[D9]

Who decides who is worldclass?

• Do the management specify objective criteria?
  
• Do you have to have won a world championship?
  
• Do you have to represent a country like Antarctica?
  
• Do you have to be a friend of the management?
  
• Or must you simply have the energy to tick the top box in your profile?

One of the great things about Bridge used to be that snobbishness
was rare in competition. In the UK, as a beginner, you could
play against and learn from Reese, Harrison Gray, the Sharples,
Amsbury, Schenken, Rosenberg, Forrester, Robson, and so on.

IMO, the introductuion of apartheid is a retrograde step but if BBO must
have it then..
You should have to demonstrate your class by consistent successful
performance in BBO competitions. Unfortunately I suppose that would
probably make several self-rated "world-class" players ineligible

[the hog]

If you are commenting about Top Flight - this is a private club and they can admit whom they like.
If you are commenting about some players having Gold stars - who cares? Some top players will never play against you anyway; they bid with their clients(?). You will find plenty GS who will play against you and you will find plenty of strong players without GS. Having a GS simply means that player is "worth watchin". Frankly I also enjoy watching Misho and Ben and they don't have GS.

[fred]

D9, on Jan 25 2004, 05:55 PM, said:

Who decides who is worldclass?

• Do the management specify objective criteria?
  
  
• Do you have to have won a world championship?
  
  
• Do you have to represent a country like Antarctica?
  
  
• Do you have to be a friend of the management?
  
  
• Or must you simply have the energy to tick the top box in your profile?

One of the great things about Bridge used to be that snobbishness
was rare in competition.  In the UK, as a beginner, you could
play against and learn from Reese, Harrison Gray, the Sharples,
Amsbury, Schenken, Rosenberg, Forrester, Robson, and so on.

IMO, the introductuion of apartheid is a retrograde step but if BBO must
have it then..
You should have to demonstrate your class by consistent successful
performance in BBO competitions.  Unfortunately I suppose that would
probably make several self-rated "world-class" players ineligible 

I decide who gets a star, but my decision is made almost
entirely according to a procedure. You need to do something
like this to qualify:

1) Represent your country in an event like the Bermuda
Bowl or World Teams Olympiad (ie an event that you
have to qualify to play in, unlike open World Championships
like the Rosenblum Teams or World Open Pairs).

2) Win a major national championship or Zonal Championship
(such as an ACBL National event, a European Championship,
a South American Championship...).

3) Win a major invitational tournament (like the Cavendish,
the Forbo, the Macallan...).

4) Come close to winning events like these described above
several times. This gives me some scope for judgment calls.

Granted that in some countries it is easier to do these things
than it is in others, but that is not relevant. For one thing, I am
not about to get involved in judging which countries' best
players should be given stars. More important:

95% of BBO members do not play anywhere as well as 100%
of the stars. A lot of those 95% enjoy kibitzing better players.
Many of these people prefer to watch players from their part
of the world (out of a sense of pride, because they play a similar
bidding style, because they might know each other personally...).
I think this is especially true of BBO members from countries
that are not traditional powers in bridge.

The stars are not there to "reward" the good players. They are
there for the new players and "average BBO members" who
enjoy kibitzing a strong game.

For sure there are stars who are not among the world's very
best players, but all of the stars are fine players and most act
as excellent ambassadors for our game and their countries.

We do not recognize success in BBO tournaments by giving
out stars for 2 reasons:

1) It is too easy to cheat in online bridge tournaments. I am
sure there is plenty of this going on already and it would get
a lot worse if we offered something of perceived value to the
winners of our tournaments.

2) None of our tournaments are of a high enough standard
yet (in terms of level of competition) that they warrent
giving stars to the winners. Given that 1) is an insolvable
problem in my view, 2) will likely never change.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[bglover]

I originally posted this in another thread, but seems apporpriate here:


If I may explain....

The Gold Star for admission was meant to be some sort of "objective" standard that we could point to, even if it meant some great players would not be admitted through invitation. We hoped (and still do hope) that the other truly good ones would be brought in through the nomination process. We are encouraging our members to help us expand through this method. Daily, I get asked by someone or another for admittance (including, I might add, Trpltrbl). I can say "need a BBO gold star sorry" and at least they understand "why", unlike some other clubs where admitting standards are pretty much at the whim of the owners. Our standards may be rigid (in fact, they are too rigid maybe) but they are also fair and measurable.

There is nothing wrong with small tourneys or team matches if we maintain a high level of play. We certainly didn't expect to run huge tourneys when we started but hoped we would grow through word of mouth. The plan was that if we were able to stage small, high-quality matches, other great players would see this and want to play in our tourneys more.

Indeed, we are experiencing a little growth in participation already. Our last few tourneys have been either 3 or 4 tables and over time maybe we will grow to 5 tables. If that is the case, great. If not, that's OK too.

It is unlikely we would have have many more than 6 or 7 tables given that we have a limited membership. But "size" was never our greatest concern. Rather, maintaining an environment where great players want to compete and where spectators can watch and learn has ALWAYS been our goal. A secondary benefit (we hope) is that we will attract more great players to BBO so they can participate in TopFlight events.

Sure, you can spec another tourney and find as many or more stars playing. But, are they playing against "like" competition? Not usually, unless it's a team match. That's the entire point. For the spectators, watching high-quality opponents engage versus each other can help them learn and improve. We try to have commentators at our matches (often I am the commentator) to explain the processes, much like Vugraph. It is a service we are providing, both to our members and to the BBO community at large. No one would think to criticize OK Bridge's Goldway matches, yet they are just team matches with great players competing. We view TopFlight more as competition to that than as competition to any other club on BBO.

And, given that we are very young (really only 4 weeks old) I think we have been mostly successful. We are still experimenting with days and times. We must be careful not to overlap with other, more established club tourneys. It's still a learning process for us. If we do our jobs well, learn from our mistakes and listen to our members, then we will succeed. If we do not, at least Ben, Ece, Alex and myself can say we tried to do something for the greater "good" of BBO. Better to be a noble failure I say.