[winkle]

Does anyone know why Italy is not in the World Youth Championship? At first I thought maybe they didn't qualify, but they were second in the European Youth Championship this year.

[Gerben42]

Relevant is the European Championship LAST YEAR in Prague, where Italy finished 9th.

[Walddk]

Quite right Gerben. It is of course a shame that Italy are not where they belong, but rules are rules, and they did have a very disappointing EC in Prague last summer.

Roland

[Gerben42]

This gives rise to a quiz question:

When was the last time the Bermuda Bowl holders did not qualify for the next championship?

[Walddk]

Gerben42, on Aug 8 2005, 09:07 PM, said:

This gives rise to a quiz question:

When was the last time the Bermuda Bowl holders did not qualify for the next championship?

Iceland won in Yokohama, Japan, in 1991 but did not qualify for Santiago, Chile, the year after.

Similarly, Italy won the World Youth Championships in Paris, France, in 2003 but did not qualify for Sydney.

Roland

[awm]

Walddk, on Aug 8 2005, 12:15 PM, said:

Quite right Gerben. It is of course a shame that Italy are not where they belong, but rules are rules, and they did have a very disappointing EC in Prague last summer.

Roland

I have to take some issue with these types of arguments about where teams "belong." Youth team bridge is very volatile, and a good team one year may be a bad team the next. Some reasons:

(1) Turnover is high. Because of the age limits, players often "graduate" from the team. Unlike Bermuda Bowl teams, where it's typically the weakest pair being replaced with a stronger one, often in youth teams it is the strongest players who become too old and must be replaced by an inexperienced pair.

(2) There are relatively few truly strong youth players. Very few countries can field a team of six future international top players. Typically a team consists of a few strong players and a few not so strong, and their performance will depend a lot on which pair ends up with the high-impact decisions. Also, the difference in skill level between a good and bad youth team is quite substantial, and often doing well in an event can depend upon having high-variance rounds against the weak teams.

(3) Top youth players don't necessarily play together on a regular basis. There are often pairs of good players who simply haven't played much as partners (a good example is Grue-Kranyak on USA1). Give these pairs tough cardplay problems and they will do great. Give them tough bidding hands and sometimes the lack of experience shows through (witness the other night's 7♦ contract by the aforementioned pair). In contrast, a Bermuda Bowl team normally consists of three very established partnerships.

Participating in international youth bridge is quite a privilege -- these are young players who are mostly not world class caliber, being flown all over the world to represent their countries. Maintaining fair, open qualifiers gives every young bridge player a chance to do this; I think this is great for bridge and much superior to some sort of "entitlement" approach that automatically sends the previous competitions' top teams back for another year.

[Fluffy]

Walddk, on Aug 8 2005, 05:15 PM, said:

Quite right Gerben. It is of course a shame that Italy are not where they belong, but rules are rules, and they did have a very disappointing EC in Prague last summer.

Roland

Spain isn't where they belong either, but its not a real shame

[FrancesHinden]

Walddk, on Aug 8 2005, 12:15 PM, said:

Quite right Gerben. It is of course a shame that Italy are not where they belong, but rules are rules, and they did have a very disappointing EC in Prague last summer.

Roland

If Italy were 9th in the European Juniors last year, then they don't belong in the World Championships. It's not as if the Europeans are a couple of sessions of matchpointed pairs where anyone could win!

This isn't aimed at you, but I have the same reaction to comments on the Olympiad last year, when the early KO match between Italy and the USA was described in BW (and elsewhere) as "the real final". No, it wasn't the final, it was a round of 16 match. The final was between Italy and the Netherlands who deservedly got a silver medal out of it.

[flytoox]

FrancesHinden, on Aug 10 2005, 10:03 AM, said:

Walddk, on Aug 8 2005, 12:15 PM, said:

Quite right Gerben. It is of course a shame that Italy are not where they belong, but rules are rules, and they did have a very disappointing EC in Prague last summer.

Roland

If Italy were 9th in the European Juniors last year, then they don't belong in the World Championships. It's not as if the Europeans are a couple of sessions of matchpointed pairs where anyone could win!

This isn't aimed at you, but I have the same reaction to comments on the Olympiad last year, when the early KO match between Italy and the USA was described in BW (and elsewhere) as "the real final". No, it wasn't the final, it was a round of 16 match. The final was between Italy and the Netherlands who deservedly got a silver medal out of it.

I cannot agree more.

[Chamaco]

I think the term "belong" used by Roland was overemphasized.

Of course, if any team does not qualify for an event, that means that other teams performed better and deserved more the qualifications.

But I also think that Roland's statement was intended with a meaning such as "The Brazil soccer (er... *football* for us europeans ) team did not qualify for the World Chship Finals, it's a shame theye are not where they belong".

Here, the term "belong" refers to the tradition, not to the merits, and I also think that it was rather clear from Roland's post, without the need of 10 posts to point out a rather obvious point (a team that does not qualify does not deserve to be qualified).

[Walddk]

I did write "rules are rules", so obviously Italy didn't deserve to qualify. I also used the word "belong" right enough, and I actually thought that my point was clear. Not to Frances it appears. Sorry for my poor English. Mauro got the message though.

As an aside, allow me to add that the olympiad is the period (4 years) between two Olympic Games. So no one has ever taken part in any olympiad. Quite a few get that wrong. Frances is one of the many.

Roland

[Gerben42]

Quote

If Italy were 9th in the European Juniors last year, then they don't belong in the World Championships. It's not as if the Europeans are a couple of sessions of matchpointed pairs where anyone could win!

Agree, this was a 500-board event. If you finish 9th you didn't deserve to qualify. Having played them in Prague I had the feeling they were not as consistent as some of the top pairs. Anyone can have a bad tournament, though. Next time Italy will be playing the world championship again.

[FrancesHinden]

Walddk, on Aug 8 2005, 02:37 PM, said:

Gerben42, on Aug 8 2005, 09:07 PM, said:

This gives rise to a quiz question:

When was the last time the Bermuda Bowl holders did not qualify for the next championship?

Iceland won in Yokohama, Japan, in 1991 but did not qualify for Santiago, Chile, the year after.

Similarly, Italy won the World Youth Championships in Paris, France, in 2003 but did not qualify for Sydney.

Roland

While when Liverpool win a big European football competition and don't qualify for it the following year, the rules are changed to let them play anyway...

[FrancesHinden]

Walddk, on Aug 10 2005, 06:08 AM, said:

As an aside, allow me to add that the olympiad is the period (4 years) between two Olympic Games. So no one has ever taken part in any olympiad. Quite a few get that wrong. Frances is one of the many.

Roland is right (of course).
But the WBF call it the "World Team Olympiad"

[Gerardo]

A snowball surviving in hell is more probable than Brazil out of the WC, and I guess that's the reason Liverpool were allowed to play. $$$

Hopefully this will never happen on bridge.

[Chamaco]

Gerardo, on Aug 10 2005, 02:57 PM, said:

A snowball surviving in hell is more probable than Brazil out of the WC, and I guess that's the reason Liverpool were allowed to play. $$$

Hopefully this will never happen on bridge.

Liverpool will play in the next Champions League because the CL rules allow the participation of the Champions to the next edition even if they did not qualfy in their national league standings.

I guess Frances mentioned this because in a way it resembles the italian Bridge National JR Team sitation (Champions but not qualified).
However, the rules of the Champions League of Footbal have *since always* allowed the standing Champions to participate to the next edition.
The rules were not changed for Liverpool.

[Fluffy]

Well comparing junior bridge to football is not very good comparison, the main reason is that after 2 years you might be forced to change all the team, in football even if they are very old, you can keep them at 70% capacity at least

[Chamaco]

Fluffy, on Aug 11 2005, 12:18 AM, said:

Well comparing junior bridge to football is not very good comparison, the main reason is that after 2 years you might be forced to change all the team, in football even if they are very old, you can keep them at 70% capacity at least

Of course :-)
I guess it was my fault to introduce football when I referred to Brazil, in an hypothetical sentence to explain my uinderstanding or Roland's words :-)