Phinal Philly Phun

I thought I would do a round-up of Philly.

From what I gathered the tournament was a lot of fun and a great success although perhaps the organizers would have wanted just a few more participants.  There were some complaints from some booksellers who were located far off where the junior events were held and the tournament covered a lot of territory.

The USA as I would have expected did wonderfully winning many events and having high places in all of them.  The star for Canada was Kismet Fung who was second in the Mixed Pairs and second in the Women’s Pairs.  Well done.

The Chinese continue to prove they are a major force in Women’s bridge.

The whole thing makes me think that maybe when this all rolls around again in four years, this time I really really will play!  This year other travel and work responsibility (and a bit of illness) made it impossible for me.

The Open Teams was as exciting as they come and the bridge was terrific.  I enjoyed watching so many wonderful young players on the Diamond team win in a close final against the fabulous Nickel team.  The Women’s final was mostly solid bridge with China defeating the Netherlands.

Summary of Some Remaining Events

In the open pairs Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein, one of my own personal favorite pairs won.  They were more than a full percentage place above the Chinese second pair Lixin Yand and Bang Zhang.  A Bulgarian pair came next Jerry Stamatov and Vladomir Mihov and one of my other favorites Fulvi Fantoni and Claudio Nunes of Italy were fourth.

Lynn Deas and Beth Palmer had a huge score to win the Women’ts Pairs.  Kismet Fung (who had also been second with Brian Glubok earlier in the tournament) and Susan Culham were a clear second.  Next was a whole clump of pairs with a Dutch pair, Russian pair, three Chinese and three additional American pairs rounding out the top ten.

The winners of the IMP Pairs were

1 Wolfe THOMPSON – Marc ZWERLING

2 Joao-Paulo CAMPOS – Miguel VILLAS-BOAS

Winners of the Mixed Swiss Teams were:

Greg Hinze (Captain), Shane Blanchard, Connie Goldberg,Dale and Lynn Johannesen and JoAnn Sprung.

For all the results.

Kismet with Dan Jacob, Penticton 2009