As someone said, “an earthquake has hit the bridge world the last few weeks.”  This is not far from the truth.  Of the six teams which qualified from Europe, four of the teams had a pair which were made ineligible to play due to suspicion of cheating.  Enough evidence that three of the four Federations withdrew their entire team from the Bermuda Bowl.  Israel, Monaco and  Germany all stayed home from these Championships despite having originally qualifying in the European Trials.  The Poland Federation decided to send their team and add a pair.  Sweden, Denmark and France quickly fielded teams in the last 10 days to replace these fallen teams.  A fifth team has a pair which is being looked at as we speak –

The Pairs are as follows: Israelis Fisher and Schwartz, Italians Fantoni and Nunes, Germans Smirnov and Piekarek and Polish Balicki and Zmudzinski.  Since the other pair has not been publically called out yet, I will withhold their names for now.

The players’ (and some officials’) heads are spinning today after waking up and hearing that indeed a pair on the Poland Team was determined to be ineligible to play in the 2015 Bermuda Bowl, yet the Poland Team is still being allowed to play and have added a pair from last year’s World Championship team in Sanya, China.  Apparently, the other countries could have still sent their teams to play despite having qualified with a pair who was apparently cheating during the European Trials.  Those federations, however, decided that it was inappropriate to remain in the Bermuda Bowl because their berth was a result of a pair cheating during the qualification rounds.  Poland, however, decided otherwise and apparently the WBF conditions of contest have no mechanism to tell the team to stay home.

IMO, this is wrong on so many levels.  It sends a message to those desperate to qualify for the World Level that “hey, just add a cheating pair to qualify and then the cheating pair will take the fall and your team can continue to play, despite a more deserving team being ready to play and being left at home because they were cheated.”  Additionally, on a social level, it is very awkward for the Polish players who are continuing to play knowing that most of their opponents are wondering what the heck they are doing in the event.  Finally, it shows that the WBF is not ready to face the music and stand up to the sponsors and donors and do the right thing.

I have been talking to several “high up” officials today who tell me that policies are changing but what needs to happen is the mentality of those at the top of the WBF organization need to acknowledge that cheating is a BIG problem which needs to be recognized, dealt with in a swift manner and fairly across the board no matter who or what federation is being accused of the cheating.

Meanwhile, USA I won their first two matches handily and are leading Sweden by 17 Imps at the halfway point of the third and final match of the day.  I will do a complete write up of the day’s behind the scenes and give updates on the rest of the USA teams competing in the Bermuda Bowl, Venice Cup and D’Orsi Senior Bowl last on today after play finishes for the day.