English Trials

[mike777]

I discussed this issue before in the USA trials thread. There seems to be a mindset that the number one priority, I repeat the number one priority, is make sure the best team is selected. Not a full and fair competition for all. Perhaps this should be the number one priority but I never see it discussed. It is just assumed.

 

For instance an alternative number one priority might be that everyone gets to compete with seeding rights and you let the competition decide who is number one.

Note here the number one priority is the fun and competition and seeding rights for those teams based on some reasonable criteria. Who knows the very best players just might not win and that is ok.

 

To repeat I really disagree that the highest priority of a competition is that those players deemed the best win. Give them seedings and byes to reward the past year's performance, no problem, but let in everyone who wants in.

[Fluffy]

LOL... seems like my country's team trials.

 

Stage 1 is a MATCHPOINTS EVENT... loloish.

Stages 2 and 3 are butler scoring.

 

Then, 1st and 2nd ranked pairs get selected and THOSE TWO CHOOSE who will be 3rd pair, from 3rd, 4th or 5th ranked in stage 3. It's like "It doesn't matter to play good or bad. What matters is to have a friend that plays good."

 

Ridiculous. I'm on the verge of submitting the trials regulations to the State Secretariate for Sports and request withdrawl of public interest status for the bridge federation...

Other than having Stage 1 being matchpoints, I quite like the sound of that.

 

I've been told that team chemistry is very important, and that's why we use teams trials rather than pairs trials. IMO, your country's method does a better job of picking the best pairs, without neglecting the fact that teammates have to be able to get on.

The problem Micky, arises from the frequency of the first pair rejecting to play by any means with the second pair, specially on the women trials. Teams are suposed to be teams, not pairs.

 

 

One year for the spannish open championship, the president of the AEB (our NBO), deleted by mistake our team from the play.

 

Later they changed the hour to start but failed to comunicate to us since we were deleted from the list.

 

The day it started we appeared half an hour late, the clever director let our opponents make a comitee and decide if we should play or not, they voted an unanimous and solidary NO

[whereagles]

The problem Micky, arises from the frequency of the first pair rejecting to play by any means with the second pair, specially on the women trials. Teams are suposed to be teams, not pairs.

Actually, this is easy to fix. You have 2 possibilities:

 

1. Have the trials to be teams events, from start to end.

 

2. Any pair that refuses to play because it doesn't like someone else in the team gets a 6 month ban.

[MickyB]

I've spoken with a member of the EBU selection committee.

 

Apparently, the intention was for this process to gauge the level of interest to allow the format to be decided six months beforehand. Any entries made now imply no commitment to enter the event. If the number of entries exceeds expectations, there may be more than one division, although it is perhaps more likely that the event might grow to multiple divisions at a future date.

 

This makes some sense, although clearly this intention has been lost at some point - the phrasing on the EBU website certainly doesn't make this clear. If that is still the case, it seems much more acceptable IMO, although I'm not sure how the number of teams expressing interest will correlate with the final number of entries.