how many top pairs in world?

[mike777]

How many top pairs in world..

 

 

Lets look at the usa...

 

 

67x6 in spingold

20x6 in usbf

 

now add in world

 

at some point we look at 100-200 top pairs in world? out of 1-2 million casual players?

 

 

I think we forget how few play at the very very top level, today.

[paulg]

The number of visible top pairs in the world is probably a function of the number of rich sponsors.

 

But I think the #200 pair in Poland could compete quite happily in the quarter-finals of the Spingold.

[rhm]

For becoming a top pair, you usually have to play in a an area, where there is a cluster of top pairs already. You need the competition and you need it frequently.

Many players are not in such an area.

Few players can afford to move to such an area or pay the travel expenses and afford the spare time.

Professional players have a huge advantage, but few areas support such a living.

It is not my impression that the ones, who live from Bridge are necessarily the ones, who are most gifted. Of course there are some.

There are many more gifted players, who will not make it for good reasons: Different priorities.

My impression is more that many, who take this route, are the ones who are most fascinated by the game, which is not the same.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Fluffy]

How many top pairs in world..

There are many, depending on whom I am partnering at the moment :P

[sfi]

There are many, depending on whom I am partnering at the moment :P

 

Or who I'm playing against. :)

[awm]

Not all pairs in the Spingold are from the US.

 

Really this question does not make sense to me. Say you could rank all pairs in the world from best to worst. How far down the "top pairs" go is totally arbitrary. Can the same person be in multiple top pairs? Maybe Hamman plus anyone who can follow suit is a top pair?

[Fluffy]

yeah he has won a major with JLOL so it must be true :P (I bet justin would had made the same joke)

[blackshoe]

The literal answer to the question is easy: one. B-)

[chasetb]

I just took a hard look, and I think there are truly only 20 top pairs in the world. Pachtmann - Ginossar and Bertheau - Nystrom are close, but considering neither pair made their country's team for the European Championships, I have to leave them out. Dubinin - Gromov are making a great run in the Spingold, but the resent results aren't there for me.

 

There are also a few great players not on here because they need partners. I would classify Curtis Cheek, Ishmael Delmonte, Thomas Bessis, Dennis Bilde, Boye Brogeland, and Jacek Pzecola as applicable (I would also like to include Erik Saelensminde, but he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth). I know Delmonte and Bessis have played together, but it's not a regular thing. I also get the impression that Alan Sontag is still an outstanding player, but where's the beef?

 

Pairs I have my eye on are Fisher - Schwartz, Bertheau - Bessis, Upmark - Nystrom, and Ahmady - Sadek.

 

Meckstroth - Rodwell

Levin - Weinstein

Greco - Hampson

*Grue - Moss

*Hamman - Lall

**Fleisher - Kamil

 

Balicki - Zmudzinski

Jassem - Martens / Mazurkiewicz - I like Martens better personally

**Buras - Narkiewicz (will move up if Gromov wins the Spingold)

 

Fantoni - Nunes

**Helgemo - Helness

 

Lauria - Versace

Bocchi - Madala

**Duboin - Sementa

 

Brink - Drijver

**Muller - DeWijs

Van Prooijen - Verhees

 

*Piekarek - Smirnov

 

*Birman - Padon

*Herbst - Herbst

 

* - Don't quite have the results as a partnership I would like as of this post

** - At the bottom of the list IMO

[rhm]

Not all pairs in the Spingold are from the US.

 

Maybe Hamman plus anyone who can follow suit is a top pair?

Certainly not.

The weaker partner has a much bigger influence on the overall outcome of a partnership than the stronger one, even if the stronger one handles the partnership well.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[PhilKing]

http://www.rpbridge.net/9ya1.htm

[Zelandakh]

Notice the Hels in position 6 of Phil's link. I was quite shocked to see chase put them "at the bottom of the list".

[Phil352]

Notice the Hels in position 6 of Phil's link. I was quite shocked to see chase put them "at the bottom of the list".

 

Assuming the list chase made doesn't count boards since 1996. Given that this was 17 years ago, that's quite a lot of time for bridge to move on/partnerships to decay. The results will be slightly loaded to the present just because of more vugraph probably but still not enough to correct.

[cherdano]

But I think the #200 pair in Poland could compete quite happily in the quarter-finals of the Spingold.

Double.

[paua]

Double.

 

looks like it now

[mikeh]

Certainly not.

The weaker partner has a much bigger influence on the overall outcome of a partnership than the stronger one, even if the stronger one handles the partnership well.

 

Rainer Herrmann

I disagree, to a degree

 

I think that your statement is correct when the weaker player is a lot weaker than the stronger one. However, I think a very strong player can carry an expert who is good but not at the same level. The stronger player makes the weaker player better, at least in a good partnership.

 

 

Look at Hamman-Wolff. I don't think there was ever any question about who was the truly gifted player in that partnership. Going back a few decades, Roth-Stone were, in their day, one of the top pairs, but who remembers Tobias Stone? Miles-Kantar: Miles never approached the same heights with any other partner, yet Kantar went on to a lot of success.

 

In the earlier days of the Blue Team, the stars were (I know the lineup changed a lot) Belladonna, Garozzo and Forquet, and they played and won a lot with other team members.

 

I think this applies at all levels. Speaking from personal experience, there was a brief time in the late 1990s when I was a member of arguably the best imp pair in Canada at the time, but I don't think even my wife thinks that I was ever as good as my partner, who was (imo) the best player in Canada at the time.

[the hog]

There is only one top pair in the world, of course. There are many excellent pairs in the world

[32519]

I think mikeh's post nailed it. The stronger player can adjust downwards to what the weaker partner knows in all facets of the game, whether it be system, conventions, defensive signals etc (add whatever you wish to this). The only way the weaker player can ever adjust upwards is to raise their overall knowledge, level of play etc.

[rhm]

I think mikeh's post nailed it. The stronger player can adjust downwards to what the weaker partner knows in all facets of the game, whether it be system, conventions, defensive signals etc (add whatever you wish to this). The only way the weaker player can ever adjust upwards is to raise their overall knowledge, level of play etc.

If you like mikeh consider Wolff to be a second rate player I tend to agree.

But I do not concur with the IF.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[rogerclee]

I don't agree that a world class player can carry an expert, and I suspect the difference between a world class partnership and a world class + expert partnership is larger than the difference between that and a partnership of two experts. However, my opinion is very much that world class players (top 100 in the world) are much, much better than experts (say, the 150th-300th best North American players).

 

There are three issues here to me:

 

1) It is hard to bid very well with a non-world class player, there are lots of holes in their game, some of them in theory and some of them in practice. In particular, slam bidding is very hard for all players, but especially hard for non-world class players.

 

2) It is really hard to defend at a world class level where one of the players does not know how to signal appropriately. Knowing how to signal, when it's important, and when it's not, is very hard for a non-world class player to learn how to do, since you have to be on the ball the whole hand to know what is going on and to identify partner's problems.

 

3) This continues to be a point of debate, but I think world class players are much stronger cardplayers/technicians than mere experts. This is much less true in theory (such as BBO forums, where lots of non-experts are perfectly capable of figuring out complex hands given unlimited effort/time/calculation) than in practice. People who play bridge for a living make far, far fewer careless/stupid errors than people who play fewer than 1500 hands a year. By careless/stupid, I mean a problem that is not even difficult enough to be posted in the intermediate/advanced forum.

[CSGibson]

I echo Roger's sentiments - this is not because I am in any position to judge world-class vs expert, or whatever. But my experience in Atlanta, where I competed with a flight B partner for the first part of the week where we failed to get out of the first day of the GNT B's, and barely scraped up a 2nd day LM Pairs showing, differed greatly from my experience when I played with a partner who is, in my opinion, a national caliber player later in the week in the Spingolds.

 

In the beginning of the week we did not have methods to get to places. My inherent nature as a bridge player is to be collaborative and delicate in the bidding and defense - that works very poorly in a partnership where there aren't delicate tools, or where a partner does not have the judgment to respond well to delicate probes, but it pays great dividends opposite a partner who has exceptional judgment and who notices the nuances of the cards played, and our results greatly improved as a result.

[mike777]

Since Roger mentioned the top 100. Here is one possible list to push the discussion.

 

Open World Grand Masters

 

Rank Name Country MPs PPs

 

1

Fulvio FANTONI Monaco 4859 41

2

Claudio NUNES Monaco 4671 39

3

Giorgio DUBOIN Italy 4004 42

4

Alfredo VERSACE Italy 3865 46

5

Lorenzo LAURIA Italy 3628 50.5

6

Jeff MECKSTROTH U.S.A. 3583 61.25

7

Bob HAMMAN U.S.A. 3502 109.25

8

Eric RODWELL U.S.A. 3391 60.75

9

Geir HELGEMO Monaco 3092 34.5

10

Tor HELNESS Monaco 3031 36

11

Zia MAHMOOD U.S.A. 2942 31.75

12

Norberto BOCCHI Italy 2842 34

13

Nick NICKELL U.S.A. 2821 38.25

14

Cezary BALICKI Poland 2542 29

15

Ralph KATZ U.S.A. 2373 22.25

16

Bauke MULLER Netherlands 2363 18

17

Louk VERHEES Jr Netherlands 2345 11

18

Sjoert BRINK Netherlands 2332 12.5

19

Antonio SEMENTA Italy 2320 18

20

Robert (Bobby) LEVIN U.S.A. 2306 21

21

Bas DRIJVER Netherlands 2291 12.5

23

Adam ZMUDZINSKI Poland 2264 29

24

Ricco VAN PROOIJEN Netherlands 2204 10.5

25

Simon DE WIJS Netherlands 2187 10

26

Franck MULTON Monaco 2184 21

27

Peter BERTHEAU Sweden 2130 11.5

28

Steve WEINSTEIN U.S.A. 2101 13

29

Fredrik NYSTROM Sweden 2064 11.5 31

Pierre ZIMMERMANN Monaco 1925 11

35

Geoff HAMPSON U.S.A. 1805 12.75

36

Michael ROSENBERG U.S.A. 1757 25.75

37

Chip MARTEL U.S.A. 1753 41

38

Eric GRECO U.S.A. 1748 10.25

39

Boye BROGELAND Norway 1713 15.5

40

Jacek PSZCZOLA U.S.A. 1704 15

41

Lew STANSBY U.S.A. 1701 41.5

44

Zhong FU China 1646 10.5

45

Fred GITELMAN U.S.A. 1630 15.25

48

Brad MOSS U.S.A. 1584 11.75

49

Glenn GROETHEIM Norway 1537 17.5

52

Gabriel CHAGAS Brazil 1472 41.5 58

Erik SAELENSMINDE Norway 1395 14.5

61

Richard (Dick) FREEMAN U.S.A. 1337 28.75

65

Alan SONTAG U.S.A. 1278 19.5

68

Piotr GAWRYS Poland 1236 18

70

Giorgio BELLADONNA Italy 1188 75.5

74

Paul SOLOWAY U.S.A. 1149 44.75

76

Krzysztof MARTENS Poland 1080 17.5 88

Marcelo CASTELLO BRANCO Brazil 1021 35.5

89

Walter AVARELLI Italy 1020 40

95

Roger TREZEL France 990 17.5

103

Jeremy FLINT Great Britain 932 14.5

 

 

http://www.worldbridge.org/openwmasters.aspx

[the hog]

As a few in your list are dead it would be interesting to see them play, Mike. I guess it could be described as a "spiritual experience"?

[mikeh]

I echo Roger's sentiments - this is not because I am in any position to judge world-class vs expert, or whatever. But my experience in Atlanta, where I competed with a flight B partner for the first part of the week where we failed to get out of the first day of the GNT B's, and barely scraped up a 2nd day LM Pairs showing, differed greatly from my experience when I played with a partner who is, in my opinion, a national caliber player later in the week in the Spingolds.

 

In the beginning of the week we did not have methods to get to places. My inherent nature as a bridge player is to be collaborative and delicate in the bidding and defense - that works very poorly in a partnership where there aren't delicate tools, or where a partner does not have the judgment to respond well to delicate probes, but it pays great dividends opposite a partner who has exceptional judgment and who notices the nuances of the cards played, and our results greatly improved as a result.

I don't see how your experience tells us much. No-one has said, that I can see, that the WC player will do well with a player of significantly lesser ability. My point was that a WC player playing with a real expert will often bring out the best n the expert.

 

Where I suspect I differ from Roger is that I suspect he thinks less of experts than I do, probably because we use different definitions. For example, he suggests that an expert may not understand signalling. I don't see how anyone has a legitimate claim to being expert if lacking that skill.

 

To me the main differences between a WC player, and an expert such as me, lies more in consistency of focus, and competitive judgment, than in card play technique or card reading.

 

I am not, for one moment, claiming card play or reading at WC levels: what I am saying is that the gains that a Rodwell will get over me or a similar expert in card play will occur on only a few hands....maybe one a session, if that. Otoh, in slam bidding, competitive auctions and, most of all, staying focused, I would expect several swings a session.

 

I think that focus can be helped by example: so that playing with a WC player would tend to help the expert play to his or her top level.

 

If skill levels are widely variant, then I agree with you. I occasionally play with friends, who are non-expert, and I am definitely unable to play my best game since they don't know how to cooperate in the defence or the bidding.

[cherdano]

Where I suspect I differ from Roger is that I suspect he thinks less of experts than I do, probably because we use different definitions. For example, he suggests that an expert may not understand signalling. I don't see how anyone has a legitimate claim to being expert if lacking that skill.

 

I don't think it's fair to paraphrase "knowing how to signal, when it's important, and when it's not" as "understanding signalling". Let me try to paraphrase: in order to decide perfectly when and how to signal, you need to

- work out what the right defense is given various possible hands for partner,

- for each of these hands, decide which possible lines of defense could be right from partner's point of view,

- and then make the signal that will most often get partner to pursue the most successful defense.

And that's of course drastically oversimplifying things, since you should also falsecard (or not signal at all) when the hand is more likely to be decided on a guess by declarer. Unless of course you realize that declarer will get the guess right anyway...

 

All that seems about as hard as defending well.

 

How often does that matter? I wouldn't argue with one swing on defense per session for Meckwell over an expert. But I don't consider that a small advantage.