Athens 2000

After the immense success of the first four editions, the GENERALI Masters continues, but this time in Athens, Greece, where the whole world elite will meet from 13 to 15 of April 2000. Apart from the regular Men and Women series a new event for Juniors will be added.

No other championship can boost such prestigious stars; never has bridge reached such near perfection as with the GENERALI Masters.

The 100 best players in the world have been invited to participate. All of them have won prestigious titles and many are Zonal or World champions. These 52 men, 28 women and 20 juniors representing 28 countries, and playing 112 and 84 boards respectively, with a common bidding system, will rival performances for three days.

As bridge is moving towards Olympism and Greece is preparing to host the 2004 Olympic Summer Games, the World Bridge Federation and the Hellenic Bridge Federation have joined forces to land the World Individual Championship in Athens 2000.

The event is sponsored by GENERALI, one of the largest insurance groups in the world that offers the cash prizes for the Men and Women series and the silver cups for the Junior series.

Venue

Athens Plaza Hotel The event will be hosted in the Zappion Megaron. This is a beautiful neo-classic public building situated amidst the National Park right in the centre of Athens, very close to the Parliament and the Constitution Square.

Zappion is a multi-purpose building. Top domestic and foreign political figures use it for press conferences, which are normally televised. Many conferences and important international meetings take place there.

Zappion hosted the signing ceremony for Greece's entry into the European Community in 1979. Eight years earlier, it had served as the venue of the 1971 European Bridge Championships.

Today it is also used as the headquarters of the Organizing Committee of the 2004 Olympic Games.

Participants of the Men and Women series will stay in the 5-star Athens Plaza, a hotel in the Constitution Square and only a few minutes walk to Zappion.

The junior players will stay in the 4-star Royal Olympic Hotel, also very close to the playing site.

Past Winners

1992
MEN	RANK	WOMEN
Piotr Gawrys Poland	1	Maria Erhart Austria
Jan Fucik Austria	2	Colette Lise France
Alain Levy France	3	Nicola Smith Great Britain
1994
Jon Baldursson Iceland	1	Nicola Smith Great Britain
Christian Mari France	2	Pytsi Flodqvist Sweden
Jean-Marc Roudinesco France	3	Bénédicte Cronier France
1996
Geir Helgemo Norway	1	Elisabeth Delor France
Franck Multon France	2	Bénédicte Cronier France
Robert Wolff USA	3	Marijke van der Pas The Netherlands
1998
Paul Chemla France	1	Migri Tzur-Albu Israel
Apolinary Kowalski Poland	2	Véronique Bessis France
Andrew Robson Great Britain	3	Sandra Landy Great Britain

Schedule

The Championship consists of four sessions for the men and three for the women and juniors. The schedule is as follows:

Thursday 13 April	19:00	Opening Ceremony
Thursday 13 April	20:30	1st Session Men
Friday 14 April	14:30	2nd Session Men 1st Session Women 1st Session Juniors
	19:00	Dinner
	20:30	3rd Session Men 2nd Session Women 2nd Session Juniors
Saturday 15 April	14:30	4th Session Men 3rd Session Women 3rd Session Juniors
	20:30	Prizegiving Ceremony
	21:00	Victory Banquet

Cash Prizes

	Men	Women
1st	10,000	6,000
2nd	6,000	4,000
3rd	4,000	3,000
4th	2,000	2,000
5th	2,000	1,000
6th-10th	1,000	800
11th-14th	800	500
15th	800
16th-26th	500

All prizes are in US Dollars. There is a special prize of $500 for best session result for players of the second half of the field in all sessions.

Systems

All participants must play the same bidding system, a natural system with the use of only a few conventions. The convention card and supplementary sheet describing the system to be used are available in PDF format.

Convention Card