EBU SERVICES 4 : National grading schemes (Master Points and NGS).
This thread is for any thoughts on what this service comprises, what qualitative aspects of it are important, of how important this is across the whole spectrum of services. See the last item on the MISSION thread for context.
Comments
I really like the NGS and checking MyEBU is just about the 1st thing I do the morning after playing bridge. So I would not want to see a change in this, but I would perhaps wish to see more promotion of this facility.
Does the EBU have data on people that login to their EBU account weekly, monthly etc and perhaps more importantly, those that don't login or have never logged in. Can a communication be sent out via snail mail? Perhaps a note to say "we have noticed that you have not logged into your account in the last 12 months. If you are not sure of your credentials, please email xxx@ebu.co.uk. Not sure of why you would login? Here's what we do..."
For some the NGS is a world-leading system, for others it is anathema. For some your NGS performance on a game gives you a better assessment of how well you did than you get from the “official” score. Is the grading concept underplayed or overplayed?
The Master Points scheme has been around for a long time, but stepping through the grades remains a valid and positive target for those new to the game. Have they served their time now that NGS is embedded, or should they be marketed more positively than they are today?
Seems a bit strange that we have a "world leading system" for some that has an Ace of spades "evolving". That means that they apparently haven't played over 1000 boards in the last three years. Similarly we have grand masters on the Master points scale that are 10 on the NGS scale.
What is the aspiring NGS grade 2 meant to make of that when they do well in their local club and rise to a 3 and get 10 Masterpoints? Many that have loads of points probably say that the master points are "meaningless to me why not give them to those that are up and coming".
We must remember that some good scores (that result in a good score at the end of the evening and give masterpoints and NGS increases) come not from out own brilliances but from foul ups by our opponents. Sometimes a good evening is as a result of meeting the right people at the right board(s). Similarly a bad evening is as a result of opponents underbidding and making when everyone else bids one more and goes off.
Yes it might all "level" out but are we just catering for (say) 25% of the bridge population for Master points and 20% of the same population for NGS. No one likes to go down but most don't really care about points or grade but just want a game of cards with a good social atmosphere, oh! and do well in their own eyes. As some say "50% ,that's a good score for us tonight".
Masterpoints help bring in funds and NGS is a reasonable system but if the whole bridge population don't feel as if they "own" them then they eventually become surplus to requirements.
Sorry but I have no suggestions to make but i do feel that this must be a subject that is discussed fully before making changes. Just another thought. If the NGS system is so good, why do we still need qualifiers to select teams nationally and at County level?
I think NGS is an excellent system but is not widely used or understood by many players, possibly due to a lack of promotion. There is a lot more that could be done with NGS to make it more interesting, relevant and fun to a wider audience, such as answering questions:
how has our partnership performed against another partnership over the last year ?
how much better at teams are we than pairs ?
are we better against stronger opponents than weaker ?
I'm not sure what is meant by this: the NGS pages are the most-used on the website.
If you are just playing for fun and to be social, acknowledging that you are not that good and are not trying to get better, why would you care? Similarly, if you are 70/80+ years old, played bridge for 50 years and whilst still perhaps a good player, no longer played for competitive reasons, why would you care?
So, I can see limited appeal, even though I am one of those that does care and checks NGS after every session. I managed to get to an A clubs once, currently a King and trying to get back up. I am also wired to find the statistics interesting.
I also see that there is even more potential for perhaps climbers or the NGS to be recognised... this could form part of the direct comms from EBU to players. Imagine on the 1st of Jan getting an email from EBU saying congratulations, your NGS last year rose from a 7 to an 8. Your partnership with Bill Gates rose from a 9 to a Jack! Here's to a successful Bridge year in 2021!
There would be possibilities to then direct to more advanced or 8mprover courses/documentation... maybe, here is a code for 10% of your 1st book order from the EBU store or an affiliate's store?
I too like the idea of being able to interogate the data as 501172 suggested.
I would also be interested to know how many unique visitors to the NGS pages you get, compared with the number of members. If my experience and club is typical, I would expect that unique IP address visitors for a month to represent around 10% of the membership? Though it is also worth considering that I access MyEBU and NGS pages via my phone, home computer. Occasionally from the Bridge Clubs computer and before I became self-employed, from mu works computer! So this comparison will not be 100%, it will give an idea of the level of reach and use of EBU services that NGS is generating.
To clarify, this is purely my impression based on conversations with other players and has no no basis in objective fact. However, I agree with Martin that we need data to base any decisions upon, such as:
If this data is not readily available at the moment, surely measures could be put in place to obtain it ?
I think that should say "less than 10 have owned up to caring about NGS"!
Not sure how you get those numbers, and I doubt that extrapolates to the whole population, but even so that seems pretty good to me! The EBU providing a service that 10% of its members "care about" is a big win - higher than a lot of the things we work hard to do.
But how do you define "care about" anyway? Does someone who checks their grade twice a year with an air of detached curiosity "care about" it? Does someone who has no interest in their own grade but recognises how great it is for improvers "care about" it?
I can't tell you what the absolute numbers are, but the NGS page (the top ranks and the search) is the third most popular page on the website, behind only the front page and My EBU. This is for unique visitors, not total views. The NGS page gets about 20% of the traffic that the front page gets, but a lot of people use My EBU to check their grade too, so that adds a lot to this.
The NGS is without question a huge success, and I'm not really sure why it's under scrutiny. If it's not considered popular enough then basically everything the EBU does is worthless and we should all just give up!
My figures come from being Chairman, teacher and director at my local club. From speaking to people about materpoints and NGS. Roughly speaking, 50% of the club membership is 70+, used to play multiple events per year chasing Masterpoints and now play sociably only and give no regard to NGS or masterpoints. 40% have only been playing for a year or 2 and they are focused on their performance in the club only. The wider bridging world is like an etherial thing, they know it is there but don't consider it for them.
I would define caring about NGS to be having an interest in their or anyone elses rating; extressed by looking at, asking about and talking about NGS.
Maybe 90% of the club are closet NGS fiends, checking NGS hourly, but I seriously doubt it.
When I run an annual handicap tournament at the club, I use NGS for the handicaps, print it out and put it on the wall. Inveriably I get asked what is this NGS 'thing' about? And related questions. So, unless they are closeted checkers of NGS and great actors, the estimate of 10% is about right, at least for my club.
Now, I am not convinced that a 10% uptake is anything to shout about. Particularly when you consider that members are a self selected group of interested (in bridge) people. To put that into perspective, Vodafone has 18 million subscribers in the UK out of a total population of 67 million - more than 25% take up, even including babies and children etc. 10% take up of a service from random people is brilliant, 10% takeup from a self-selected group is a passing grade, a 9 on the NGS equivalent :)
I wouldn't be so defensive about it either, this is from someone that loves NGS, it adds a lot to my enjoyment of the game. I am a big advocate. I am the convert.
As to WHY it is under scrutiny, I have two points to make...
1) everything should be under scrutiny, that is how one drives for improvement and avoids becoming stale. Similar points could have been made about Masterpoints previously, why question it, its popular etc...
2) this is a thread grenerated specifically for soliciting, "thoughts on what this service [NGS] comprises, what qualitative aspects of it are important, of how important this is across the whole spectrum of services."
If one doesn't want to know the answer, don't ask the question?
I haven't looked everywhere but it seems the objectives of the NGS introduction was to give a "trustworthy" current performance indicator and
"To enable new competitions to be constructed for use in Club, County and National competitions based on the current performance of individuals, through treating the measure ofcurrent performance as a “handicap”."
There may be other reasons for the introduction.
However, perhaps we need to do more "Handicapped" events (Club; County and National), both on-line and F2F (when we can do so). For instance the Tollemache is basically selected teams from the best of the Counties. We seem to be ignoring the fact that todays grade 7/8 could be a potential K/Ac in two years time. So if we make no encouragement for these players then we might as well forget about utilizing the NGS to its full potential. Playing against and with stronger players does improve a players game (even if it is only for a short period of time!!!).
Perhaps doing the above will improve the understanding of NGS throughout the bridge population and up our current "usage".
I agree Martins' comments at 3.40pm. "We" allowed Masterpoints to become stale and if we don't act soon NGS will become stale as well.
"Throat"
Forgive me if I misread your previous post, but weren't you claiming that it's not popular? I was simply telling you that you're wrong in that belief - it's actually one of the most popular things the EBU does. Of course if it can be improved we should look into that, but let's not start from the basis that it's somehow a failed initiative.
@michael perhaps you had not been following this thread? If not, it may be worth reading my first post, the first response in this thread to Patricks' opening request for comments?
I think it is popular with a particular kind of player... for many they don't care about it (at least in my experience). It seems from Particks' response that he thinks likewise: For some the NGS is a world-leading system, for others it is anathema.
So, in one way, I agree that it is popular... However, I don't think that it is popular in the general bridging population!
You say that I am wrong, and maybe rightly so, but you also seem to not have the figures, so it seems as much of an unsupported assertion as mine.
I think that if you were to look at the number of unique visitors to NGS and the NGS pages of MyEBU, you would find that there will be a number of players that access this information very regularly (perhaps after every event they play in, like me), some access it occasionally and a greater number of players that either never login or login once per year or less?
I just see a big amount of apathy with regards to competitive bridge, EBU etc and I would like to see that change.
The points I made regarding NGS and Masterpoints were not any kind of attack on those facilities, though I think that both could well be improved upon. I was making the wider point that competitive bridge has limited appeal, at least currently or under the current formats.
It seems to me that there are only a small number of people and contributors to this forum and we are here because we are very interested in bridge both now and into the future. A small number of of contributors in this thread have made similar points, maybe we are all wrong and you are right (I certainly hope so).
In reply to Patrick's question, the NGS seems incredibly important to some people and when planning our online events, we are forever tinkering with 6+ and 8+ and Jack and below etc in classifying our entry criteria. Whether it is a real reflection of playing ability is debatable and probably not that important given the many variations on which the data is gathered, but I certainly feel it is important to actively promote as a benefit. Having said that, I do agree with many of Martin's assertions that though highly visited, it is more likely the same small percent of people as regular visitors though I take Michaels point, that if that is only 10%, then it is still a huge success!. My only suggestion is that due to the entirely different nature of online bridge, the NGS obtained online(and Masterpoints) needs to be processed as entirely separate in an online NGS Table to differentiate from the F2F ratings.
I think the NGS system is excellent and is something which the EBU should be very proud of.
What allows it to exist is the data that is collected from all the matches, and it is this data which is potentially one of the EBUs biggest assets if only we had the ability to enable it to be used for members benefit.
NGS is a huge leap forward but I would like the EBU to take some time to consider where we may be able take it in the future. It feels like the tip of an iceberg of unexplored potential to me.
Patrick also asks about Master Points: whilst I enjoy collecting them I am also uneasy that their value is not tied to anything tangible.
I am confident that they reward some behaviours/outcomes that are consistent with EBU goals, such as:
However, they also reward other behaviours that are perhaps not so desirable, such as:
Fundamentally it seems like a bad system when a Master Point earned against weaker opponents have the same value as a Master Point awarded against the best opponents.
Surely it also nonsensical that a player's Master Point rank bears no relationship whatsoever to their current playing ability?
Some other countries (eg France) have master points that degrade annually, which makes them a better indicator of current ability than our system, but I don't think it would be welcomed if we were to try to change that at this stage.
It could be introduced gradually in a way that doesn't disadvantage current rank holders, if there is significant opposition to wider reform.
It would inevitably disadvantage current rank holders. I think we have a reasonable balance: a system of lifetime achievement that doesn't degrade and a grading scheme measuring current performance. Oh and also the Gold Point scheme for top players, which does degrade.
A small change which could bring more equity into the Master Point system would be to award Master Points based on the NGS handicapped result of a competition rather than solely the basic ranking.
It's currently possible to award master points using NGS as a stratification method.
Thanks that's very interesting, it seems like this should this be the default method, adopted for all EBU matches.
I would think that this would spread the points out so that any of the top players that are playing for points, would get less for winning than in the status quo?
That may or may not be a good thing.
For me though, the Masterpoints are a long term recognition of performance over years... the NGS recognises current standards. So, I don't see any need to stratify masterpoints, but then again, I don't care about them so I am perhaps the wrong one to ask.
"no relationship whatsoever" is a huge overbid. If you look at the data there is actually a pretty strong correlation between master points and NGS, which if you think about it isn't too surprising. People who have played for a long time are usually going to get better at bridge. There are plenty of exceptions and it's by no means perfect, but it's definitely not "nonsensical".
If Master Points were to be related more closely to the degree of achievement, such as by awarding them based on NGS handicap positions, it seems to me there could be a number of beneficial outcomes...
I agree with @501172 in that the current system of club, district, county, regional and national scales, as well as various green point scales that seem to vary from event to event, doesn't reflect even a player's lifetime performance. If masterpoints are retained as they are, where they are simply accumulated without any devaluation over time, a system where the NGS strength of field is used to determine the points on offer can only be a good thing. Of course I understand that higher masterpoint scales are given out in events with higher entry fees, but perhaps this should just reflect the 36+ board nature of that event as opposed to the strength as such.
Events with high turnouts also have higher masterpoint awards, again reflecting the higher table money they generate, but the rate that masterpoints go up is directly proportional (up to 100 MPs for club events) to the turnout, whereas the quality of play needed to fit into the top third or podium positions doesn't really increase, or at least by nowhere near as much.
Gordon has referred to the existing player of the year and Gold Point systems, but they do little to promote the game for players below the Ace NGS band. Meanwhile there are cash prizes for the leading masterpoint winners over the course of a year, but the prize isn't publicised and doesn't come close to the table money that goes into achieving them - this probably isn't a good use of EBU finances.
Most of us seem to think that a points system is a good thing, but that masterpoints don't do the job we're looking for anyway, at least not given the array of data we now have via the NGS scheme. We don't want to upset those who have accumulated masterpoints over the years, but trialling a few different points system in the background for 2021 would probably be of interest to a few, and could be advertised more if it seems to work. As always, making the scales reasonably simple to understand as they are now, while making them more representative in some way, is the aim.
I agree, that does seem incorrect now that you point it out, perhaps I should have said no direct or traversable relationship.
If this is correct and that access to additional master points is being sold to raise revenue, this practice must surely be in conflict with:
1) the EBU's Value of inclusiveness (open to all regardless of financial resources)
2) the promotion of Bridge as a sport (rank should be obtained on merit and not the ability to pay)
I think you are looking at it the wrong way around. Master points are awarded at a higher rate and/or scale for more prestigious and/or larger events. Those events cost more to enter for a variety of reasons including staging costs and prize awards.
Thanks Gordon, but does this apply to the online world as well?