Whenever I'm seated between two non-bridge playing strangers on the flight to a tournament, I'm inevitably asked why thousands of people would spend thousands of dollars to travel thousands of miles to a bridge tournament when there is no money prize if you win. I don't want to explain the powerful allure of masterpoints, so I simply say "prestige".
Although they're not the same as money, I have found that masterpoints can make people think you're smart, give you a feeling of accomplishment, and at least in the old days, get you girls. I'll never forget a cute young bridge player who politely told me that she just didn't talk to novices. And when I got enough points to qualify me for talking, she proceeded to tell me exactly what I'd need to win to reach the next plateau. This went on for years and I think my highest ranking was "Kiss on the Cheek Life Master". This was before we had Gold and Diamond LMs.
The first mention of the term "master point" seems to be in 1934, three years before the American Contract Bridge League was even invented. (At times "master point" was two words, but the modern usage is only one.) In 1934 the American Bridge League (no "Contract") decided to hold an event called the von Zedwitz Master Pairs. The first problem was that nobody knew how to define a "master". Tournaments were held by not only the ABL, but also the American Whist League and the United States Bridge Association. To further complicate matters major tournaments such as the Vanderbilt and the "Easterns" were run by independent organizations. In fact it was not until the early 1950's that the Vanderbilt became an official ACBL NABC event.
Each organization quickly established its own requirements for the rank of "Master", and the situation in 1935 was described as a "rapid and somewhat haphazard inflation of Masters". In response the ABL created the concept of "Life Master" in 1936. The ten players with the best tournament performances were designated as the original Life Masters.
After that, only masterpoints won in national championships (or the equivalent) counted, and the awards were tiny. One more player was added to the list in 1936, and in 1937 the number of new Life Masters was again one. In 1938 there were two more, with one of them named Charles Goren. Despite his huge contribution to the game Ely Culbertson never became an ACBL Life Master.
According to a 1991 New York Times bridge column by Alan Truscott, all but one of the original ten lived in New York or New Jersey. The odd man out started out in Philadelphia, but moved to New York a few years later. It wasn't until 1946 that the first LM from west of Chicago joined the club, and he was LM Number 56. There were lots more people who had won an Academy Award or an Olympic Gold Medal.
In 1935 masterpoints were extended to clubs by the USBA, but only to their affiliated clubs. Club points were called "City Masterpoints" and ten of those could be converted into one "State Masterpoint", which could be converted into "National Masterpoints", also at a ratio of 10 for 1. The net result was that 100 club points were worth one National Masterpoint, which were the equivalent of modern red points.
In addition, there was a scheme for deducting masterpoints points each year, so that if you wanted to keep your Life Master rank you had to keep playing---and winning. Deductions were discontinued in 1944, by which time the ranks of Life Master had swelled to 45. I'm not aware of anybody losing their rank, but further research might turn up an interesting story.
In contrast to the ACBL's success in absorbing (and eliminating) the competing bridge leagues in the East, they had less luck in rounding up the mavericks in the West. The Pacific Bridge League was founded in 1933, four years before the birth of the ACBL. At the top of page one of this newspaper you will see "Volume 85", which means it began publication in 1935.
The ACBL did not include the territory of the Pacific Bridge League, which covered eleven western states, plus the territories of Alaska and Hawaii, plus British Columbia and Alberta.
In 1940 the ACBL and the PBL reached an agreement whereby West Coast points would be recognized by the ACBL. The west coast certificates were identical to the rest of the ACBL except for a small PBL symbol in the upper-left corner. In 1941 it was announced that the PBL would be operating "under the banner" and as the western division of the ACBL, although other sources indicate this did not become official until 1948. In any event, the PBL was fully absorbed into the ACBL in 1956. The ACBL continued to maintain a western office in Los Angeles and the western division was renamed the "Western Conference".
During the 40's, 50's, and 60's the ACBL often loosened the purse strings on masterpoints, and in response the league experienced exceptional growth. In 1947 there were but 15,000 ACBL members, but this had soared 170,000 by 1970, about the same as we have now. It was still recognized that points won at larger tournaments should be worth more, and the concept of red points was instituted. At one point there were blue points and then pink points. Instead of "State Masterpoints" being worth 10 times club points, it was now more like three to one.
It was the superior masterpoint scheme that put the ACBL on the map and fueled its growth. Masterpoints have always been a measure of lifetime achievement (except for 1937 to 1944 when you had annual deductions). The scheme never purported to measure present ability, although I guarantee you that someone who won a few major events last year is sure to be among the favorites this year.
Points also became more readily available at clubs. Back in the sixties club points were called "fractionals" (or "rating points") and that's because the best you could do was a fraction of 1.00. As recently as the early 1980's 0.60 was the most you could get for winning a club game, unless it was a "special" game, and those were few and far between.
In recent years the ACBL has made it a lot easier to earn masterpoints. More masterpoints was seen as a way to encourage beginning and intermediate players, and so we saw the birth of strats and brackets. And it achieved its purpose. Printing more masterpoints was also seen as a way to increase club attendance and raise money for charity, the junior fund, the international fund and the education fund. At first it was one or two special games a month (for each sanctioned session), but a few years ago the Board passed a motion allowing all club games to be special games. For the price of a $1.00 per person contribution, all club masterpoint awards would be (almost) tripled.
Clubs could now offer triple points for all their games, and when the players at the club across town only got 1/3 the payoff for beating the same number of pairs in the same level of competition, the other clubs in town were forced to follow suit. In just the past year the number of special games (measured by table-count) has increased 50%. Although they still represent only 16% of all club table-counts, negative effects were already becoming evident.
Why would anybody take the time and spend the money to travel to a sectional tournament when the same masterpoints could be won at their local club? In our district most of our sectionals rely on out-of-town players, and if they were lost we would start losing sectionals. Why would anybody bother playing in STaCs or NAPs or GNTs? New players were rocketing up the rank ladder before they had time to really learn the game and when they were forced into brackets and strats because of their "special" masterpoints they were lost and many just quit the game.
Worst of all, the phenomena was creating two classes of masterpoints, which cuts right to the integrity of the game. Simple math tells us that 1/3 of the triple points were earned, but the other 2/3 was purchased. And the masterpoint inflation was devaluing the masterpoints earned "the hard way" in the past.
The ACBL Board recognized that the system needed to be brought back into balance and effective July 1 masterpoint awards for special games will be 70% of sectional rating rather than 100%, in other words double instead of triple. Although all games can be "special" in February, April and October, in the remaining months clubs will be limited to one special game per month per sanctioned session. The motion passed by a vote of 23 to 2.
Special games will continue to raise healthy amounts of money for worthy purposes, but the amounts are expected to decrease.
The next challenge will be to rein in internet masterpoints. It is simply too easy to accumulate huge amounts of points. With barely 1/6 of the year gone the leading online player had piled up more than 360 ACBL masterpoints, which puts him on a pace to finish the year with over 2,000. This was enough to win the McKenney Trophy (now "Barry Crane Top 500") every year until 1977. You can expect this to be adjusted by the National Board of Directors.
It was extremely interesting to see the ACBL Board in action, and we can all be comforted to know that the future of bridge is in the competent hands of a group of very dedicated and exceptionally talented people. That doesn't mean you can't disagree with some of their decisions every now and then. Some of the problems are not easy and sometimes you just can't keep all the people happy all the time.
If anybody would like to know more about what happened in Reno, please drop me a line at johnvanness@comcast.com. Or you can get the full and official report from Jerry.
Spring is coming and that means Mesa in April, Denver in May and Las Vegas in June.
See you soon.