How Australia’s Bridge Teams Are Chosen

Making it onto an Australian Bridge Team is a serious achievement. The selection process is designed to ensure that only the most skilled and committed partnerships get the chance to represent the country.

Each year, the Australian Bridge Federation (ABF) runs national events across all states and territories. The most competitive of these award Playoff Qualifying Points (PQPs) to the best-performing pairs and teams.

The selection process culminates at the Australian Teams Playoff, where the top eight teams in each category based on PQP standings come together. The teams battle over a demanding week of head-to-head knockout matches, with only one team in each category earning the right to represent Australia.

Teams are selected in four divisions: Open, Mixed, Women’s, and Seniors.

What It Takes to Make the Team

Bridge is a partnership game at its core. Talent is important, but it’s not enough on its own. Players who make it this far have usually spent years building a strong partnership. That means putting in countless hours of practice and developing detailed agreements for both their bidding system and in the card play. And above all, they need to stay composed and deliver their best under the pressure of the Playoffs, with a national team spot on the line.

Why It Matters

Representing Australia is a huge honour. It gives players the chance to test themselves against the best in the world and to showcase Australian bridge on the international stage.  The World Championships are held every two years with all the world’s countries allocated to eight different zones and each zone being able to qualify anywhere between 2 and 16 countries.   Australia is in zone 7 along with New Zealand and a few smaller South Pacific nations.  Zone 7 only has two qualifiers but the smaller nations don’t usually contest a place so Australia and New Zealand typically always get to attend the Championships.

Right now, the 2025 national teams are getting ready for the World Championships which will be held in Herning, Denmark from August 18 to 30 this year.  They are played across four categories with the Open team playing for the Bermuda Bowl, the Mixed playing for the Wuhan Cup, the Women’s playing for the Venice Cup and the Senior’s playing for the D’Orsi Trophy.

You can learn more about our representative teams here: https://www.abf.com.au/australian-representative-teams/

Posted in Latest News on June 5, 2025