Finally, first place for Romaric and me!

A festival for the youth… and their coaches

Here MKB for a new bridge weekend, this time in Prague!

I have already played there once, for the Winter Games (Romaric was also my partner). This time, a less competitive but more convivial event was awaiting us, since it was a festival gathering teams from all across Europe, with players aged 10 to 26.

The Prague Youth Bridge Festival was held on 14-17 November in parallel to the Youth Coach Seminar. The EBL invited coaches and trainers to a 2-day seminar, with very clear objectives:

To share ideas for promoting bridge among young players,
To discuss teaching methods,
And to reflect on gender parity in bridge and how to keep young players motivated in the long run.

We, as French players, were only there to participate in the Junior event. But it was really exciting to see this seminar taking place next to us, with people thinking about passing on, while the youth were playing. We felt like this weekend had been designed as a whole: not just a competition, but an opportunity to make European junior bridge move forward.

Milan Macura’s key role

Clearly, this festival would never have happened without Milan Macura, who played a big part in organising it.

For Funbridge players, Milan is already a familiar figure. But seeing him in action in the field, surrounded by dozens of young players, gives another dimension to who he is. He was literally everywhere at once: he coordinated the event, welcomed the teams, liaised with the coach seminar, discussed with the captains, kept track of the results, etc.

We can tell that he attaches great importance to sharing his passion with the new generation, creating a nice atmosphere for playing, teaching and finding motivation. This kind of profile is invaluable to bridge, and not just junior bridge.

The only French team in a European event

We were the only French team there that weekend.

Our team was made up of Romaric Guth, my partner at last summer’s World Junior Championships, Arthur Libbrecht and Romain Bloch, and our captain Vanessa Reess.

About 40 teams coming from Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, Belgium and Switzerland attended the festival. What struck me was the number of female players, especially in the U16 and U21 categories. When you know how hard it is to reach male-female parity in bridge, it’s very encouraging to see so many mixed teams. 💗

Now is your turn to play! Here is a deal in competitive auction from this weekend.
You will see Romaric’s score and my comments at the end of the deal.

Play deal

What was on during that weekend?

Friday evening: Welcome Pairs, in a quite relaxed atmosphere, open to all (including coaches).
Saturday: Main Pairs, with two age categories (U18 and U26), while the coach seminar kicked off in parallel.
Sunday: Swiss Teams, with all teams together, and day 2 of the seminar.
Monday morning: finals by age categories, including the U26 final for which we had qualified.

The bridge sessions ended quite early in the afternoon, which gave us time to do some sightseeing in Prague.

The U26 Teams final: 3 matches, 1 title

Let’s be honest, I was really not in good shape for the Pairs event. The lack of sleep didn’t help to count up to 13! Hopefully, I was probably playing with the most indulgent partner I’ve ever known. My silly mistakes make Roro laugh, and I know he won’t scold me as other players would. 😇

The Swiss Teams took place on Sunday, with 8-deal matches and all categories mixed up. The atmopshere was very relaxed, as in the Pairs, and maybe even more as we were getting to know each other better. And most importantly, our big bag of sweets kept us going all weekend.

The real competition started on Monday morning with the U26 Teams final.

The format was as follows:

3 matches of 10 deals,
a 4-team round-robin (France, Hungary, Czech Republic, Turkey),
no carry-over (you play from scratch).

Throughout the three matches, we really felt like we were playing well. Overall, we made good decisions, our card play was solid, we were careful when defending, and we had a really nice team.

Now is your turn to play! Here is an interesting auction from a U26 final deal.
You will see our score and my comments at the end of the deal.

Play deal

A bad distribution in 3NT

I was sitting South with this hand. I first bid 1♠ over 1♣, which is recommended despite the long diamond suit when you have a weak hand.

Romaric then reversed into 2♥. I have a minimum hand and a complete misfit in both his suits… I really don’t want to play in 3NT if he holds a minimum hand, neither do I want to play in 3♣.

I started by bidding 2NT, which in the French standard system slows the auction down with weak or intermediate hands. Romaric said 3♣, which is non-forcing, with a minimum hand. I showed my diamonds and a weak hand with the 3♦ non-forcing bid.

Romaric, with the singleton diamond and a good source of club tricks tried 3NT. Unfortunately, it was impossible to make with KJx sitting over ace-queen…

I had played a club to the queen. So I win with the king onside and the clubs 3-2, or the bare jack sitting over. The 10 of clubs is better for finessing against the king only with the jack-third onside.

We won the final by a comfortable margin, which concluded the weekend in Prague in the best possible way.

At the prize-giving ceremony, we had our somewhat solemn moment: the French national anthem. Solemn on paper only because vocally, let’s say that it was not our greatest technical performance. We sang a little too loud, a little out of tune, and I think that the video will remain safely hidden in our phones.