[mich-b]

3for3, on Aug 9 2009, 09:29 AM, said:

Decreasing to 16 and starting KO's is a very bad idea, IMO.  Seeding would be far too important.  Bridge is not deterministic.  Chance plays a role, as it should.  But starting the event on unequal footing should NEVER occur.  Let teams earn the seed through the RR process as they do it now.

Agree strongly with that.

And (though perhaps this is off-topic) I am surprised this exact objection is rarely raised with regard to the Spingold and Vanderbilt.

[paulg]

I'm not sure why you want seeding. I'd just have an open draw with the caveats that (1) countries from the same zone cannot meet in first round and perhaps, with no strong opinion, (2) teams from the same country should meet in the semifinal. I don't mind Italy playing USA2 in the first round, and I'm sure all these players are only interested in the win and not second place.

The Spingold and Vanderbilt seeding does make sense as there is a fair and open basis for the seeding, based on performance where the majority of the players have been involved. Only new aliens are discriminated against.

Paul

[mich-b]

cardsharp, on Aug 9 2009, 09:56 AM, said:

I'm not sure why you want seeding. I'd just have an open draw with the caveats that (1) countries from the same zone cannot meet in first round and perhaps, with no strong opinion, (2) teams from the same country should meet in the semifinal. I don't mind Italy playing USA2 in the first round, and I'm sure all these players are only interested in the win and not second place.

I see another problem with your suggested format.

Do you think it is a good idea that a team practices for a long time , prepares itself, travels half the globe to get to the event, spends a lot of money , and then gets eliminated after 1 or 2 days of play?

It seems wrong to me, to ask players do all the effort of coming to the BB , and then "kicking" them away so fast. What are they supposed to do ? go home? become tourists? play some minor side event?

I think they are entitled to a week of play, for the effort of qualifying within their country, and from their zone.

[Aberlour10]

cardsharp, on Aug 9 2009, 09:18 AM, said:

If you cannot finish in the top six places at the European Championships, you are probably not a great nation currently.

I don't agree..... by so closed competition as at the last Europeans in Pau. Just a single fact: there were only 11 VPs difference between places 6-10 in the final ranking.

The new format 2x16 in Round Robin + KO R16 has nearly the same number of boards needed to get to the QF as the present one. So even the 16 teams which will not qualify after RR have quaranteed a full week of play, and still the possibilty to register in Transnationals

Robert

[helene_t]

cardsharp, on Aug 9 2009, 03:56 PM, said:

I don't mind Italy playing USA2 in the first round, and I'm sure all these players are only interested in the win and not second place.

I think it would be a bad thing if too many top teams were knocked out early because they met other top teams. It does reduce the chance that the best team wins. Among other reasons because early-stage matches are shorter than late-stage matches. Silver and Bronze are still significant for most even if they are not for Italy and USA. Finally, it is bad for the publicity if half of the well-known players people want to watch on vugraph are knocked out after round two.

I think the current format is probably OK. But the reason for not making it larger is the costs If costs is not an issue, then they could easily make it 32 teams, or 40 teams for that matter. A partial, balanced round robin where everyone plays roughly half of the other teams would have almost the same statistical power as a full RR with half the match length.

[NickRW]

helene_t, on Aug 9 2009, 04:23 PM, said:

A partial, balanced round robin where everyone plays roughly half of the other teams would have almost the same statistical power as a full RR with half the match length.

Yeah. Could even get Gerben to show up and do his zermelo scoring:

http://www.geocities...lo/indexen.html

Nick

[JanM]

Another problem with an immediate KO is that even if all the favorites win (assuming we know who the favorites are and that they don't play each other in the Round of 16 ), some will have had an easier time of it than others. Thus some will be in better shape for the Quarterfinals than others. So even if you reduced the field, I think a Round Robin is a fairer start than an immediate KO.

As for having even more teams - I think that would mean either having a longer event or dealing with separate fields for the Round Robin. Although separate fields seems fair, so long as they are "even," the fact that there is no good way to seed teams from so many different countries would be a serious problem - I would be willing to bet lots of money that most of the teams in the event would believe they were in the "tougher" Round Robin group, and that would make them unhappy. And probably some of them would be right. And a longer event ... well, it's already pretty long.

People do periodically suggest something other than immediate KO for the Vanderbilt & Spingold. There is general agreement that the seeding of the bottom half of the field is fairly random, although the seeding at the top, where recent performance in the Vanderbilt, Spingold & Reisinger count heavily, is pretty good, except for foreign players (foreign players are given seeding points, but there's no very good way of figuring out how many a player should receive; then the seeding points decay, even if the player doesn't play in the NABC events, so we have some clearly "wrong" seeding of some foreign players). One of the reason that the format isn't likely to change is that both events have to use the same format (I think that's in Vanderbilt's will ), so it isn't possible to experiment with something similar to the Rosenblum format in only one of the events. I suppose another reason is that the events are popular and the teams that make it to the end (whatever you define "the end" as - maybe the Round of 16?) are all deserving, so nothing seems to be seriously broken.

[nigel_k]

3for3, on Aug 9 2009, 09:29 AM, said:

Decreasing to 16 and starting KO's is a very bad idea, IMO. Seeding would be far too important. Bridge is not deterministic. Chance plays a role, as it should.

I'm for 16 teams, knockout with long matches, with seeding based on previous BB results.

I believe this would actually reduce the element of luck. A short match can swing on a couple of hands - several VPs for a slam on a finesse in the worst case. The best teams also risk encountering a weak team on a flat set of boards where they can't 'harvest' as much as their competitors. With a knockout, the best teams would all get first round opponents they could beat and be rested and ready for the second round.

Of course knockouts would be unpopular because half the field would be putting in a lot of time and money just to go home after one match. But determining the team that deserves to be called world champion ought to take priority. Maybe there could be a secondary Swiss event that teams join after they get knocked out of the main event.

[MFA]

cardsharp, on Aug 9 2009, 04:18 PM, said:

If you cannot finish in the top six places at the European Championships, you are probably not a great nation currently.

The battle for the 6 spots is quite tough. Look at the finish in Pau for instance.

With just one match to play, Italy was struggling big time on 7th and they had to face the leaders from Germany in the last match. In the end they managed a big win to secure the samba tickets as 5th.

The Netherlands were also in problems at the end. They were 6th before last match which gave a tie against Israel. They then needed reasonably favourable results in some other matches to make it and got them.

[paulg]

MFA, on Aug 10 2009, 08:27 AM, said:

cardsharp, on Aug 9 2009, 04:18 PM, said:

If you cannot finish in the top six places at the European Championships, you are probably not a great nation currently.

The battle for the 6 spots is quite tough. Look at the finish in Pau for instance.

With just one match to play, Italy was struggling big time on 7th and they had to face the leaders from Germany in the last match. In the end they managed a big win to secure the samba tickets as 5th.

The Netherlands were also in problems at the end. They were 6th before last match which gave a tie against Israel. They then needed reasonably favourable results in some other matches to make it and got them.

The battle for every spot in the Europeans is now tough and even qualifying for the second round robin (i.e., finishing in the top half of the field) is an achievement.

The standard is a lot higher than it ever was and there are a lot of good teams, but if a good team plays poorly they can easily lose a match to anyone in the field.

I really feel that there are very few great nations now. Even those who are given that accolade are losing their lustre. But we see the same in American bridge, where no-one is now safe in the Vanderbilt or Spingold and upsets are the norm. The general rise in European standards is probably a major factor in this too.

[helene_t]

JanM, on Aug 10 2009, 01:09 AM, said:

As for having even more teams - I think that would mean either having a longer event or dealing with separate fields for the Round Robin.

No, just make a partial RR. Splitting the field up in groups is for some reason popular in many sports, I am not sure why people like it. From a statistical point of view it is an inferior design.

[PeterGill]

Nigel K's idea might make Australia (5th in the last BB) the 5th seeds in the 2009 BB. Argentina is another country which sends teams of variable strength to BB's - Argentina's 2009 team looks very strong compared to the last BB in 2007.

Returning to the original question in this thread:
In the absence of South Africa, I cannot see anyone beating Italy.
Minor medals to USA2 and Netherlands.
Other finalists: Norway, China, Germany, Argentina, Bulgaria.
Other possible qualifiers: USA1, Brazil, Russia, India.

Venice Cup: China

Seniors: Indonesia from Poland.

Peter Gill.

[3for3]

One of the reason that the format isn't likely to change is that both events have to use the same format (I think that's in Vanderbilt's will ), so it isn't possible to experiment with something similar to the Rosenblum format in only one of the events. I suppose another reason is that the events are popular and the teams that make it to the end (whatever you define "the end" as - maybe the Round of 16?) are all deserving, so nothing seems to be seriously broken.



Another reason it is not likely to change is that players in the top 1/4 of the field dominate the committees that determine such things. The Rosenblum is a far better, fairer format than the V/S, but it just won't happen...

Danny

[Aberlour10]

cardsharp, on Aug 10 2009, 03:01 AM, said:

The battle for every spot in the Europeans is now tough and even qualifying for the second round robin (i.e., finishing in the top half of the field) is an achievement.

The standard is a lot higher than it ever was and there are a lot of good teams, but if a good team plays poorly they can easily lose a match to anyone in the field.

If it's true, and not only as a short-term development....is it not a very serious and main argument for the WBF (leastwise) to think about the format and matter of zonation the spots in the most important bridge event?

Robert

[paulg]

Aberlour10, on Aug 10 2009, 04:39 PM, said:

cardsharp, on Aug 10 2009, 03:01 AM, said:

The battle for every spot in the Europeans is now tough and even qualifying for the second round robin (i.e., finishing in the top half of the field) is an achievement.

The standard is a lot higher than it ever was and there are a lot of good teams, but if a good team plays poorly they can easily lose a match to anyone in the field.

If it's true, and not only as a short-term development....is it not a very serious and main argument for the WBF (leastwise) to think about the format and matter of zonation the spots in the most important bridge event?

Robert

You have to draw a line somewhere and, I believe, that it is based loosely on the number of players in the zone. This seems an equitable method of allocation.

If you permitted too many European teams because of strength, then the USA might reasonably ask for five additional slots given the standard at the top of their game?

p

[Aberlour10]

cardsharp, on Aug 10 2009, 11:17 AM, said:

You have to draw a line somewhere and, I believe, that it is based loosely on the number of players in the zone. This seems an equitable method of allocation.

hmm, I took a look at the current WBF statistics concerning the total membership in the national federations:
http://www.worldbridge.org/zones/

World Total : 693.845

Zone Europe Total: 393.134 its about 57 %


European spots in the BB 6/22 27 %


There were a lot of changes in Europe during last 20 years, new states have been originated, new bridge federations have been established.At the Europeans in 1987 took part 21 teams (open) in Pau 38....etc etc..

Robert

[skjaeran]

TimG, on Aug 4 2009, 03:24 AM, said:

Helgemo may not be available as the result of a recent disciplinary action. This rgb thread discusses the matter -- I have not read all the way through it so am not 100% sure that this sanction would make Helgemo unable to represent Norway in Sao Paulo, but it could easily have played a role in the selection process.

The sanction made Helgemo (and the other players) uneligible for a Norwegian national team. However, Helgemo-Helness very early (prior to the incident), decided to play on the Zimmermann team in the transnationals, as did Balicki-Zmudzinski.

[3for3]

Aberlour10, on Aug 10 2009, 02:31 PM, said:

cardsharp, on Aug 10 2009, 11:17 AM, said:

You have to draw a line somewhere and, I believe, that it is based loosely on the number of players in the zone. This seems an equitable method of allocation.

hmm, I took a look at the current WBF statistics concerning the total membership in the national federations:
http://www.worldbridge.org/zones/

World Total : 693.845

Zone Europe Total: 393.134 its about 57 %


European spots in the BB 6/22 27 %


There were a lot of changes in Europe during last 20 years, new states have been originated, new bridge federations have been established.At the Europeans in 1987 took part 21 teams (open) in Pau 38....etc etc..

Robert

I bet the Zone 2 representation is low by those standards as well.

[NickRW]

3for3, on Aug 10 2009, 07:51 PM, said:

I bet the Zone 2 representation is low by those standards as well.

For sure zone 2 is under represented as well. It is rigged that way. Bridge is not the only sport to do this sort of thing at world championship level - the reasoning generally goes that you want to promote interest in areas of the world where the game needs promoting.

The downside, if you're from zone 1 or 2, is that it can be as hard (if not harder) to qualify than to do well in the actual finals themselves. However, it doesn't really detract from actually winning - as a contestant in any game you can only beat the opponents they put in front of you and, if you made it through all the hoops, you're still the best.

Nick

[theli]

skaeran, on Aug 10 2009, 02:49 PM, said:

TimG, on Aug 4 2009, 03:24 AM, said:

Helgemo may not be available as the result of a recent disciplinary action.  This rgb thread discusses the matter -- I have not read all the way through it so am not 100% sure that this sanction would make Helgemo unable to represent Norway in Sao Paulo, but it could easily have played a role in the selection process.

The sanction made Helgemo (and the other players) uneligible for a Norwegian national team. However, Helgemo-Helness very early (prior to the incident), decided to play on the Zimmermann team in the transnationals, as did Balicki-Zmudzinski.

i really think it is a pity that some of the best pairs in the world prefer not to take place in the most prestigious tournament. are the prizes and the sponsor money in the transnationals so much better than the prizes in the BB that they prefer to play there?