Preamble
The earlier National Ranking Policy 2019-2022 was published for the selection of Indian Teams for various categories viz. Men / Mixed / Women. The policy earmarks certain benchmark eligibility criteria for invitation to coaching camps and selection trials.
However due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it became necessary to modify the earlier policy as there were no live tournaments held from March 2020 onwards till date. Also considering the current pandemic situation, it is highly possible that there will be no live events possible till Dec 2021. BFI in the mean time has started having online events from Jan 2021 and hence the Executive Committee of BFI has officially constituted a Ranking policy Committee to further discuss the modalities, which can take care of the online national events and to propose the amendments to the existing National Ranking Policy in order to prepare the framework for the Selection Trials 2022.
Members of the Ranking Policy Committee 2021:
- Mr. Anand KS Samant, Vice President, BFI (Chairman)
- Mr. Pradeep Kulkarni , Hon. General Secretary, BFI (Convener)
- Mr. Vinay Desai, Coach and eminent Player, West Zone
- Mr. Debasish Ray, Coach and eminent Player, East Zone
- Mr. R Krishnan, Coach and eminent Player, South Zone
- Mr. B Satyanarayana, Eminent player and medallist, North Zone
- Mr. T.C. Pant, Jt. Secretary Technical, BFI
- Mr. Sudhir Aggarwal, Chairman National laws Commission, BFI
- Mr. Srinivasan Iyengar, Communication Manager, BFI, (Coordinator)
The Ranking policy committee hereby proposes the following ranking policy as a base for selection of Indian Men, Mixed and Women Events for the calendar year 2022.
Status of Indian Open/Mixed and Women Selection Trials 2020
With regard to the selection trials conducted in Feb, 2020 at Ahmedabad and in October, 2021 for Seniors Category, the committee hereby proposes the following:
- The three pairs, who were selected to represent India in the Open/Mixed, Women and based on the selection trials held for Seniors Category in Ahmedabad in Oct, 2021, the following probables will represent India at the 21st BFAME Championships and if qualified further to 45th World Team Championships, Italy.
| Men Category: | Mixed Category: | Women Category: | Seniors Category |
| RajeshwarTewari ‐ KeyzadAnklesaria | Kiran Nadar – B Satyanarayana | Puja Batra – Asha Sharma | Ashok Goel – KR Venkatraman |
| Sandeep Thakral‐Jaggy Shivdasani | Rajeev & Himani Khandelwal | Vasanti Shah – Bharti Dey | Anil Padhye – Rajesh Dalal |
| Sumit Mukherjee‐ Debabrata Majumder | Marianne & Sandeep Karmarkar | Aparna Sain – Feroza Chothia | Sukamal Das – Subrata Saha |
Base Assumptions for Revisions in National Ranking Points Policy:
With regard to the benchmarks to be set for the Ranking policy for the upcoming calendar year, the following recommendations are made:
- The current recommendations are towards the Selection Trials 2022 for preparation of Asian Games 2022. Following the absence of live events due to the pandemic in the year 2020, the official online events as recognized by BFI commenced from 1st January 2021 with Online Winter National Bridge Championships 2020 being the first online event.
The committee has evaluated the pros and cons of the online events vis. a vis. live events with regard to the maintenance of inherent characteristics and recognition of online sport as a whole. Also with the preview of the following proposed events to be held in 2021, the ranking committee has recommended– All qualifying events that are held online will award ranking points at a rate of 50% of the ranking point award in corresponding live event. Pair events in online platforms will carry 50% weightage of the points allocated for Online Team events.
- Considering the ranking point cycle is for four years, a due carry over weightage has been recommended for the live events held earlier to pandemic. The formula for such weightage has been worked out by considering a comparison of live events to total events which include online events.
The carryover for Ranking points accumulated to be credited to all the qualifying pairs will be a direct function to the live events held till 1st March, 2020 (comprising of 11 events held in 2019 and 3 events in 2020 thereby leading to a total of 14 events for the period 1st Jan 2019 – 1st March 2020) compared to the total number of ranking events held till Feb 2022 (i.e. 14 Live Events + (X) Online Ranking Events).
Hence the carryover for the live events ranking points accumulated till 2020 will be proportional to the percentage of events played as computed at end of Feb, 2022.
Example:
Events held till 2020: 14 live events.
Events held from 1st Jan – Feb 2020 (as per below list): 9 Online Events
% of carryover to be given for Ranking points accumulated till 2020: 14/14 live+ online = 14/23 = 60.87%
Ranking Points of Top 28 Players in Men Category for Selection Trials 2022 (till Nov 2021)
| 1 | Sumit Mukherjee‐Debabrata Majumder | 400.61 |
| 2 | Rajeshwar Tewari‐Keyzad Anklesaria | 380.40 |
| 3 | Sandeep Thakral‐Jaggy Shivdasani | 363.63 |
| 4 | Dipak Poddar‐Jitu Solani | 223.00 |
| 5 | Sukamal Das‐Subrata Saha | 216.54 |
| 6 | Shibhnath Sarkar‐Pranab Bardhan | 208.30 |
| 7 | Gopinath Manna – Sandip Datta | 196.71 |
| 8 | Raju Tolani‐Ajay Khare | 184.60 |
| 9 | Kaustabh Nandi – Sagnik Roy | 174.28 |
| 10 | Dipak Santra‐Anirudhh Bhattacharjee | 163.55 |
| 11 | Bhabesh Saha‐Shambhunath Ghosh | 159.11 |
| 12 | R Venkatesh‐Arvind Srinivasan | 150.06 |
| 13 | Badal Das‐Partha Sarthi Mukherjee | 149.01 |
| 14 | Subhash Dhakras ‐ R Sreedharan | 132.39 |
| 15 | P Sridhar‐S Sunderram | 125.81 |
| 16 | Rana Roy‐Sayantan Kushari | 110.34 |
| 17 | Subhash Gupta‐Sapan Desai | 109.73 |
| 18 | Kaustabh Nandi‐Kaustubh Bendre | 107.13 |
| 19 | Sayantan Kushari‐Sagnik Roy | 106.97 |
| 20 | Hemant Jalan‐Sandip Datta | 106.97 |
| 21 | Swarnendu – Kr Venkatraman | 105.12 |
| 22 | Satyabrata Mukherjee‐Abhijit Chakraborty | 98.43 |
| 23 | Subhash Gupta‐Arun Bapat | 97.12 |
| 24 | Srinivasan & Maneesh Bahuguna | 92.40 |
| 25 | Sayantan Kushari – Kaustubh Bendre | 92.40 |
| 26 | R Krishnan – R Raghavendra | 91.80 |
| 27 | RA Agarwal‐Abhijit Sarkar | 93.81 |
| 28 | Binod Shaw – Sanjit Dey | 90.14 |
EXEMPTIONS:
- It is to be noted that except for deceased pairs, all partnerships will be fully recognized for consideration of the qualifying list and hence multiple partnerships will be considered legitimate for computation of the qualifying list.
- However, in case of any live events happening in the period 1st Jan 2022 – 1st March 2022, the federation will award the ranking points as per the original scale notwithstanding with any of the above clauses stated above.
- A list of probable pairs will be prepared based on the ranking points secured by virtue of performance in National and international events of importance in 4 year cycle. From among the list a qualifying benchmark has been proposed by the committee for final selection of shortlisted pairs for participation in selection trial cum coaching camp.
The Qualifying Benchmark (number of pairs to be selected from each category) as proposed by the committee for Men/Mixed and Women Category will be as under as per the final ranking list.
Pairs to be selected after all Qualifying events:
a) Men Category – 28 Pairs
b) Mixed Category – 20 Pairs
c) Women Category – 16 Pairs
The qualifying benchmark as specified will not be relaxed or diluted to any further No. In case any of the pair from 28 pairs expresses inability to participate for any reasons.
- In the Selection Trials 2022, the committee has proposed to formulate separate weightages for each Elimination round and the Final League for camp performance, ranking points carryover and other matters. In addition, a carry forward weightage score will be allocated for Elimination 2 and Final League stages.
- A total of 100 Performance Points will be allocated at each stage of Selection Trials 2022 bifurcated for Camp Performance, Win Loss Ratio, Ranking Points Weightage, Stagewise Performance Weightage, Convention Cards Performance.
The following Live/Online Ranking Events are recognized:
For Men/Mixed/Women Category:
2021
- Winter National Bridge Championships, 2020
- Summer National Bridge Championships
- National Masters Bridge Championships
- Inter State Bridge Championships
- All India Bhartia Memorial Bridge Championships
- All India Shree Cement Championships
- HCL prize money Bridge Championships.
- National pairs – 2021 (new addition)
2022
1) Winter National Bridge Championships, 2021
In addition, exclusively for Mixed Category:
- Smt. Vijya Jajoo National Mixed Championships 2020
- Smt. Vijya Jajoo National Mixed Championships 2021
- Dr. K.K. Bhatnagar Memorial Mixed Pairs event
- Four Qualifying Events for Mixed Category – i.e. at Summer Nationals, Winter Nationals (2020 & 2021) & Fenesta
In addition, exclusively for Women Category:
- Four Qualifying Events for Women Category – i.e. at Summer Nationals, Winter Nationals (2020 & 2021) & Fenesta
BFI reserves the right to recognize additional events under ranking points in all categories.
Ranking points Scale for Online Events:
| Federation National Championships (Winter Nationals, Summer Nationals, National Masters, National Mixed Championships) | ||
| Position | Online Teams | Online Pairs |
| Rank 1 | 44 | 22 |
| Rank 2 | 39.6 | 19.8 |
| Rank 3 | 35.2 | 17.6 |
| Rank4 | 30.8 | 15.4 |
| Rank5 | 19.8 | 9.9 |
| Rank6 | 19.8 | 9.9 |
| Rank7 | 19.8 | 9.9 |
| Rank8 | 19.8 | 9.9 |
| All India National Level Tournaments: (Bhartia Memorial, Shree Cement, Inter State, HCL, Holkar Indore, National Pairs) | ||
| Position | Online Teams | Online Pairs |
| Rank 1 | 33 | 16.5 |
| Rank 2 | 29.7 | 14.85 |
| Rank 3 | 26.4 | 13.2 |
| Rank4 | 23.1 | 11.55 |
| Rank5 | 14.85 | 7.425 |
| Rank6 | 14.85 | 7.425 |
| Rank7 | 14.85 | 7.425 |
| Rank8 | 14.85 | 7.425 |
| BFI Recognized Zonal Events: (FNCC, Delhi Gymkhana, President Cup, Mixed and Women Qualifying Events) | ||
| Position | Online Teams | Online Pairs |
| Rank 1 | 11 | Pairs at these events not eligible for points |
| Rank 2 | 9.4 | |
| Rank 3 | 8.8 | |
| Rank4 | 7.7 | |
| Rank5 | 4.95 | |
| Rank6 | 4.95 | |
| Rank7 | 4.95 | |
| Rank8 | 4.95 |
Qualifying Events till Selection Trials 2022 & Carryover of Existing Ranking Points:
| Year | Men | Mixed | Women |
| 2019 (completed) | 11 | 4 | 3 |
| 2020 (completed) | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 (completed) | 8 | 6 | 3 |
| 2022 Till Feb, 2022 Winter Nationals 2021 (Online) | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Total Events | 23 | 11 | 8 |
| Till Lockdown, Total events held | 14 | 4 | 4 |
| % of Carryover | 14/ (14 + x), where x =no. of events held in 2021-22 | 4/11=36.36% | 50% |
Qualifying Benchmarks:
At the end of all Qualifying Events, the total Ranking Points of all Pairs as per their performance in the respective events will be consolidated and computed including carryover of Ranking points from Live events held in 2019-20 as stated above. From the overall list, the following is proposed by the committee for qualifying to the Selection Trials 2022 ineach category:
a) Open Category – Top 28 Ranked Pairs (in order of merit rank as per the Revised National Ranking Policy)
b) Mixed Category – Top 20 Ranked Pairs (in order of merit rank as per the Revised National Ranking Policy)
c) Women Category – Top 16 Ranked Pairs (in order of merit rank as per the Revised National Ranking Policy)
There will be no additions to the above final list in any category in case of any dropouts.
Selection Trials 2022:
The Selection Trials 2022 will be conducted live under the guidelines issued by SAI. The trials will consist of atleast 2 Eliminations in the Men and Mixed Category with adequate exposure given to each phase for performance evaluation and analysis. A Selection Committee will be formed by BFI announced on the website accordingly. Each stage will be considered as an independent event being part of the Selection Trials 2022 and hence appropriate weightages have been proposed by the Ranking Committee.
Performance Points Weightage Scheme at Selection Trials 2022 (Open/Mixed/Women)
Total 100 points allocated
| Stages (Men/Mixed/Women) | Camp Performance | Win / Loss Ratio | Ranking Points Weightage | Carry Forward Points | Conv Cards compliance |
| Elimination – 1 | 55 Points | 5 points | 35 points | Zero | 5 points |
| Elimination -2 | 65 Points | 5 points | 20 points | 10 points | Nil |
| Final | 75 Points | 5 points | 10 points | 10 points | Nil |
For Elimination 1:
Camp Performance: 55 points awarded to the First Ranked pair as per the highest VP scores obtained and prorate points to the succeeding pairs.
Win/Loss Ratio: 5 points awarded to the pair achieving highest wins for each match played in that round and prorate points to the succeeding pairs.
Ranking Points Weightage: The ranking points accumulated at end of the year 2020 x conversion factor as recommended above + Online/Live ranking points till the selection trials from the year 2021. The pair with highest ranking points as calculated above will be awarded 35 points
Convention Card Compliance: 5 points awarded subject to compliance with the WBF guidelines and recommended disclosures.
Elimination 2 and Final:
Carry Forward Points: Based on the “Camp Performance” of the previous elimination. i.e. for Elimination 2, the carry forward points of 10 points will be awarded to the First Ranked pair as per the highest VP scores obtained and prorate points to the succeeding pairs.
Qualification of Pairs at Each Stage of Selection Trials 2022:
| Men | Mixed | Women | |
| Elimination – 1 | 28 Pairs | 20 Pairs | 16 Pairs |
| Elimination -2 | 16 Pairs | 12 Pairs | 10 Pairs |
| Final | 8 Pairs | 8 Pairs | 6 Pairs |