mrdct

Of which, on an obviously sound statistical basis, 11.2 +/- 1.8 at a 95% CI voted for the Big W.

She.

For much the same reasons that Brazil doesn't get to send two teams to the FIFA World Cup, USA shouldn't get to field two teams in the Bermuda Bowl. Whilst the USA clearly has superior depth at its elite level, there are several other countries which could field Bermuda Bowl teams of quarter-final reaching quality too. The fact that USA2 didn't make the quarter-finals this year has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on my views on this matter. With exception of sub-political entities such as England, Hong Kong, Guadeloupe, etc. that have traditionally competed in a variety of sports in their own right, I'm a firm believer in one team per country irrespective of the playing strength and depth of bridge talent in those countries. I also think that where possible no country should have an easy ride into the Bermuda Bowl; hence my belief that my own country's qualification path should be more challenging and even if we don't manage to join Asia (which Australia has done for football qualification purposes) one team from Zone 7 is more than enough.. As for my suggested Bermuda Bowl field composition and Zone rationalisation, if Mexico were to compete as part of Central America & Carribean, that would only leave USA and Canada in Zone 2 so any more than two teams would obviously not be possible if countries are limited to one team each. The reason I've suggested 1.5 teams is that Canada should not have an automatic Bermuda Bowl berth. Perhaps a better plan for the Americas would be to split it into two zones of roughly equal size and run two separate zonal championships to pick two teams from each and the respective third place teams can have a separate playoff to give five teams for the combined Americas. Some more analysis of bridge populations, resources and talent would need to be done, but if a few (or all) Carribean countries fell into North America, Miami would be pretty logical place to hold a zonal championship or perhaps a resort in the West Indies somwhere. The Bermuda Bowl should have balanced representation of bridge populations from all over the world and every bridge playing country should have a reasonable but challenging qualification path; or at least be able to play in a meaningful qualification event that includes some "giants" of the game so they can see what they are up against.

There are at least four countries (as recognised by the UN) in addition to the USA that are allowed to send multiple teams to the Bermuda Bowl. These are: United Kingdom (England, Scotland and Wales); Denmark (Denmark and Faroe Islands); China (China, Hong Kong, Macao and one other debatable one); and France (France, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guyana, New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Reunion). In practice I thing that it's only China and France out of these four that have managed to get multiple teams to a BB, VC or SB through their Zonal qualifier (in France's case four separate Zones are involved). Of course the key difference here vis-a-vis the USA situation is that the sub-entities of these countries have some international profile in their own right and some degree of political autonomy. I think there are plenty of countries with sufficient depth to be able to field a 2nd, 3rd or 4th team with realistic chances of making the quarter-finals. One only has to look at how close the national trials were in some of the contending countries to evidence this. But I don't think that is a reasonable justification for one country getting to send more than one team. With places like the Netherlands, France and China being quite likely to overtake the USA in terms of active membership in the near future, I think now is the time to revert to a "one country one team" structure rather than having to entertain claims for multiple teams from other countries in the future. However, I'm happy to preserve the WBF recognition of "psuedo" countries like the ones noted above on a similar basis to how FIFA do it. Another issue raised in this thread is the relative easy path that Australia has to the Berumda Bowl (essential only needing to finish top 2 out of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and French Polynesia). I couldn't agree more and strongly believe that Zone 7 (South Pacific) ought to be disbanded and merged with Zone 6 (Pacific-Asia) with the top 3 or 4 teams from the PABF Championships getting the Bermuda Bowl berths. If you were going to rationalise things further, you could also look at breaking up BFAME (West Asia and Middle East) sending the Middle East teams to the African Zone and the West Asian teams to the Pacific-Asia Zone. There may also be some merit in moving Mexico to the Central America 7 Carribean Zone to at least give them some hope of qualifying; but this would probably leave Canada with too easy a path so I'm not sure how to get around that one, unless you get Canada to have a play-off against the CAC winner; a bit like FIFA organise the football world cup. So the Bermuda Bowl Field could be something like: Zone 1 (Europe): 6 teams Zone 2 (Nth Am): 1.5 teams (USA to play-off vs Canada and loser of that plays-off against the winner of CAC) Zone 3 (Sth Am): 2 teams Zone 4 (CAC): 0.5 teams Zone 5 (BFAME): disbanded Zone 6 (PABF): 4 teams (expanded field including Pacific and West Asian teams) Zone 7 (Pacific): disbanded Zone 8 (Africa & Mid-East): 2 teams Total: 16 teams. This possibly a bit harsh on the expanded PABF which would go from 7 teams (this year not counting the host country the BB had Japan, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei, India, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand). But I think a condensed more elite field will be better for the event. Remember the Olympiad is still open all countries and Zonal Championships are still significant and prestigious events, with the PABF Championships likely to be significantly enhanced.

Good point. I forgot all about that as we have compulsory voting in my country. That reminds me of a comment made to me about 10 years ago by a partner in a very large multi-national accounting firm where I used work who was out in Australia for a quality control review. He told me that greater than 50% of the firm's partners in the USA did not hold a passport which I found quite surprising as partners in large multi-national accounting firms don't tend to be short of a dollar and ought to be able to travel abroad to their heart's content.

I couldn't agree more, except: - Not on the sporting field. - Not when you are representing your country in international competition. One thing that I'm struggling to get my head around is that with the USA being one of the few places in the world with a popularly elected head of state, one would expect that at least 50% of Americans would've voted for Bush at least once; but as things pan out I don't think I've encountered any Americans that admit to the deed.

I've only got a 1.6mb flash video file of it, but in any case it isn't mine to share so I think you'll just need to wait until it appears in the public domain which I'm sure wont be too long.

I've just see some video of the incident, which I expect in due course will be out in the public domain but I won't be the one releasing it. The video shows the following: - at the instant that the anthem starts the "We Didn't Vote for Bush" sign is not visible anywhere (although at this point the video isn't panned out to see the entire team); - Debbie Rosenberg then glances to her left and is handed the sign by Hansa Narasimhan (looking very much like a couple of silly school girls passing a note in class); - They are all more-or-less standing at attention and, indeed, Jill Levin who prior to the start of the anthem was busy inspecting the trophy ceased doing that and stood still in a dignified manner for at least the first 30 seconds of the video (which is all I have seen); - Gail Greenberg, Jill Myers and JoAnna Stansby appear to be singing along to the anthem while the others are just look really happy to be there with some laughter and chatting evident, but I wouldn't go so far as to suggest it was over-the-top. - About 8 seconds into the anthem, Jill Myers grabs the sign briefly to hold it jointly aloft with Debbie Rosenberg who then retakes control of the sign and holds it front of her chest. - Now here is the previously unreported bit: on the audio of the video one can clearly hear male voices vigourously cheering, laughing and egging-on the ladies on stage. You can hear a few "yeah"s and "ha ha ha ha"s. I suspect that those voices weren't the Chinese waiters serving refreshments.

Quite an interesting point that has some parallels with the "club vs country" debate whenever star football players get called up for international duty often to the detriment of their professional club. The livelihood of professional bridge players depends on their recurrent professional gigs with the well-paying sponsors, so clearly in order to keep their families fed a fair degree of loyalty to their sponsor is required. I can't remember exactly when it was, but I believe that the situation has arisen with a USA team previously where the npc wanted to bench the playing-sponsor to maximise the chances of USA winning the match, but out of loyalty to their sponsor (without whom they wouldn't have been able to get where they are) one or more of the professional players either feined illness or threatened to fein illness inorder to ensure that the playing-sponsor played. I hope some bridge historian can confirm or correct this for me as I probably read it on rgb or some similar "authoritative" source. I'm not going to comment on Rodwell or Versace as I've never met either of them and have no idea where their loyalities lie, but I would suggest that just like any other segment of the population, elite bridge players would have varying degrees of patriotism and I'm sure there exist some who take the "representing one's country" thing more seriously than others. For me, aside from seeing my children born, representing my country at bridge has been the highlight of my life so far.

Perhaps due to the generally longer distances that Australians need to travel to get to international events, the Australia Bridge Federation requires players to arrive at least 48 hours before play commences. With China being in a similar time-zone to Australia and only a short 10 hour direct flight from Sydney, 48 hours may have been a little bit over the top, but I would suggest that every minute of that 48 hours would be useful for players coming from further away and with a big time change.

Actually, "Save the Whale" may have been a tad inflamatory given that Norway is one of the few countries in the world that still hunts and kills the creatures.

Perhaps you haven't been watching the same sports events I've been watching Roland as unfortunately making political statements on the sporting field and/or victory podium is all too common. There is obviously the famous Olympic medal ceremony in Mexico City in 1968 where Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the gold and bronze medalists in the men's 200 metre race, took their places on the podium for the medal ceremony barefooted and wearing civil rights buttons, lowered their heads and each defiantly raised a black-gloved fist as the US national anthem was played. In Australia there has been a long-running controvesy over indigenous athletes, most notably Cathy Freeman in track & field, parading around during victory laps with the Aboriginal Flag which is closely associated with a political agenda championing social injustice and land rights issues. In the Australian Football League there was some controversy back in 2002 when a prominent player had the words "NO WAR" written on his arm during an official team photo which lead to the AFL forbidding players from making political statements on the field. At the cricket World Cup in 2003 (which I'm sure Roland was following closely) Andy Flower and Henry Olonga wore black armbands ". . . mourning the death of democracy in ... Zimbabwe". Not surprisingly, neither player ever played international cricket again. I'm struggling to find some actual examples, but over the last decade or so there was a proliferation of football (soccer) players having slogans written on their singlets that would be revealed during goal celebrations. Most of the slogans were quite benign (such as "get well soon Mum") but others were overt political statements which lead FIFA to banning players from removing their jersey to reveal slogans or advertising. I wonder how different our attitudes to Debbie Rosenberg's protest may have been if her slogan read "Stop Global Warming", "Save the Whale" or "World Peace".

You are too naive for comfort if you think that this was the work of one person. Unless "We" is "pluralis majestatis". I don't think Debbie Rosenberg is royal. Roland I don't think it's at all obviously that any of the USA1 ladies other than Debbie Rosenberg were aware that she was going to pull her little sign out. From looking at photos Debbie didn't appear to have the sign in her hand until after the medals has been put around everyone's neck, the officials had stepped away and Gail Greenberg had the trophy in her hand. I keenly await comment from an official member of the USBF delegation.

Obviously the WBF wouldn't include such a picture in their own publication. As for representing one's country, believe it or not a lot of people take a great deal of pride in having the honour to represent their country. Having been fortunate enough to have had the honour a couple of times myself, I can certainly say it is one of the proudest feelings one can experience. At the World Youth that I played in 1993, Norway (including Geir Helgemo) won the silver medal and the passion with which they all sang their national anthem at the medal ceremony is a memory that will never leave me. I've got no idea (and indeed no interest) in whether or not the USA1 ladies are patriotic or not; although I note that there was no shortage of USA flags being waved by and around them in some of the photo galleries of the medal ceremony that I've seen. I presume the child up on the stage is Debbie Rosenberg's - complete with the star spangled banner in his hot little hand. Well done to Norway and I hope we will see Boye Brogeland in Canberra in January to defend his other "important" title won this year!

I'm in furious agreement with Fred. I would go further to say that this incident is an embarrassment for the game. I'm sure most NBOs have codes of conduct dealing with these sort of things, for example from the CBF Code of Conduct (my emphasis added): "2. Representatives of the CBF shall conduct themselves at all times in a fair and responsible manner. 3. Representatives shall refrain from comments or behaviours that are disrespectful, offensive, abusive, racist or sexist. In particular, behaviour that constitutes harassment or abuse will not be tolerated by CBF. 4. During the course of all activities and events, CBF representatives shall avoid behaviour that brings the CBF or the game of bridge into disrepute, including but not limited to abusive use of alcohol and non-medicinal use of drugs." I'd be surprised if the USBF didn't have something similar. The other thing that these ladies probably should've taken into account is that China is not a place where free speech is practiced and making political statements can and does get a lot of people (including foreigners) into hot water from time to time.

If a player turns up 16 minutes late for a segment of a knock-out match in a world championship they deserve whatever ridicule anyone can come up with. Perhaps Stacy Jacobs was watching a different table to the one I was at, but when the issue came up for discussion at my table the following was said: "Walddk2: The question is whether the Americans can afford the 11 IMPs they were fined in the previous set brolucius: Tell us more. Walddk2: Late arrival of one player, 16 minutes bjacobs: We are talking the Venice Cup here? brolucius: Wow! Walddk2: 5 minutes free of charge, then 1 IMP per minute after that kit: does the 14 IMP lead include the penalty Roland? Walddk2: That I don't know brolucius: You need a good girlfriend to make such a delay worthwhile. barnets: :rolleyes: bjacobs: Schiffer, minimum kit: this is the venice cup David Walddk2: Well, there is no law against having girlfriends in the Venice Cup" All seemed pretty benign to me.

In a recent posting to a different thread I made what turned out to be quite an infamatory comment that "ladies ... events are an embarrassment for a mind-sport such as bridge". This was misinterpreted by some and serious offence was taken by a few for which I regret. As some may now have worked out, I have a very similar perspective to Patapon on this matter that in essence the existence of female-only events is not good for the improvment in skill of female players or partnerships. Fluffy also makes some telling observations of the real-life adverse effects of running female-only events. I also believe holding female-only events is not good for the image of the game as it conveys a message that females aren't able to effectively compete with males in a mind-sport where gender ought not make any difference to a person's capacity to be a good bridge player. As far as I know there was only one female player in the Bermuda Bowl this year, Pauline Gumby from Australia. In her partnership with Warren Lazer she played a key role in getting Australia into the quarter-finals, finishing a credible 13th in the datums. Whilst I haven't been keeping close tabs on Pauline's bridge career, she was fixture on Australian ladies teams throughout the early 80s and, indeed, had a win and few placings in the PABF Championships. Pauline more-or-less stopped playing in ladies events in the mid-80s and concentrated on open bridge and along the way has collected plenty of national titles and earned selection to the Australian open team twice. As the feminist I am, I encourage my sisters all over the world to break the bondage of stagnant female partnerships and contest open events. But if some still prefer to play in female-only events for whatever reason, that's OK too.

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to be critical of any of the many hard-working volunteers that make BBO vugraph possible. It is intended to stimulate discussion on how an already excellent service can be improved. Moreover, my comments may relate to matters completely outside the control of BBO so can only really be addressed through lobbying event convenors and sponsoring organisations. 1. How was the internet connectivity from Shanghai? Excellent. 2. How was the quality of the operators? Excellent. I don't think I've ever seen better (aside from when shaving of course). 3. How was the presentation from the venue regarding internet broadcast? Average. Hooking into what seemed to be a very professional looking TV camera system at the main table would've been nice, there was no web access to line-up data, WBF website very slow to post official scores, the commercial issues around the multiple vugraph providers detracted from the viewers' experience, a lot of the bridgemate data seemed to be inaccurate, and match selection was suboptimal (although largely beyond BBO's control) with many teams getting little or no coverage. 4. How was the co-ordination away from the venue? Excellent. However, I remain of the view that some degree of automation should be developed for commentator assignments. 5. 6 tables per session we had. Was that satisfactory? Disappointing. Only covering three matches per round and often one or two of those from the VC or SB lead to very scant coverage of "non-fancied" teams in the BB. Where the number of operators is a constraint, I'm generally of the view that it's better to have single table coverage of more matches; which is particularly feasible when bridgemates are used. 6. How did you like the commentary? Average. Hard to assess this objectively as I commentated several times myself. I think the limit of four or five commentators per table is a good idea as things can and do get a bit cluttered at times. Having said that, when you are watching vugraph it is very easy to quickly mark any commentator that you find annoying as an enemy and you wont see what they are saying. - 7. Should we continue with multiple languages? Average. I think it's great for non-English speakers, but would be better if there was multi-channel chat.

In today's Bulletin from Shanghai there is a report that: "The WBF president also announced that the Laws Committee has completed several changes to the Laws, which will be known as the Laws of Duplicate Bridge (dropping “contract” from the title). The new laws will take effect Jan. 1 of next year, although some countries are not expected to have them translated immediately. All are expected to be using the new Laws by September of 2008." Aside from the title, does anyone know what the changes are?

Outside America everyone knows what FIFA is. There is some merit in following the lead from the world's most important sporting organisation.

I'm not 100% sure on this but I think the All-Ireland flag used in sporting events and the flag of the Republic of Ireland are one in the same thing. I suspect that the reason nobody gets particularly uptight about it is that the Irish tricolour is intended as a symbol of peace and unity, not just of Ireland, but of the two distinct peoples within the island, those being the Roman Catholic Irish (Green) and the Protestant Unionist traditions (Orange) being united by peace (White).

To it more into context, the situation arose on the 4th board of the final segment of the semi-final at a point where USA1 were clinging to a 13 point lead, but were playing in a dodgey vulnerable 5NT contract where going down could quite easily have seen their entire lead disappear. However, as observed by blackshoe, players shouldn't be making their own rulings at the table. In the event that the director may have insisted that the ♠5 remain on the table as a penalty card, Weinstein could still maintain his high sportsmanship by playing a ♠ to the A at the appropriate point.

Bob, There is the Northern Ireland Bridge Union which is a member of the Irish Bridge Union and is affiliated to Bridge Great Britian. It is a union of clubs grouped into six areas — Antrim/Derry, Armagh/South Down, Belfast, East Down, North Down, Fermanagh/Tyrone. There are 39 clubs throughout Northern Ireland now actively affiliated to the NIBU with a total of 2646 registered members. Interestingly, the Irish Bridge Union (IBU) is a confederation of the Contract Bridge Association of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Bridge Union. The IBU organises participation in European and World Championships on behalf of All-Ireland. So bridge is one of a number of sports where the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are able to field a combined team; although I'm not sure how often any Northern Ireland players have made it into an All-Ireland bridge team. Wikipedia reports that "many sports are organised on an All-Ireland basis, for example basketball, boxing, cricket, curling, Gaelic football, golf, field hockey, horse racing, hurling, rugby league and rugby union. A notable exception is football". All quite interesting and quite a unique situation I guess. As John Lennon said, "imagine there's no countries ..." :P Dave.

Fred, Thanks for your congratulatory sentiments, but I thought you were opposed to the use of sarcasm in debates on BBO forums. I have no idea why you have inferred that I'm complaining about the Northern Ireland flag being available on BBO. I was just trying to identify if any additional flag recognition criteria exist for constituent entities of UN-recognised nations that do participate in meaningful international competition (such as the Camrose and the Lady Milne) but not in WBF events. I think it is completely sensible to have a Northern Ireland flag available, particularly for vugraph where it would look quite odd for England, Scotland and Wales to all have their own flags and then have Northern Ireland competing under the UN flag (or now the white flag if watching BBOTV). In all my contributions to the various threads on flag issues over the years, my only concern has been vugraph which has in the past been adversely impacted by the Taiwan/Chinese Taipei issue; to the detriment of bridge fans who have not been able to watch bridge legends such as Patrick Huang. I believe a straight-out alignment of the flags available in BBO to the flags recognised by the WBF is clearly the way to go. Then any issues that people have with which countries are recognised or not can be referred to the WBF. Best regards, Dave.

So how does Northern Ireland qualify for a flag on BBO?