Solrød won 2018 Fall BBO Intercity League | bridge

The Danish town Solrød defeated Praha in the final of the 2018’s fall edition of BBO Intercity League (ICL), the international team championship founded in 2004 by the beloved Croatian professor Tonci Radelja.

Solrød: Flemming Dahl, playing captain; Thomas Berg; Knud Aage Boesgaard; Niels Henriksen; HC Nielsen; HK Sørensen.

Praha: Ales Medlin, playing captain; Zuzana Otradovcova; Vladimir Machat; Jiri Medlin; Vladimir Nulicek; Bohumir Zajicek

To this edition, the thirtieth, participated forty-one teams from twenty countries.

ICL can well be styled “The friendship’s tourney”. Several years ago, little before to leave, Tonci wrote: “Think of this as a night in your local club: be friendly and enjoy meeting old/new friends at the table”.

The new edition, Spring 2019, will start on Wednesday 6th March and will end Wednesday 5 June. The format of the tourney is by two stages, round robin and knock-out: the teams are divided in groups; the best placed of each group (sixteen to twenty-four overall, about 50 per cent of the participants), will forward to the knock-out stage.

There are no limits to the number of players: each captain can line up as many players as he or she likes, but players that haven’t played round robins shouldn’t be employed in the knock-out, unless the team has no other way to complete the foursome. The mandatory playing time is on Wednesday at 20:45-21:00 pm CET (GMT +1), unless both captains agree for different time, but displacements only should be done exceptionally.

In the round robin the matches will be by sixteen boards. In the final stage the matches will be by twenty-four. The default is barometer off, undo on (but concede it only for true misclick; the distraction is a technical mistake that has to be paid), and silent kibitzers; the barometer can be on by captains agreement.

System policy. Whatever system we’re playing, it is never to be forgotten that the first requisite of a bidding system isn’t to get better contracts, but to make itself clear to opponents by concise and accurate alerts and plain Convention Card. If a system does fail to do this, it’s sure a wrong one, and no tourney in the World can allow it. In particular, aren’t allowed systems which require that opponents have to study them earlier, as High Unusual Methods (HUM) and Brown sticker. Also are forbidden systems with conventional one level openings by less than 11 HCPs.

Aren’t forbidden:

– Natural suit opening, that is 1C, 1D, 1H, 1S, in the range 8-10 HCPs by at least four cards in the named suit;

– Conventional Strong Club and its conventional responses and rebidding;

– 8-10 1NT opening (so called mini 1NT), with balanced hand;

– Psychics;

– Multicolor and other conventional two level opening.

About alert; recommended reading:

http://neapolitanclub.altervista.org/eng/ev-eng/notes-alerting-internet.html

ICL Official Site (managed by Willem Mevius):

http://intercity.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx

Against Multicolor, Neapolitan Club suggests the “Difesa Cento Torri” (One Hundred Tower Defence):

http://neapolitanclub.altervista.org/eng/tackling-the-multicolor-the-cento-torri-defence.html