[TimG]

How many truly World Class players do you think there are in all of bridge?

[Free]

If I'd know how many bridge players in total there are, I could make an estimation Now it's just a gamble

[TimG]

I think there are about 160,000 ACBL members, so give this Zone 175,000, and about 350,000 EBU members. I think those are the two biggest zones by far. So, let's assume 750,000 worldwide. (Yes, there are lots more bridge playing non-members, but I'll bet the number of World Class non-members is insignificant.)

[Dwayne]

Tough question.

From what I've seen on BBO, my definition of World Class and the apparent definition of World Class by some of those who classify themselves thus arent exactly the same.

In some cases, not even close.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Dwayne-ee-poo.

[inquiry]

It depends on what you mean by world class. Do you lump in anyone who has played in a world championship event? Do you include senior, junior and women events?

I think true world class should at least imply a serious threat to win every single event they enter even against a field as strong as the world championship. This knocks out a lot of people who get to play in these events.

Then there are pairs who happen to be on a very strong team, and some pairs who while remarkably strong, have no strong team mates. I can imagine some people who have been on world championship teams (and I am not just talking about sponsors), who I might view as not "world class" by some standard you might draw, and other pairs who have never made it to finals of a world championship team event that are clearly in the very top echelon of bridge players in the world.

So by one standard, (playing for world championship, like bermuda bowl, at least once), the number would be large... inlculde seinor and women events, larger still. But by another standard. Let's call it the everyone recongnize them as one of the worlds very best players, the list would be very smalll indeed. Thus, I voted for 11-100., but I would place the actually number of what I consider world class at the lower part of this range, maybe 25 to 40, than at the upper part.

I also understand how others would disagree with this assessment and pick a much larger number. But don't go overboard. If your standard is capable of winning the bermuda bowl year in and year out with similar skilled teammates, the list really wouldn't be much more than 100 no matter how you wiggle it......

Ben

[TimG]

inquiry, on Aug 23 2004, 04:39 PM, said:

It depends on what you mean by world class.

Of course. Which is why I didn't make my definition of World Class part of the poll. I wanted to find out how other people define it.

[spwdo]

TimG, on Aug 24 2004, 06:01 AM, said:

How many truly World Class players do you think there are in all of bridge?

on the looks of it in bbo`s profiles many many many WC`s outthere

[skorchev]

I think that World Class is = of multiple titles from the biggest world tourney as BB, Rosenblum, Cavendish, etc.

But I think that BBO define for World Class is: "Player who represent self country at big bridge forums." => there are more than 50-60 players.

However I voted for 1-10

[luke warm]

i think there are many more than 10... heck, there are probably many more than 10 in the usa... i'd guess between one and two hundred in the world

[Free]

skorchev, on Aug 23 2004, 11:45 PM, said:

I think that World Class is = of multiple titles from the biggest world tourney as BB, Rosenblum, Cavendish, etc.

But I think that BBO define for World Class is: "Player who represent self country at big bridge forums." => there are more than 50-60 players.

However I voted for 1-10

Hmmm, if you win 1 of these tourneys, you have already 4 world class players... 1-10 is a bit too few imo, since we already made some top-10 players in the past, I bet there are at least 11

[spwdo]

Hi,


Seruios like in every sport the top 100 sounds worldclass to me.Btw is there a internationel ranking in bridge or something along those lines?



Marc

[KiwiBridge]

MOST of the BBO players I see (that I don't know by name) who categorize themselves as WORLD CLASS are in fact simply awful players who show no respect for the category. IMHO only Fred and Uday should be allowed to set this status, then it might mean something.

[TimG]

KiwiBridge, on Aug 23 2004, 07:08 PM, said:

MOST of the BBO players I see (that I don't know by name) who categorize themselves as WORLD CLASS are in fact simply awful players who show no respect for the category. IMHO only Fred and Uday should be allowed to set this status, then it might mean something.

Isn't that what the stars are for?

[KiwiBridge]

No, STARS are not necessarily world class players

[TimG]

KiwiBridge, on Aug 23 2004, 07:14 PM, said:

No, STARS are not necessarily world class players

What are the yellow stars for, then?

[Chamaco]

inquiry, on Aug 23 2004, 09:39 PM, said:

It depends on what you mean by world class. Do you lump in anyone who has played in a world championship event? Do you include senior, junior and women events?

I think true world class should at least imply a serious threat to win every single event they enter even against a field as strong as the world championship.  This knocks out a lot of people who get to play in these events.

I disagree with this definition.
It sounds too restrictive for me.

I am relatively new to the bridge world, but its application to chess (a game I know better) would mean that at any time period there would be no more than 4-5 world class players (posing a serious threat to the world champion), and quite often, even less, which is certainly not what the chess world thinks.

In my opnion, the definition of world class is: all players regularly playing in top class events with reasonable chances to end in the top 5 places , AND all players of comparable strength which have less opportunity to play for various reasons.

According to this definition (which may not suit everyone's taste) I would estimate no less than 100 "worldclass" players worldwide and probably close to 200.

[fred]

In "The Rules of This Site" (accessable through Explore Bridge!,
Bridge Library), we have guidelines as to what the various
skill level categories mean.

"World Class" is defined as someone who has represented his/her
country in a World Championship.

If the "World Class" designation is to be a measure of skill, then
the defintion we use is not very good (as their are plenty of
awful players who have played in World Championships and
plenty of excellent players who never have).

You get a star if you have accomplished certain things in
your bridge career. Playing in a World Championship is not
good enough for a star - only specific World Championship
events (those that you have to qualify to play in) count.

There are other ways to get a star as well (winning an ACBL
National Championship Event for example).

The concept of me, Uday, or anyone else being the only ones
who could assign "World Class" is a very bad idea (sorry).
Not only would this create a lot of nightmarish work for
somebody (trust me - I know from handling stars that it will
be nightmarish), but it would just shift the problem to "Expert"
(then "Advanced", then... we might as well have a "rating system").

I am not exactly in love with our current defintions of skill levels
(and stars), but I have thought about this a lot (and continue
to) and I continue to think that the way we handle things now
is at least as good as any of the alternatives.

It is unlikely we will make any big changes in this area unless we
feel very strongly that it is right to do so. This is not the sort of
thing we want to experiment with and see what happens.

For now all I can suggest is something you already know:

Don't believe everything you read in people's profiles.

If someone wants to suggest a better definition for "World Class"
please feel free to do so but:

- keep it short!
- it has to be sensible relative to the definition of "expert" (feel free
to suggest a new definition for this too) which has to be sensible relative
to "advanced"...

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[inquiry]

Chamaco, on Aug 23 2004, 08:37 PM, said:

inquiry, on Aug 23 2004, 09:39 PM, said:

It depends on what you mean by world class. Do you lump in anyone who has played in a world championship event? Do you include senior, junior and women events?

I think true world class should at least imply a serious threat to win every single event they enter even against a field as strong as the world championship.  This knocks out a lot of people who get to play in these events.

I disagree with this definition.
It sounds too restrictive for me.

I am relatively new to the bridge world, but its application to chess (a game I know better) would mean that at any time period there would be no more than 4-5 world class players (posing a serious threat to the world champion), and quite often, even less, which is certainly not what the chess world thinks.

In my opnion, the definition of world class is: all players regularly playing in top class events with reasonable chances to end in the top 5 places , AND all players of comparable strength which have less opportunity to play for various reasons.

According to this definition (which may not suit everyone's taste) I would estimate no less than 100 "worldclass" players worldwide and probably close to 200.

Chess is probably a good example. The world is full of "Grand Masters". There are so, so many, and yet as you say, the very vast majority are no threat to challenge for world championship. I remember back to the Soviet Union versus the world match where Bobby Fisher came out of retirement and Bent Larsen (spelling) where among the 10 players on the world side, and the best 10 grand masters from russia on the other. Among these 20 players were probably the 20 best in the world. I would say these were the world class players, but even here, only four or five at that time could have seriously challenged Boris Spasky (spelling again).

Would my characterization of the top six of that match as "world class" and all the others as just "grandmasters" demean the other 14 players? I think not. But in chess you have a rating system. The FIDE gives rating, so you have a numberical scale ot compare player A to player B.

Biut just as I think not all players who play in world championship events are world class, I choose to characterize all grandmasters as "world class". In a sense, of course, the titel grand master means world class in chess...but there are grand masters and then there are champions... and there is as much difference between Gary Kasparov (spelling) and lower grandmasters, like american Joel Benjamin and there is between between Fred and me in bridge. This is not to belittle Joel Benjamin or Fred, the fact is there is a huge difference in the ability. Being very very very good, and being world class is two different things in my opinion. And as Fred said (supporting my view stated earlier), there as their are plenty of
awful players who have played in World Championships and
plenty of excellent players who never have... which is very, very true.

ben

[jtfanclub]

I guess I'm the only person to think that 1 in a thousand serious players is a World Class player.

[irdoz]

Definition of 'expert' or 'world-class' is someone who 'knows they are not truly expert or world-class'. (Tongue firmly in cheek...)

In a self-rating environment the self-assigned ratings are mostly meaningless. They perform some functions and have an impact on which unknown people many choose to play with or against. They are also barriers to participation in some clubs and in some tournaments which can be (but isn't necessarily) problematic.

Given lots of people like to play with better players or players of similar skill then ratings will tend to conform to the perceived standard self-rating practice on BBO and not the 'objective' criteria - and often people know full well they do not meet the stated criteria but do match the observed self-rating practice.

When I play in the main club I am usually 'private' or 'advanced' because in my experience people who call themselves advanced are better at both bridge and interpersonal skills than some other categories. When I rarely play in an individual I set it to 'novice' because it tends to prevent lectures from 'experts' and instead of reacting to their (usually wrong) lecture I can just say 'sorry Im a novice'. (In other words I use the self-rating for particular purposes and not as my actual rating according to the stated criteria).

I have played in both rated and non-rated environments. They both produce behaviours that are problematic. Most interesting was when one online site moved from non-rated to rated. The computerised ratings produced an outcome so different to the self-declared ratings - ratings became like an 'honesty gauge' but they also produced all sorts of other bad behaviour and a set of behaviours designed to manipulate an individuals rating (in this site incompleted boards didnt contribute to ratings so if you were about to get a bad board many disappeared).

Some of the bad behaviours I see in relation to self-rating are actually produced from those sites that have computerised ratings. For example you often see people type 'no hidden statistics' - a common practice on another site. It's pretty fiunny not to play with someone because they choose to be private about a meaningless piece of data (the self-rating). And the practice of leaving very quickly also seems to come from established practice at another online site. Prior to that site having ratings table jumping and leaving in the middle of hands were uncommon practice. Once they introduced ratings whose calculation did not include non-completed boards table jumping and not staying for any large number of hands became the norm. I think some sort of 'good behavior guidelines' in relation to joining and leaving tables in the main bridge club would be a good idea.