PIVOT TEAMS MOVEMENTS

by MAX BAVIN E.B.U.Chief Tournament Director

(Reproduced by kind permission of the author)

The article in the last club newsletter explained how to run fairly simple multiple teams movements in two

halves e.g. before and after a tea break.

It has occurred to many tournament directors that the concept of a "half-time score" is very useful when

organising a "Pivot Teams Movement", as the teams can be instructed to change partnerships at half time.

A FULL PIVOT movement is a movement in which each player within a team is required to play approximately

one-third of the boards with each of the other 3 members of his (or her) team as his partner. The 'half-time

score' movement described in the last newsletter would allow a 'partial pivot' to be made, as each player can

have two different team-members as his partners (one before the break, one after). Inevitably, several clubs have

enquired whether these same principles can be extended to allow the full pivot i.e."scoring up" at one third

of the way through the movement and at two-thirds of the way through.

As far as I am aware, this is a new area of research inasmuch as I cannot recall having seen an article on the

subject before. The answer to the query is yes - similar principles can be applied to solve the problem. This

solution is inevitably rather more complicated than the 'half-time score' method, so please accept my apologies

if the description of the method below appears to be rather technical, I have assumed a movement for at least 7

teams and of precisely 24 boards duration. The description is divided into 3 sections:-

(i) for 7 or 8 teams, playing 24 boards in 4-board rounds

(ii) for 9 to 12 teams, playing 24 boards in 3-board rounds

(iii) for 13+ teams, playing 4 boards in 2-board rounds

Whichever section is being applied, the tournament director must distribute one set of boards onto each table in

the usual manner at the start of the event. Thus, in a 10-team movement there will be 30 boards in play: in a

14-team movement there will be 28 boards in play etc.

You will also recall from the previous article that an instruction such as "up 5 tables" can be expressed to the

players as 'up 5 tables' or 'down (n-5) tables', where 'n' is the number of tables in play. So in a 14-team

movement, 'up 5 tables' and 'down 9' are the same thing.

Seven or Eight teams

Two rounds of 4 boards are played with each partner.

FOR:-

* Round 1: E/W move up 1 table. Make the boards

FOR:-

*Round 2: E/W down 2.

Boards down 1.

At the end of round 2, E/W return to their team table to score up and change partners.

Whilst his team score up the T.D collects the boards and puts them out again in sequence with

the highest numbered board set on Table 1, ready for round 3.

Thus boards 1 - 4 go on Table 2, 5 - 8 on Table 3 etc.

FOR:-

* Round 3: E/W move up 3 tables from their team table.

FOR:-

*Round 4: E/W down 6.

Boards down 3 ( E/W take boards they have just played to their team table)

At the end of round 4, E/W return to their team table to score up and change partners.

FOR:-

* Round 5: E/W move up 2 tables from their team table.

Boards down 1 table.

FOR:-

*Round 6: E/W down 4.

Boards down 2.

Nine to Twelve teams

Two rounds of 3 boards are played with each of two different partners. The final phase is 4 rounds of 3

boards with the third partner, so the teams will doubtless elect to keep their 'regular' line-up until the end.

Rounds 1 to 4 are exactly the same as per the 7 or 8-team movement.i.e.

FOR:-

* Round 1: E/W move up 1 table. Make the boards

FOR:-

*Round 2: E/W down 2.

Boards down 1.

At the end of round 2, E/W return to their team table to score up and change partners.

Whilst his team score up the T.D collects the boards and puts them out again in sequence with

the highest numbered board set on Table 1, ready for round 3.

Thus boards 1 - 3 go on Table 2, 4 - 6 on Table 3 etc.

FOR:-

* Round 3: E/W move up 3 tables from their team table.

FOR:-

*Round 4: E/W down 6.

Boards down 3

At the end of round 4, E/W return to their team table to score up and change partners.

FOR:-

* Round 5: E/W move up 4 tables from their team table.

Boards down 1 table.

FOR:-

*Round 6: E/W down 2

Boards down 1

FOR:-

* Round 7: E/W down 4 tables.

Boards down 2 ( E/W take boards they have just played to their team table)

FOR:-

*Round 8: E/W down 2

Boards down 1

Thirteen or more teams

Four rounds of 2 boards are played with each partner. The movement gets fairly complicated later on ,

so the TD will need to take great care.

FOR:-

* Round 1: E/W move up 3 tables. Make the boards

FOR:-

*Round 2: E/W down 2.

Boards down 1

FOR:-

* Round 3: E/W down 2.

Boards down 1

FOR:-

*Round 4: E/W down 2.

Boards down 1

At the end of round 4, E/W return to their team table to score up and change partners.

Whilst his team score up the T.D collects the boards and puts them out again in sequence with

set 7 (boards 13 - 14) on Table 1, ready for round 5.

Thus boards 15 - 16 go on Table 2, 17 - 18 on Table 3 etc.

FOR:-

* Round 5: E/W move up 4 tables from their team table.

FOR:-

*Round 6: E/W down 2.

Boards down1.

FOR:-

* Round 7: E/W down 4

Boards down 2 ( E/W take boards they have just played to their team table)

FOR:-

*Round 8: E/W down 2.

Boards down1.

At the end of round 8, E/W return to their team table to score up and change partners.

FOR:-

*Round 9: E/W down 6 tables from their team table.

Boards down 1

T.D collects the boards and puts them out again insequence with

set 5 (boards 9 - 10) on Table 1, ready for round 10.

Thus boards 11 - 12 go on Table 2, 13 - 14 on Table 3 etc.

FOR:-

* Round 10: E/W move up 1 tables.

FOR:-

*Round 11: E/W up 11 tables.

Boards down 1

T.D collects the boards and puts them out again in sequence with

the highest numbered board set on Table 1, ready for round 12.

Thus boards 1 - 2 go on Table 2, 3 - 4 on Table 3 etc.

FOR:-

*Round 12: E/W down 1 table

As with all team movements, it is beneficial to chart the progress of team 1 as a 'check'

For example with 14 teams the progress of N/S 1 is as follows:

R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12

versus 12 14 2 4 11 13 3 5 7 6 9 10

board set 1 2 3 4 7 8 10 11 12 5 6 14

And E/W move:

versus 4 2 14 12 5 3 13 11 9 10 7 6

board set 4 3 2 1 11 10 8 7 6 14 12 5

Thus, within each 4-round stanza, E/W have met boards and opponents in precisely the opposite order to

theis N/S team-mates, which is the desired effect. The final stanza is a little irregular, as I have switched

over rounds 11 & 12 in order to make the movement a little simpler for the players.

This sort of chart is invaluable to the TD 'on site', as it acts as a final chech that the movement is going

according to plan i.e. that boards and pairs are in the right place at the right time.

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To assist the TD I have created initial 'Table Layouts' and 'Table Cards' derived from the

movement descriptions as provided above by Max Bavin.

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