[manudude03]

So, I'm playing in a club handicapped teams competition on Thursday and the team I'm in has been given the largest handicap (-1.5 IMPs per board). The event will be 3 board matches against each of the other teams, and we could be potentially facing up to a 16.5 imp deficit (against a team who gets +4 IMPs per board). Each match is converted into VPs (using the 25-vp scale). Any advice out there about strategy?

[PhilKing]

Sick brag.

[rogerclee]

In my experience when a team gets a ridiculous handicap, it's usually not close to being enough to offset how much better you are. Just play normally and let them show you why they're getting 1.5 IMPs per board.

[mycroft]

I've had a sick handicap twice; once I got lucky (and I felt a bit apologetic about it, but took the win - we did play well, but we got lucky), and once was our 900MPs vs the Bronze Medal from the Women's Worlds. We even won 2 of the four sets of 6 boards...

Yeah, mostly play your game and show it. 3-board matches are insane, though - the "we open a 12-14 NT so rightsided the game" makes up for pretty much any skill. Good luck.

[JLOGIC]

rogerclee, on 2013-May-06, 17:41, said:

In my experience when a team gets a ridiculous handicap, it's usually not close to being enough to offset how much better you are. Just play normally and let them show you why they're getting 1.5 IMPs per board.

Always true in the US scale but lolll @ 3 board matches where you're spotting 16.5.

Just hope for non flat boards

[Cyberyeti]

Worst handicap I ever had was when partner got held up in traffic and arrived 3 boards into a 4 board match so we started with -9 IMPs and 1 board to play. We picked up 1100 on the remaining board and won the match (opps opened a routine weak 2 and the big hand with the trump stack had confidence partner would reopen with a X at our table, but bid 3N at the other).

Play normally, you might consider doing something a little different if you have a bad first board in a match where you have a big handicap. Personality matters here, it may be better for only one pair to ever consider stepping seriously out of line in this circumstance.

[barmar]

The high variance of the short matches will probably have far more impact than the handicaps.

[FrancesHinden]

3-board matches converted to VPs?
persuade the organisers to use a sensible form of scoring.