Hong Kong Inter-City Bridge Championships Hotel Mirimar, Aug 10-15, 2004

Problem du jour A film star West East ]32 ]K874 presents the [AK4 [Q72 }842 }953 prizes, a lion {AJ943 {K52 N/nil roars and the West North East South 1} pass 1] 2{ 2] 3{ pass friendly games pass pass

begin North leads }A, K, Q. South fol- lows twice then discards a low heart. North then cashes the ]A LAYERS WHO missed the wel- Robert Zajac, long standing member and exits with another spade. Pcome lunch will be disappointed of the Hong Kong As- You win with ]K in dummy. How on three accounts. First the lavish sociation and past bulletin editor, do you continue? banquet – a smorgasbord of fabulous welcomed the players as the master of food catering for all tastes but more ceremonies. Nancy Neumann, Chair- Answer tomorrow importatantly the Lion Dance. This person of the Organizing Committee, spectacle, for all who attended wards then welcomed the players to the 26th off evil forces, offers good blessing Inter City Championships. This was and smooth going. Essential ingredi- followed by the trophy presentation. ents for a successful tournament. The highlight being the presentation And lastly to see the beautiful and fa- of the Paul Jones Trophy won by the A message from the Editor mous TV film star Josie Ho help most popular member Ella Graca, pic- present the past years winners tro- tured with Josie. This event runs over Nigel Rosendorff and I plan to phies. 10 months where players must play provide you with a daily bulle- with a different partner each month. tin that you think has a good Only the seven best results are mix of information. You can ex- counted. At age 84 it was a great pect: achievement for Honorary Member • Results and news, including Ella. After the presentation of a beau- timetables tiful bouquet of flowers to Josie Ho, which capped off a wonderful • Reports on key matches opening ceremony. • Fine plays that you can ad- mire and perhaps learn something from • A daily problem to entertain In this issue you over morning coffee Nigel and I are here until late • The inter-city's big moment at night and we love to hear in history about the flashy things at your • Deal of the day table – good and bad. Oh yes, don’t forget – it is your job to • Problem du jour report your partner’s brilliancy • IDG Frindship Cup in to us. But you can tell us about your own tragedies!! The dancing lion unfurls his Beijing welcome message

HONG KONG INTER-CITY 2004 1 Announcement Triumph for Precision Sorry No Smoking or Drinking in the Playing Areas by Patrick Huang

Under the regulations of the WBF and HE TOP three teams at last PABF, smoking or the consumption of year’s , USA, China, alcohol (except for those taking part in T Netherlands plus three other the San Miguel “Happy Hour” Con- strong teams, Italy, Germany/Swe- tinuous Pairs) by players engaged in den and Indonesia played in this the on-going match is STRICTLY years IDG Friendship Cup Interna- Patrick, who sometimes PROHIBITED in any part of the play- tional Women’s Bridge International coaches Chinese teams ing areas, in the rest rooms or Invitational Tournament recently elsewhere in this hotel, EVEN WITH held in Bejing from August 3-8. THE CONSENT OF THE OPPOSING China vs Netherlands Final TEAM. USA Kathie Wei-Sender Betty Ann Kennedy S/N-S ]QJ5432 Noise Makers Tobi Sokolow [J874 To avoid the incurrence of possible Janice Seamon-Molson }T3 procedural penalties (and the wrath of Jill Levin Sue Picus {T the Tournament Director), before en- ]T ]6 tering the playing areas, please Netherlands [AKQ2 [T965 remember to SWITCH OFF ALL }A4 }KQJ75 MOBILE PHONES, PAGERS and any Bep Vriend Carla Arnolds {AQJ872 {K54 communication devices. Anneke Simons ]AK987 Jet Pasman [3 Line-up Fumke Hoogweg }9862 The first named team, the Home team, {963 China will sit NS in the Open Room and EW Gu Ling in the Closed Room. However, the Zhang Yalan (Wong) (Wong) Visiting team has NO OBLIGATION Wang Wenfei West North East South to fill in the line-up form first. In fact, Wang Hongli Pass BOTH HOME AND VISITING Liu Yiqian 1{*1]2}3] TEAMS must complete their line-up 5 Wang Ping 4{ Pass 4] Pass MINUTES BEFORE the start of that 4NT Pass 5{(1-4) Pass match. Round Robin Qualifying 6{ All Pass 1. Netherlands 91 VP Filling of Pick-up Slips 2. Italy 90 VP * Precision 3. China 72 VP 4] agreed {s & showed a ] control North/South is responsible for re- 4. USA 69 VP cording clearly the result of the 5. Indonesia 65 VP 4NT was RKC played on the pick-up slip before 6. Ger/Swe 63 VP East/West could agree the score by Semi finals (48 boards) Netherlands initialing the slip. It is important that defeated USA 88-75 imps (Vriend) (Arnolds) West North East South pick-up slips are properly completed China defeated Italy 174 – 99 imps Pass so that we could produce official re- Finals (64 boards) China defeated 1{ Pass 1[ 1] sults timely for you to agree on. Netherlands 120-94 imps Play off (32 boards) Italy defeated USA 4{* Pass 4} Pass 82-50 imps 5NT Pass 6{(1-4) Pass Agreement of Results First prize $15,000US Second $7,000US 6[ All Pass The Team Captains are responsible for Third place $3,000US agreeing and signing the official result * Showed 4[s & 6{s at the Result Table BEFORE THE END (Rematch of 2003 Venice Cup Final) OF NEXT MATCH. Although the offi- Challenge Match between USA and cial results may have been signed by China $5,000US As can be seen 6[s has no play but 6{s is easy - another triumph for Pre- one of the two teams only, they will be 64 boards China 193 imps USA 89 cision. deemed FINAL and CONCLUSIVE imps unless discrepancies are reported to Tournament Director by the other team.

2 HONG KONG INTER-CITY 2004 The Hong Kong Inter-City has a remarkable place in history

HE HONG KONG Inter-City was contained about 12 teams, including Tlaunched in 1980. To find out China but not Taiwan. Hong Kong more about this, we went straight won. to the man who was in the center of The next year, the HKCBA went to Patrick Choy is a member of the action at the time, Patrick Choy. great length to try and bring Taiwan the Chinese Peoples Political This is what Choy had to say. into the event. Patrick Choy, Vice Consultative Committee, the It is a remarkable story in that it doc- Chairman of the HKCBA and Chair- Upper House of the Chinese uments the assimilation of China into man of the Organizing Committee Parliament. He is the first the world bridge community. Fur- that year, visited Taiwan no less multinational Corporation ex- thermore, the success that bridge had than four times for this purpose. He ecutive to be so honoured. in overcoming political barriers be- made the case that the consequence He has recently retired as a came a benchmark for other sports as of no contact is isolation. The Tai- Corporate Vice President of they pursued similar ends. wan bridge players, who were the US communication giant, In 1979, bridge was not recognized in amongst the best in the world at the Motorola. China and China was not a member time, were very keen to play but He has been the Vice Presi- of the FEBF and WBF. During that they needed approval from their dent of the World Bridge year, a delegation from Hong Kong government. Federation since 1998. He has went to Beijing for a friendly game of This was no easy feat because the long been a driving force in bridge and to discuss the steps to Government policy at the time was the HKCBA and he has occu- have bridge approved at government no contact. To be more precise, they pied many offices. He now level. Later in 1979, a letter was sent could not compete with China di- lives in Singapore. to the Chinese leader, Deng rectly, only indirectly. For instance, 1 Xiaoping , making the case for China they could run in a 100 metre race to recognize bridge. but they couldn’t wrestle each other. well perhaps affected their perfor- Deng was the logical target because So Choy was required to show that mance and one team was knocked he was known to have a keen interest bridge was not a direct competition. out in the round robin and the other in bridge. Nevertheless, it was a He cleverly made the case that the was defeated by China in the semi brave step because China was not person directly opposite you at final. Hong Kong defeated China in long out of the Cultural Revolution bridge is your partner, and that the final. and bridge was seen as a capitalist your real opponents are the players game. in your seats at the other table. In To avoid a swirl of spectators at the But the response was quite remark- other words, bridge is indirect com- table, the HKCBA provided a able. Deng not only read the letter, he petition. Another smart aspect of the vu-graph, a rare commodity any- also approved “Bridge as a sport”, HKCBA initiative was to make it where in at that and ensured that it would fall under Inter-City, not Inter-country. This time. Claude Rodrigue from Eng- the wing of the Ministry of Sport. diluted the sense of nationalism. land was brought in at the last moment as the commentator. Furthermore, senior Government offi- Presumably, the Taiwanese presi- cials were appointed to the Chinese dent, Chiang Ching Kuo accepted Later in 1981, China joined the Bridge Association. this and in a great step forward both . Wan Li, who was the Executive Vice China and Taiwan took part in the Premier of China at the time became 1981 Inter-City. 1. Deng Xiaping was born in 1904, the CBA President and Yung Guo Keen to avoid politicizing the event, thus we are now in the 100th year Tong, who was the Secretary General China sent one team from Shanghai since he was born. of the Advisory Committee, became but none from Beijing. “Jing” means He was the chief architect of the the CBA Chairman. capital and that might have proved Chinese economic reform and mod- Despite all this, China remained iso- controversial. ernisation. He was elected as the lated in the bridge community. In Taiwan was keen to win so they Honary Chairman of the CBA in the 1980, the HKCBA had the bright idea sent two teams, which included mid-80s, a position he held until he of the Hong Kong Inter-City to help most of their leading players. How- died in 1997. bring the Chinese into the interna- ever, the pressure that was tional bridge arena. The first event undoubtedly placed on them to do

HONG KONG INTER-CITY 2004 3 What The players' market for 2004

happened The Inter-City may be a friendly competion but doing well still matters. The seeding by the organsers is the official market but it is the players who have their hands on the pulse so we asked each captain to rate his or her top in 2003 five teams. Here is how they ranked the teams: AST YEAR the Inter-City was Open top 10: Lheld in November, postponed in August because of SARS. It was held at the Regal Kowloon Total Marks Hotel and numbers were down by about 20%, which is not bad under 35 the circumstances. 30 25 Twenty two teams started in the 20 Total Marks Open. The finals was between the 15 10 Inter-City’s most successful AIA 5 team consisting of Edmond Tse, 0 Patrick Huang, C. H. Kuo, Derek Zen, Samuel Wan and Peter Chun Teramoto Big Boys Slam Dunk and the Guangzhou Lijian team of Yeh Brothers Tokyo Mikiko Yue Lin, Chen Ji En, Yu Shu Rong, Yuan Mian Long, Li Yong Quan and Zhang Guang Yang. After 64 Youth: boards, the closely contested affair saw the AIA team victorious by 29 Total Marks imps. Of the four Ladies Teams a very 30 close match was fought out be- 25 tween the Hong Kong Po Shun 20 Technology team of Yan Ru, Sun 15 Total Marks Yan Hui, Zhou Li Hua, Xu Su 10 Hong, Wu Xiao Pian and Ying 5 Hong and the Leonora team of Wang Li Ping, Wang Wen Fei, Lu 0 Qin, Gu Ling and Bao Wan Xian.

The winners by 8 imps was the HK Ruby HK Jade Hong Kong Po Shun Technology Taipei Youth Japan Youth HK Sapphire Rose BowlRose SilverPolyU Bowl Gold Light 1290 team. Tohoku University Rose Bowl Bronze The Youth section saw three local teams battle it out. The two finalists World champion Americans stop in Hong Kong en route to IDG Friendship Cup were Our Future, consisting of L. H. Chin, Alick Ng, Y. C. Lai, Baron Nancy Neumann, Kathy Wei, Ng, Tony Lau and Leung Cheuk Tobi Sokolow, Sue Picus, Hin and the 3L team of Lo Wing Betty-Ann Kenedy, Janice Ho, Wilson Mok, K. C. Li, C. W. Seamon-Molson, Shirley Chan, Sunny Lam and Rex Cheung. Chang. The aptly named team of Our Fu- They played 36 boards ture were comfortable winners. against HKCBA and lost!

4 HONG KONG INTER-CITY 2004