[gordontd]

gordontd, on 2014-April-30, 02:18, said:

Except that they are dividing the geometric mean by sqrt(2), so the final results are all much larger than when dividing by either results or comparisons.

I'll try to find out more about this.

I have found out more. It was invented by Max Bavin for use when scores are converted to Victory Points to allow for the fact that a Victory Point scale should be affected by the size of the field as well as by the number of boards. Obviously when teams matches are Victory Pointed the field is always the same size, so this can be ignored, but for IMP pairs that is not the case. Using this divisor should mean that one VP scale can be used for each number of boards in a match, regardless of how big the field.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2014-April-30, 07:09, said:

Yes. And, what fun at cross-IMPs. There could be hundreds of IMPs available to some pairs and not to others.

Quite. Seems like if you want that amount if randomness, you would have more fun trying your luck at the local rubber bridge club.

[barmar]

A friend of mine writes a bridge blog, and coincidentally his item yesterday was about the random swings that are likely in IMP Pairs at clubs.

http://jeff.bridgebl...nt-at-the-club/

This is probably one of the reasons that clubs don't run IMP Pairs very often. Our club, with one weekly game of 8-10 tables, holds 3 of them a year (along with 1 individual, 2 team games, and 1 pro-am).