It’s Saturday and players are coming along and registering, getting their T-Shirts, welcome packs and event bags.
The organisers have arranged a number of activities which I am VERY excited about including:
At my age I am not sure about dinner and DeeJay but let’s see about that.
Saturday night rolls around and at 19:30 the opening ceremony takes place ion one of the ballrooms. It is well attended by players, officials and some parents.
The highlight for me was the 40+ strong Chinese contingent getting up on stage and performing “we are the world” – awesome.
A light dinner of hot dogs and Nachos satisfied all of the youngsters – off to bed and ready for battle the next morning.
Sunday and the room is all ready for action:
Things start smoothly with 32 pairs in the Juniors (U26), 40 pairs in the Youngsters (U20) and 12 pairs in the girls. The only minor regret is that there is limited participation from some European Countries which could have increased numbers had they participated.
Five rounds of two boards make up each stanza and after 20 boards lunch is served back at the hotel followed by another three stanzas of 10 boards each.
During the fourth stanza I am pleasantly surprised to find an Aussie pair at the top of the Juniors ranking
I am guessing this young lady won’t be giving up bridge any time soon – and yes it is permanent ! The Girl with the Spade Tatoo
Sunday early evening and the finalists for the Pairs has been decided. There is a good mixture of countries represented in the various divisions:
Juniors: Turkey, USA, Australia, Italy, Japan, Argentina, Costa Rica and Canada make up the 16 pair final.
Youngsters: USA lead the Sino-American battle in this division by 24-16 players in the 20 pair final.
Girls: Italy, USA, Venezuela and China make up the 8 pair final.
Tomorrow will see four tables shown on BBO starting at 10:00 EDT (07:00 PDT, 20:00 Australian East Coast, 16:00 Europe and 15:00 UK time) for those wishing to follow the action from the finals of the pairs.
After play the entire tournament were invited to the nearby Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Unfortunately the restaurant was not well geared for an invasion of youth players but all ended up well.
The directors and statisticians have reported that:
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very few rulings involving system disruption (one Australian forgot the system)
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they have determined that High = D in Chinese means encouraging as well as even
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with many younger players there are a lot of non-agreements but none seemed to cause any problems
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The youngest player is nine years and one month and ten days.
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37 of the 168 players (22%) were born in 2001 or later (under 12)
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Only six pairs of the total 84 withdrew from the consolation events