[mycroft]

Strong players don't care about the weak players one way or the other - that's true. At least many of them don't.

They do love the free food and the reasonable session fees and the hotel discounts that having a 1500 table week holds over a 500 table week.

The ones that aren't "many" are the ones that know that keeping the weak players around to beat up means they get to keep all of that - or the tournament at all.

[pilowsky]

So, something very odd happened to me a moment ago. I played in another ACBL tournament and I came in 7th. And I got masterpoints! (can't complain about that).
Here's what it said at the end of board 12.

"But Mr Wang, wait a minute that makes no sense!" I expostulated.
I came in 7th out of 9 people that puts me (swift mental calculation) below the 30th percentile. "That's right", he said. "How did you work that out so quickly - you must be a very stable genius - or something". Or something my internal monologue agreed.
I can tell from your name that English isn't your first language. You see he explained, the word rank can have more than one meaning.

Oh, I said, a light beginning to dawn.
Yes, he said, it can mean rank as in 1st, 2nd or 3rd, or it could mean your score is just rank.

I see. Now I understand. English is a funny language.<br style="font-family: arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">