3 table Howell movement without board sharing
Does anyone have a 3 table Howell movement without (significant) board sharing? All of the movements I have found on both EBU Score and Scorebridge have all tables playing boards 21-25 on the last round.
(Explanation in case anyone is interested.)
We run random teams events where each team comprises of a stronger and weaker pair (drawn together on the night), and then all of the stronger pairs play against each other, and all of the weaker pair play against each other. It has been very successful in the past. The bespoke movements have been created by (for example) taking a 4 table Howell, and creating a 'mirror Howell' for tables 5 - 8. So if at table 1 it is NS (team) 1 vs EW (team) 2, then table 5 is NS (team) 2 vs EW (team) 1, both tables playing the same 3 boards. Our numbers for F2F bridge are still lower than pre-Covid, so I was hoping to add a 6 table random teams movement, but wasn't expecting the movement to have all tables sharing the same set of boards on the last round!!
Comments
Here is one possibility.
That movement can become a 24- or 26- board movement by making some of the board sets as 2 boards - details are in the EBU Movement Handbook. But EBUScore does not understand the movement with 2- and 3- board rounds unless it is written as 1-board rounds!
Further thoughts:
(Robin has just beaten me to the first one)
Presumably, in your double Howell (often called a Patton schedule), you will normally have board sharing between team-mates: i.e. for six teams, tables 1 & 4 will share; 2 & 5; 3 & 6.
If you stick to the 'standard' 5-round Howell, then you would therefore have all six tables sharing the last round, which is obviously undesirable, though if you have a dealing machine you would only have to deal extra sets of 21-25 to make this manageable. Otherwise, sharing 5-board rounds in this manner should be fine.
However, if you can bear having three tables sharing boards at any one time, which is just about OK with 5-board rounds, you could consider staggering the movement in one half: Get tables 4 to 6 to start with round 5, then play rounds 1 to 4. Tables 4-6 will share during round 1; table 1-3 will share in round 5. During rounds 2-4 there will never be more than two tables sharing any one set.
Even better: If you use Gordon’s 10-round Howell, you can stagger the movement in one section by five rounds. i.e. let tables 1-3 start at round 1, and 4-6 start at round six. This appears to avoid board-sharing completely. But if you go for the 24- or 26- board alternative, you will find that your two sections will be moving at different times, which will make this mildly awkward.
This is not the only issue with using EBUScore. For this particular issue, best just to stick to the 30-board movement, and record as unplayed the third board of each round with only 2 boards scheduled. (If using bridgemates, one of the few legitimate uses of the 'not played' feature!)
For any Patton schedule, it would be best to set this up in two (3-table) sections, with "scoring across sections" enabled (in the scoring section of the event setup).
It's not impossible to do as a single section, but EBUScore will assume that N/S pairs will remain as N/S, moving around the six tables, rather than switch polarity within their 3-table section.
Thank you all for your feedback - much appreciated. I will see if I can work out Mitch's suggestion of staggering the rounds in one half of the room.