[dburn]

There have been "wide open trials" in the EBU before now. Indeed, one pair a few years ago rang Aylesbury to ask if the Scarborough Congress was full. On being told that it was, they said "Oh well, we might as well enter the English trials then." They did not finish bottom.

Since the chairman of the EBU called me yesterday to ask whether I would be prepared to serve on the Selection Committee again, I had better not say too much at this point. But the questions of professionalism and of "conflict of interest" among Committee members have long been considered difficult by the administrators of the English game (and the British game before that). For the last few years, the process of selecting the English team has been more than somewhat shambolic, and the situation of which Frances (rightly) complains is an example of that.

For myself, I am a firm believer in not moving goalposts. Whether the team that plays for England in European and (maybe) World Championships should be the team that does best over a long trial or the team that does best during the year in our major tournaments is open to question.

But one thing to me is clear: the team should be selected entirely on the basis of recent results, and the criteria for selection should be known to all concerned as far in advance as possible. No one (including me) has much of a clue what the best team in England is at the moment; at least if we adopt a results-based policy, we'll send a team playing in form and in luck. Since 1991, when Britain won the European Championships, our best result has been fourth in the 2000 Olympiad with a team of hopeless unknowns. Maybe if we send out some more of those, we'll do better.

[Cascade]

dburn, on Jan 27 2008, 03:32 PM, said:

"Since the chairman of the EBU called me yesterday to ask whether I would be prepared to serve on the Selection Committee"

"No one (including me) has much of a clue what the best team in England is at the moment"

Seems like you have the perfect qualifications :-)

[skjaeran]

dburn, on Jan 27 2008, 03:32 AM, said:

Since 1991, when Britain won the European Championships, our best result has been fourth in the 2000 Olympiad with a team of hopeless unknowns. Maybe if we send out some more of those, we'll do better.

LOL, that bunch was: David BURN, Brian CALLAGHAN, Joe FAWCETT , Gunnar HALLBERG, Glyn LIGGINS, Colin SIMPSON, David BAKHSHI (coach) and John WILLIAMS (npc). Such modesty - or is this some kind of english humour?

[skjaeran]

Jlall, on Jan 27 2008, 03:28 PM, said:

I wouldn't call Gunnar Hallberg a hopeless unknown

Why not - he's swedish?

[mike777]

I discussed this issue before in the USA trials thread. There seems to be a mindset that the number one priority, I repeat the number one priority, is make sure the best team is selected. Not a full and fair competition for all. Perhaps this should be the number one priority but I never see it discussed. It is just assumed.

For instance an alternative number one priority might be that everyone gets to compete with seeding rights and you let the competition decide who is number one.
Note here the number one priority is the fun and competition and seeding rights for those teams based on some reasonable criteria. Who knows the very best players just might not win and that is ok.

To repeat I really disagree that the highest priority of a competition is that those players deemed the best win. Give them seedings and byes to reward the past year's performance, no problem, but let in everyone who wants in.

[Fluffy]

MickyB, on Jan 25 2008, 12:22 PM, said:

whereagles, on Jan 25 2008, 12:15 PM, said:

LOL... seems like my country's team trials.

Stage 1 is a MATCHPOINTS EVENT... loloish.
Stages 2 and 3 are butler scoring.

Then, 1st and 2nd ranked pairs get selected and THOSE TWO CHOOSE who will be 3rd pair, from 3rd, 4th or 5th ranked in stage 3. It's like "It doesn't matter to play good or bad. What matters is to have a friend that plays good."

Ridiculous. I'm on the verge of submitting the trials regulations to the State Secretariate for Sports and request withdrawl of public interest status for the bridge federation...

Other than having Stage 1 being matchpoints, I quite like the sound of that.

I've been told that team chemistry is very important, and that's why we use teams trials rather than pairs trials. IMO, your country's method does a better job of picking the best pairs, without neglecting the fact that teammates have to be able to get on.

The problem Micky, arises from the frequency of the first pair rejecting to play by any means with the second pair, specially on the women trials. Teams are suposed to be teams, not pairs.


One year for the spannish open championship, the president of the AEB (our NBO), deleted by mistake our team from the play.

Later they changed the hour to start but failed to comunicate to us since we were deleted from the list.

The day it started we appeared half an hour late, the clever director let our opponents make a comitee and decide if we should play or not, they voted an unanimous and solidary NO

[whereagles]

Fluffy, on Jan 27 2008, 08:26 PM, said:

The problem Micky, arises from the frequency of the first pair rejecting to play by any means with the second pair, specially on the women trials. Teams are suposed to be teams, not pairs.

Actually, this is easy to fix. You have 2 possibilities:

1. Have the trials to be teams events, from start to end.

2. Any pair that refuses to play because it doesn't like someone else in the team gets a 6 month ban.

[MickyB]

I've spoken with a member of the EBU selection committee.

Apparently, the intention was for this process to gauge the level of interest to allow the format to be decided six months beforehand. Any entries made now imply no commitment to enter the event. If the number of entries exceeds expectations, there may be more than one division, although it is perhaps more likely that the event might grow to multiple divisions at a future date.

This makes some sense, although clearly this intention has been lost at some point - the phrasing on the EBU website certainly doesn't make this clear. If that is still the case, it seems much more acceptable IMO, although I'm not sure how the number of teams expressing interest will correlate with the final number of entries.