[gnasher]

Mbodell, on 2012-June-27, 00:15, said:

But if this is the case, why even require the 1/3 boards in the first place?

I expect that the people who make the rules have a different perspective to mine.

[FrancesHinden]

MickyB, on 2012-June-22, 06:22, said:

We know from looking at the top players that, for whatever reason, being male is an advantage.

I'm sorry, was this meant as a joke?

We know from looking at the top players that the majority of them are men.
It's an enormous and unjustified leap to go from there to suggesting that simply being male is, in itself, an advantage i.e. to imply that being born female immediately puts you at a (bridge) disadvantage.

p.s. if you seriously think that being male is in itself an advantage at playing bridge, doesn't that mean that when women play in open events they should be given a head start (like playing from the ladies' tee at golf?). I suggest that next time I play against you, perhaps you think a 0.1 imp/board handicap would be fair?

[JLOGIC]

wow

[MickyB]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-July-14, 16:30, said:

We know from looking at the top players that the majority of them are men.
It's an enormous and unjustified leap to go from there to suggesting that simply being male is, in itself, an advantage i.e. to imply that being born female immediately puts you at a (bridge) disadvantage.

"The majority" is understating it somewhat, I believe. How many of the world's top 50 players are female? Can this really be accounted for purely by the m:f ratio amongst those taking up the game before a certain age, say?

Men tend to be more competitive and more obsessive than women. These traits are advantages when trying to become a top player.

[Aberlour10]

paulg, on 2012-June-25, 06:46, said:

Well planned rather than incredible. Perhaps the playing requirements (to achieve medal and points) should be changed to one third of the boards in each round-robin.

In events with a round-robin followed by KO stages, the WBF regulations require you to play one third of the boards in the round-robin and then one third of the boards in the KO stages: I expect the EBL is similar. The format of the Europeans, with its double round-robin, is unique so no-one really addresses it, but one third in both round-robins sounds both fair and reasonable.

If the ACBL or USBF were running the event, then each player would have to play half the boards in both round-robins.

It will be interesting to see which teams decide to play 4-handed now or in final rounds at the KO stage of current event. Poland will most probably do. Monaco too? From one side they would be unbeatable in this case (imo of course), from the other , is the boss willing to resign of the own chance for medal and title?

[paulg]

Aberlour10, on 2012-August-15, 08:50, said:

It will be interesting to see which teams decide to play 4-handed now or in final rounds at the KO stage of current event. Poland will most probably do. Monaco too? From one side they would be unbeatable in this case (imo of course), from the other , is the boss willing to resign of the own chance for medal and title?

I would expect that most sponsors will be hoping to play more than 1/3 in the round-of-16 to alleviate the issue, although the match situation may make this more difficult.

[MrAce]

I wonder how many times Turkey needs to win the EC in ladies to get in the first 6 of the list Not even mentioning how many times they ended up in top 4.

[phil_20686]

paulg, on 2012-June-22, 13:18, said:

Probably Dorothy Hayden Truscott.

She said something along these lines. In the days when people learned and played bridge at the kitchen table, a woman would be thinking about the chicken in the oven, picking up their child from school and whether everyone's drinks were full. A man would let the dinner burn in the oven, let the child almost drown in the pouring rain and let his guests die of thirst while playing bridge.

Sabine Auken said it in her book.

[nathan2008]

i have a question, where is our italian master Lauria? I didn't see him in the world mind games this time ... if he has a health problem, hope he could recover soon.