Announcing the

1st World Junior Individual Championship

New York, NY, USA • 14-16 July 2004

The WBF Youth Committee is pleased to announce officially that a new competition, exclusively reserved for young players, is to be added to the world calendar.

The World Junior Individual Championship will be launched next year in New York City, and will take place during the North American Bridge Championships.

The World Junior Individual Championship comes to complete the world titles already available to young players in the other forms of bridge competition (teams, pairs). It is designed to be held biennially in North America in odd-numbered years (starting from 2007), exactly as the World Junior Pairs Championship is being held biennially in Europe (in even-numbered years as from 2006).

The World Junior Individual Championship is open to all players who are Juniors (born in 1979 or later, for next year’s event) and members of a National Bridge Federation (NBO). There are no restrictions as to the number of players a NBO may send. All players will play a simple natural system which will be announced by the WBF in due time. Very much like the Pairs tournament, the Individual Championship will be played in four sessions. Scoring will be with the barometer system which allows competitors to know their exact position minutes after they have played a round.

The Individual Championship presents a different kind of challenge to competitors, in that players need to be skilful in performing in a non-preset environment. Like in life, one needs to adjust to existing conditions rather than rely upon things being as planned. For this reason, the Individual stresses the social element of bridge.

The 1st World Individual Championship will be followed by the 6th World Junior Camp which will take place at Adelphi University, in New York’s Long Island, 17-24 July 2004.

The WBF Youth Committee looks forward to welcoming as many Juniors as possible to the 1st World Junior Individual Championship and the 6th World Junior Camp. Details will be announced soon and will be posted on the official websites of both the WBF (www.worldbridge.org) and ACBL (www.acbl.org).