[awm]

We've been periodically running bridge tournaments at my company. The problem is that people are spread all over the world and have very different schedules. The last few times we have run team matches but the scheduling has been very difficult. We are not that interested in a "robot individual" format and would rather run pairs or teams; however we are willing to assume people are trustworthy and would not cheat.

Anyone have suggestions to get around our match scheduling issues?

[gordontd]

awm, on 2017-July-11, 02:37, said:

We've been periodically running bridge tournaments at my company. The problem is that people are spread all over the world and have very different schedules. The last few times we have run team matches but the scheduling has been very difficult. We are not that interested in a "robot individual" format and would rather run pairs or teams; however we are willing to assume people are trustworthy and would not cheat.

Anyone have suggestions to get around our match scheduling issues?

Knockout teams, so you only have to arrange two tables to play at the same time as each other.

[awm]

gordontd, on 2017-July-11, 06:34, said:

Knockout teams, so you only have to arrange two tables to play at the same time as each other.

Sorry if I was unclear; we have been running it as a round robin series of head to head matches, so only two tables have to play at a time. This has unfortunately proven very difficult to schedule, as teams are based in very different time zones and some players have additional time or day constraints.

A straight KO is not that desirable because half the teams would only play one match. One thing we're considering is breaking into two brackets based on time of day preference, but with only 8-10 teams it's not clear how well that will work.

[ggwhiz]

awm, on 2017-July-11, 07:57, said:

One thing we're considering is breaking into two brackets based on time of day preference, but with only 8-10 teams it's not clear how well that will work.

I can't think of anything better. Conceivably you qualify for maybe a semi and final KO and only have one awkward match to deal with. Flip a coin or base it on cumulative score to determine who has to play at 3 AM and play it on a weekend or better yet, get the company to give them a day off. Maybe a double round robin within each group or whatever gives everyone enough playing time.

A transnational type of format with each team having 4 players that can play in each time zone would work too but you likely don't have enough players without recruiting another company or 3.

[shyams]

I can't vouch for the accuracy of my recollection. I also don't know how it was done when it happened.... but here goes!

Many years ago --- during the days access thru BBO software, not web -- there was a match between American and Australian stars on BBO. One table played the boards at one time, then logged out. The other table logged in and played their boards many hours later. In the period when neither table was in play, one could see two tables with 8 red IDs.

I vaguely remember that Paul Marston (the Moscito guy) was one of the stars who played in this match.