2013 Bermuda Bowl

[cherdano]

Seems to me that any NBO's goal for the WC would be to have the best possible showing by their representatives, and you'd think that would mean having the best possible team. In the U.S. and other countries there are up to a couple of dozen players among whom the differences are quite small, so you avoid the politics of a selection committee by having open trials and effectively letting the players sort it out. If your tolerance for politics is high and for surprises is low, you go with selection by the NBO.

But you also want to motivate the strongest players to get better. I think you are much more likely to achieve that by giving them a chance to win a trial once they got better, rather than giving them a chance to get noticed by the selectors to get better.

[GreenMan]

But you also want to motivate the strongest players to get better. I think you are much more likely to achieve that by giving them a chance to win a trial once they got better, rather than giving them a chance to get noticed by the selectors to get better.

 

Good point that a trials process aims not only at "best team this year" but also "better teams in later years". I certainly think it's been good for U.S. top-level bridge, with less familiar players breaking through in the past several years.

[gnasher]

This brings back the issue of what should be the number one priority for Poland or England or Italy or the USA when it comes to a team

I can't speak for other NBOs, but for England the priority is selecting the team that has the greatest chance of success.

 

and for that matter who should decide what that priority is.

That seems pretty obvious to me - it should be the members of the NBO, either directly or indirectly, because they pay for it, and because the team is representing the members. I can't imagine who else you might possibly want to have make this decision.

 

It seems for many NBO's the number one priority is not an open competition even if that means 6 unknown players win it by beating the pros. The fact that the so called 6 best players may or may not split up and not play on the same team sounds like a positive thing, not a negative that so many postulate.

 

OTOH if the membership much prefers that a tiny group of people make the decision rather than an open competition ok, it just sounds like winning is more important than the actual competition even if that results in failure.

When I enter a bridge event, my primary objective is usually to win or to do well. One of the ways I try to achieve that is by playing with a good partner and teammates. When the English Bridge Union enters a World Championship, its primary objective is also to win or to do well. One of the ways that it tries to achieve that is by choosing a good team. To me, these situations seem equivalent.

 

I don't understand what you mean by winning being more important than the competition. The competition is a World Championship. The primary objective of the competition is to find the strongest national team* in the world. If each nation chooses its best possible team, that maximises the chance of that nation winning, and it also serves the primary objective of the competition.

 

* Or, strictly speaking, the strongest team where all the players are from the same country (to cover the presence of two ACBL teams).

[gnasher]

But you also want to motivate the strongest players to get better. I think you are much more likely to achieve that by giving them a chance to win a trial once they got better, rather than giving them a chance to get noticed by the selectors to get better.

That sounds like an argument for a competent selection committee, rather than for no selection committee. A good selection committee should study players' performance in major events, watch lots of bridge, discuss selection matters with good players (both those who are being considered for selection and the players just outside that zone), provide plenty of opportunities for up-and-coming players to show how good they are, and make sure that these players know what they have to do to get noticed. In a country with a fairly small pool of good players all of that should be achievable.

 

For what it's worth, the England Open Team for the World and European Championships last year contained three people who were making their first appearance at that level. (I'm not claiming any responsibility for that - I wasn't on the committee that selected them.)

[cherdano]

Maybe the best argument for trials are simply the trials themselves.

Most NBOs try to organize some sort of national championship. Why? Because it's exactly one of the goals of an NBO to have the best players in the country compete against each other in a serious tournament.

No tournament is taken more seriously than team trials.

[nige1]

A minority view: IMO selectors should determine the trials format, act as "marriage-brokers", check player-credentials and then bow out. Selectors may designate appropriate national competitions to be trials events. Teams-trials are fine if they attract lots of rich sponsors. Otherwise pairs-trials are better. e.g. national-league of cross-imped Swiss-pairs with long matches. IMO this approach encourages players to compete for selection and alleviates paranoia. It fosters team-quality in the short and long-term.

[jallerton]

I don't understand what you mean by winning being more important than the competition. The competition is a World Championship. The primary objective of the competition is to find the strongest national team* in the world. If each nation chooses its best possible team, that maximises the chance of that nation winning, and it also serves the primary objective of the competition.

 

* Or, strictly speaking, the strongest team where all the players are from the same country (to cover the presence of two ACBL teams).

 

**Or strictly speaking, the strongest team where all the players have a vague connection with the same country.

[mike777]

I can't speak for other NBOs, but for England the priority is selecting the team that has the greatest chance of success.

 

 

That seems pretty obvious to me - it should be the members of the NBO, either directly or indirectly, because they pay for it, and because the team is representing the members. I can't imagine who else you might possibly want to have make this decision.

 

 

When I enter a bridge event, my primary objective is usually to win or to do well. One of the ways I try to achieve that is by playing with a good partner and teammates. When the English Bridge Union enters a World Championship, its primary objective is also to win or to do well. One of the ways that it tries to achieve that is by choosing a good team. To me, these situations seem equivalent.

 

I don't understand what you mean by winning being more important than the competition. The competition is a World Championship. The primary objective of the competition is to find the strongest national team* in the world. If each nation chooses its best possible team, that maximises the chance of that nation winning, and it also serves the primary objective of the competition.

 

* Or, strictly speaking, the strongest team where all the players are from the same country (to cover the presence of two ACBL teams).

 

Again to repeat, your entire argument is based on:

1) no higher objective for the nbo than to win

2) selectors is the optimum way to do that

 

If that is what your membership and the leadership wants ok, otoh you preclude other higher objectives, for example the competition, open, itself and the benefits it brings, the increase in fragility and negatives such as but not limited to players leaving the NBO out of disgust with the tiny group of wisemen to play elsewhere and that open competition may produce a more optimal team.

 

Again if you find that a tiny group of wisemen rather than open team trials that induces stressors and shocks to creating a team works better in the long run great, but I hope you measure to ensure you are correct.

[mfa1010]

Trials vs. selection committee is an interesting issue.

 

In countries such as mine (Denmark) with amateur players and a smallish pool of candidate pairs, there is a lot to be said for having a selection committee. Gnasher has already made good points.

 

I would add that for trials to be a good idea they need to be long and fair. A quick weekend playoff would imo be ridiculous. Our country has plenty of strong players that are selfmade ineligible because they can't find the time to play on the national team. If our top pairs were to take for instance 1 full week off from their daily work to play trials, it would be even worse, and our field of candidates would surely shrink further.

 

A selection committee has the huge advantage, that it could give weight to all tournaments the candidates have been playing. So in a sense it is the ultimate way of playing for a spot on the team, when everything counts. But if the committee can't live up to its responsibility of scrutinizing the candidate pairs perfomances in every tournament, and falls back on relying on reputation etc. instead of facts, it should immediately abstain from selecting the team and arrange for trials to be held instead.

 

Even though it is a subjective decision, the selection committee should formulate in advance as accurately as possible what criteria they will be applying for their selections.

[mycroft]

I would suggest that in zones where access to the World Championships by a particular country is not guaranteed(**), that if a lucky team wins the Nationals, but isn't likely to do it twice, then they're not getting to the WC anyway. Since representation at the WC gives benefits that missing the cut does not, there is an added incentive to pick a team thought likely to make it *to* the WC, never mind do well *at* the WC.(*)

 

Selectors have problems - many of them - and the addition of the unique way professionalism works in this game just adds to that. So do trials (especially for players who *aren't* professionals, or who professional for a foreign sponsor).

 

(*)My british readers are now giggling at all the references to meeting at the WC. Sorry.

(**)The U.S. is unique, not only in that their country is allowed two teams to world championships, but that they are guaranteed entry by their Zonal Organization. Now, they're always going to *be* there, even if there were a Zonal competition (I am strongly in favour of at least USA II having to qualify 2/top 3 against Canada and Mexico - but it'll never fly because "well, they're always going to, why force them to spend money", not noting that they're always "going to" if the other teams don't get that extra competition); but they are still the only country that doesn't have to *try*. That certainly makes a lot of decisions as to how, when, what, by the USBF...also unique.

[gnasher]

Again to repeat, your entire argument is based on:

1) no higher objective for the nbo than to win

2) selectors is the optimum way to do that

 

If that is what your membership and the leadership wants ok, otoh you preclude other higher objectives, for example the competition, open, itself and the benefits it brings,

Who says these are higher objectives (apart from you)? In any NBO, if you were to ask the ordinary members why they send a team to a World Championship, I expect they would say that the primary objective was to win or to do as well as possible.

 

the increase in fragility and negatives such as but not limited to players leaving the NBO out of disgust with the tiny group of wisemen to play elsewhere

Which players have done that? The only example I can think of is is Nunes-Fantoni, but this was when Italy's teams were selected by a single individual who was also a sponsor. That's rather different from a committee of several disinterested people.

 

and that open competition may produce a more optimal team

Can you explain how it might do that, in the case of an NBO that has a small number of world-class players?

 

Again if you find that a tiny group of wisemen rather than open team trials that induces stressors and shocks to creating a team works better in the long run great, but I hope you measure to ensure you are correct.

How do you propose to measure the success of a particular method? The only way I can think of is to try both selection and qualification as selection methods, and see which works better. Unsurprisingly the EBU (along with most NBOs, I expect) has done this. At different times we've had teams-of-six trials, teams-of-four trials, pairs trials, and selection by committee. The evidence isn't particularly compelling in either direction, but there's some reason to think that selection by committee works better than the other methods.

[NickRW]

I suggest that, in theory, selection by trials ought to be better than by committee. However, for the result to be "fair" and "accurate" you need the trials to be over at least 1000 boards and 2000 more like ideal. This is circa 3 to 6 solid weeks of trials. I suppose that even "rich sponsors" would start to feel uncomfortable at the degree of expense involved.

 

Selection by committee is, therefore, a sensible alternative.

 

Nick

[hrothgar]

I suggest that, in theory, selection by trials ought to be better than by committee. However, for the result to be "fair" and "accurate" you need the trials to be over at least 1000 boards and 2000 more like ideal. This is circa 3 to 6 solid weeks of trials.

 

Given this, it would appear that the actual tournaments are pretty damn meaningless...

[NickRW]

Not meaningless, but the eventual winner is, necessarily, somewhat random. This is possibly no bad thing.

[GreenMan]

Long trials such as the U.S. had this year effectively eliminate the chance that teams much below the skill level of the top few will qualify. Among those with the chops to win, the trials may be somewhat random, but I don't know anyone who has argued that second-rate teams have survived, or could survive.

 

But again, this mainly works for NBOs with deep pools of talent. If you have a noticeable drop-off after the first, say, four to six pairs in contention, then long team trials become less useful, especially if those pairs are all on different teams. IMHO.

[mike777]

Difficult discussion then if we don't really have a way to measure what is optimal if a country in the OP Poland is better off with a team trials or selection method.

 

I found it interesting how the WBF was broke for decades. The President Ortiz-Patino used to write a big check at the end of the year out of his pocket. Sponsors would be hired and then renege. Putting on the Bermuda bowl is a huge expense for the WBF and often they were not sure where the money was going to come from. The politics behind the championships are as interesting as the actual play.

 

I had forgotten that the Burgay tape scandal arose out of a feud with a selector in Italy. According to Burgay he was promised a spot and then denied.

 

I had forgotten how the Europe Zone (EBL) was on the verge of leaving the WBF and in open conflict with the ACBL. Something to do with the new WBF president Howard but what is not clear.

[Aberlour10]

Difficult discussion then if we don't really have a way to measure what is optimal if a country in the OP Poland is better off with a team trials or selection method.

 

 

The Polish Bridge Union used many methods in the last decade, any of them seemed really to work.

 

Now they found the way to get B-Z back on Bermuda Bowl team, there is a private sponsor involved, ( any details have been published)

 

Due to the offical regulations 2013, this team is the Polish Team Open, until it will be beaten in a long 160 board match ( 1 every year) by the other.

The right to play in this match would have the winner of the special trials. (IMO there will be anybody who will take part in it seriously)

[mgoetze]

Are you sure the word "any" means what you think it means?

[32519]

I can't find the hand records for Bali. Does anyone have a link to them? The WBO site thus far only shows the results for each round.

[paulg]

I can't find the hand records for Bali. Does anyone have a link to them? The WBO site thus far only shows the results for each round.

I'm not sure that the old men of Scotland have been sent to Bali to box, certainly very little of it was included in the training that I was involved in. Of course this would explain why they beat South Africa by 78-8 IMPs this morning but came out with black eyes.

 

Perhaps looking on the WBF site instead and reading the rubric at the bottom of the round results will help, clicking through to a match scorecard and then selecting a board.

 

Then you can find hands like this.

[32519]

I'm not sure that the old men of Scotland have been sent to Bali to box, certainly very little of it was included in the training that I was involved in. Of course this would explain why they beat South Africa by 78-8 IMPs this morning but came out with black eyes.

 

Perhaps looking on the WBF site instead and reading the rubric at the bottom of the round results will help, clicking through to a match scorecard and then selecting a board.

 

Then you can find hands like this.

How about all the hand records for each round on 1 sheet of paper? This helps but is not preferable.

[paulg]

How about all the hand records for each round on 1 sheet of paper? This helps but is not preferable.

You can always download the BBO vugraph archive and print from there, especially if you have DM Pro.

[Aberlour10]

Are you sure the word "any" means what you think it means?

 

 

Sure, my english is still poor, but I think, its not too hard to get the right meanings in my postings :rolleyes:

 

Anyway, today was a great day for the Polish Open Team>>, beating in the row>>> Monaco by 18>>> USA1 by 35 and >>>USA2 by 25 IMPs.

Its stiil early in the tournament, but polish kibbers enjoy already.>>> B-Z are back.!.

[chasetb]

Some 'surprises' so far:

1.) Japan currently sit in 3rd, 3.05 VPs behind leaders Poland. However, of the 7 teams they have faced, only Germany and Canada are any good; they lost and won respectively, and they lost to Bahrain. Japan isn't a bad team, but they aren't top-flight either and I expect them to finish somewhere between 12th - 14th.

 

2.) USA 2 currently sit in 19th, but they haven't faced a bad team yet - USA 1 and China are the 'worst teams' so far. Their next 2 matches today and the first match tomorrow should be cakewalks, how they 'fair' will let us know if they can compete for a QF spot (pun intended).

 

3.) Canada is currently in 6th, and their results are a bit odd. Lost to Japan and badly to England, but beat up on Poland and the Netherlands. Their next two matches (against Italy and China) will also let us know how 'for real' they are. I have them just missing out, but if they show up and gain at least 20 VPs, then I will slot them in for a QF spot.

[squealydan]

There have been very few top match-ups thus far so it's a bit hard to know what to make of these results. Think I'm right in saying that Italy have yet to play any of the other seven sides who make up the curren top 8 at end of day three (though they have played USA2), and Poland and Monaco have only played two of the other top 8 teams. USA2 have had the toughest draw of any of the sides thus far (though they did lose nearly all of the matches against sides above them, which doesn't augur too well for them). So there is plenty of scope for change at the top.

 

I too find it frustrating not to be able to see all the hand records from a round in one easy page...