PeterGill

I just heard about the Swedish Junior Bridge Camp from March 20-23 being open to all European juniors, so if you have some free time later this month, check out www.svenskbridge.se/e107_files/tavling/juniorbridgecampinvitation.pdf Peter.

"in many countries in the Soutern Hemisphere", I should have written. One problem of World University Bridge is that the two hemispheres operate six months apart from each other. For example, the organisers of the last World University Chmapionships in Tianjin did not realise that the dates chosen were the end of year exams for most Southern Hemisphere countries, hence the event (with the exception of perhaps one country) only had teams from one hemisphere. Australia wanted to send a team to Tianjin, but all our players had exams. Peter Gill Southern Hemisphere.

(1) If you scroll nearly to the bottom of the 2001 Eric Rodwell interview at http://www.bridgematters.com/rodwell.htm Eric does not see any advantage for UDSP or normal SP. (2) However, I agree with Jan Martel , rather than Eric Rodwell.... For example, Morse's decision of which club pips to play in 5HX on page 15 of www.greatbridgelinks.com/gblTOUR/Worlds03/Bul_03.pdf ..... uses more brain cells against UDSP than against normal SP. Peter Gill.

In my post, the WBF worldbridge website needs the full stop after pdf deleted. Peter Gill, who is not very computer-literate.

I'm on the WBF Youth Committee. WBF = World Bridge Federation. There are three events for junior bridge players in Beijing in early October 2008, ref www.worldbridge.org/documents/WMSG_FactSheet1.pdf. The good news: - the Under 28 event, called the WMSG National Youth Teams, is open to everyone born on or after 1/1/80. - full board and accommodation is provided for all participants. For those who speak limited English, this means that ALL meals and accommodation are FREE. - there is no entry fee. - the venue is the Convention Centre at the Beijing Olympic Games complex, a couple of weeks after the Olympic Games have finished. - I think the free accommodation looks rather good, at the Media Village: http://en.beijing2008.cn/media/mediaservices/accomodation/ - early Octboer 2008 is university and school holidays in many countries. - for smaller countries who could not afford to send a team otherwise, the WBF is prepared to help pay for the airfares so that the team can get to Beijing. "Smaller" means "small at youth bridge", so countries like Ukraine and Belarus are certainly in the "smaller" category. - after the Under 28 Teams event in Beijing, there are Under 28 Pairs and Individual events. The bad news: - the U26 and U21 events in Beijing are only for the 18 teams who qualify, so this offer relates only to people who might want to go to the Under 28 event. The WBF wants to have 30 to 40 countries take part in the Under 28 event. - many countries, such as Belarus, Monaco, South Africa or Guadeloupe to randomly guess four countries who have never taken part in world junior bridge events before, might be nervous about going to Beijing, because they think the standard of the bridge will be too high. The solutions to the bad news: - I have been asked by the WBF to find out if any countries would like to have a group of about 4 to 10 youngsters informally coached on BBO during the next nine months, so that the players can reach a standard where playing oin Beijing would not be too hard for them. I would provide a top international player from America, Europe, Australia or elsewhere to be the coach, one or two coaches per country. In case any potential coaches are reading this, I already have a few coaches available but might need more. The coaching would be only on BBO, at times that suit you, as arranged by your coach and you. If your country doesn't speak English, we will get a coach for you who speaks your language. - the format of the Under 28 event in Beijing should be designed so that inexperienced teams of four have a great time and play as much bridge as possible against players of their own level. OK, so you would occasionally play against World Champions such as Joe Grue or Justin Lall and struggle, but the intention is that you will get as many opportunities as possible to win matches. Please email me if you think you, your friends or your country might be interested in any of this assistance. Or you can post here. Peter Gill pgil3747@bigpond.net.au

Not googlable, alas. I'm going off-topic. Transfer this to a new thread if you want. Gabby is a med student at Sydney University. Some of you know him from the World Junior Championships/Camps. He was 2nd in the World Junior Indvidual in New York. At http://bridgestoriesofbridgeboy.blogspot.com/, scroll down Bridgeboy's blog to Match 12 to read more about Gabby. Sydney Uni has a 3-day Orientation Week at the start of each year. The Sydney Uni Bridge Club's stall offered membership for $2 which included a bridge book worth $14 (obtained for much less from friendly people). You had to turn up to the Bridge Club in order to get your free book. The club meets most lunchtimes in a tutorial room with chairs and desks. This got the potential players to actually turn up, beating bridge's image problem. A Sydney bridge club donated about 40 bridge wallets. Warren Lazer and Gabby prepared 40 hands which illustrate the beauty of the card play, e.g. when you open the wallet of Board 15, West might be asked to make nine tricks in no trumps, with AKQ43 in clubs in an entryless dummy opposite 9872 in declarer's hand (the 9, 8 and 7 must be dumped under the AKQ in order not to block the suit). Not complex endplays, but cute stuff which might take the fancy of a bright youngster. It is vital for them to see immediately that bridge is that a boring game played only by oldies. When newcomers arrived, they were sat down in threes, with an experienced player as "instructor" always being dummy. They were given hands to play, as above. No bidding. Generally the aim being to take 7 or 9 tricks in no trumps, or 8 or 10 tricks in spades or hearts, once they knew what trumps were. Boasrd 1 in no trumps might have KQJ10 in a suit, and you have to dislodge the opponent's ace to ahcive the number of tricks. After a few such lessons, bidding was introduced via one page of notes per lesson. This method is particularly useful in countries like Germany (Skat) and Australia (500) or New Zealand (500), where a national card game involving tricks and trumps (named in brackets) already exists on a large scale. At the O Week stall, Gabby and his team attracted passers-by by saying: "Ever played 500?" or the like. Like everywhere, bridge in Australia is regarded by the young as an old person's game which no self-respecting youngster would play. The card game 500 has no image problem, not being popular amongst the elderly, so 500 was used to attract them. Universities which have used this method have succceeed in setting up real bridge clubs. The universities in Australia which have tried other methods to promote bridge have all failed. For teaching bridge to brainy yougnsters, it is the best method I know. Peter Gill ABF Youth Committee WBF Youth Committee

Australia does OK. Our national bridge body the ABF pays airfare, accommodation and entry fees for trips to overseas events like World Championships and PABF (Pacific Asia) Youth events, so our top youth players are well looked after. Our 2008 National Youth Bridge Week in January in Canberra will be the 40th one. It started in 1969 and usually has about 14 tables. In July there is an annual Interstate Youth Teams Championships for teams of six from each state. Last weekend the National Youth Triathlon (Pairs, Teams and Individual) was held in two cities, scored simultaneously across both fields, with a Crazy Pairs at the start. There is a National Youth Bridge Coordinator role, paid $7,000 p.a., currently vacant. The ABF Youth Committee is active. Our Friends of Youth Bridge Fund which rich people donate to, and which any youth player can apply to for financial assistance to go to bridge games, has about $25,000 in it. We have National Yotuh Bridge Buleltins, and a website at www.abf.com.au/youth. School bridge is fairly dead in Australia. Perhaps we should get involved in www.schoolbridgeleague.org (ref About Us) which is supported by Bill Gates? Two university bridge clubs are active, both using a novel and successful promotional method which was developed by Gabby Feiler. Like almost everyone in every country in the last 80 years, we have never managed to get any large scale youth bridge promotion to take off. We have heaps of young people playing on BBO. Peter Gill Sydney.

The answer to the question at the start of this thread is that University Championships in all sports are for those aged Under 28. Therefore the WBF officials thought that for consistency with the World University Championships in Lodz, Poland a month earlier, the World Mind Sports Games event in Beijing in October 2008 should be Under 28. FISU is the body which runs World University Championships for all sports including bridge. At www.fisu.net or more specifically http://www.fisu.net/site/page_950.php, you can click on the 184 page "FISU Regulations EN July 2007" on the right of the page. On page 112 of 184 (numbered 104 at the bottom of the page), Reg 5.2.3 says that participants in World University Championships in every sport must be at least 17 and no more than 28 on 1/1 of the year in which the event takes place. This applies to all sports including bridge. If you go to page 148 of 184 (labelled 140 in the index and and at the bottom of the page), you find Bridge included in the sports, between Karate and Beach Volleyball. The WBF adheres to FISU's standards because by doing so, bridge players should (I think) be able to get financial assistance from their university in order to take part in the World University Championships in Lodz. If you search www.unibridge.org, I'm not sure whether you would find the specific procedure to follow in order to obtain such financial assistance. Therefore U28 is not an arbitrary choice of age limit. I think that on the other hand, the U26 and U21 age limits used for a long time in bridge are arbitrary. Peter Gill Sydney, Australia.

I met Paul Soloway only once, but to me what distinguished him from many of the world's greatest players was that even in just that one brief meeting, to me he set a shining example of just how a bridge great should behave. It was the 1997 Cavendish in Las Vegas, when I was an unknown Aussie visitor. After each short match, outside the playing room players asked each other what they'd done on the most interesting hands, and Paul was one of the few who took the time and effort to ask me what we'd done, treating us Aussies as equals to the many great players. Once he came up to me and said that everyone he'd asked had gone done in 3NT on Bd xx, as had his partner. "I made 3NT," I piped up, "aided by misdefence." Lesser humans would have left it at that - misdefence is not very interesting - but being Paul, he asked how I'd played it. Well, I won the opening lead and, with xxx in dummy opposite AJxx and nine tricks looking far away, I decided to play ace and another diamond, for something to do. "Nobody else did that," Paul said, and I beamed. I went through my play. Paul pointed out that quite apart from the misdefence, the defence could have broken up the squeeze which I was setting up, which I thought was interesting. "However, if you duck a diamond at Trick 2 and duck another diamond next time you're on play, keeping a major tenace in diamonds because RHO had Qxxx, the hand can genuinely be made, because the key entry to dummy is retained." 'Wow', I said, 'it's so simple yet none of us thought of playing it that way.' Such was his love of the game that Paul raced off to check if anyone in the whole field had found the winning play. Later he told me that nobody had. For the first time in my life, I felt like a participant in the inner sanctum of bridge at the very top. The actual hand is lost in the mists of time, but the fact that Paul Soloway chatted to me, and was genuinely interested in how I'd played a hand, was so exciting. Those were the days before Deep Finesse when we never knew if contracts had been makeable, adding to the mystery and neverending magic of bridge, which Paul seemed to appreciate more than most. For me, that was a magic moment, a bit like last weekend when I was commentating on BBO on Versace - Lauria in the ECC Qualifying match against the Poznan team, and Michael Rosenberg was privately sending me some astonishing insight on Bd 19, which I was able to present to the audience. Such a buzz. The super-experts are actually real people, prepared to share their thoughts with the rest of us. The following year at the World Championships in Lille, when a kid aged about 13 named Justin Lall (playing in the side event) said to me something like: "How come you, who are playing in the Final of the World Pairs, are chatting to me between rounds when I'm just a kid? I've been to lots of fairly big American tournaments and none of the top American players ever chats to me, except my dad." My reply was that I was coming only 58th in that Final ... I'm so happy that Justin, via his website and posts, has the same common touch that Paul Soloway had. Another example was that when Joe Grue and Crutis Cheek won their first Reisinger a year ago, only about 20 people waited around for the trophy to be presented to the winners in the playing area. One such person, who waited for 30 minutes with little to do, was Bob Hamman, who went up to the winners and said something to them straight after the presentation. It's no wonder that Hemant Lall (via a post by Justin) in this Forum commented after the Spingold that the team dynamic of team Nickell was better than any other team he'd ever played in. A team with humanity is too classy for a team without. Peter Gill Sydney Australia

In reply to someone's query about the other Zones: Australia and New Zealand in Zone 7 qualify for the Bermuda Bowl (BB) in much the same way as Canada - virtually automatically, as long as Zone 7's previous Olympiad form is not disastrous. French Polynesia and New Caledonia are not major challengers, and Zone 7 has two spots in the BB subject to adequate performance in the previous Olympiad. Similarly, South Africa and Egypt have little competition in the African Zone and qualify for the BB with much the same ease as Canada. India and Pakistan have only Jordan and a few minor countries to get past in order to qualify for the two spots in the Bermuda Bowl from their Zone. Competition for BB spots in the European, Pacific Asian (Zone 6), Central American and South American zones has more contenders. Thus the Canada/Mexico positions in the world bridge scene is not at all unique. If you read Damiani's reports on the WBF website, there is (or was) a move to reduce the number of bridge Zones to five in line with the five Olympic zones of the world. Now that would be quite a change for Canada, being grouped with all the Americas. Personally I do not see any merit in this Olympic zonal concept for bridge. Peter Gill Australia.

In reply to Denis O: I agree. The website's scores are minimalist, possibly due to an apparent attempt to make the scoring similar to golf's Ryder Cup After three of the five 11-board rounds in the Pairs, I began to reconstruct the scores myself. Let's explain. Hamman - Soloway played against Hanlon - McGann (for scoring purposes, i.e. both pairs sat EW) for ALL FIVE matches, with 2-0 at stake for each of their five clashes. After three rounds, these two pairs were even. The Irish pair won their Round 4 clash (7 boards to 4 IIRC) to score 2-0 for Europe. Hamsol bounced back to win their Round 5 clash (6-5 IIRC) to score 2-0 for USA. Summarising: Rounds 1-2-3 Rd 4 Rd 5 Rounds 1-5 total (combined total) Hamsol v Hanlon - McGann 0 -2 2 0 Zia - Welland v Helness - Helgemo -2 -2 0 -4 Weinstein - B Levin v Hackett twins 2 2 0 4 Hampson - Fred G v Verh - Jansma -2 -2 2 -2 Meyers - J Levin v Bocchi - Duboin -2 2 2 2 Berko - Cohen v Auken - Von Arnim 0 -2 2 0 America relative to Europe -4 -4 8 0 Europe led 12-8 (or something with a difference of 4) after three rounds, 20-12 after 4 rounds, and it is 20 all after five rounds of Pairs, going into the Teams. Had Steve Weinstein doubled 2NT (which went down one) on the last board (Bd 55), America would be leading 24-20. So Bobby Levin (plus 4) and his wife Jill (plus 2, winning both Rounds 4 and 5) with their partners have been America's strongest performers so far. I cannot find any data to break down Rounds 1-2-3 into the individual rounds. In the Teams, each 14 board match will be scored up as 3-0 or 0-3, I think. The aim is to reproduce matchplay conditions as in the Ryder Cup. My personal opinion for enxt year's Buffett Cup is that this method could be improved. Hoping this helps a little bit, Peter Gill a BBO Vugraph Commentator Sydney Australia

A few comments from one of BBO's Vugraph commentators: 1. Perhaps one day in the future, BBO will introduce a feature where the tables being vugraphed in Chinese or Polish have a second copy available in English? 2. The 12 pairs look to me to be very close to the strongest 12 pairs in the world who were available, with the exception of one pair from China who was ineligible, and including one female pair in each team. It seems to me (from afar) that Meckwell must have been unavailable, and that Lauria - Versace and Fantoni - Nunes were perhaps excluded for geographical reasons. Poland's form over the last two years has not been stunning. Given that Zia simply had to be there with one of his partners, every pair in each team has impeccable credentials, especially on recent form. Given the wide range of views of bridge player ability, I think the teams are fantastic. Tom Hanlon - Hugh McGann, whose place in the Europe team was questioned on BBO in early July on this forum, played every vital match in leading Ireland to 2nd place in the subsequent European Championships - no surprise to those who have watched them on BBO win the last two Camrose's and the last two Lederer's. Anyone who has watched them play on BBO Vugraph this year would be appallled at the thought that they are merely a home-town token pair. Their selection in the team was clearcut IMO. Admittedly, I did back Ireland (each-way) in the European Championships on the relevant website, but that was because I had watched them play a lot on BBO Vugraph and knew their form. 3. The score after the Pairs is effectively 16-16. Peter Gill Sydney Australia.

The teams' Bidding Systems will be used only in the Individual games. The non-regular partnerships in the Individual need to have a common system to play, hence the website's systems. The website could explain this better. In the Pairs and the Teams, the regular partnerships play their usual bidding systems. Strong club systems, gadgets galore, whatever. This allows one to compare trans-atlantic differences in bidding. For example, there was one hand where partner opened 1H in 3rd seat, and you held Qx, void, Qxxxx, AJxxxx. Jason Hackett for Europe was able to bid 2C, and play in clubs, to win the board. The Americans play 2C as Drury, so they had to respond 1NT, which was passed out, partner holding Axxx, AQ109x, xx, xx having opened a bit light in 3rd seat. 1NT went down several tricks, vulnerable. The Europeans, who use natural bidding in this situation, had a systemic advantage on this particular hand (but perhaps not on other hands) over the Americans. It wasn't always the case that natural was better than artificial. Peter Gill Sydney Australia