.

Congratulations to Alan Wardroper, Tom Stack and Phil & Kathy Power who successfully defended their title as Club Teams Champions at this year's event today.Runners up were Jan Branch, Wendy Hanson, Sandy Anderson & Denise Sampson. 

This is a reminder that there will be no Bridge session on Good Friday.

Normal sessions will apply on Easter Saturday and Easter Monday.

Congratultions to Doug & Vera Hardman who have won this year's event. Close runners up were Jean McLarty & Jenny Maley.

The discussion as to whether certain sessions should be scored in Matchpoints or in IMPS keeps coming up, and I'd like to invite members to share their thoughts by commenting on this story.

The two most commonly used scoring systems in bridge are called Matchpoints and IMPS. Regular club sessions are generally scored at Matchpoints, whereas Teams Events and Swiss Pairs events are scroed in IMPS. Here's a more detailed explanation of both: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duplicate_bridge#Scoring

The two types of scoring lead to very different playing styles. In Matchpoints, a more reckless style is generally advantageous, because bad scores are not "carried over" to the next board. This causes expert players to consider Matchpoint scoring as a form of gambling, where players in a field keep punting contracts that should not be bid, thereby skewing the overall results.

The playing style in IMPS rewards players who solidly bid and make their games, but does not unnecessarily punish players for failing to make an inconsequential overtrick. It is for this very reason that all major competitions are played at IMPS.

The normal style for scoring a pairs competition at IMPS is to keep seating the pairs in accordance with their scores, so that the high scoring players play against each other. This creates fairness in the way that all players play against others of similar ability. The other way to score a pairs field at IMPS is to simply play it the same way as a Matchpoint session, but calculate IMPS and not Matchpoints at the end of the session. This is known as Butler Scoring.

As for congresses, I can certainly say that many people go to congresses for the enjoyment of playing at IMPS, rather than the boring old Matchpoint sessions they get at their clubs, which most congress players consider to be a complex form of the game of Bingo. Whether or not we have Butler sessions or even Swiss Pairs sessions at the club in the future, it is most certainly true that the IMPS sessions is what draws visitors to congresses. Our congress should focus on what our visitors want, and not what our club players like, in my view.

Lastly, I'd like to make the point that our players have very little experience in IMP play, which puts us at a disadvantage when we go out and play in congresses. The opponents come from all over, especially clubs like WABC and Nedlands, and are experienced IMP players because their clubs offer them the opportunity to practice. Isn't it time we did the same for our players at least once a week? It shouldn't matter to the social players either way, and will certainly be a boon for the competitive players.

Hugh Wichmann