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Sport Accord World Mind Games 2011 – Inaugural Edition. The “Northern Capital” (of China), literal translation of Beijing, welcomed us with a blue and clear sky, enlightened by a sun as brilliant as unuseful: the temperature keeps going from a maximum of 0 C° and a minimum of -8. If you add to that a freezing breeze that swaps continuously the city, you can understand how less appalling is to stick the nose out of the Beijing International Convention Center (BICC), where all the competitions of the first edition of Sport Accord World Mind Games.
Furthermore, even though the view might look attractive, the temperature it is not only the only problem: just four days ago, the was such a pollution that the authorities were forced to cancel as many as 160 flight, in order to try to reduce it. Bottom line, Beijing is like those predators who look particulary seductive, only the reveal their real, lethal nature at the right moment.
Inside BICC, the rooms, shining and bearing all over the logos of the many sponsors of the event, are ready to host the best champions of the five different disciplines. Other than Bridge, are thus presents Chess, Draughts, Go and Xiang Qi, and for each of them there is a huge money prize, otherwise unknown for these sports. At the end, a total of 1.800.000 € will be shared by the most successful athletes (250.000 to Bridge).
In Bridge, divided in Men and Women, are present in their own category all the strongest players of the world – participating are China, France, England and USA, all fielding their best line ups – though you cannot say so for Men. Italy, even though invited, withdrew few weeks ago, Norway, deprived of four of its top players is a pale imitation of the gun machine who won the Bermuda Bowl in Shanghai, so earning the invitation here. You add USA, which fields a team that, even though quite good, might be ranked below the 5th position among the ones that the American could send, and China, able to grab few times the Quarter Finals of world class competitions, but never more (with one exception). The only heavyweight is Netherland; the fresh Bermuda Bowl winners in Veldhoven, invited to replace Italy, took over its place as well as the event’s favourite.
We start playing Teams: a double Round Robin of 16 boards per match over two days, and then a Final and a Play-Off over 48 boards on day three. After that, will be played a Pairs completion over two more days (a quadruple Barometer: four rounds of 22 boards, two against all the others, 88 deals in all). At the end, will be played an Individual (Barometer, three boards pairing all the other players, in three sessions of, respectively, 24, 24 and 21 deals).
Contributed for BridgeTopics.com by Maurizio Di Sacco, WBF Chief Tournament Manager.
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December 10, 2011