Re: Just learned that.....

- throwing boards in a pairs event to your friends to help them win
(usually when you are out of contention, but also if there is
significant prize money and you want one of your pairs to win)


- if you get to the point where you cannot win a league/flighted event
dumping at the end to ensure relegation to the lower league/flight (or
avoid promotion) so you can win that next time


- you are in a two-weekend event, where the top 8 teams in the first
weekend play in the second weekend, with full carry-forward. You are in

8th place with one match to go in the first weekend, and so far behind
the leaders you don't want to play in the second weekend as you have no

chance of winning. You dump a load of imps in the last match, to avoid
playing the second weekend (a year and a half ago we were tempted to do

this but didn't).

**********************

In my opinion, none of these are "dumping to improve your long-term
prospects in the event." Surely the first case shows dumping to help
your friends, not to help yourself, a tactic that I think all would
deplore. The second case is one where the conditions state you have no
chance of winning, so you dump to avoid having to play. That's not
dumping to help your long-term prospects in the event. Ditto for the
third scenario.

Here are some scenarios that might be more constructive (most of these
I'm citing from memory from the Bridge World, which goes to show how
uncreative I am):

(A) You are in the last session of a round robin with the two top
teams qualifying for a knockout. You are playing the 3rd place team
and if you play them in the knockout, you begin with a carryover of +25
imps. If you beat the 3rd place team, you will play the 2nd place team
and they will begin with a carryover of +25 imps. Do you lose
deliberately and thereby improve your carryover position by 50 imps?

(B) You are playing in a national Swiss event and have 4.75 wins with
1 round to go. You are matched against a team with 4.75 wins. It
takes 5 wins to qualify, and you are certain to qualify if you tie the
last match, as are your opponents. Both teams agree to pass out the
boards at each table, thereby insuring that you qualify for the final
round.

(C) You are playing in the World Team olympiad in 1964 and lying
second in the field, you are sure to qualify for the round of 4
knockouts. You are playing a team lying in 5th place that is generally
conceded to be playing over its head. If you lose big, they will both
qualify and be your opponents in the knockout round. If you win, you
will play a dangerous team that has a bye in the last round, a team
that has already beaten you once in the event. Do you lose in order to
insure a more favorable draw?

These are the kinds of scenarios that were envisioned in the initial
dumping conversation. The first scenario occured in a Bermuda Bowl
event in the early 1970s, the second in an ACBL Nationals event in the
late 1970s, and the third of course in the 1964 Olympiad, so I've tried
to recollect actual as opposed to hypothetical examples.

In each case, losing (or tying) the match increased the team's chance
of winning. Had I been the captain of any of those teams, I would also
have played to lose, perhaps by giving my best pair the day off, or
mixing up my partnerships, or getting my players drunk before the event
(haha - enable sarcasm.....)

Henrysun909

.

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