Getting a mix of formats at EBU/county competitions
Thinking about in-person events, at present, almost all county and EBU congress events follow a very limited range of scoring methods, those being:
- Swiss Pairs (1 day, occasionally 2 days)
- Swiss Teams (1 day)
- MP Pairs (relatively rare)
- Multiple Teams
Congresses attract the same people every time and very rarely inspire club players (or indeed people who don't have a local club) to play.
Interestingly one of the most popular events, the Spring Fours, is one of very few to follow a completely different format! Llanbrighton (Oliver Cowan) is not quite as popular and follows the same range of scoring methods but with it marketed in a different way. There are also some invitational events for county winners (Pachabo/Tollemache) and club winners (e.g. National Pairs) which have their own attractions.
During Covid, a hugely popular event was an online GP charitable event which, given its one-off nature and limited alternatives, brought in numbers not seen for several years (either side!). Shortly afterwards, BAMSA had their Pro-Am event which was equally unique and had a special feel to it.
There are lots of things/ideas I'd love to see incorporated into an EBU / county-run / Oliver Cowan congress, indeed some sort of LIV-style approach where we just try lots of new ideas to try and find a format that feels refreshed, inspiring and genuinely new. Currently I don't see anything that offers 'new' to players, something that would bring in younger generations or bring disenfranchised club players and offer an experience as opposed to a pure competition. Ideas for things that need 'refreshing' or considering (for the moment excluding the financial/logistical considerations) are:
- Venue - Eastbourne excluded perhaps, lots of events are held at relatively uninspiring hotels which makes it an unattractive proposition for less strong players. Some county events just take place at local bridge clubs and just aren't really county events anymore. Transport links do of course need factoring in.
- Target Audience - Needs to be an event where strong (Ace+) players will still want to attend for the niche factor but primarily with a focus on county and club-level players, where a whole club could say we're not playing this Friday because we're having an away weekend at this event. Genuine incentives for clubs to put forward several pairs is important here.
- Cross-collaboration - Bringing together events that currently have completely non overlapping target audiences is a way to build up a critical mass, show the number of people that play bridge whilst not taking away existing successful events is really important. The Junior Bridge Camp alongside an open event and then one of the Premier League weekends would bring almost completely different target audiences into one place (as a somewhat far-fetched example; I'm aware the JBC has safeguarding consideration so the Junior Camrose/Peggy Bayer might feel more manageable). The Premier League just in its own right is expanding to 4 divisions but is currently played in lots of small venues which again feels uninspiring and an opportunity missed. Bridge is not the only mindsport and surely a cross-collaboration, well marketed event that gets traction in the press with chess (if not one or two others) builds a wider network of players for both sports. I'm not currently aware of any collaboration (except maybe at the YC) between chess and bridge which feels like a lost opportunity.
- Prizes - For most EBU events, the prizes even for the winners don't cover entry + travel. A prize that was more of a 'money can't buy', e.g. Andrew Robson or similar hosting an event at your club, might be more effective, and having spot prizes through the field that anyone feels they can win!
- Masterpoints - The current scale needs a bit of a revamp, it was designed in days where events had many more tables and so many masterpoint ranks that were previously attainable aren't achievable anymore.
- Format - Arguably my biggest frustration from above is that so few events utilise any sort of innovation in format. In Sweden they have an event not dissimilar to the old 2* Pairs (with lots of short Swiss rounds on the Saturday but then lots of separate finals on the Sunday). Swiss Pairs is currently often just six 8s or seven 7s, but at the JBCs they effectively use five 25-minute rounds (with no penalties at all for skipped boards, unless you've only played one) with the right to skip one round. If you had eight 30-minute rounds then you'd mean that better pairs can play 4 or 5 boards in a match, inexperienced club players can happily work through 3 boards without fear of being chased and could choose to sit-out a round and take 6 or 8 VPs while they get a drink at the bar. Lots of congresses are super focused on just being competitions, whereas offering more flexibility in that way is hardly burdensome for the TD, doesn't impact the winners and makes the event more enjoyable. The last couple of rounds could be a reduced field for maybe the top half, while the other half of the room get a seminar option, and there could be a speedball or similar afterwards for the keen. If you have enough of a critical mass then existing bridge players could bring family members along to a training course running concurrently; they can meet up throughout the weekend and maybe can play in a small event at the end of the weekend together!
- Scoreboards - A minor point but the existing scoreboards / ranking lists are black and white notepad files, having a GUI that creates something visual with clearly presented leaders of stratified groups would again be more inspiring. The Spring Fours already utilises this but it hasn't been rolled out more widely.
- TDs - We now have a dozen or so trained junior TDs from a recent course, if anything marks the start of a refresh then the people hosting is a good start!
Maybe this is an article for me to write for the EBU magazine and see if anyone shows an interest, but it feels like even incorporating just a handful (say the format, scoreboards and TDs points) of the points above, even just for a one-off with some level of subsidy, could show the bridge and wider world of what bridge could look like. However, I'd be interested to hear if anyone is on a similar wavelength. None of the above is intended to be a moan at anyone or the EBU to be clear, rather a picture of how we can make bridge look attractive and it feels like such an event should be possible, maybe with Oliver Cowan's or BAMSA's or similar support. Thank you for reading and looking forward to hearing if anyone has any thoughts.
Comments
Lots of interesting ideas here, but I think we already have more formats than most other countries. We have also tried more, such as Swiss Pairs with Cross-IMPs, Point-a-Board and Individuals, but none of them were popular enough to keep going.
On the question of scoreboards and ranking lists, we are excited to be introducing a new format from BridgeRez, which allows all the constituent events of one congress to be in one file, such as at
https://bridgerez.com/northern-midweek-2026/
https://bridgerez.com/spring-fours-2026/
https://bridgerez.com/easter-2026/
Also worth noting that for one weekend of next year's Premier League, all divisions will play in one hotel venue.
Some comments here. Don't mean to make too many comparisons to chess, but I have a long background in chess playing & junior arbiting/organising/ running teams and events so it is my natural comparison.
Prizes: Agree about prizes that people would really value. I don't know what the going rate for pros to play a club duplicate is, but a prize like 'England international X will partner you in your club duplicate' could be something that is really valued.
Cross-collaboration esp with chess:
(side comment: if bridge could pick up 1/10th of the kids who play chess, and chess could pick up 1/10th of the women who play bridge, the vibe of both games would be much improved)
In terms of advertising to children the single most obvious place to have a bridge stall would be one of the large junior chess events. For example, at each of the three junior chess gigafinals (held June/July time) there are approx. 500-600 kids who have already been pre-filtered to like competitive mindsports. Likewise with the finals of the London Junior Chess Championships. These would be THE place to put leaflets about the junior bridge camp(s), run a side 'Introduction to Bridge' stall etc.
Scoreboards/ranking: In terms of being a competitive mindsport appealing to younger people, some of the data availability in bridge is completely lacking compared to any other game. When I was a kid in junior chess in the 1980s, the first page everyone turned to when the national ranking list came out each year was 'Top 20 juniors under 16/15/14/13/12/11/10 whatever age you were'.
But suppose I go to the NGS list and want to bring up a ranked list of NGS grades for all juniors in the country. There is no such option. Or similarly with a current-year-to-date list of masterpoints for all juniors in the country. Not possible. Likewise there is no way to watch progression over time for anyone other than yourself.
Format -- a 'skip a round' feature in Swiss pairs would seem like an obvious plus. e.g in chess you can normally pre-arrange a 1/2-point bye for any round in an event. 7x7 rounds can be quite tough -- why not let pairs pre-book 10 VPs in round 3 (or whatever) to give themselves a break / a long lunch / a more relaxed experience? This is something that would seem an unalloyed positive (the only possible downside would be a half table).
Format -- the JBC version of having the option to do a partial number of board is fine there, but is very susceptible to gaming in a serious event. If you can play up to 6 boards, but don't need to, and you know boards 1-3 have gone well, there is an incentive to slow down on board 4 to run out the clock and lock in your score. I think this already happens a little at the JBC but it doesn't really matter there as it is not a serious event.
Format -- speaking as a parent as well here, something that combined a junior event with a serious adult event -- possibly even playing the same boards -- would have a buzz to it that is also inspiring to younger people. I know kids (and weaker players generally) in chess get a huge buzz when they are playing in their section and top grandmasters are playing in the same room.
Thanks for this Joseph. Can you explain your penultimate paragraph a bit more for non-chess-players?
The penultimate one? That isn't to do with chess, JBC here = Junior Bridge Camp. As the Swiss Pairs there has a mixture of players that can range potentially from 8 years olds with 48 hours experience of bridge to Michael Byrne, it is agreed that tables can play 2,3 or 4 of the boards for each of the 4-board rounds, depending on how fast/experienced they are. If they have taken 20 minutes for the first 2 boards, they don't start the 3rd.
For the paragraph before that: in chess, the scoring for each match is 1 pt for a win, 0.5 for a draw and 0 for a loss. Swiss tournaments in chess work very similarly to bridge -- you play people on the same score -- except that the scoring is more discrete (as there aren't 20 VPs available). Normally a player who doesn't want to play every game (for whatever reason) can state in advance that they don't want to play a specified match, and they receive 0.5 points for that round.
Thanks for the replies Gordon and Joe, the BridgeRez format looks fantastic so looking forward to that being rolled out (hopefully with a live ranks variant as well) if that gets off the ground! I think having a PL weekend all in one venue is a great initiative too so I'm glad that's happening and hopefully that gives it a more exciting feel; I appreciate that the venue may well have been booked for that then already but still worth thinking about whether another event could be run simultaneously at the same venue to the final PL weekend that targets a different audience and helps create a bigger overall turnout (presumably it's more cost-effective as well if using the same space?).
Format-wise, I know the EBU sends around post-event surveys but a) not sure what response rate they got and b) it might be worth them including a score out of 10 by event as opposed to the whole congress. If the scores are similar then the current mix is probably right. For me, I find a two-day championship pairs less fun than a one-day swiss; if that's just me then it shouldn't be changed! But if 80% prefer one format over another then maybe one day of the more established congresses could be tweaked or revamped just to see what 'different' could look like. I appreciate it's much easier said than done and we equally don't want to lose people that the EBU has done so well to bring onboard!
I agree with each of Joe's points so won't repeat them, but a couple of thoughts:
Will: one comment I made in my post-event survey for Eastbourne was that there was a specific prize earmarked for seniors but no such prize for juniors. Are they wanted? Indeed, I think Alex was the only U18 there (and some more in the 18-26 range).
What you suggest re: U21 pairs in a main event -- and it doesn't need to restrict to them -- makes perfect sense. You could take one of the big Swiss pairs events, e.g. at the Year End or Eastbourne, declare it to be simultaneously the national U26/ U21/U18/U16/U14 championships, and then award these titles at the end of the event based on an overall finishing position in the main field (or, for a 2 day main event, set a younger age group junior award based on the first day only). Yes, you might start with there being very few pairs in certain of the categories, but one of the ways you encourage children in competitive mindsports is by multiplying the number of things they can actually compete for and win.
It seemed the EBU wanted a longer weaker tail at these events (with the Swiss Pairs Lite at Eastbourne and bargain entry prices for those with < 2 Green Points), I don't know how much that succeeded but the more juniors entering the more it would help with that. And also bridge is extremely well suited to having weaker/club players compete directly against internationals without it being an embarrassment-- this is a real advantage to the game, it is much better than chess in this respect.