District Director's Reports

 

George Retek

 

District 1 Director

 

Get ready for the World Mind Sport Games (WMSG)

 

in Beijing between October 3 to 18, 2008

 

According to the latest news, the 2008 WMSG (including bridge, chess, go, Chinese chess and draughts) promises to be a great success with generous support from the Chinese Government, that will provide free room and board for 3000 participants, thanks to the fruitful negotiation conducted by Jose Damiani. Bridge will be allocated accommodations for 1200 out of the 3000 spaces, that will allow the WBF to grant free room and board to all junior and some women participants.

 

The scheduled major events are:

·         Open Teams

·         Women Teams

·         WMSP youth pairs (age 28 and under) and WMSP youth individual, WMSG youth teams (for player born in 1980 or later).

·         World youth teams age under 21 for the Damiani Cup; age under 26 for the Ortiz-Patino Trophy.

·         Senior teams age 58 and over.

 

In addition, there will be multinational mixed teams. The WMSG is fully recognized and supported by GAISF, an association that is part of the International Olympic Committee.

 

Entry fees will be $4,000 each for Open, Women and Senior teams. TransNational teams will pay $1,500 while all Junior events will be free.

 

The schedule and timing of events will be announced probably after December, once the contracts are signed.

 

Note on the youth teams

Each NCBO may send one team to each of the 3 competitions. However, one team per NCBO may enter the WMSG youth event after being eliminated either from the Patino or Damiani event, meaning that countries sending only two teams are still guaranteed to have teams in all three competitions.

 

FINANCIAL

According to the 2006 audited financial statements, the WBF income exceeded expenses by $108,000 (vs the Budgeted $95,000). This figure includes the amount of $405,000 received from various sponsors and the IOC. Without this support the loss would have been $297,000.

 

The previous Junior Chairman of the WBF has been replaced and he is no longer a member of the WBF Executive Council. We have every reason to believe that upcoming Junior events will be much more reasonably organized financially. Furthermore, the WBF will no longer organize Junior Camps. This will be left to the individual NBO’S.

 

FUTURE EVENTS (name of events had been changed)

2008         WMSG — Beijing October 3-18

Canada Mexico and the USBF will be allowed to send one team each to the Open, Women, Senior Competition (just like in the past Team Olympiad years) as well one team each to the three junior competitions.

 

FISU — September 2-9 Poland (NBO’s may send two teams).

2009 Sao Paulo World Team Championships : Bermuda Bowl – Venice Cup – Senior Bowl.

Date : Either August 29 — September 12 or October 3-17

Hotel Comlexo Alvorada

Hotel rates to be announced.

 

World Youth Championships (U-26/U-21 Teams, pairs, individual).

 

·         2010   Renamed as World Bridge Series. Presently the most likely candidate is St.Peterburg (Russia). I am sorry to report that Vancouver (Canada) could not provide the required financial assistance.

 

·         World Youth Teams (U-26 and U-21.

 

·         World Mind Sport Games (WMS

 

·         Beijing between October 3 to 18, 2008

 

LAWS AND SYSTEMS

Approved and promulgated the new Laws of Duplicate Bridge 2007. The new Laws come into effect from January 1, 2008 in all WBF events (world and zonal) and NBO’s have until September 30, 2008 the latest to bring them to force. They are available online at the WBF website. ACBL representatives, as usual, were prominent in preparation of this edition.

 

Systems

No brown sticker convention will be allowed at any events in Beijing WMSG. Players wishing to use brown sticker conventions (in other years) are encouraged to post their conventions together with viable defenses at the WBF website. A new convention that uses ambiguous major suit overcalls of artificial minor suit openings is permitted only where the minor suit opening has a strong option (i.e. Burgay Diamond or Polish Club).

 

POT-POURRI

1.      The WBF will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its existence in 2008.

 

2.   In response to some request received from Europe, it was decided to suspend for one year the progression of the Senior age requirement. Accordingly, the following age limit will apply to Seniors in WBF events:

·         2008   — 58 and over

·         2009   — 59 ans over

·         2010   — 60 and over

 

RESULTS

Once again our Zone ruled the world.

USA 2 won the Venice Cup and USA 1 won the silver in the Bermuda Bowl.

USA 2 won the Senior Bowl and Dan Morse’s team of USA 1 won the bronze medal.

The Canadian Senior team comfortably lead the round-robin in the Senior Bowl. Fred Hoffer and Don Piafsky were 2nd in the Butler scoring for the best Canadian partnership achievement. The Canadian Women Team qualified for the quarter final, where they narrowly lost to the powerful German squad.

The Senior Team lead all the way in their quarter final against Brazil, but lost by a small margin in the end.

Sadly in the Bermuda Bowl round-robin USA 2 finished 11th and Canada 21st . Both teams defeated some very strong teams and unexplainably collapsed against some others.

In the Transnational Teams, a Swiss team triumphed led by Zimmerman.

 

Report from the 2007 WBF Executive Council meeting held in Shanghai is submitted by George Retek