How to Choose 2 teams in 1 Trials

[hrothgar]

The more that I look at the cascading RR format that Wayne suggests, the more that I like it. (BTW, I think that "Cascade" would be a obvious choice of nomenclature)

 

My primary concern is the relatively short duration of the matches during the final rounds of the event. By this stage in the process, the last teams should be closely matched in terms of strength. You'll want long matches to ensure statistically significant results. My gut says that adding an additional day to the trial and increasing the length of these matches to 72 boards would have a signficant impact on the final results.

 

In addition, if we turn to the early events in the cascade, theres NO way that we could create a fully meshed round robin. We'd need to determine if it was better to 5 fully meshed RR's with 5 teams OR run a single Swiss with 25 teams (eliminating the bottom 5). I think that there might be some significant advantages to using the Swiss format with the Strength of Schedule adjustment that Gerben and Alex developed for the Aussies. (The SoS metric compensates for the lack of a complete mesh and doesn't require any assumptions about seeding)

[JanM]

I've suggested more Round Robins a few times when we have been discussing the USBC format. As someone mentioned above, it hasn't been a popular suggestion among US players. The main objection raised is that, particularly with a mild cut, there is too much opportunity for "sportsmanslike" dumping - a situation where it is to one team's advantage to lose to a "bad" team in order to eliminate a "good" team.

 

IMP carryover prevents this to some extent of course, but IMP carryover also has flaws - it means that sometimes your goals are uncertain - should you go all out to win a match, knowing that you might end up losing lots of IMPs and thus being eliminated from the event when you might not have been eliminated had you just played down the middle? Should you "look ahead," trying to build up IMPs against a team you are pretty sure will advance, even if that might change which other teams advance? That's a basic problem with Round Robins, of course - in a KO match, your goal is clear: beat the team against whom you are playing. In a Round Robin, sometimes both your fate and your goal depends on what other teams are doing.

 

Another flaw, and one that I know many people on the drafting committee consider overwhelming, is that sometimes a team that has already been eliminated has an effect on which team(s) advance. That's an uncomfortable position for the "eliminated" team (I know, having once been in that situation), as well as making the teams still fighting for a place feel awkward.

 

Another problem with Round Robins that is less obvious is that not everyone plays the same field, because we have a significant number of sponsored teams, where the team is of varying quality depending on when the sponsor plays. That leads to some luck in a KO (whether the sponsor plays when boards are "swingy," but much more in a Round Robin. We try to mitigate the problem to some exent by requiring blind lineup submissions for the Round Robin - teams have to submit their lineups before knowing what team they are playing the match against - but that is less effective with fewer teams in the Round Robin.

[mycroft]

Two things I think are needed:

- The chance of the best team getting an unlucky session and being knocked out early, knowing that they can catch up in the next 48 boards.

- Stamina, and the ability to win after a week/10 days of strenuous bridge, is required to be proven.

 

The best thing, of course, is to mirror the coniditions they are going to find when they win - after all, we want the team that can best play in the conditions of the World Championship. We can't do that, we know that, but we can come as close as meets the requirement of having a good experience for the dead money (yeah, that's a mean term, but there are lots of people who are dead money that are willing to pay the money for the fun of the tournament, even in Poker. I'd be one, frankly, especially if there was something to do after being knocked out).

 

I understand the seeding thoughts that the "big three" should be part of the process; they at least prove stamina. So, give the winners clear byes through the RRs. There's an incentive (I know this is how it used to be, but...) Give those who get close a chance through seeding in the RR, but they are going to have to prove their stamina just like everybody else.

 

I also believe there should be a distinct USA 1 and USA 2, but that's because I believe that USA2 should have to meet Canada and Mexico for a qualify two. Yes, I know that that would be status quo, but it solves four issues:

- First, it gives a distinct preference to be USA 1.

- Second, it improves the non-US Zone II players by giving them extra experience at the World Class Level.

- Third, if one day USA 2 comes last, that may be an incentive to improve the choosing process for USA 2 :-)

- Fourth, in the times where Zone II are only allowed two teams, we don't have the perception problem we had the last time (where the ACBL said "two USA teams, and the rest of the zone, TFL").

 

I realize that this whole last means nothing to you, Jan, as a representative of the USBF rather than the ACBL. I just figure I should get it out in the open.

[JanM]

I also believe there should be a distinct USA 1 and USA 2, but that's because I believe that USA2 should have to meet Canada and Mexico for a qualify two.  Yes, I know that that would be status quo, but it solves four issues:

- First, it gives a distinct preference to be USA 1.

- Second, it improves the non-US Zone II players by giving them extra experience at the World Class Level.

- Third, if one day USA 2 comes last, that may be an incentive to improve the choosing process for USA 2 :-)

- Fourth, in the times where Zone II are only allowed two teams, we don't have the perception problem we had the last time (where the ACBL said "two USA teams, and the rest of the zone, TFL").

 

I realize that this whole last means nothing to you, Jan, as a representative of the USBF rather than the ACBL.  I just figure I should get it out in the open.

There are 2 Zone 2 representatives only if not enough teams finish in the top half in the Olympiad. If the US team doesn't finish in the top half in the Olympiad, the US gets 1 team and Canada & Mexico get one team (or at least I think that's what happens; I don't know because the US team has always finished in the top half in the Olympiad). If neither Canada nor Mexico finishes in the top half, the US gets 2 teams and Canada & Mexico get none. That's a WBF rule (and incidentally has always been waived for Canada/Mexico).

 

I don't think that I'm being US-centric (or whatever the word should be) to believe that the USA2 team shouldn't have to play in an additional Playoff. For one thing, the team allocation is made by WBF. I'd be more than happy to have a Zonal selection process where all 3 countries competed for our 3 teams. But WBF doesn't allow that (and I do understand the reasons, before all you Canadians come down on me :P). For another, it's already very difficult to win the chance to represent the US; I don't think it would be reasonable to make it even more so.

[pclayton]

We can't do that, we know that, but we can come as close as meets the requirement of having a good experience for the dead money (yeah, that's a mean term, but there are lots of people who are dead money that are willing to pay the money for the fun of the tournament, even in Poker. I'd be one, frankly, especially if there was something to do after being knocked out).

 

Today's dead money is tomorrow's USA1 and USA2 team.

[han]

Here is my suggestion for the knockout phase with 8 teams remaining. After the first four matches you have 4 winners and 4 losers which get a second chance.

 

The 4 winning teams play among themselves, two teams going to the winners finals and two teams going to the consolation SF. The 4 first-round losers also play for 2 places in the consolation SF.

 

Then, the four teams in the consolation SF play for a chance to play against the winners of the winners final and become USA 2.

 

USA 1 will have won all matches. USA 2 will have won all matches but 1. The other 6 teams will have lost 2 matches, once a team gets to this final stage it always gets a second chance.

 

It is possible that two teams play eachother twice, you could have a carry-over.

[cherdano]

All the suggestions need to take byes into account. Last time there was one bye to the semifinals and one to the round of 8, but that may change depending on how many seeding points the top 2/3 teams earn (maybe Jan can correct that).

[han]

Well, my idea can easily adjusted when there are byes. It is just a knock-out with a consolation event where all the losers at any stage of the main event land in the consolation which plays for the USA 2 team. The later you get knocked out in the main event, the later you appear in the consolation event.

[JanM]

A "double elimination" KO has some issues to be resolved.

First, should it start, as Hannie suggests, with the Round of 8 losers, or with the Round of 16 losers?

Second, as Arend points out, there are often teams with byes. We never know until after the Vanderbilt how many byes there will be, and there has been some discussion of making it harder to get a semi-final bye in a 2-team year, but I'm guessing that there will be 2 or 3 Round of 8 byes (2 of which might in fact be one semi-final bye).

Third, how long should the matches be? If you follow Hannie's "format," USA2 will have 4 teams when the USA1 finals starts. Those 4 need to reduce to 1 to play the losing finalist. So do they play matches that are half as long as the USA1 finals? Or does the losing finalist get a day of rest while they finish? (that would still involve shorter USA2 matches).

I suspect that the conclusion you're all reaching - that a double elimination KO is the right solution - is right, and so then we have to resolve the non-trivial problems that involves.

[TimG]

A "double elimination" KO has some issues to be resolved.

First, should it start, as Hannie suggests, with the Round of 8 losers, or with the Round of 16 losers?

Second, as Arend points out, there are often teams with byes. We never know until after the Vanderbilt how many byes there will be, and there has been some discussion of making it harder to get a semi-final bye in a 2-team year, but I'm guessing that there will be 2 or 3 Round of 8 byes (2 of which might in fact be one semi-final bye).

Third, how long should the matches be? If you follow Hannie's "format," USA2 will have 4 teams when the USA1 finals starts. Those 4 need to reduce to 1 to play the losing finalist. So do they play matches that are half as long as the USA1 finals? Or does the losing finalist get a day of rest while they finish? (that would still involve shorter USA2 matches).

I suspect that the conclusion you're all reaching - that a double elimination KO is the right solution - is right, and so then we have to resolve the non-trivial problems that involves.

I don't imagine this matters much in the attempt to determine the two best teams. But, it will make a difference in how long most teams will play, so is more of an organizational matter than a competitive matter. I would tend to think that teams that have spent the time and money to enter the event would want to play as long as possible, so you would want to have a USA2 bracket created sooner rather than later.

 

Second, as Arend points out, there are often teams with byes. We never know until after the Vanderbilt how many byes there will be, and there has been some discussion of making it harder to get a semi-final bye in a 2-team year, but I'm guessing that there will be 2 or 3 Round of 8 byes (2 of which might in fact be one semi-final bye).

Byes don't seem too difficult to accommodate. If you are willing to fill out the uSA2 bracket with some teams from the round robin that did not qualify for the winners' bracket, the matter is trivial. I posted the specifics earlier today -- the problem of three byes to the round of 8 (which I did not consider earlier) is taken care of by qualifying 10 teams to the USA1 bracket and 6 to the USA2 bracket.

Third, how long should the matches be?

There are two competing considerations here: matches should be long enough to produce significant results; and matches should be short enough to be organizationally practical.

 

My guess is that the difference between a 90 board match (6 x 16) and a 128 board match (8 x 16) is not significant (and that both are probably too short to reliably determine the stronger team). I bet those statisticians that have studied this would be happy to speak up.

 

If you start the KO phase with the round of 16, you need four rounds to determine USA1 and two additional rounds to determine USA2. That's six KO rounds, if you use 90 board (day and a half) matches, that's nine days of KOs. Another 3 days for the round robin means a 12 day event. But, the main event (USA1) will be done in 9 days, with the playoff for USA2 requiring three extra days. The event could be shortened by 1/2 a day by playing 64 board matches in the round of 16; or by a full day by playing 64 board matches in the rounds of 16 and 8.

 

If you follow Hannie's "format," USA2 will have 4 teams when the USA1 finals starts. Those 4 need to reduce to 1 to play the losing finalist. So do they play matches that are half as long as the USA1 finals? Or does the losing finalist get a day of rest while they finish? (that would still involve shorter USA2 matches).

I think the thing to do is to have four teams remaining at the conclusion of the USA1 bracket: one losing finalist plus three teams with one loss from the USA2 bracket. Then you have four teams playing off for USA2. This means you won't have to adjust the match lengths or deal with a team having time off.

 

At first glance, it might seem that the losing finalist should not be treated the same as the one-loss teams from the USA2 bracket, after all they reached the finals. But, some of those other one-loss teams may also have lost only to the USA1 winners. The losing finalist could be allowed to pick their opponents in the first playoff round as something of a reward for having made it to the USA1 finals.

[Gerben42]

How many teams normally get byes? Byes to the last 16 are not important for the dbl KO, which starts at the RO16. So let's consider byes through the QF.

 

In the dbl KO mode I outlined earlier, the best teams from the Round Robin that missed the cut can still play for USA2, i.e. they enter the KO with one already and play eachother.

 

For each bye to the QF we need to add two teams (note that if you want to have a bye to the SF you need to add 4 teams for each bye), so that always 16 teams from the RR will qualify in some way, including byes through the last 16.

 

Assuming we have 2 byes we will have:

 

2 byes to the QF

12 teams qualifying for the KO for USA1

4 teams qualifying for the KO for USA2

 

After the round of 16 we have:

 

8 teams for the QF for USA1

6 losers from the USA1 for the USA2 KO

2 winners from the previous USA2 KO round

 

After the QF we have:

 

4 teams for the SF for USA1

4 losers from the USA1 for the USA2 KO

4 winners from the previous USA2 KO round

 

After the SF we have:

 

2 teams for the F for USA1

2 losers from the USA1 for the USA2 KO

4 winners from the previous USA2 KO round

 

After the F we have:

Team USA1

1 losing finalist

3 winners from the previous USA2 KO round

 

Two more KO rounds decide USA2

 

How do I patent this idea?

[mycroft]

- Fourth, in the times where Zone II are only allowed two teams, we don't have the perception problem we had the last time (where the ACBL said "two USA teams, and the rest of the zone, TFL").

There are 2 Zone 2 representatives only if not enough teams finish in the top half in the Olympiad. If the US team doesn't finish in the top half in the Olympiad, the US gets 1 team and Canada & Mexico get one team (or at least I think that's what happens; I don't know because the US team has always finished in the top half in the Olympiad). If neither Canada nor Mexico finishes in the top half, the US gets 2 teams and Canada & Mexico get none. That's a WBF rule (and incidentally has always been waived for Canada/Mexico).

 

Heh. The one time it happened, the WBF rule was "two teams in Zone II."

The ACBL interpretation of it was "USA gets two, the rest of Zone II is out of luck."

 

(Remember that the ACBL is the Zone II Zonal Organization as well as a sponsoring organization for most organized play in Zone II (CBF, USBF, and other countries' trials, the ABA, and some other small notable tournaments (mostly involving money) excepted. At the time, of course, they were also the SO for the USA trials, and therefore had a small conflict of interest. In fact I think we owe the existence of the USBF to the discussion pointing out this "small" conflict of interest).

 

Some fairly major lobbying later, and the ACBL's 5 votes managed to convince enough of their colleagues to waive the rule that year.

 

I don't think that I'm being US-centric (or whatever the word should be) to believe that the USA2 team shouldn't have to play in an additional Playoff.

 

I think you are. This is not a strike against you - as the "face" of the USBF, you have every right and responsibility - in fact, a requirement - to be US-centric.

 

For one thing, the team allocation is made by WBF.

 

No, the number of teams allocated each zone is made by the WBF (as is the rule about maximum number of teams for each country). The determinant of which countries go is totally up to the ZO, which in this case is the ACBL.

 

Which is why I'm getting this into the open :-)

 

It's already very difficult to win the chance to represent the US; I don't think it would be reasonable to make it even more so.

 

USA2 would be representing the US. They just wouldn't - necessarily - be representing the US at the World Championships. And if you think there's a problem, ask the Italians - who have to beat some pretty tough international competition every year to get out of the EBU trials. No "win my country, play in the BB" for them - never mind for Italy2. Okay, the chance that they aren't in the top 7 of the EBU trials is slim-to-none, so it's pretty much automatic, but isn't that exactly my point?

 

Michael.

[mycroft]

We can't do that, we know that, but we can come as close as meets the requirement of having a good experience for the dead money (yeah, that's a mean term, but there are lots of people who are dead money that are willing to pay the money for the fun of the tournament, even in Poker. I'd be one, frankly, especially if there was something to do after being knocked out).

 

Today's dead money is tomorrow's USA1 and USA2 team.

Yeah, that was one of my points later about having USA2 play off against Canada and Mexico for the two remaining spots.

 

But legitimately, some of the dead money is always going to be dead money. As I said, I'd do it were I American, at least once - I think it would be an experience of a lifetime, and I would have a chance to become USA2. I have a chance of being Prime Minister of Canada someday, too.

 

Michael.

[cherdano]

How do I patent this idea?

Dunno, but it seems a necessary start would be to remove all evidence that TimG posted exactly the same idea earlier in this thread.

[mike777]

http://usbf.org/docs/corpDocs/Bylaws.pdf

 

For some who may not have known the purpose of USBF, the section under purpose is interesting and clear.

[JanM]

Heh.  The one time it happened, the WBF rule was "two teams in Zone II."

The ACBL interpretation of it was "USA gets two, the rest of Zone II is out of luck."

 

(Remember that the ACBL is the Zone II Zonal Organization as well as a sponsoring organization for most organized play in Zone II (CBF, USBF, and other countries' trials, the ABA, and some other small notable tournaments (mostly involving money) excepted.  At the time, of course, they were also the SO for the USA trials, and therefore had a small conflict of interest.  In fact I think we owe the existence of the USBF to the discussion pointing out this "small" conflict of interest).

 

Some fairly major lobbying later, and the ACBL's 5 votes managed to convince enough of their colleagues to waive the rule that year.

Perhaps you and I are remembering a different time when no Mexican or Canadian team finished in the top 50% of the Olympiad. I'm talking about Maastricht, where the US team finished 3rd and the Canadian team finished just short of the top half in its Round Robin group (I don't remember where Mexico finished, just know that it wasn't in the top half). The WBF originally said that Canada/Mexico/Bermuda would therefore not get a team in the next Bermuda Bowl and then changed that ruling. If what the WBF actually said was that Zone 2 got two teams, I think it would be reasonble for those teams both to be US, since the US team "earned" us the right to a second team by doing well in Maastricht (but of course I'm prejudiced, whether justifiably so or not).

No, the number of teams allocated each zone is made by the WBF (as is the rule about maximum number of teams for each country).  The determinant of which countries go is totally up to the ZO, which in this case is the ACBL. 

I am confident that it is WBF and not ACBL that says one of our three teams must be from a country other than the US. Whether they would allow ACBL to say that another of our teams can be from any country I don't know, but of course ACBL isn't going to do that and I would be arguing very strenuously if they did. Sure, if USA2 had to play in a tri-country playoff, it would always qualify (just as Italy always qualifies out of the EBL, despite often not sending their "real" team to compete), but that would still mean it had to take another week out of a sometimes busy schedule to play in the event. Some of our top teams would rather not play in a US Trials every year; they would certainly be *very* unhappy to have to go play in another event that they would see as pointless.

 

I know that some years ago when I was involved with the US Women's Trials, I proposed (and the Women's committee agreed) that we allow "mixed country" teams to play. We asked WBF if that would be acceptable and they said no. So I do know for sure that it is WBF that insists that each team represent only one country.

[joshs]

I haven't read the thread, so I apologize if I am repeating something.

 

For me, the main objectives are

a. to not give anyone a rest advantage in the palyoff for USA2

b. take some of the randomness of losing 1 match out of the process

 

Here is a bracketed double KO:

 

Day 1: 16 teams play in the KO: 8 go to winners bracket, 8 to losers

 

Day2: 8 Teams play in winners bracket (4 winners stay in winners, 4 losers go to losers bracket). 8 Teams play in losers bracket (4 continue, 4 are eliminated)

 

Day3: 4 teams play in winners bracket (2 stay in winners, 2 go to losers). 8 teams play in losers bracket (4 continue, 4 are eliminated)

 

Day 4: 2 teams play in the winners bracket (winner is USA 1, loser goes to losers bracket). 6 teams play in losers bracket (3 continue, 3 are eliminated)

 

Day 5: 4 teams play in losers bracket (2 advance 2 are eliminated)

 

Day 6: 2 teams play in losers bracket (winner is USA 2, loser is exausted)

 

 

Comments:

1. This requires the matches are the same length (in particular the finals have to be the same length as the previous rounds).

2. I haven't thought about insuring no repeat matches, but I think should be easy.

 

 

EDIT: I see that TimG already detailed this structure.

[bhall]

As Cascade and others have mentioned, the standard selection procedures throw away information, while inviting the disaster of eliminating the best team at an early stage. This was forgivable when only humans were available to carry out the procedures, but today the least of our computers have an essentially unlimited appetite for data, coupled with the ability to execute complicated algorithms on these data in a relatively short time.

 

I believe that we should seek to use these computational capacities in a way that maximizes the probability of selecting the best team(s) for international competition. We should include information from all relevant national events, such as the Spingold and Vanderbilt KOs, and we should choose both the pairings and the match lengths by an optimization procedure executed after each round. Pure elimination and pure Round Robin events are clearly not optimal, especially when there are constraints on the total availble time for the selection process.

 

Gerben42 has done some work along these lines, and a few mathematicians have explored related problems. However, designing a "best" algorithm for bridge appears to be a research project of significant difficulty. Maybe, if they agree that such a project is worthwhile, some of the contributors to this forum might collaborate on finding a solution. :)

[awm]

A few points that the mathematical approach need to account for:

 

(1) It seems from what Jan is saying that there is a strong possibility of collusion when this can work to the advantage of both teams involved. In other words, any time there is a match whose result does not effect the odds of one of the two teams winning the event in any substantial way (common in a round robin for example), there is no guarantee that the result of such a match will accurately reflect the skill levels of the teams involved (either because of dumping or simply because of playing a sponsor the entire match when the outcome is not relevant).

 

(2) It cannot be assumed that all teams will have participated in other major events such as the spingold or vanderbilt. It's not uncommon for people to play with different teams in different events. While awarding seeding as a "reward" for finishing well in other major events is reasonable, the trials should be set up in such a way that a superior team has a good chance to win even if they did not participate as a team in the other majors.

 

(3) Endurance needs to be a factor, but the team trials can't go on too long either. For this reason it makes sense for teams to be playing more or less continuously throughout.

 

(4) It's somewhat desirable to encourage people to participate in the trials even when they don't have great chances to win, both because this raises money for USBF and because it can be a valuable experience for players who might represent the country at some future time. For this reason, the trials should not be such that many teams are eliminated very early in the event. It's also nice to give a good team without many seeding points the chance to survive for a while, rather than immediately pitting them against the highest seeded team in an elimination match (this helps with future seeding and might help to identify talent for future development or for teams looking to augment by a pair).

[mycroft]

Fascinating, Jan. I didn't read the regulations like a lawyer, obviously. My apologies.

 

Everywhere but Zone II, the world is as I describe - the ZO has the right to nominate whichever teams they choose however they choose to do so to the WBF, provided each team is all from its own country (NBO, but still), and no two teams from the same country unless the local organization has 150 000+ members.

 

The limit for how many teams the Zone can nominate is by membership + an extra one if enough teams in that zone do well in the Olympiad (the extra has to be one of those teams) + an extra one if it's the host country + an extra one from Europe if needed to avoid byes.

 

"In the case of Zone 2, [the] above notwithstanding, the following rules shall apply:"

 

- USA gets one if they show up to the Olympiad.

- USA gets another one if they keep membership over 150 000 and the team sent to the Olympiad finishes in the top half of the RR.

- One of Canada or Mexico (Bermuda has moved, but the regs are still there) if they go to the Olympiad and finish in the top half of the RR.

 

So, although we are entitled to two teams by membership, plus one if the teams do well, and while we usually get three, we could get only one - and it would have to be the US, no matter what happened.

 

I am sure that if the ACBL were to petition, they would likely get the option of using the rest-of-the-world rules, if they wanted to make USA 2 compete against Canada and Mexico for the last spot(s). After all, something must have happened, as neither Canada nor Mexico finished in the top half of the RR at the last Olympiad, and I know half the Canada team going to Shanghai...

 

I still find it - disturbing - that the USA is the only country guaranteed entry to the BB, and that Canada and Mexico the only countries that, in certain circumstances, would have no chance to participate in the BB. Even Macau, with her 51 members, has a chance (granted, the snowball's chance in a tsunami).

 

Michael.

[JanM]

You're wrong about the US being the only country guaranteed a BB team (I think - I haven't actually double checked, but...), both Australia and New Zealand are also guaranteed teams. This is (I think, all of it was established a long time ago) because the US, Australia and NZ are all very large in terms of bridge population.

 

If Canada didn't finish in the top half of its Round Robin group in 2004, I guess the rule must have been waived (again), because of course you are correct that they have a team this year.

 

Obviously, I should be trying to get the US extra teams based on finish in the Rosenblum, if Europe gets an extra based on finish in the Olympiad, where we're allowed only one US team. :) PLEASE NOTE - this is not a serious comment !!!

[Cascade]

You're wrong about the US being the only country guaranteed a BB team (I think - I haven't actually double checked, but...), both Australia and New Zealand are also guaranteed teams. This is (I think, all of it was established a long time ago) because the US, Australia and NZ are all very large in terms of bridge population.

 

If Canada didn't finish in the top half of its Round Robin group in 2004, I guess the rule must have been waived (again), because of course you are correct that they have a team this year.

 

Obviously, I should be trying to get the US extra teams based on finish in the Rosenblum, if Europe gets an extra based on finish in the Olympiad, where we're allowed only one US team.  :) PLEASE NOTE - this is not a serious comment !!!

Australia and New Zealand are not guaranteed a spot (but its pretty close to that - at least this year).

 

Australia and New Zealand are in Zone Seven which includes other islands in the South Pacific. We have had Tonga, New Caledonia and possibly some other team from French Polynesia competing in these trials (championships).

 

This year there are two places for Australia and New Zealand but I do not think these two places are guaranteed. So there is potential for only one team. I think I can recall a year when there was only one team from the zone for the Venice Cup.

 

Personally I would be happier if Zone Seven and Zone Six combined - Australia and New Zealand already compete regularly in the Zone Six championships. The enlarged Zone would have one or possibly two extra qualifying spots. This would ensure that any Australian or New Zealand teams at the Bowl would have at least performed reasonably well to qualify.

[mycroft]

Heh - some serious politicking must be going on here, as according to the WBF site's numbers, USA should not be allowed two teams in Shanghai - they fail to meet the 150 000 members (the *ACBL* has 150 000 members, but that's counting Canada and Mexico).

 

Of course, the ACBL does have one-third the representatives on the WBF executive. So there is a lot of play for politics.

 

Of course, nobody may have noticed.

 

Michael.

 

[Edit: I am not implying here *at all* that strictly due to strength of field, anybody that qualifies for USA2 (or USA 4 for that matter) is not BB-qualfied. Of course, Italy2 probably would give USA-any a good run for their money; Poland2 probably could as well; I'd bet that in 10 years, China2 will be easily good enough. What actually happens, even what *should* happen, isn't (most of) my argument - it's the look of the thing that matters here.]

[georgeac]

i don't really see why you need knockouts... what's wrong with taking the top 7 teams after the early round robin and running a second such competition with 6 rounds, taking the top two teams?

so no seeding..no byes...no reward for year long bridge performance in the regular season?

 

Add on top of the general usa hatred for round robin formats

yeah... and knockouts are great b/c if the best team has one bad session, they can no longer represent the federation. yeah. that's wonderful.

What about events like the Super Bowl or the NBA finals? Those have the best teams and some of the mediocre teams in a playoff system( a knockout). If the best team loses first round, well then I guess they were not the best team then. This sounds to me like you are trying to protect the "best teams" which to me does not seem fair at all. They should have to prove they are the best team. If they lose to a lower seed team, then they obviously are not the best team. The best team should always win regardless of the competition.

[mike777]

In fact the bylaws say the USBC is set up for the "best teams" or the team most likely to win the WC. I disagree with this being the highest or number one goal but to be fair it is in the bylaws of the USBC.

 

 

http://usbf.org/docs/corpDocs/Bylaws.pdf