A look back at the Cavendish 2017

The fifth edition of the prestigious Cavendish took place in Monaco from 14 February to 19 February.

This tournament with large entry fees brought together most of the finest world players.

22 teams competed in the first three days. Zia Mahmood’s team made up of 4 Americans (Zia Mahmood, Steve Weinstein, John Hurd and Vincent Demuy) won after topping the rankings during the first two days. The semi-final proved to be more difficult since they won by one point only: 46/45! The final was closely fought with a win on the last two deals and a final score of 87/74.

Teams – Winners of the 2017 edition:

1. Mahmood (USA)
2. Wigoder (Poland)
3. Zimmerman (Monaco) and Mossop (England)

The Cavendish pairs was held over three days too. Pairs were auctioned off based on their expected results. This year the auction pool for the 64 pairs reached 477,000 Euros! The top bid (25,000 Euros) was for the great Norwegian champions Geir Helgemo and Tor Helness. Participants included the Danish poker champion Gus Hansen who finished in a mid-table position.

After two days of elimination rounds, the last day involving the 22 top-ranked pairs proved to be decisive. Funbridge Team member Jérôme Rombaut and his partner François Combescure ranked high (8^th) when the last day of competition kicked off, but they didn’t manage to reach the podium.

Victory went to the Bulgarian pair Diyan Danailov and Jerry Stamatov, bought for 12,000 Euros “only”. 100,000 Euros went to their happy owner.

Pairs – Winners of the 2017 edition:

1. Diyan Danailov & Jerry Stamatov (Bulgaria)
2. Marc Bompis & Hervé Vinciguerra (France)
3. Tom Van Overbeeke & Maarten Schollaardt (Netherlands)

More information at http://www.cavendish.bridgemonaco.com/