The victory in the Vilnius Open Teams, the important event in Lithuania, went to the Russian Team Real, of Andrey Gromov and his team mates Alexander Dubinin, Eugeniy Gladish, and Mikhail Krasnoselskiy. They beat in final the Polish Team of Janusz Kalida, Apolinary Kowalski, Jerzy Russian, and Lech Ohrysko.
The thirteen participating teams played a seven board Swiss round robin; the first four, qualified to the semi-finals, were Oruva Eesti, Estonia: Sven Sester Olavi Oja Jaanus Maripuu Marko Tenn, beaten in semi-final by Kalida (the fourth); Real, placed second, who after beat the English-Polish Herman, placed third: David Hermann, Artur Malinowski, Michał Nowosadzki, Jacek Kalita, beaten by Real. The reader shouldn’t mistake the two Polish players with similar names: Janusz Kalida, of the homonymous team, and Jacek Kalita of Herman.
At Vilnius there were not the names of the great Italians, Dutch, Norwegians or Americans: (but there were the English ones, Paul, Jason, Justin Hackett, and Brian Senior) nevertheless it should be a mistake to think that Vilnius were not a first rate tourney, a mistake even worse than the trade Kalida/Kalita. It suffices to say that just three weeks ago Gromov-Dubinin were semifinalists in the Spingold, beaten by the same Kalita-Nowosadzki, who, the day after, went to win the trophy in Bridge24 Team.
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Paolo Enrico Garrisi