[TimG]

JanM, on May 5 2006, 11:21 PM, said:

I think it's much harder than you think to come up with system regulations that work and are reasonably simple. Neither ACBL nor WBF has managed (it would take another thread as long as this one to cover the flaws in the WBF policies, but trust me, in some ways it's better than ACBL's in some ways it's worse, but it is far from either ideal or simple).

I do not think it would be easy to classify the ACBL convention charts in a simple and concise manner. (I have not studied the WBF charts, so can't really comment on those.)

The ACBL charts are littered with special methods and/or inconsistencies. Examples from the GCC: you can use 1♣ or 1♦ as a general purpose opening, but not 1♥ or 1♠; you can use an opening 2♦ bid to show a three suiter (with at least 10 HCP), but you cannot use 2♥ or 2♣ for the same purpose; you can use a 1♦ response to a 1♣ opening as an artificial force, but you cannot use a 1♥ response to 1♦ for the same purpose. On the mid-chart you've got the obvious: you can play a multi 2♦, but not a multi 2♣ (not even if it were to show diamonds or hearts rather than majors).

I could not hope to lay out a set of simple rules which cover such oddities.

If, however, I was working from scratch and could allow or disallow methods by broad class, I think I (or a committee) could come up with reasonably simple charts. They would not mirror the current ACBL charts -- they may allow some methods that are not currently allowed and may disallow some methods which are currently allowed -- and may include more levels than the current three (GCC, Mid-chart and Super-Chart).

Somewhat related: I think it is easier to defend against a transfer opening (even a MOSCITO transfer opening) than it is to defend against Multi. Also, the difference between defending against a transfer opening and a natural opening is far less than the difference between defending against a natural weak two-bid and Multi, or the difference between defending a against an artificial preempt in a known suit and Multi. To some of us, the idea tha Multi is allowed while easier to defend against methods are not allowed, is questionable.

Also: thanks, Jan, for taking the time to share your thoughts with this group.

And, one final thought, just a reminder really: the people taking part in this thread in no way represent the mainstream tournament bridge player, in fact we are merely a fringe element.

[JanM]

hrothgar, on May 6 2006, 06:44 PM, said:

United States
Population: 295734134
ACBL membership: 140272

European Union
Population: 456953258
Total Membership in WBF recognized associations: 387684

And the European Union gets 4 times as many teams. That's not proportional to its population or bridge population, or its previous performance. You just can't seriously claim that the US is advantaged by the number of teams allowed.

[Free]

JanM, on May 7 2006, 03:29 AM, said:

hrothgar, on May 6 2006, 06:44 PM, said:

United States
Population: 295734134
ACBL membership: 140272

European Union
Population: 456953258
Total Membership in WBF recognized associations: 387684

And the European Union gets 4 times as many teams. That's not proportional to its population or bridge population, or its previous performance. You just can't seriously claim that the US is advantaged by the number of teams allowed.

The European Union is not a country, so it doesn't matter how many teams 'some organisation' can send. People don't play for the EU, they play for Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands,...

Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg, together also known as the 'Benelux' can send 3 teams (if they would qualify) with a population less than 30 milion! Why not start complaining there?

[Cascade]

JanM, on May 7 2006, 02:29 PM, said:

hrothgar, on May 6 2006, 06:44 PM, said:

United States
Population: 295734134
ACBL membership: 140272

European Union
Population: 456953258
Total Membership in WBF recognized associations: 387684

And the European Union gets 4 times as many teams. That's not proportional to its population or bridge population, or its previous performance. You just can't seriously claim that the US is advantaged by the number of teams allowed.

You can't seriously think that the US are not advantaged.

I can do the math for you if you like.

Whatever the probability of the US winning if they have one team the probability is increased if they have two teams.

[awm]

This seems like something of a silly debate. Yes, of course the US is better off having two teams than one. Of course this helps the US chances of winning.

On the other hand, it's not clear exactly what the goals should be in determining which teams get to play in these events. Is the goal to get the best possible players, or to represent the maximum number of countries?

Certainly the USA "two" team routinely outperforms many country's national teams. And the US does have more bridge players (and more population) than most of the other competitors. So it's hard to argue that the field would be stronger if we replaced the USA two team with, say, the Mexican national team.

As a player living in the US, it's pretty clear that even with the "double representation" of our country in many international events, it's still harder to get to the Bermuda Bowl on a US team than it would be in many other countries. There are a great number of excellent US players, and the situation is made more extreme by the number of top foreign players who emigrate for financial reasons.

Perhaps the more interesting question, is when China will be allowed two teams. Population-wise they are of course first in the world, and apparently bridge is very popular there. Of course, in a way they already have two teams since Taiwan is often represented but that's a political debate probably best not to get into.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on May 7 2006, 05:29 AM, said:

hrothgar, on May 6 2006, 06:44 PM, said:

United States
Population: 295734134
ACBL membership: 140272

European Union
Population: 456953258
Total Membership in WBF recognized associations: 387684

And the European Union gets 4 times as many teams. That's not proportional to its population or bridge population, or its previous performance. You just can't seriously claim that the US is advantaged by the number of teams allowed.

I never made any claims regarding the conditions of contest and how this impacted individual Zones / Countries / Continents.

You expressed some uncertainty regarding the relative size of the US and European Bridge playing population. And then stated that "I'm sure the European bridge population isn't significantly greater than that of the US".

I simply posted the relevant figures from the WBF.

For what its worth, if we go and compare all of North America with Europe we end up with the following:

North America: 155876
European Union: 387684

EU/NA = 2.49

If teams are allocated based on population and North America is granted three teams, then Europe should get 7.47 teams

The most recent version of the WBF conditions of contest is posted at http://www.worldbridgehouse.com/eng/pdf/Ge...ontest_2006.pdf

Zone 1 which encompassed Europe is allocated 6 team
Zone 2 (which encompassed North America) is allocated 3 teams

(Please note: these statistics are based on the 2005 Bermuda Bowl and may be slightly different for the 2006 Rosenblum)

If you perform the same comparison to the US and Europe as a whole

If the US is allocated 2 teams, then the European union should receive 5.53 teams)

The host country for the World Championships is often allocated an extra slot which doesn't count against the quota. In turn, this can be expected to skew these figures slightly from year to year. For example, in 2005 Portugal received an extra bearth in the competition which didn't official count against the Europe quota.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on May 7 2006, 05:29 AM, said:

And the European Union gets 4 times as many teams. That's not proportional to its population or bridge population, or its previous performance.

Making arguments regarding performance or expected performance in events like the Bemuda Bowl gets very tricky:

For example, if I look back over the last 8 Bermuda Bowls, four of these events have been won by a team from the US. Four events have been won by teams from Europe.

In many ways, it appears as if the US is performing significantly better than one might expect. If we look at some of the earlier threads on the relative number of bridge players we might think that the US should only win (approximately) 30% of the events. The Europeans should win the remaining 70%.

With this said and done, as I recall the conditions of contest for the Bermuda bowl is deliberate rigged to ensure that two North America or two European teams can't meet in the final. Given that the final is designed to ensure that a Team from North America meets a team from Europe, the 50 / 50 break doesn't appear nearly asimpressive.

Please note: I'm not trying to insult Brazil or Australia or India or anyone from a Zone other than 1 or 2. Equally significant, I reconize that the US had a quite spectacular little run from 1976 to 1987. The Italians had an even more impressive run a few years earlier.

[hrothgar]

JanM, on May 7 2006, 02:20 AM, said:

hrothgar, on May 6 2006, 01:40 PM, said:

As a final note:  One could make the argument that teams from the USBF don't perform as well as they might in World Championships because

Would you like to make a side bet on the Rosenblum? I'll take the USBF teams against the rest of the field (of course, since the Rosenblum is now transnational, that would be tricky).

I probably should clarify my earlier comments: I didn't state that US teams were performing poorly in the World Championships. Rather, I commented that the US teams don't perform nearly as well as they should.

None of the discussions in this thread has directly dealt with some of the enormous advantages that the US enjoys in events like the Bermuda Bowl. When the US selects its two top teams for the Bemuda Bowl it gets to mix and match and select the 12 best players out of population of 140,272 ACBL members. When the Norsk Bridgeforbund selects the team that is going to represent Norway, they get to chose the best six players out of a pool 10,636. At any given time, the Norweigans probably have a couple stellar players. (Helgemo is certainly one of the best of the best). However, a Norwegian team isn't going to have the same depth as one from the United States.

This problem has been exacerbated by the fact that the player base in many other parts of the world is being diluted by defections to the US. Players like Zia, Rosenburg, Gitelman, and Fallenius are all fixtures on different "US" teams. (Please note: I'm not complaining about this. I'm simply stating that Sweden's performance on the International Bridge scene hasn't been quite the same since Fallenius stopped playing for them)

In short, I'd argue that the US is performing well on an absolute scale. However, I think that they should be doing a lot better.

[fred]

hrothgar, on May 7 2006, 01:57 PM, said:

In short, I'd argue that the US is performing well on an absolute scale. However, I think that they should be doing a lot better.

Sorry Richard, but I don't get it. You said that the USA has won 4 of the last 8 Bermuda Bowls. Turns out they have also won 4 of the last 6. They have also won a bunch of silver and bronze medals in the last 8 Bermuda Bowls.

The USA record in these Bermuda Bowls is better than all other countries combined and MUCH better than that of any other single country (including Italy).

The same could be said for the women's and seniors events that are run alongside the Bermuda Bowl (the Venice Cup and Seniors Bowl respectively).

I realize that the USA has certain advantages over other countries, but there is not much room for improvement in their results (at least not in the events we are discussing). Do you really think they should be expected to win every time?

If it sounds like I am trying to say "USA is great and everyone else sucks" then I can assure you this is not my intention (nor do I believe that this is even close to being true).

How about addressing the issue of why the countries with the most liberal systems policies have performed so poorly given how much bridge talent they have? Do you think this is a coincidence? I think it is more interesting to consider why these countries almost always do poorly than to consider why the USA does not win every single time.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[hrothgar]

fred, on May 7 2006, 05:57 PM, said:

How about addressing the issue of why the countries with the most liberal systems policies have performed so poorly given how much bridge talent they have? Do you think this is a coincidence? I think it is more interesting to consider why these countries almost always do poorly than to consider why the USA does not win every single time.

I certainly can't speak for all of the "liberal" systems countries. I do have a bit of inside knowledge regarding the Aussies who are pretty damn disgusted with their performance over the past 20 years or so.

As I understand matters, the Aussies think that systems regulations are almost completely incidental to their showing. The discussions that I've seen have focused on a combination of

1. The selection criteria for National team which discourages lasting teams/partnerships
2. Lack of opportunities for professional players in the PABF
3. Undercapitalization
4. Large travel expenses that limit the ability to get sufficient international experience

I know that there are some efforts underway to try to address some of these issues. it will be interesting to see how well it goes.

Personally, I'd be quite interested in getting some perspective from the Poles.
They have a lot of depth and talent.

[DrTodd13]

I'd like to see the number of professionals in each country. It seems there is a great benefit to professionalism in terms of being able to prepare for these big tournaments. So maybe we should be comparing professional populations and not just members of ACBL, etc.

[mike777]

There is also the argument for limiting the number of teams allowed into the Bermuda Bowl. Getting rid of round robin matches and making all the matches long knockouts. One could make some changes in the Zones, for instance, Asian teams play in the Europe Zone now.

This would make the Zonal playoffs more exciting but would the left out countries object too much?

This way make some changes in the Zones and just send Zonal champs. The counter argument against this is that Canada and some smaller bridge population countries would almost never play in the Bermuda Bowl.


As for the USBF, why fix what is not broken? Thank God we dropped picking the "best rated" team by the elite leaders long ago. Better we give a few top seeds a break and let the rest of us dream we can battle, win and play for our country with a bit of luck.

The sponsor argument is that a team that is task oriented rather than social oriented has a better chance of winning. "We dislike each other but we know our team roles and want to win otherwise our family starves."

[JanM]

hrothgar, on May 7 2006, 08:22 AM, said:

With this said and done, as I recall the conditions of contest for the Bermuda bowl is deliberate rigged to ensure that two North America or two European teams can't meet in the final. Given that the final is designed to ensure that a Team from North America meets a team from Europe, the 50 / 50 break doesn't appear nearly asimpressive.

Although the results of the conditions of contest are what you say, the actual rule applies only to the United States - two United States teams are not allowed to meet in the finals. (I think probably the rule says two teams from the same country, but since the United States is the only country that has two teams...). So there's only a guarantee of a US vs Europe final when both US teams reach the semi final.

[JanM]

mike777, on May 7 2006, 11:22 AM, said:

As for the USBF, why fix what is not broken? Thank God we dropped picking the "best rated" team by the elite leaders long ago. Better we give a few top seeds a break and let the rest of us dream we can battle, win and play for our country with a bit of luck.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we change our basic approach. I think we're doing a very good job. What I'd like to improve is how we regulate Systems and even more, how we tell people what they are allowed to play and what things require advance submission on recommended defenses.

[Gerben42]

Quote

Given that the final is designed to ensure that a Team from North America meets a team from Europe, the 50 / 50 break doesn't appear nearly as impressive.

I think the current BB setup is very reasonable. Besides who says it should be North America and Europe. A final China - Brazil or the like is not outrageous.

[Sigi_BC84]

hrothgar, on May 7 2006, 04:57 PM, said:

Personally, I'd be quite interested in getting some perspective from the Poles.
They have a lot of depth and talent.

I can't supply any figures, but I've talked with an expert from my club who is watching a lot of Vugraph and apparently has a good grasp of the general performance of the Polish teams. He has told me that the general level of play in Poland is very high and that they have to play several qualification rounds just to select the best from the best in order to put together one single team to send to international events. It could well be possible that they would be able to have two or three top-notch teams playing everytime if they were allowed to do so.

To me it seems like part of the problem lies in the fact that you have competing countries and not, say, competing transnational teams.

Soccer analogy: Brazil could easily send two national teams and probably win every FIFA championship that way. Germany couldn't...

I'm also very interested in actually well-informed opinions from Polish players.

--Sigi

[Aberlour10]

@Sigi

a short info in this context...

The managing committee of the Polish Bridge Union analyzed the rather poor performance of team Poland in the last Bermuda Bowl, and decided to change the system of team building.
The "democratic system" of trials (postulated by the players) for the most important international events is abolished (for team open). The performance showed during a few days of trials could not allowed to send the "really" strongest team to these events.
Team Poland for Warsaw will be nominated by the NPC Wojciech Siwiec,
who intensively observed the play of the leading polish partnerships
in the last half a year.

Robert

[mike777]

And so it goes, the old debate raises its ugly head
Send the "strongest team" or send the team that fights and wins its way there by beating all others?

If I understand your post what the players, those that play the game want, does not control what happens in Poland.

[Sigi_BC84]

mike777, on May 8 2006, 04:29 AM, said:

If I understand your post what the players, those that play the game want, does not control what happens in Poland.

This is not different in other popular sports, though. The national organization sends the team, not the players who are playing in the country in question. To stay with the soccer analogy: the federal coach picks the players for the national team, this is not decided by a popular vote among the players (or the fans, even though they certainly would prefer that :-).

Accordingly the organization decides on the mode being used. If the players want a change they have to go through the democratic means the organization provides. Now maybe here something is wrong in Poland (Robert used the word "postulated", maybe he can shed some more light on what exactly happened). Also from the figures posted further up in this thread, not many players seem to be actually registered with the Polish bridge union -- this would mean that a large number of players have no democratic powers in that organization anyway, they can postulate whatever they want, if they don't join the org they won't be able to vote for their choice.

From a democratic viewpoint the Polish scheme may be worse, but in terms of sending the "best team" having some captain nominate the players probably works better. Also I would not equal trial matches with a democratic solution -- trials are not elections, and luck may be involved etc.

Just my two cents.

--Sigi

[Aberlour10]

I don't know any further details about this decision, what I have posted
is taken from the oficial statement of the managing committee.
(the players have their representation in those board of PBU)