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bixby, on 2013-November-15, 11:10, said:
The latest trend is to run games for those with up to 10,000 MPs simultaneously with the open events at National tournaments. I suppose this makes people who like to play against their peers happy but I think it's bad for those of us who like to take advantage of the unique opportunity that bridge presents to play against top-flight players. It means that you have to be prepared to face very stiff competition. It's one thing to play in an open event with everybody; it's another thing to play in an open event where almost everybody has more than 10,000 MPs because the under-10,000s have the option of playing in a separate event.
I think the 0-10K and 0-5K events were created for two reasons:
1) It gives the "flight A but not champion-level" players an opportunity to have a chance in a national event, and get some Platinum points. Of course, you could argue that awarding Platinum points for a limited event makes no sense, but that's not how ACBL thinks about masterpoints.
2) It makes winning the concurrent open event more meaningful, since the winners had to make it through a much tougher field. I suspect many of the players at this level appreciate not having to play against as many fish as they used to.
