Unit Player Ratings System (UPRS)--Current Standings

The UPRS system is a points-based rating system in which points won by individual players decay over time, so that a year later, only one-quarter of the points won remain.  This means you need to keep playing, and winning, to keep your ranking on the lists.  Players are ranked as individuals.  To win UPRS points, you need to finish in the overalls in any event run by Unit 430 within Unit 430: this means sectional tournaments, Monthly Unit Games, the Unit Finals of special events, and the IMP League.  Not included are the STaC and all other club-level events, District or Zone Finals of special events, Regionals, and NABCs.
There are three UPRS lists.  Flight A points are awarded for any event that carries no masterpoint limit, or allows a player with 2500 points to be eligible.  Flight C points are awarded for events limited to non-Life Masters.  Anything in between scores points toward the Flight B list.  When there are multiple flights or strats counting toward the same UPRS list, like Flight A/X events (both unlimited), the lower flight(s) or strat(s) scores half of the points of the one above.  Of course, with stratifying a player may win points on more than one list for a single win.  And new Life Masters remain on the Flight C list until their points earned there decay once they become ineligible for non-LM events.
Each event covered by the UPRS has a Flight A first-place point value pre-assigned regardless of the attendance.  All other awards are derived from this Flight A first-place award.  The highest award is for the IMP League regular season winners, who get 50,000; second-highest is 30,000 for winning a two-session event at a sectional.  The Flight B first-place award is one-eighth the Flight A award.  The Flight C first-place award is 1% of the Flight A award.  This is done so that developing players can tell when they are ready to move up.  When your total on one list is about the same as your total on the next highest list, this is concrete evidence that you are ready to move up to the next level (although it might take a while before you are ready to challenge the leaders!).
One change was suggested to me after the first printing of the results in the Matchpointer and seemed reasonable.  (I was surprised that many people didn’t suggest changes that would vault them up the standings!) Sectional knockout teams awards seemed to be far lower than they should be, so the awards for these events have been tripled to 15,000, to make them more valuable than a sectional one-session event (10,000) but less than a two-session event (30,000).  Knockout teams are easier to win than pairs events because there are fewer entries to beat, but it still is three sessions of tough bridge to get to the top!

Below you will find the top 200 in all three lists.  If you want to know how you are doing and you are not listed, let me know and I can look it up for you.

Ahem. Well, we're quite a bit behind in keeping up the UPRS, but we are working to catch up.  This will probably turn into a McBruce summer project.  Check back in a month or two.

(There's still some programming left to do to streamline the UPRS into a workable form that can be quickly updated.  Once that is finished I have about two years of tournament results to enter.  But I'm tired of looking at code and I want to look at some plain text for awhile, so here is an update of the original article about the UPRS so you'll see what will eventually be here.  --McBruce)

Coming later this year to Matchpointer Online is the return of the Unit Player Ratings System rankings, a system I devised in 2003.  Instead of using the ACBL masterpoint formulas, I created a system where the points given to winners do not depend on attendance, and decay over time, so that the ratings always depend most on who has done well recently.  We used to have an Excel spreadsheet to calculate all this, but it was bursting at the seams.  The new idea is to instead write a program in Perl to do the work...but this is a pretty big task, almost as big as the Merlin program I wrote to keep this website together.  You can be sure that when the system is ready you will see it trumpeted on the front page, with links to this area.

So what is the Unit Player Ratings System, and how does it work?  Let me explain...

Big Concept #1: the only games that count in the UPRS rankings are Unit-run events that take place entirely within Unit 430.  Sectionals: including the Future Stars.  IMP League.  Monthly Unit Games.  Unit Finals of special events.  Not covered: NABCs, Regionals, STaC games, Club games, District or Zone Finals of special events.

ACBL masterpoint awards for an event are based on how important or prestigious the masterpoint system determines it to be, and on how many players participate.  UPRS awards do not distinguish between a 37-table two-session open pairs and a 38-table two-session open pairs.  Similar events pay the same amount of points regardless of their attendance.

The people who win UPRS points are those who finish in the overalls for each strat, according to the ACBL system.  This does depend a little bit on attendance, but there's no easier way to do it.  Second wins half of the award for first place, third wins one-third, fourth wins a quarter, and so on.  In ACBL events, ties split the points: two pairs tied for seventh-eighth share one-seventh plus one-eighth of the first place award (13.39%).  The UPRS simplifies this a little and gives both pairs 1 / 7½ of the first place award (13.33%), but this is splitting hairs.

There are three separate UPRS lists, and players may qualify for any or all three.  The system is designed so that a Flight A win is worth eight times as much as a Flight B win, which is worth 12½ times as much as a Flight C win.  If your total points in Flight B or Flight C is about the same as your total in the next higher list, you may not be as high on the higher list, but you have concrete evidence that you are ready to move up to the next level!  It's not intended that you add your totals on the three lists together: the sum would be meaningless.  What the UPRS tries to measure is who the best players in local events are, and where that key point is for players that indicate that they are competitive enough to move up a level.

How does the system decide which events score UPRS points towards which list?  We establish two masterpoint-based benchmarks which may change over time.  Any game or strat restricted to the low benchmark scores points toward the Flight C list.  Any game or strat without an upper masterpoint limit, or with a limit which allows a player right on the higher benchmark to play, scores points towards the Flight A list.  Anything in between scores points towards the Flight B list.  The lower benchmark began as non-Life Master, but has since changed to 500 points, and will likely remain there: 500 is the limit for the third strat at open sectional games.  The higher benchmark began at 2,500 points and has not changed.  Masterpoint inflation means that the dividing line between Flight B and Flight C will move up steadily, and the UPRS will try to keep pace.  But above 2,500 points everyone is in Flight A: that's not going to change very soon.

A two-bracket knockout teams event scores points towards the A (first bracket) and B (second bracket) lists.  With three brackets the third scores on the C list, even though sometimes the masterpoint limit in the lowest bracket is high enough that there may be a few normally ineligible for the C list playing there.  With four brackets the top two score in the A list, with five brackets the third and fourth score in the B list (see next paragraph), and so on.

Quite often in a stratified or stratiflighted game, or a large knockout, there will be two or more sets of overall winners counted toward the same UPRS list.  For example, the Flight A and Flight X IMP League winners both score on the UPRS A list.  In this and similar cases, the lower-ranked strat or flight scores one half the points of the one above it.  In a Future Stars Sectional stratified game, all UPRS awards are on the Flight C list, but the games have three strats.  The top strat gets the full award, the second gets one half, and the third gets one-quarter.

If you place in two or three strats with the same result, the system gives you only the highest of multiple awards towards any of the three UPRS lists, but you might still score on two or even all three UPRS lists for the same game.  For example, if two non-Life Masters win Flight B and Flight C of a pairs game, they get the Flight C award on the C list, and the Flight B award on the B list.

Now for the fun part, Big Concept #2.  Every time the sun rises, everyone loses 0.3788354% of their accumulated total on all three lists.  No kidding.  This is not a number I picked out of thin air.  Doing this means that an award of 1,000 points (a Monthly Unit Game win in Flight A, as it turns out) will decay to be worth only 500 after six months, 250 after a year, 62.5 after two years, and less than one point after five years.  (It's averaged out to take leap years into account.)  This means that once you make a list, to keep your place you have to keep playing - and winning!  If you win a bunch of local events over the course of two or three months and then leave town for a year, you will slide further down the list as time goes by.  When you become ineligible for Flight B or C events, your points there will decay, giving rising stars a chance to take your place.

Notice how this differs from the ACBL masterpoint system, where some who have played for decades have huge masterpoint totals that are mostly indicative of experience and how often they play at the big tournaments, but don't always indicate how well they've done recently.  Many years ago, Bob Cole on Hockey Night In Canada noted Maurice Richard in the stands and asked Harry Neale how many goals he thought the Rocket would get in the modern NHL.  Harry said, "two or three.  You have to remember: Maurice is nearly seventy years old."  If the tennis rankings were based on career wins Martina Navratilova would probably still be ranked #1.

I think a modern ranking system should indicate recent success and not career totals, like the ranking systems for pro tennis and golf do, and the "power rankings" for professional sports teams do.  Part of the reason I have entered into my computer many thousands of winners of local events since the year 2000 is to show that this type of ranking is possible with today's home computers.  (Don't worry: there were shortcuts - it really didn't take as long as you think.)

All that remains is deciding how many points to award for each event that the UPRS covers.

Here's the list, and the awards for first place in Flight A.  From the Flight A first-place award you can compute the Flight B award by dividing by 8 and the Flight C award by dividing by 100:

IMP League Regular Season — 50,000.  All teams finishing average or better in Victory Points, or having more wins than losses, or making the playoffs, receive UPRS awards dated April 30.  In Flight B in 2002 it turned out that the #7 team was ineligible for UPRS points but the #8 team, having won more than they lost, was eligible.  It seemed silly to give points to #8 but not #7, so I revised the rule so that the lowest-ranked team eligible for points, plus everyone above them, gets UPRS points.

Sectional Two-Session Event — 30,000.  This can be a pairs event, play-through or qualifying/final-with-carryovers, or a Swiss teams event.

IMP League Playoffs — 25,000.  To receive UPRS awards for the playoffs a team must win at least one playoff match, or be awarded a bye based on its standing in the regular season.  These awards are dated June 30.  Why is the IMP League the highest ranked event in the UPRS?  Because teams spend anywhere from seven to thirteen sessions to decide the final outcome!  No other Unit-run event is tougher to win by lucky breaks.  But don't get the idea that the IMP League is for bridge hitmen and roughnecks: it's fun and you should try it if you haven't!

NAOP Unit Final — 20,000.  Almost as tough as a Sectional Championship to win: you need to qualify at a club game, then survive the two-sessions of the Unit Final against the best pairs in the Unit.

Sectional Bracketed Knockout Teams — 15,000 (assuming three brackets).  A top bracket win is scored on the A list and is worth 15,000 for a three-round knockout, 30,000 for a (rare) four-round knockout.  If there are two brackets, the second bracket is scored on the B list with an award of one-eighth the A award.  A third bracket is scored on the C list with an award of 1% of the A award.  With four brackets, the second goes on the A list at half-rate, and with a fifth, the fourth is added to the B list at half rate.  And so on.  (Knockouts originally paid less than this because I thought that a 1 in 8 average chance to win was vastly easier, even for a non-favorite team, than a 1 in 40-60 chance a pair faces in a large pairs event.  But several players pointed out that knockouts tend to attract the best teams at each level, and winning one by chance is more unlikely than winning a pairs game with some good fortune.)

Sectional One-Session Event — 10,000.  This must be a championship pairs or teams event: open side games concurrent with trophy events count less.

CWTC, COPC, or CNTC Unit Final — 6,000. These days, the Unit Finals of these events have gone the way of the dodo bird, but if there is ever some sort of revival of these events, they do tend to attract a good field and deserve decent UPRS awards.

Sectional Open Side Game — 5,000.  It's been a sore point with me for some time now that some of the traditional trophy events, such as the Jean Turnbull Mixed Pairs, pay out less masterpoints than the corresponding side games for people who won't cross the floor to find a partner of the opposite gender, even when the trophy event attracts more tables, because the mixed pairs event gets restrictions and the open pairs does not.  Well, not in the UPRS.  We know where the best players — and the toughest games — are.

MUG Unit Party Game — 1,600.  A 60% bump for the annual Party Game (recently moved from Christmas to late spring), because of the increased turnout and the stronger field this creates.

Sectional Consolation Final — 1,000.  You don't really expect a major award for winning an event full of people who had a bad game in the afternoon, do you?  (If the consolation is not stratified, a recent innovation, all awards are on the B list and first place is worth 200.)

Monthly Unit Game — 1,000.  In several months the Monthly Unit Game is the only UPRS event on the schedule.

0-300 Future Stars Sectional Events — 125 (on the C list).  The Future Stars sectional was originally a 0-100 event.  By the time results began being collected for the UPRS, it was a 0-200 event.  Now it is a 0-300 event, twice a year.

0-200 Future Stars Sectional Events — 50 (on the C list).

Sectional Future Master (0-200) Events — 50 on the C list, 125 for a rare two-session event.  Like the Future Stars Sectional, we've moved the sectional Future Masters games up to 0-200 since the UPRS began recording winners.

Sectional Future Master (0-100) Events — 20 on the C list, 50 for a rare two-session event.

Again: NABCs, Regionals, District Finals of the NAOP or GNT, Zone Finals of the CNTC or CWTC, all STaC games, and local club games of all types do NOT count toward the UPRS rankings.  There are two reasons for this.  One is that my computer would explode if my fingers survived the data entry.  The other is that one objective of the UPRS to promote attendance at Unit-run events.  If the publication of the leaders encourages a few more people to come out to improve upon or perhaps to protect their position on the leaderboard, it will be worth my time and effort in setting it up.

Is the UPRS affected by my own biases about which events are more important than others?  Sure, probably.  My idea in devising the system was to award the most points for winning events that were significant statistically by their nature.  A two-session event is harder to win by lucky breaks than a one-session event.  The IMP League is a lot of fun but it is tough: if you survive eight to twelve matches in a round-robin and finish first, this is very strong evidence that you deserve to go up in the rankings.  Sectional games are tougher to win than Monthly Unit Games.  I think the awards are reasonable, but some may disagree: in fact, some did and I raised the award for sectional knockouts from the first version.

Another very small point is that only events since 2000 have been entered.  The Flight A first place award for the 1998-99 IMP League would be worth about a fifth of a point now, so the rankings presented may be off a tiny bit because of the lack of earlier events.  By now, virtually all potential effects from the pre-2000 events would be eliminated.  I will probably delete events more than ten years old once we get there to save space.

Once the computer program is finished, I'll be able to give anyone who requests it a list of their ups and downs on the rankings, along with their wins at Unit events.  This page of the site will list the top 200 in each Flight, along with the rises and falls since the last list.  We'll provide links to Monthly Top 500 lists; leaders in each flight since 2001, coming events to improve your standing (actually, the website has been programmed to include all UPRS events in the calendar at the bottom of this page), and other interesting goodies.  How long will you have to wait?  Could be three weeks or six months: intricate computer programs take time to perfect.  It'll be worth it when it's done.