The EBU has for some time been considering the stratification of games; this means that in any game that a club has decided to stratify there will be master point winners at two or more levels, depending upon the levels of stratification that the club decides to implement. It will not affect the way that the game is played in any way, players of all levels will play in the same manner they do at present, but there will be a presentation of stratified results at the end of the game and corresponding master point awards. Full details of those awards will be available after we have thoroughly tested the software facilities. Clubs will (optionally) be able to separate their games into three stratification levels, A, B and C.
Purely as an example, clubs could choose something like the following stratification levels -
C up to Master
B up to Regional Master
A above Regional Master.
The game will be played and scored in the usual manner, but the resulting master point awards will be made taking into account the stratification levels. For example, this means that if a "strat c" player has a good day they will, of course, win the master points at their highest level of achievement, but if they were not that successful but still able to finish in the top part of their own stratified level there will still be a master point award. When this possibility was considered by the interim Club Committee they were extremely enthusiastic. We will be able to introduce this facility into our clubs (and some EBU events) during the next 6-12 months.
We are looking for two or three clubs that use Scorebridge to offer themselves for “beta” or secondary testing of these new facilities. Once the system works we will make the required functionality available to other scoring system authors, but it will be up to them as to whether they add the functionality to their programs.
If your club is interested in helping us, please let Barry Capal know (barry@ebu.co.uk). It is unlikely these tests will start before October 2010.
