[hrothgar]

JanM, on Feb 2 2008, 09:23 AM, said:

In this particular event, I really do believe that it is appropriate that the #1 goal be for the participants to have a good time, not in the sense of being at a party, but in the sense of seeing the activity of participating in a serious bridge competition as something that they enjoy doing and would like to continue doing. We need to do everything possible to see that all of them come back again when it's on their own dime.
This is also an event where the seeding figures to be terrible - most of the players won't have any kind of track record on which to base seeding. That argues against a straight KO. And the short time argues against a double elimination KO (I think). So a combination of Round Robin and KO seems like a good solution to me.

In my mind, "Playing in a Serious Bridge Competition" means that the Conditions of Contest are designed in such a way as to maximize the chance that the best team wins.

Short matches - like the ones that you have a round robin - are complete crap shoots. A single lucky break on a critical board can have a disproportionate impact on an entire match.

Case in point: The GNT trials in District 25 used a Swiss format that was used to seed a 8 team KO. The first day features a series of 7 board Swiss matches before switching over to long KOs. The team that I played on did decently though not spectacularly during the Swiss phase of the event. Our scores were all over the place (As were the scores of all the other teams). In contrast, the KO portion of the event seemed to yield more reasonable results.

As I noted earlier, its fairly easy to use statistical models to contrast different event formats. I think that its unfortunately that there is so much resistance to taking these types of considerations into effect.

Would it be possible to get a more specific description regarding the conditions of contest that will be used for the actual event?

1. How many boards per round will be used during the round robin stage?
2. How many boards will be used during the two round KO on the second day?

[TimG]

hrothgar, on Feb 4 2008, 12:43 PM, said:

Case in point: The GNT trials in District 25 used a Swiss format that was used to seed a 8 team KO. The first day features a series of 7 board Swiss matches before switching over to long KOs. The team that I played on did decently though not spectacularly during the Swiss phase of the event. Our scores were all over the place (As were the scores of all the other teams). In contrast, the KO portion of the event seemed to yield more reasonable results.

The Swiss (or round robin) qualifying should be viewed as a long match against multiple opponents, I believe. Yes, one would expect more variance over 7 board matches than over 28 board matches. But, the same teams that do well in one 28-board matches are going to do well in four 7-board matches. It might not be quite as good a way to directly compare teams A and B, but it's probably not that far off in a reasonably balanced field.

[TimG]

JanM, on Feb 2 2008, 01:23 AM, said:

In this particular event, I really do believe that it is appropriate that the #1 goal be for the participants to have a good time, not in the sense of being at a party, but in the sense of seeing the activity of participating in a serious bridge competition as something that they enjoy doing and would like to continue doing. We need to do everything possible to see that all of them come back again when it's on their own dime.

If your goal is for them to enjoy participating in a serious bridge competition, you need to offer them a serious bridge competition. I'm not suggesting it has to be theoretically perfect, but it must aim to be a good format from a serious competition standpoint.

[awm]

There are two different events being discussed here, and some people seem to be using them interchangeably. We have:

(1) The ACBL Intercollegiate Championships.

This event is open to teams of four-to-six each of which represents a university. All team members must be full-time students at the same university (admittedly there have been exceptions to this rule in the past, but there shouldn't be). Team members must also be born in 1982 or after. The early rounds of this competition are played on February 16th on bridgebase; essentially the field is divided into brackets each of which plays a round-robin format of short team matches.

The top few teams are offered an expenses-paid trip to summer nationals (this year in Las Vegas) to play for the championship. Usually this is the "top eight" teams but last year it was only the "top four" even though more teams participated than in previous years. This year's CoC say the number of teams selected will depend on the number of entries.

While the Intercollegiate Championships do name a "College Champion" their purpose to a great degree is getting young players involved in competitive duplicate. This is currently one of the few major programs in ACBL which directly encourages young people who know how to play bridge to compete in national tournaments. It's reasonable to make it a priority that teams traveling all the way to nationals, often for team members' first major duplicate tournament, get to play for a reasonable amount of time and enjoy themselves. Admittedly it might make sense for the qualifying round to be held over multiple days or involve face-to-face matches between the teams, but the logistics for this appear difficult.

(I'm not trying to deter other efforts to get young players involved in bridge! However, ACBL seems to spend a lot of time/money teaching very young kids to play bridge without really trying to get them involved in duplicate. ACBL also spends a fair amount of time/money selecting a national junior team composed of the "future bridge experts" of the country, but these are generally people who play duplicate bridge tournaments regularly anyway. The Collegiate, and perhaps also the new "Youth Nationals" are the only things really encouraging young people who already know how to play bridge to get involved in tournament bridge.)

(2) The selection process for the US Junior Team

This competition is open to all bridge players meeting the age requirements. There is no requirement that competitors be students or that teams be from the same part of the country. The goal is to select a team to represent the US internationally.

The primary goal of these trials should be to select the best team. However, there are a number of considerations that make this different from selecting an open (or women, or senior) national team. First, there is a lot of turnover from year to year as to who meets the age requirements. This means that finding "future talent" and giving them some encouragement is critical -- we can't just send the same team back year after year because they will get too old for the requirements. A KO format which might pick the best team accurately will also send a lot of people home early and make it hard to tell who the "up-and-coming" players are since they might lose to the eventual winners in round one. Second, skill levels among young players change very quickly. The people who were just learning the game two years ago can be among the better players now. And there are not very many "junior" events and most juniors aren't doing much in the open national events -- so "seeding" is likely to be lousy. Third, selection of teams has a big impact. The top open players all pretty much know each other and can be relied upon to try to form strong teams and/or add good pairs to their teams to fill out four to six. The top junior players do not necessarily know each other, since they have often been playing competitively for much less time. Fourth, there is a point that the trials should be "fair" so that all juniors have at least the perception that if they play well, they can make the team. This is true to some sense about open trials as well, but the timespans are much longer -- if the open trials hand a lot of seeding advantage to some folks over others, we can always say "well I have no chance this year, but if I rack up some seeding points by doing well in major events I can maybe make the team in two years or four years or six years." But for the juniors, most people have a narrow window when they are both good enough and young enough to have a shot at the team, and if politics or people's preconceptions about their ability give them no opportunity, there won't be a chance two or four years later to make up for it.

In any case, the junior trials would seem best served by having a long competition to select the team, but this is made more difficult by the fact that many people in this age group need to make a living (and those who do make a living as bridge professionals don't make it by playing in junior events). The upshot has been that there's usually a short event which doesn't make anyone completely happy, and that this has recently been combined with simply selecting one of the two teams based on who has competed for the US previously (inserting some of the politics and preconceptions into the process, but at least there are two teams). Of course, the issues here are difficult to resolve since there are so many conflicting goals.

[han]

hrothgar, on Feb 4 2008, 12:43 PM, said:

In my mind, "Playing in a Serious Bridge Competition" means that the Conditions of Contest are designed in such a way as to maximize the chance that the best team wins.

Really? To my mind "Playing in a Serious Bridge Competition" means that the contestors take the event seriously, which is affected in many more ways than just the conditions of contest.

[JanM]

TimG, on Feb 4 2008, 01:06 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Feb 4 2008, 12:43 PM, said:

Case in point:  The GNT trials in District 25 used a Swiss format that was used to seed a 8 team KO.  The first day features a series of 7 board Swiss matches before switching over to long KOs.  The team that I played on did decently though not spectacularly during the Swiss phase of the event.  Our scores were all over the place (As were the scores of all the other teams).  In contrast, the KO portion of the event seemed to yield more reasonable results.

The Swiss (or round robin) qualifying should be viewed as a long match against multiple opponents, I believe. Yes, one would expect more variance over 7 board matches than over 28 board matches. But, the same teams that do well in one 28-board matches are going to do well in four 7-board matches. It might not be quite as good a way to directly compare teams A and B, but it's probably not that far off in a reasonably balanced field.

Yes, that's exactly right, and it's particularly true when 50% of the field will advance from the Round Robin. It's when there are relatively short matches and fewer than 50% of the teams advance that Round Robins don't work well.
Although I think that a very good reason for using a Round Robin in the Intercollegiate Finals is that it allows all of the teams to play for a full day and also allows each team to play against each other team, it is also one of several ways to select the best team. IMO, people tend to rant against Round Robins because of experiences with Round Robins that select a small percentage of the field.
BTW, starting with a Round Robin is clearly a better way to select the second best team than is a KO with random seeding (and I really think that any seeding of the Intercollegiate Finals will be random).
As for selecting the team to represent the US in the Patino Cup (the World Championship for teams of players 26 and under) in Beijing, we don't yet know what the format will be. We will be allowed only one team in that event, so we don't need to use a Round Robin to assure that we do a good job of choosing a second team. But if there are an awkward number of teams for a KO, we will probably use a Round Robin at the start of the event to come down to an even number for a KO.
As Adam says, one of the biggest problems with Junior Trials is that there isn't enough time. If a significant number of teams enter, two days just isn't long enough. But if the event is longer than 2 days, we won't get a significant number of teams.
Finally, Adam left out the third event that will take place in Las Vegas: the selection Trials for the FISU bridge championship. That Trials will take place after the other two, and will select two teams. All of the players must be between 18 and 28 years old and must also have been associated with a FISU recognized college or university during the current academic year. Since we will be selecting two teams from that competition, we will definitely want to run a competition that does a good job of selecting both the first place and second place team, so depending on the number of teams entered, we'll either start with a Round Robin or perhaps run a double elimination KO.

[JanM]

Elianna, on Dec 7 2007, 03:16 PM, said:

Apollo81, on Dec 7 2007, 12:11 PM, said:

Actually, now that I think about it, is US citizenship required for a person to be on a USBF international team?

I agree the US citizen part sounds funny. I wonder, though, if it may be a way of dealing with the idea of foreign students (who are students at American universities, but not considered residents)?

I'm afraid I need to correct my earlier answer to this question. Although to be a USBF member a person need only be a US resident, not necessarily a citizen, and to play in the WBF Junior events representing the US, a person need only be a US resident, the FISU rules do require citizenship. I have no idea why, but of course it's up to FISU what restrictions they want to place on teams. I'm sorry if I misled anyone before.

[olien]

I have found different answers to the exact age requirements for the Schools category. This post says born in 1987 or later and the WBF site says: "a player is eligible for the schools if they have reached no more than their 20th birthday in the year in question." Which is correct?

[skjaeran]

olien, on Mar 6 2008, 07:47 PM, said:

I have found different answers to the exact age requirements for the Schools category. This post says born in 1987 or later and the WBF site says: "a player is eligible for the schools if they have reached no more than their 20th birthday in the year in question." Which is correct?

The last part is correct, except that a player born in 1987 who played in a Zonal Championship last year and qualified, is eligible.

Same for juniors. Players eligible are those born in 1983 or later, but also players born in 1982 who qualified last year are eligible.

[JanM]

The ECATS site, which publishes all the WBF information, says:

The World Junior Team Championship
for the Ortiz-Patiño Trophy

This Championship is for players aged under 26 (born in 1982 or later). The teams for this event will qualify through their own Zonal Championships.

The World Junior Team Championship
for the Damiani Cup.

This Championship is for players aged under 21 (born in 1987 or later). The teams for this event will also qualify through their own Zonal Championships.

I'm fairly confident that is correct, and I would find it absolutely amazing if when a player's zone chose to hold its Trials had any effect on the player's eligibility.

[jvage]

I think both Harald and Jan are correct, but they approach from different angles. World Youth Championships are restricted to U21 and U26. Almost all other youth events (not counting University Championships for U28), including European and other Zonal Championships are U20 and U25.

John

[skjaeran]

That's strange, since article 4.5 in the WBF General Conditions of Contest say:

Quote

As a general rule, players competing in Junior events shall be aged 25 years or younger on 01 January of the year in which the competition is to take place. In the case of special events (e.g. for younger players or University events), the Supplementary Conditions of Contest shall detail the age requirements.

OK, they put in "as a general rule", which possibly would allow a change. I'm surprised if they've changed from what's been a strict rule for 20 years.

[JanM]

skaeran, on Mar 7 2008, 01:00 PM, said:

That's strange, since article 4.5 in the WBF General Conditions of Contest say:

Quote

As a general rule, players competing in Junior events shall be aged 25 years or younger on 01 January of the year in which the competition is to take place. In the case of special events (e.g. for younger players or University events), the Supplementary Conditions of Contest shall detail the age requirements.

OK, they put in "as a general rule", which possibly would allow a change. I'm surprised if they've changed from what's been a strict rule for 20 years.

I don't actually think that's inconsistent with the rule that players in the Patino Cup (U26) have to have been born in 1982 or later. I believe that a person born in 1982 would have become 25 on his or her birthday in 2007 and would therefore be 25 on January 1 of 2008.

[skjaeran]

JanM, on Mar 8 2008, 06:32 AM, said:

skaeran, on Mar 7 2008, 01:00 PM, said:

That's strange, since article 4.5 in the WBF General Conditions of Contest say:

Quote

As a general rule, players competing in Junior events shall be aged 25 years or younger on 01 January of the year in which the competition is to take place. In the case of special events (e.g. for younger players or University events), the Supplementary Conditions of Contest shall detail the age requirements.

OK, they put in "as a general rule", which possibly would allow a change. I'm surprised if they've changed from what's been a strict rule for 20 years.

I don't actually think that's inconsistent with the rule that players in the Patino Cup (U26) have to have been born in 1982 or later. I believe that a person born in 1982 would have become 25 on his or her birthday in 2007 and would therefore be 25 on January 1 of 2008.

Yeah, you're right - I misread.

There's a change in the GCC from how it used to be. I see this GCC was implemented in May 2005, which means this change took place prior to the last World Youth Teams Championships.

[PeterGill]

I have just become the Secretary of thw WBF Youth Bridge Committee,
so one would think that I might know.....

Jan is correct and Harald's earlier posts were incorrect.

The age limits are very simple:

U28 = born 1/1/80 or later
U26 = born 1/1/82 or later
U21 = born 1/1/87 or later

The history is:

In 1987 the World Junior Teams was for under 25 year olds.

In 1989 the Wortld Junior Teams was held in Nottingham England. One particular English chap whom I won't name - not Robin Hood - lobbied the WBF to allow European teams to field palyers up to one year older than the rest of the field, because their Zonal selection event (like North America's) was held a year
earlier and they should be allowed to field the same players who qualified.
He was succcesful in his lobbying.

From 1989 to 1999, the World Junior Teams thus had two age limits. The Zones which won every year (Europe and North America) were allowed to field players one year older than the rest of the field were. This had various consequences, e.g. this contributed (in part) to the disqualification of one of the semi-finalists in 1999 in Fort Lauderdale.

Soon after Fort Lauderdale, some Zone 6 and Zone 7 people (whose qualifying events were held in the same year as the World Junior Teams Championship, making their teams a year younger than Europe and North America) lobbied for all (or no) countries to obtain the extra year of age, in the interest of an equal playing field. Thier lobbying was successful. The relevant emails are available on request.

So Harald was describing the situation as it was in the 1990s. By simply checking the online Regulations of the 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2006 World Junior Championships, one can confirm that Harald's idea has not been the case for many years. Harald, being from Europe where nothing changed, did not need to know that the disadvantage placed on 5 of the 7 Zones had been removed and that world junior bridge this century has been a level playing field.

Peter Gill
Australia

like Jan, speaking in an unofficial capacity