nine teams if every WBF zone sent a champion team. 1983: North America joined Europe with double representation, and the host country was automatically included too, so the potential size of the field increased by two. European and North American champions would have two places in the four-team semifinal round. European and North American runners up would contend with champions of the other zones and the host country for two other semifinal slots. 1985: The Bermuda Bowl for open teams and Venice Cup for women would be contested side-by-side in tournaments with the same structure, and in a venue outside Europe and North America (maintained until 2001). Predecessors Austria won the 1937 International Bridge League (IBL) championships for both open and women's national teams. They are commonly considered the first world championships for national teams, and the first world championship tournaments of any kind, because teams from the United States entered both flights, two open teams and one women's. The IBL was a predecessor of both the European Bridge League (est. 1947) and the WBF (est. 1958), although there was a competing international organization in the 1930s. The IBL organized annual championships for (open) national teams beginning in 1932 and for women beginning in 1935. Prior to 1937, Austria won three of five in the open category and both in the women category. All of the sites were in Europe and the European Bridge League considers the 1930s series to be the first eight European Teams Championships. In the 1937 (6–20 June) open tournament there were 19 teams from 18 countries: the USA had two teams, one led by Ely Culbertson which came second. In the knockout stage, Culbertson beat Norway and Hungary before losing to Austria. USA Minneapolis lost to Austria in the semifinal.(Morehead) World War II practically destroyed the IBL and its nascent world championship tournament series. With Austria the leading nation at the card table, the 1938 Anschluss of Germany and Austria was a great disruption. The leading bridge theorist and mentor Paul Stern was an outspoken opponent of Nazism; he fled to London and later became a British subject. That same year, at least Rixi Scharfstein (Markus) from the Ladies emigrated to Britain; from the Open team at least Karl von Bluhdorn to Paris, Edward Frischauer and Walter Herbert to the United States, eventually California. The International Bridge League organized two more European championships (making eight