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Starting tomorrow, Monday, Sept. 13, the third edition of the Buffett Cup at the Miskin Hotel in Cardiff (Wales).There are the Italian players Duboin, Sementa and Fantunes. During the prestigious event, Wednesday, Sept. 15, will be presented to the public the new online magazine founded by Jan van Cleef and Eric Rodwell: BridgeTopics.com.
Warren Buffett is an American businessman and a bridge player. He’s the philanthropist who sponsors the Warren Buffett Bridge Cup. This is the United States-Europe challenge, i.e. a match between twelve American players and twelve Europeans; they will fight each others as teams, as pairs, as individuals. It will be held from September 12th to 16th.
The idea of a “Transatlantic match” was born in 1930: Ely Culbertson won against Walter Buller. Three years later there was a second match, the Schwab Trophy: Culbertson team (again) won Colonel H. M. Beasley. The chess world champion and mathematician Emanuel Lasker wrote the chronicle of the latter. The Cup shines again in 2006, thanks to Mr. Buffet, and it’s held biennially. The Americans has won the first one in Dublin, 2006; the Europeans got their revenge in Louisville, 2008. This time they’ll play in Cardiff, Wales – the exact pronounce of “Cardiff, Wales” in Welsh is: “Caerdydd, Cymru”.
The Teams:
America: Jillian Levin, Jill Meyers, David Berkowitz, Alan Sontag, Bob Hamman, Zia Mahmood, Geoff Hampson, Fred Gitelman, Bobby Levin, Steve Weinstein, Jeff Meckstroth, Eric Rodwell. Not playing captain: Donna Compton.
Europe: Sabine Auken, Daniela von Arnim; Brogeland Boye, Erik Saelensminde, Giorgio Duboin, Antonio Sementa, Fulvio Fantoni, Claudio Nunes, Jason and Justin Hackett (twins: Jason is the older by ten minutes), Geir Helgemo, Tor Helness. Not playing captain: Paul Hackett (the twins’ father).
The players “…Will use a simple bidding system in which all bids must be easily explicable to a non-expert audience. No bidding screens will be employed. The emphasis will be on matchplay with each member of the two teams playing against their counterparts in a variety of match formats: an individual contest, pairs and teams of four” (from the official site).
Bridge Topics is a new magazine that will be introduced during the event, on Wednesday 15th. Jan Van Cleeff will do it; Van Cleeff is the director of IMP Bridge Magazine, the Dutch bridge magazine. The anchor man of Bridge Topics is Eric Rodwell; it shall treat theory of bridge in depth and…sorry, I cannot tell more here. Come on, friends: all will be explained by Jan and Eric in Cardiff, Wales – don’t miss the exact pronounce, “Caerdydd, Cymru”, otherwise you could be mistaken for an Englishman.