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The three National American Bridge Championships (NABC, held each season but winter) have each an important team tourney by which are earned “seeding points” to the Bermuda Bowl’s Trials. These tourneys are the the Spingold, held in summer, the Reisinger, now in autumn, and the next spring Vanderbilt. We are saying that the best placed teams in NABC will have the lower seeding number in Trials, with the advantage to meet later the strongest opponents. For example, having thirty-two teams in Trials, the pairing will be: 1st-32nd; 2nd-31st; 3rd-30th…16th-17th.
By this format, also applied in the NABC events themselves, the number one will face the number two only in final (or will face each other the teams who had kicked off the number one and the number two).
So a team with good results in the main NABC events, as well in other not NABC events, could even enter directly at round of sixteen – if the registered teams were thirty-two, for example – or even in quarter final, or semi-final.
The foreigners can freely enter the NABC events, but cannot enter the Trials, and the seeding points are diminished according to their number. Many teams, however, don’t care of Trials seeding points; the prestige of a victory in America is very high, so they recruit as many foreigners as they can. In the Spingold of this summer, won by Monaco, in the semi-final Monaco-Cayne there were six Italians, two Norwegians, two Frenchs, and only two American players.
Recapping: the seeding points earned in Spingold, here in Reisinger, and in the next spring in Vanderbilt are available for the USA1 and USA2 Trials to be played in June 2013, as explained here: open >>
Last year we presented the Reisinger as “The reign of Board a Match”: the score isn’t in IMPs but the board’s winner gains one point whatever be the result. The bridge seems the same, but sometimes there are strange tactics… Here’s the last year’s article: open >>
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Paolo Enrico Garrisi
November 28, 2012