Live from Shangai !

[Echognome]

Look at things from the viewpoint of a top female partnership (say Auken-Von Arnim). <snip> However, the Venice Cup and Bermuda Bowl are simultaneous, and they have to select one or the other. <snip>

Who are "they"? I'm just asking if you are referring to Auken-von Arnim or the German NBO?

 

Presumably they can try for both teams and choose to play in the BB if they are selected. Of course this depends on when the trials are held for each. I don't know if they overlap of course, I'm just not assuming they do.

[fred]

I agree with Cherdano.

 

Look at things from the viewpoint of a top female partnership (say Auken-Von Arnim). They could quite possibly be better than some of the pairs on their country's open team (Germany didn't even make the BB). It would be good for their country to have them play in the BB, and it would also be good for the reputation of women in bridge to see some pairs like this competing in the open world championship. However, the Venice Cup and Bermuda Bowl are simultaneous, and they have to select one or the other. Since Auken-Von Arnim are by far one of the best female pairs, it seems like having them on the Venice Cup team gives Germany a good chance to win the whole thing. Putting them on the BB team could improve the team, but perhaps not to the point where they could beat teams like Italy or the US. So the current system, while creating some additional opportunities for women in bridge, also seems to create incentives for women not to play in the BB.

 

Personally, I would enjoy watching the Venice Cup (particularly the late rounds). It's still good bridge, and it's nice to know who my girlfriend's competitors are in the women's field. But if I'm given the choice of watching VC or BB (because they are held at the same time) I'm going to watch the BB.

 

So it does seem that holding the events at different times would create more opportunities for the top women (letting them both play in their own events and play in the open) as well as getting them more visibility to the bridge community.

I agree with awm and Cherdano (except the part about awm's girlfriend).

 

Not running the BB and VC concurrently would solve some problems.

 

But my sense is that doing this would create other problems that the WBF would (reasonably) consider to be more serious.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[geller]

In golf the seniors get to ride in carts while the mainstream pros have to walk.

 

In bridge stamina is a big factor. Shortly before he died from cancer Oswald Jacoby won the Reisinger (America's nationa board-a-match event) at the age of about 80. But he only played one session a day for three days. In view of his health problems I doubt he could have kept up that level for the 2 weeks or so of the Bermuda Bowl. So it seems reasonable to have separate senior events.

 

The question of women's events is more complicated. I'll try not to step on any landmines.....

 

I don't believe there are significant inherent biological differences between women's and men's brainpower for playing bridge, but the sociological factors are clearly different. Here in Japan (as in the US) there are many women who have won major national open team and pair events, but over the years probably about 90% of the winners have been men, despite the fact that well over half the members of the Japan Contract Bridge League (JCBL) are women. Women's team and pair events (national, regional and sectional) are very popular with the JCBL membership. So the women players themselves are eager to play in women's events.

 

Maybe the reason for the relative lack of success of women in open (non-sex-restricted) national events has to do with a carryover of children's socialization being different for boys (encouraged to be more competitive) than girls. I don't know.

 

But anyway, I'm sure the situation regarding women's bridge is similar to Japan's in many other countries. That being the case, I don't think the WBF should be criticized for holding a women's championship, although this can be criticized from a strictly ("Spock-like") "logical" point of view.

 

-Bob

[Gerben42]

Presumably they can try for both teams and choose to play in the BB if they are selected. Of course this depends on when the trials are held for each. I don't know if they overlap of course, I'm just not assuming they do.

 

They played in the German trials a few years ago but were eliminated. Then the last two times a rule was applied that if the German Open team was successful enough (top 10 in the European Championships) then this team may continue to play and no further trials are needed.

 

For a discussion why women are less successful than men in mind sports like bridge and chess, check Sabine's explanation in her book. She says it has to do with men being more able to focus on one thing whereas women are more able to multi-task.

[helene_t]

What about a one-table "pirate" broadcast of a Bermuda Bowl semi-final by an operator not actually at the table (or in the country for that matter) who could watch the broadcast of one of the other providers on one screen and key the action into a BBO vugraph prsentation on another screen. Would just need a way to get the dup file for the session to that operator shortly after the match starts.

Yes, we just set up a server on the Caiman Islands. The financial stuff is taken care of by a Gibraltar bank. The details are discussed on an encrypted forum not affiliated with Fred, Uday or any other person with a real-life identity. You know where to find us.

[hotShot]

In bridge as in other areas of competition, you will get as good as you need to win or as good as your personal abilities allow you to get.

 

Juniors don't have the experience they would need to win an open event, but some do get there very fast.

 

Mind sports do have some physical fitness aspects. Top chess players loose 2-3 kg of weight during a top level game. So why should there be no seniors event?

 

I guess 90+% play bridge for social pleasure and the number of players capable to top level competition is probably lover than 2%. My impression is that men are more interested in competition than women. The open event is usually much bigger than the ladies event. The quality of the top player is usually better if the pool to pick from is bigger.

 

To win an open event you need 4 (very) good player, so the best women often join a mens team to play there.

[mycroft]

In the ACBL, we have 18 teams in the Prestige Women's KO Event, the Wagar. Now, very few of them are slouches, and almost none enter it for the experience. I'm sure that even with the proliferation of 0-1500 and 0-5000 events, there are several teams in the Spingold, Reisinger, and Vanderbilt "for the experience" - my team went in knowing that if we won two matches, we would have to default as one of our team members had a booking already made for Wednesday. Of course, what she said was that if we made it to Wednesday, her partner probably would understand a cancellation...

 

So, why is this not the case in the Wagar? Why are there so few teams, and why in particular are there so few "nohope" teams? Well the answer to the first question, I would say, is that it's not considered a premiere event - so given the choice between playing in Wagar or in the Spingold, people play in the Spingold - unless they have a chance to win, or place highly in the Wagar.

 

So why do the players that do, play in the Wagar? Well, apart from the NABC+ win for GLM (and frankly with 16 high-class teams out of 18, it's not really "easy" compared to, say, the NABC Swiss Teams), I can only think of one reason: seeding points for USWBC trials.

 

First, if you don't play as 4 of your team, you don't get seeding points at all. Second, if you have two ineligible players (i.e. men, but also non-Americans), you're getting 50% of the seeding points you earn. Third, while winning the Wagar is an accomplishment (see above), it's still probably easier to win than to go third in the Spingold (same seeding points); and it's almost certainly easier to go third in the Wagar (for 40 points) than it is to get to the round of 16 in the Spingold (for 32 points).

 

So, the only people in the Wagar, with a small number of exceptions, are there to be USA I or II in the World Championship Women's game.

 

Now there are problems with this:

- for one thing, a "NABC+ championship", especially one already not considered first-class, with only 18 competitors, is considered lower-class than it otherwise would be (and probably, lower-class than it actually is).

- Second, because it is so strongly in the competitors' best interests to play in all-women teams in women's events, there is limited opportunity to learn by playing outside those events. If there is a difference between women's bridge and the men, at least some of it comes from the artificial divide that separates the two - in that case it's no different from the difference between American high-level bridge and Polish (more so, really, as about a third of Polish Division one now play in the ACBL top events).

- Third, of course, is the restriction pointed out before, that you have to make a choice - are you going to try to win the Venice Cup, or are you going to try to make the BB team? At a slightly lower level (and in countries other than the USA), are you going to try to make the VC team, or play "dead money" in the BB qualifier, and hopefully learn enough to make it another year?

 

There may be a "nature" difference between men and women - and I do think Sabine Auken makes a good point in general. There may be a "nurture" difference between men and women. There certainly is a Bridge society difference.

 

But a large part of it, at least in the USA, is the Positioning Points chart for the USWBC.

 

Please note that I don't believe that any of the decisions made in that chart are wrong - maybe a little aggressive (like I can't seed as a single or pair, 4-women teams that augment with a male pair are considered to be worth only as much as that male pair), but it's clear that they're concerned about bringing in ringers (also seen with the "player with significantly less experience" modifications), and so are making that strategy actually disadvantageous to the attempters. And given Jan Martel's discussion about holding a second trial, I don't see that we're going to get away from the ACBL qualifying tournaments being held in parallel, so women will still have to make the choice to play for VC or BB. So I certainly can't fix it.

 

Michael.

[han]

In a different thread I questioned whether Auken/Von Arnim are top. I didn't mean to suggest that I think they are not, I really don't know. It would be wonderful if they would play in the Bermuda Bowl instead, or in the Spingold. They'd be the pair I'd most want to watch.

 

It is very unfortunate that they were not able to compete for the German team this time, hopefully they will be in the near future (by which I don't mean that I hope that Germany won't make it to the top 10 in the EC). In the meantime I hope they will find rich sponsors who want to play in the open ACBL events with them.

[mrdct]

What about a one-table "pirate" broadcast of a Bermuda Bowl semi-final by an operator not actually at the table (or in the country for that matter) who could watch the broadcast of one of the other providers on one screen and key the action into a BBO vugraph prsentation on another screen.  Would just need a way to get the dup file for the session to that operator shortly after the match starts.

Yes, we just set up a server on the Caiman Islands. The financial stuff is taken care of by a Gibraltar bank. The details are discussed on an encrypted forum not affiliated with Fred, Uday or any other person with a real-life identity. You know where to find us.

That's pretty much how it went.

[Walddk]

Our matches Thursday Oct 11 in Shanghai are as follows:

 

Finals, Segment 1:

8 pm Wednesday Los Angeles, 11 pm Wednesday New York, 05.00 Thursday Paris, 4 am Thursday London, 1 pm Thursday Sydney

 

USA1 v Norway (BB), Germany v USA1 (VC), Indonesia v USA2 (SB)

 

...

 

Finals, Segment 2:

11:20 pm Wednesday Los Angeles, 2:20 am New York, 8.20 Paris, 7:20 am London, 4:20 pm Sydney

 

USA1 v Norway (BB), Germany v USA1 (VC), Indonesia v USA2 (SB)

 

...

 

Finals, Segment 3:

To be decided.

 

....

 

Why not just write finals of all three series you may ask. Because we may get a couple of sessions from the play-offs.

 

Venice Cup and Senior Bowl: 6 segments of 16 boards (Thursday and Friday). Bermuda Bowl: 8 segments of 16 boards (Saturday included).

 

Roland