[FrancesHinden]

Regular readers of the EBU website will have seen that they are inviting people to enter for the new 'Premier League' which will also act as the English trials.
(here)

The closing date for entries was announced some time this week as the 14th Feb, but if you don't look regularly at the website you won't know this yet, because the official notification will be in the February issue of the EBU's quarterly magazine. So let's hope you don't need a much time to put a team together. (In previous years the closing date for entries has been in June or July.)

The dates have been announced as 2 3-day weekends in September/October, and a third 3-day weekend which will be one of two possible dates which won't be confirmed until the end of June. However, if you read the selection committee minutes from November, it seems that they have not decided whether play will actually be 3 2-day weekends, 2 2-day weekends and one 3-day, or 3 3-days. So you may end up playing on 0, 1, or 3 of the potential 4 Fridays specified in the dates.

They haven't decided whether to allow 6 or 8 teams to play, nor have they said when they will make that decision or indeed when they will decide who from among the entries will be selected to play. or is there any information on format or exactly how it will be used for selection.

So, just to summarise, we are being invited to put together a team to play in the country's trials:

- With at most 3 weeks notice, often less, of a closing date SEVEN MONTHS before the event starts
- For an unspecified number of days,
- For a not yet fully specified set of dates
- At an unspecified location
- At an unspecified cost (and historically the trials have not been cheap to enter)
- Requiring those with 'normal' jobs to take time off work, but sadly we don't know exactly how much or when
- With information as to who has been selected coming at an unspecified date in the future (the day before?)

This may not have been their intention, but they could just have well have advertised the event as "SPECIALLY ORGANISED TO SUIT PROFESSIONAL TEAMS ONLY. DON'T BOTHER IF YOU HAVE A LIFE OUTSIDE BRIDGE, WE AREN'T INTERESTED"

[Gerben42]

Yuck, some organization. Here for the premier league and 2nd league the teams are already known beforehand from last year, but the deadline for listing the players was in December (1st weekend in January).

Who comes up with such rules?!

[whereagles]

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...

[MickyB]

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.

[whereagles]

There is no such thing as team chemestry here All the good players hate each other.. lol.

[MickyB]

Frances, you are right - My employment is fairly flexible (I work in a bridge club!) so it hadn't occurred to me how difficult it could be to arrange, but my likely partner for the event hadn't realised the closing date was so soon.

The problem is, they want to know the number of entries before they decide the format, while, as you point out, many will want to know the format before deciding whether to enter!

IMO, eight is the absolute minimum number of teams you want involved. If they are seriously not going to have more, they should set it at precisely eight, choose the dates, then invite entries.

I hope you make the EBU aware of your opinions on this matter.

[helene_t]

whereagles, on Jan 25 2008, 02:38 PM, said:

There is no such thing as team chemestry here All the good players hate each other.. lol.

Hmmm ... and to qualify you need friends who are good players. From which it follows that .....

[Codo]

helene_t, on Jan 25 2008, 10:42 PM, said:

whereagles, on Jan 25 2008, 02:38 PM, said:

There is no such thing as team chemestry here All the good players hate each other.. lol.

Hmmm ... and to qualify you need friends who are good players. From which it follows that .....

Did you remeber any particular portugese successes in Bridge?

Maybe chemistry is a big issue.

[inquiry]

That is just plain crazy! It deserves more than a RANT...

[pclayton]

Thank God I'm in the ACBL....



(Oh thats right, we got our own issues )

[mike777]

".....They haven't decided......"



Who are they?

Do they have a phone you can call?

Do they have a boss you can call?

Who is the head hancho of EBU and can you call them?

[blackshoe]

MickyB is right. You have a valid complaint. You should make it to the EBU.

[TimG]

It does not seem unreasonable to me to have different schedules based upon different numbers of entries. But, schedules for all possibilities should be published in advance of a registration deadline.

If this is an invitational event, there is no excuse for not knowing how many entries there will be and providing a schedule for that eventuality. Surely if 8 teams are invited and one of them declines, another can be invited to take its place.

[mike777]

TimG, on Jan 25 2008, 06:27 PM, said:

It does not seem unreasonable to me to have different schedules based upon different numbers of entries.  But, schedules for all possibilities should be published in advance of a registration deadline.

If this is an invitational event, there is no excuse for not knowing how many entries there will be and providing a schedule for that eventuality.  Surely if 8 teams are invited and one of them declines, another can be invited to take its place.

I know we may have discussed this before but why bother with an invitational only trial? Anyone in the EBU for open team trail?

How could that be worse or more complicated than this?

[whereagles]

helene_t, on Jan 25 2008, 01:42 PM, said:

whereagles, on Jan 25 2008, 02:38 PM, said:

There is no such thing as team chemestry here All the good players hate each other.. lol.

Hmmm ... and to qualify you need friends who are good players. From which it follows that .....

It follows that for professional reasons I can't play the tournament

[whereagles]

Codo, on Jan 25 2008, 03:10 PM, said:

1. Did you remeber any particular portugese successes in Bridge?

2. Maybe chemistry is a big issue.

1. Portugal usually comes 15-20th place, out of 30-35 teams, in the European championships. We did win the EU championships some 8 or 9 years ago, I think, but that's a minor event (EU champs, not European champs).

2. Nah. Main issue is nobody is willing to practice hard enough. Side issues are good players playing mostly outdated methods and some corruption. The only steady portuguese partnership I've seen (Pinto/Barbosa) lasted for 20 years and they were basically the national team for that long. They once got to the Rosenblum teams quarter-finals.

[Halo]

Is it such a big deal? You express interest by entering and see how it goes. What is all the angst and excitement.

Personally I'm an extremist. Winners are the sort of people who win. Forget trials. Pick the winners of the major tournament(s).

[FrancesHinden]

mike777, on Jan 26 2008, 12:33 AM, said:

TimG, on Jan 25 2008, 06:27 PM, said:

It does not seem unreasonable to me to have different schedules based upon different numbers of entries.  But, schedules for all possibilities should be published in advance of a registration deadline.

If this is an invitational event, there is no excuse for not knowing how many entries there will be and providing a schedule for that eventuality.  Surely if 8 teams are invited and one of them declines, another can be invited to take its place.

I know we may have discussed this before but why bother with an invitational only trial? Anyone in the EBU for open team trail?

How could that be worse or more complicated than this?

It's open to anyone to enter, but the selection committee (they are the 'they' concerned) will then select either 6 or 8 teams from the entries.

[FrancesHinden]

Halo, on Jan 26 2008, 01:46 AM, said:

Is it such a big deal? You express interest by entering and see how it goes. What is all the angst and excitement.

Personally I'm an extremist. Winners are the sort of people who win. Forget trials. Pick the winners of the major tournament(s).

Well, part of the big deal is that I have had to enter as part of a team of 6, rather than (my preferece) a team of 4, because we don't know if we can play all the dates required.

[mike777]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 26 2008, 10:08 AM, said:

mike777, on Jan 26 2008, 12:33 AM, said:

TimG, on Jan 25 2008, 06:27 PM, said:

It does not seem unreasonable to me to have different schedules based upon different numbers of entries.  But, schedules for all possibilities should be published in advance of a registration deadline.

If this is an invitational event, there is no excuse for not knowing how many entries there will be and providing a schedule for that eventuality.  Surely if 8 teams are invited and one of them declines, another can be invited to take its place.

I know we may have discussed this before but why bother with an invitational only trial? Anyone in the EBU for open team trail?

How could that be worse or more complicated than this?

It's open to anyone to enter, but the selection committee (they are the 'they' concerned) will then select either 6 or 8 teams from the entries.

I guess I do not see strong support for a wide open trial event in the EBU, even if that meant 50 teams.