Most junior and intermadiate players I have spoken to DO NOT want to become ineligible for their grade too soon

Which makes the extra points for team events a DISincentive for clubs to run and players to particpate in teams events

Wow Nick, now you want them to make sense. You will be voting for the Greens next. 

Why are junior and intermediate level players reluctant to win masterpoints that will move them on to open?

I think that the answer is clear. The gap in standard between an intermediate competition and an open event is too big.

An intermediate player can play in club events or local 5B tournaments and do well enough to pick up master points and even the occasional prize and then, after a number of years doing that, they put so many stars on their local master certificate that they get an open ranking and they can no longer play in those 5B tournaments. They are then forced into the open events and score 40% and don't really understand why or how to improve. They may very well not want to improve if that involves finding the time to read a bridge book every week, and have serious discussions on systems and event post mortems.

It appears to me that our current structure means that there is no place for those folks who just want to learn the basics - up to intermediate level - and then continue to play bridge as an enjoyable way to pass the time.

I would suggest that it should be harder to become an open player and that it should also be possible to drop down from an open rating. One way to achieve this would be to say that the open rating should only be given to players who have 50 rating A points.

Perhaps even there should be a level of competition pitched at a point between intermediate and open. I know that the Auckland club sometimes awards prizes in open events to players at the lower end of open and at its last 5A Swiss pairs event, the Akarana club awarded prizes to the top three pairs who each had fewer than 700 rating points between the pair. Now that gives somebody playing in their first year as an open player something to aim at with a realistic prospect of a prize.

Those suggestions may not be the best way to address this but they would at least be an improvement on the current structure which means that some bridge players are actually discouraged from playing in some events. Is there any other sport that does that?

Here is a little fairy story (apologies to Stanley for plagiarising his style :)

Mickey and his wife Minnie play bridge regularly at home.

He is more skilled than her and tells her off so often and in such a manner it upsets her and embarrasses their opponents.

Someone suggested they join the club so they can play with other partners.

This club had two sections one for pairs and one for teams in every session (I said this was a fairy story; I don't know of any club which does that).

There are two sections both with 4 tables
The Pairs section runs a Mitchell with 4 6-board rounds
The Teams section has a round-robin with 3 8-board matches

On the first Monday evening Mickey plays in the Pairs and comes first, earning 40 C-points
Minnie plays in the Teams and wins two of the three matches, earning 32 C-points

On the Wednesday evening the competition is tougher and Mickey comes third of four in the Pairs and
Minnie's team loses all their matches. Neither earn any C-points.

On the Friday morning Mickey plays in the Pairs and comes second, earning 2 C-points
Minnie's team wins one match beating only the team which loses all their matches.
Minnie earns 16 C-points for that win.

This scenario exactly repeats itself over the next ten weeks

Then Minnie is presented with her “Certificate of Proficiency” as she now has 5.28 masterpoints.

Mickey only has 4.62 so he misses out (even though he had a better result than Minnie in every session).

Go figure

So, last night, I played in a club teams evening. The first of four nights in the event in which two 14 board matches are played each session.

We won both matches well and ended up with 35VPs well ahead of the rest of the field.

Under the old scheme, all four members of the team would have been awarded 56 C points at the published rate of 2 C points per board per match won.

Now, under the new masterpoints process, our team mates were awarded 40 C points and my partner and I were awarded 2 C points each.

That is just ridiculous and for my part, this is the last club teams event that I will ever enter. I have three more nights to get through but then that will be it and, next time, I'll look for another club in the Auckland area to play in for a few weeks.

I do not say this because I am upset about a few C points, it is because the new system for awarding C points is making a mockery of teams events at clubs. Teams competition is supposed to be about winning head to head matches not about playing to beat the datum over the room.