[hrothgar]

Gerben42, on Feb 26 2010, 08:19 PM, said:

In Germany, last time's team plays as long as it is successful (there is a precise definition for this). If not, there is a qualification tournament (teams). The last time there was this kind of tourney was 2005. This was actually the first ever Vugraph event from Germany

For the seniors, a pairs qualifying took place last week. 3 pairs won, don't know how they will do yet at this point of course.

For the ladies' team, one pair is seeded (guess who). The 2nd pair seems to be Pony + partner, the 3rd pair varies and I have no idea how this is decided. I guess also some intangibles are relevant, as there is no qualifying.

Hi Gerben

If you have the chance, I'd love to know the definition of "successful"

[Tomi2]

it was in EC 2004 and place 10 was the aim for the team to be allowed to play in olypiad in Istanbul again. 10 was relatively OK for Germany finishing 12-18 before, they made the 8th place, reached KO in Istanbul and since then the results improved from event to event, only small changes were made between the tournaments when one partnership divorced and one pair was replaced by another and finaly by Gromöller-Kirmse

The Women team will be:
Sabine and Daniela
Pony Nehmert playing with our junior teammate Cristina Giampietro
and Barbara Hackett - Annaig della Monata, who did well in the previous events.

they have ben selected by the NPC who runs several online and f2f trainings regulary

[mich-b]

In Israel team trials have been held for the coming European Championship in 2010. 5 teams signed up to play , 2 of the teams were seeded , and got a bye to the semi final. Semi final was 96 boards, final 128 boards.

In previous years , usually pairs trials were held but it seemed that many good players do not participate when it is pairs, because the process was very long (almost 1000 boards in total), and because not everybody was prepared to play with everybody else in a team.

Women and Seniors trials are still held as pairs trials , though with a much shorter format.

[Cascade]

What was the 1000 board process?

I like the sound of that.

[mich-b]

Cascade, on Feb 28 2010, 04:25 AM, said:

What was the 1000 board process?

I like the sound of that.

It went like that :

Around 20-30 pairs play 5 weekends (about one a month) of pre-trials, each includes 7 matches of 14 boards.
Those are normally played in groups of 8 pairs , A,B, C with promotions and relegations between the groups after every weekend. So every weekend is a full round robin within the group. Pairs that played in groups A (strongest) and B , get some bonus points for playing in a tougher group.
After those 5 weekends the 8 pairs with the most total VPs from the 5 weekends qualify to the Pairs Trials themselves. Those consist of 28 matches of 14 or 16 boards , 4 matches against every other pair scored in VP. This normally would take about 2 weeks of bridge played almost every day (full days in the weekend , plus evenings during the week). Top 3 pairs would make up the team , in some editions the 4th pair having some "rights" as well.

[NickRW]

mich-b, on Feb 28 2010, 09:38 AM, said:

It went like that :

Around 20-30 pairs play 5 weekends (about one a month) of pre-trials, each includes 7 matches of 14 boards.
Those are normally played in groups of 8 pairs , A,B, C with promotions and relegations between the groups after every weekend. So every weekend is a full round robin within the group. Pairs that played in groups A (strongest) and B , get some bonus points for playing in a tougher group.
After those 5 weekends the 8 pairs with the most total VPs from the 5 weekends qualify to the Pairs Trials themselves. Those consist of 28 matches of 14 or 16 boards , 4 matches against every other pair scored in VP. This normally would take about 2 weeks of bridge played almost every day (full days in the weekend , plus evenings during the week). Top 3 pairs would make up the team , in some editions the 4th pair having some "rights" as well.

Slightly tongue in cheek comment - 5 weekends + 2 weeks = ya gotta be keen, dead keen.

Nick

[Roupoil]

I was wrong in my previous post concerning the french Women trials : our world champions are participating, and the trials are just here to select a team to compete against them to represent France in the European Championships.

[Fluffy]

hrothgar, on Feb 26 2010, 05:03 PM, said:

Fluffy, on Feb 25 2010, 07:12 PM, said:

At the ladies it doesn't matter much if its a team or 3 pairs, whatever happens they will come back talking badly of their team mates and probably their partner as well.

At least this is happening with the Spanish team.

Its not like any team from there would ever be in contention or even impact the results measurably...

[For the record, this should be interpreted as a comment regarding Fluffy's post, and not any kind of slam against any of the team from Spain]

I am sorry richard, this time I don't even understand what this personal attack means, so can't counter

[Vampyr]

Fluffy, on Mar 3 2010, 12:52 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Feb 26 2010, 05:03 PM, said:

Fluffy, on Feb 25 2010, 07:12 PM, said:

At the ladies it doesn't matter much if its a team or 3 pairs, whatever happens they will come back talking badly of their team mates and probably their partner as well.

At least this is happening with the Spanish team.

Its not like any team from there would ever be in contention or even impact the results measurably...

[For the record, this should be interpreted as a comment regarding Fluffy's post, and not any kind of slam against any of the team from Spain]

I am sorry richard, this time I don't even understand what this personal attack means, so can't counter

I think it should be obvious from your offensive and gratuitous comments.

Does anyone know if there is a way to block a person's posts? I am not interested in anything more that Fluffy has to say.

[helene_t]

Fluffy, on Feb 25 2010, 05:12 PM, said:

If its a women's issue, or an spanish women's issue I don't know.

Hmmm .... it does sound familiar but what surprises me is that a Spanish man would be familiar with Spanish women's culture. I mean, the way it normally works is that we will be mean to each other in female-only company but as soon as a man enters the room we start behaving very lady-like. I would say that women cause less problems than men at mixed bridge events but OTOH woman-only F2F events are real madhouses. There seems to be some evolutionary basis for this as the same is observed in some non-human species. For example, it is advised that chicken farmers place a rooster in each group even if not for breeding purposes.

In China there used to be a woman-only language, presumable invented so that Chinese women could continue taking bad about other women even if men were present. Unfortunately it has died out. Oh well, Asia is becoming more and more Western.

Maybe men are more likely to yell at their partners and women more likely to talk behind their partners' backs.

All this said, I think gender stereotypes are often exaggerated.

[Fluffy]

Depends on each case, some would speak badly privatelly to me, but there is also the case of some who score -0.80 in the butler but in the club start telling their friends & aprentices that it was all the other's fault and tell them some hands they missplayed.

In Sao Paulo I was one of the few men who did follow the venice cup more than the bermuda, and I kept sending support SMS to the members, but in the end I realiced that it was more important to me what the team did than to some of the players there O_o.


Sorry to hear so Vampyr, people often missunderstand my online posts, so it should be no big news to me, I guess I should refrain from speaking frankly but I cannot :/.

[Codo]

[quote name='Vampyr' date='Mar 3 2010, 06:56 PM'] I am sorry richard, this time I don't even understand what this personal attack means, so can't counter [/QUOTE]
I think it should be obvious from your offensive and gratuitous comments.

Does anyone know if there is a way to block a person's posts? I am not interested in anything more that Fluffy has to say. [/quote]
Gonzalo would be the last on the list of persons to block, but maybe this is because english isn't my motherlanguage either, so I felt to see the insult in his post.

I am not Spainish, nor had I been to Sao Paulo, but even I got to know some of the things which happened in the Spanish Women Team. I would be ashamed if this had happened in a Team which represents my country, so I understand any strong comment about this.

[YesHoney]

VENEZUELA: Rather small bridge community and I will talk only Open and Ladies Teams.

As many other countries out there we have tried several methods. No matter how it is done it is always a problem, fights, ironic talk, insults, etc.

Pairs (IMPs) competition has been used for several years now, except last year for Open Team but that's dirtydirty laundry... For the Ladies, last year we took a vote among the players that were going to participate and pairs was decided, again.

In my view, since there are so few good pairs, no matter how it is done locally, the teams end up being conformed by the 2 sure pairs and the 3rd position is almost anyone's land.

Our NBO charges a little (really not much) to play the trials. And helps a lot with the travelling expenses including the entry fees for both teams.

I think that covers the main subject of this thread.

That being said, gotta add this thread doesn't lack lots of humour.

------------

FLUFFY: You "look" young and yet you do know about ladies teams... your description is funny but accurate Your comment made me laugh.

HELENE: Love your comment too. What I've seen in my group is that ladies team members won't stop being "mean" (not the word I would really use) to each other when a man is around because it is sooooo important to tell the whole world that they played great but the others gave away 100000000 IMPs. The more listeners the better.

I've been in both, Open and Ladies... Gotta say the only true lady in the ladies team was my partner! Still, would be happy to be a part of it any time.

[jjbrr]

Vampyr, on Mar 3 2010, 04:56 AM, said:

I think it should be obvious from your offensive and gratuitous comments.

Does anyone know if there is a way to block a person's posts? I am not interested in anything more that Fluffy has to say.

Not to be a troll or anything, but has the fact that two women have said there is some grain of truth in Fluffy's statement made you reconsider? Perhaps you're being way too sensitive?

I'm positive Fluffy wasn't trying to offend anyone.

[pooltuna]

jjbrr, on Mar 3 2010, 10:58 AM, said:

Vampyr, on Mar 3 2010, 04:56 AM, said:

I think it should be obvious from your offensive and gratuitous comments.

Does anyone know if there is a way to block a person's posts? I am not interested in anything more that Fluffy has to say.

Not to be a troll or anything, but has the fact that two women have said there is some grain of truth in Fluffy's statement made you reconsider? Perhaps you're being way too sensitive?

I'm positive Fluffy wasn't trying to offend anyone.

Vampyr was probably just being a WIKI LOC

[Hanoi5]

Quote

Does anyone know if there is a way to block a person's posts? I am not interested in anything more that Fluffy has to say.

I've always thought this is silly: you can learn something from any poster, even if it is not doing something.

I agree with Fluffy's take on the women's team and for a moment thought it could be a cultural thing (I'm from Venezuela, 200 years ago a Spanish colony) but then I realized most women in our national team were not born in Venezuela, although you could argue that they picked up those ways.

HOWEVER, I do have to disagree a little in the sense that the open teams are also talking about each other's performance and blaming everyone except themselves. I've always thought it is just a 'bridge' way of being.

[debrose]

I've been playing regularly on U.S. Women's Teams since 2002, and to my knowledge I have not played on any teams in which players have been publicly critical of their partners/teammates on a regular basis. A couple have behaved this way on occasion, and maybe more often privately, but overall my female teammates have been a supportive bunch. Certainly I have not observed more "bad-mouthing" amongst my women's teams than what I've encountered amongst male players, which is plenty of public criticism of both partners and teammates. Of course not all men do it, just as not all women do it (the latter being the main point I want to make).

[Fluffy]

thx debbie, and thx to all people who supported me, I am sorry if I offended anyone. I'd like poeple to go back to the topic here wich is, how is your national team selected?.

Most countries do this by team trials, some have tried (not very succesfully I think) to do these by pairs tournament. I have also been selected for junior championships just hand-picked by the coach. The latter seems to be the method used in the netherlands, wich some ammount of success.


IMO the worst of all is pairs tournament: You have a great chance that very serious pairs won't have the willingness to participate if they might have to play in a team of unknowns, XIMPs have one of the biggest random factors of all scoring methods (score a couple of lucky +1400 against not regular pairs, and make a grand with a suit falling 3-3 and you can fail every partscore and still qualify), and you will find a lot more sponsor-proffesional pairs in a pairs event than a team's event where they have to pay 4-5 pros.

[blackshoe]

Sounds like we're discussing democracy: "it's a terrible system, but it's better than anything else we've got". Or something like that.

[jallerton]

cardsharp, on Feb 25 2010, 04:21 PM, said:

Scotland is an NBO with a relatively small talent pool. There are no professional players (all those play for England or USA) and there are probably four or five top pairs. Then there are another six pairs who think that they are one of the top 4 or 5

It sounds as though Scotland is quite similar to most other countries then!