[Walddk]

I agree with Harald; Netherlands will be serious contenders for gold. The Dutch have three very strong pairs, Italy has 2½. With all due respect, Angelini is not in the same league as the other five.

I have not forgotten that Italy won the championships, comprehensively even, with the same team on home soil in 2002, but things have changed:

- 1. The format is different.
- 2. The Italians are not as strong as they used to be.
- 3. The other teams have improved considerably.

I predict that Italy will not risk Sementa-Angelini much when we reach stage two, and that will put a lot of pressure on the other two pairs. 17 matches of 20 boards after they have completed 19 matches (also 20 boards). Not a single day off. That will take its toll even for the 'invincible' Italians.

No matter which two pairs Netherlands select for a match, they field their strongest team if you see what I mean. That is not the case with Italy.

As for Ireland, I don't think they are in for anything big. I won't go into detail, but you need to have some inside information to make this prediction.

Roland

[Aberlour10]

In my opinion this modified format of the event would be more interesting & exciting if the teams which qualify to the second Round Robin could take over VP's from the matches vs teams which qualified to the second stage too. ( similar to the handball and icehockey events )

Robert

[paulg]

Naturally this would make sense if you were not to play those teams again, but as it is a full round robin in the second round it would mean that you play 40 boards against some teams and 20 against the others.

It would also favour those teams qualifying from the weaker group, which is the Italy (and Scotland) group this time.

Paul

[twcho]

Root for Netherlands this time.

[helene_t]

Aberlour10, on Jun 12 2008, 07:43 AM, said:

In my opinion this modified format of the event would be more interesting & exciting if the teams which qualify to the second Round Robin could take over VP's from the matches vs teams which qualified to the second stage too. ( similar to the handball and icehockey events )

Robert

I get your point. If I recall correctly, the icehockey/handball format means that you won't have to play those teams in 2nd round which you already met in 1st round). In bridge terms that would mean that if e.g. 1st-round matches are 20 boards while 2nd round matches are 40 boards, you only play the remaining 20 boards against those you already met in 1st round.

It has a minor drawback, namely that if say Ireland and Spain are competing for a place in the 2nd round, Italy started by losing to Ireland, and now Italy meets Spain in the last match of the 1st round, Italy may need to avoid slaughtering Spain too heavily because that would bring Ireland to the second round which would not be in Italy's interest.

Nevertheless I think it would probably be better than the chosen format.

[Walddk]

Paul is right; a carryover makes no sense when you have to play against the same 8 teams again. 40 boards against 8 teams, only 20 against the other 9. Where do you find the logic?

Much better to let them start from scratch.

Roland

[cherdano]

Surprising lineups? Yeah I was surprised Loew brought Odonkor - oh wait, that was the other thread.

[joker_gib]

cherdano, on Jun 12 2008, 08:49 PM, said:

Surprising lineups? Yeah I was surprised Loew brought Odonkor - oh wait, that was the other thread.

Yes and they are betting between Italy and Netherlands and the result is already known : 3-0 !

[gwnn]

joker_gib, on Jun 13 2008, 09:53 AM, said:

cherdano, on Jun 12 2008, 08:49 PM, said:

Surprising lineups? Yeah I was surprised Loew brought Odonkor - oh wait, that was the other thread.

Yes and they are betting between Italy and Netherlands and the result is already known : 3-0 !

yes surprisingly evenly matched game, especially since they play different systems and all

[Aberlour10]

joker_gib, on Jun 13 2008, 02:53 AM, said:

cherdano, on Jun 12 2008, 08:49 PM, said:

Surprising lineups? Yeah I was surprised Loew brought Odonkor - oh wait, that was the other thread.

Yes and they are betting between Italy and Netherlands and the result is already known : 3-0 !

hmm it had to be a very close match won by 3 imps, maybe offside in decisive partscore?

[Aberlour10]

There are not only surprising linups, but many surprising results too at the end of the 1st day.Go San Marino Go!

Robert

[NickRW]

Walddk, on Jun 5 2008, 09:26 AM, said:

Let me stick my neck out and predict that the following teams will come through to the second stage:

Group A:
Turkey
Spain
Finland
Israel
Italy
England
Denmark
Iceland
Netherlands

Group B:
France
Hungary
Ireland
Bulgaria
Sweden
Norway
Russia
Germany
Poland

With some results in, I'll go for:

1 ITALY
2 NETHERLANDS
3 FINLAND
4 CZECH REP.
5 ISRAEL
6 ICELAND
7 GREECE
8 MONACO
9 ENGLAND

1 SWEDEN
2 GERMANY
3 RUSSIA
4 NORWAY
5 POLAND
6 BELARUS
7 BULGARIA
8 IRELAND
9 FRANCE

[nige1]

FrancesHinden, on May 14 2008, 09:20 AM, said:

(My team played English team two weekends ago, and one English+one Irish pair last weekend over 32 board matches. We won one by 9 and lost one by 4 and I doubt anyone seriously thinks my team could compete successfully in these championships.  The amazing thing is that they somehow won the trials.)

IMO Frances under-rates herself, her team, and the English team. I reckon that selectors are right to abide by trial-results. Arguably, X-imped pairs trials arrive at a better team than teams-trials but these are out of the question with playing sponsors paying the pipers.

[glen]

If you have two groups, and drop a bunch of teams at some point, why didn't they:

Round 1: Play n boards against each team in your group
-- end of round 1 - equal number of teams dropped from each group
Round 2: 2a) Team plays n boards against each team left from Round 1 group
2b ) Team plays 2n boards against each team that joined from other group.

Net result: team plays 2n boards against each other team in Round 2

In the current format, does Round 1 boards count at all in the top placement?

[Mbodell]

glen, on Jun 17 2008, 02:26 PM, said:

If you have two groups, and drop a bunch of teams at some point, why didn't they:

Round 1: Play n boards against each team in your group
-- end of round 1 - equal number of teams dropped from each group
Round 2: 2a) Team plays n boards against each team left from Round 1 group
2b ) Team plays 2n boards against each team that joined from other group.

Net result: team plays 2n boards against each other team in Round 2

In the current format, does Round 1 boards count at all in the top placement?

With 6 person teams one problem with that might be that you get very different % of who plays what if one pair played all/none of the matches that were dropped. I'm sure you could correct it, but it doesn't seem to be too big a deal to me.

[Walddk]

glen, on Jun 18 2008, 12:26 AM, said:

In the current format, does Round 1 boards count at all in the top placement?

No, it's a warm-up week to eliminate 10 teams from both groups. They start from scratch when the second RR begins, so it doesn't really matter if you finish 1st or 9th in RR1.

Roland

[paulg]

Walddk, on Jun 17 2008, 11:29 PM, said:

glen, on Jun 18 2008, 12:26 AM, said:

In the current format, does Round 1 boards count at all in the top placement?

No, it's a warm-up week to eliminate 10 teams from both groups. They start from scratch when the second RR begins, so it doesn't really matter if you finish 1st or 9th in RR1.

Roland

The vugraph commentators have mentioned that Italy are only here to check out the 5* restaurants this week, they will start play next week.

p

[NickRW]

cardsharp, on Jun 18 2008, 06:17 AM, said:

The vugraph commentators have mentioned that Italy are only here to check out the 5* restaurants this week, they will start play next week.

p

Yeah, they started well and have slipped back a little. But one can't help but think that they have just taken their foot off the gas.

Or maybe not, of course, but we'll find out next week anyway.

Nick

[USViking]

I had never watched viewgraph until yesterday
since when I have taken in a few dozen hands.

It is a very nice feature, and I appreciate its
being made available by BBO.

I have always admired Italy's consistently top
to near-top performance in international events,
and I look forward to following them in particular.
The Noweigan defending world champs should
also be interesting.

Something that I found suprising, make that
astonishing, was that undo is permitted not only
on bidding but on play. I had always thought
that if a card hit the table then it could not be
taken back. I think it should be so: if you make
a mistake you should pay for it.

Maybe I am missing something, but I see no
difference between undoing bid and play in bridge
and undoing a home run pitch in baseball.