Team Funbridge is at the Pula Festival! Full recap!
Follow Team Funbridge’s adventure on this page, it will be regularly updated !
Day #2 : A day full of sudden changes and fun!
Day #3 : When redouble helps one win!
Day #4: Exploring the town and the first place for Léo and Margaux in the Mixed Pairs!
Day #5: Team Red, Team Yellow and the submarine technique.
After the Winter Games in Alpe d’Huez, the Marit Sveaas tournament in Bodø, the World Youth Transnational Championships in Poland and a festival in Norway, Funbridge is now sending its Junior team to the Pula Festival that will be played from 14th to 21st September!
Located on the Adriatic coast in Croatia, the city of Pula offers an ideal setting for the festival. Known for its exceptional historic heritage, and especially its famous Roman amphitheatre, as well as its picturesque beaches and Mediterranean climate, Pula perfectly combines relaxation and culture.
Andrea Nilsson, Federica Dalpozzo, Andreas Abragi, Finn Kolesnik, Léo Rombaut, Sofie Græsholt Sjødal and Margaux Kurek Beaulieu will be representing the Funbridge community there. This bridge festival is one of the most attended in Europe, attracting players of all levels, from amateurs to international champions. Every year it gathers together bridge enthusiasts from all over the world for several days of fierce competition in a very friendly atmosphere.
Andrea Nilsson aka
ANDREW
Federica Dalpozzo aka
CHICCA
Andreas Abragi aka
ABRAGI
Finn Kolesnik aka
THE MACHINE
Léo Rombaut aka
LÉLÉ
Sofie Graesholt Sjødal aka
SOFIE
Margaux Kurek-Beaulieu aka
M.K.B.
The festival consists of several tournaments: Pairs IMP, Mixed Teams, Open Pairs, Board-A-Match… But the main event, taking place over 3 days, is certainly the Open Teams from 18th to 20th September. It is also worth noting that there will be two daily sessions instead of one as it is usually seen in European festivals, setting an intense pace.
Day #1: IMP pairs tournament plus a visit to the Pula aquarium
The majority of Team Funbridge members have now arrived in Pula. The Pula festival started on Saturday with an IMP pairs tournament. Finn played with Andreas, Sofie with Federica, and Léo partnered Alessandro Carletti, who is not a
member of the team, but who has kindly agreed to complete it this week in order to ensure we are a team of 8.
Team Funbridge has got off to a good start, with Finn and Andreas in 4th place,and Sofie and Federica in 9th. 140 pairs participated, so it was an excellent performance!
A deal from the day’s play:
Sofie chose to open 1♦ giving an extra value to her fifth Diamond, aiming to show 18-19 points in an otherwise balanced hand. Federica replied with 1♠, and they played in 4♠
Federica received a Heart lead taken with the Ace by East, who then returned a Club. She then played a Diamond to dummy’s Ace, followed by the Diamond Queen covered by East’s King, ruffed in hand. And, as she also captured the Queen of Spades, she amassed 12 tricks and was rewarded with a very good score.
Sessions begin at different times each day, and today we started at 8 pm, so we had plenty of time for other activities earlier in the day. Unfortunately, the weather today was not yet sufficiently warm to entice anyone for a swim, but we were able to explore a little. The site is right by the seaside and thus we have an excellent view.
In addition, between our hotel and the tournament location, there is an aquarium which Sofie decided to visit enabling her to observe several interesting
specimens.
Day #2 : A day full of sudden changes and fun!
Day #2’s program : Mixed and open teams.
Federica Dalpozzo & Sofie Graesholt Sjødal, Funbridge Team members, share their thoughts on the second day of the festival.
Day #3 : Board A Match – When redouble helps one win.
This time, Team Funbridge, divided into two teams, played a BAM:one team featured Federica, Sofie, Alessandro and Andreas, and the other Léo, Finn, Andrea and Margaux. The second group fared the better of the two, finishing 11th out of 57 teams, just 4 points off the podium.
A hand for Margaux, playing with Andrea, where suit preference signalling helped defeat 3NT:
East was playing the contract and I was on lead as South. I decided to lead the 5 of Hearts, giving the count, as that is how Andrea and I normally play. Andrea took the lead with the Queen and saw that the Jack dropped from East. She knew this was a singleton because I would never lead from a singleton when she herself has never mentioned the suit.
So she played a small Heart for my 10 with dummy ducking again. I replayed Hearts, with the dummy ducking once more and now Andrea, since she can take the trick either with the King or the 9, has to indicate how to find her so that she can cash her fifth Heart.
Holding the Ace of Diamonds, she played the 9 of Hearts, followed by the 2 to make the situation even clearer. Thus, when I won the Ace of Clubs, I was able to lead a small Diamond for her Ace, enabling us to take four Hearts, one Diamond and one Club. So, 3NT went down 2, whilst at the other table Léo made 3NT +3!!
Two hands described by Léo, playing with Finn:
« The bid of 2 Hearts shows three cards, a shortage of Diamonds and a basic opening bid. Despite my meagre 9 points and only a seven-card fit, I believed I had only good reasons to bid 4 Hearts – an Ace opposite the shortage in Diamonds, a fit in Clubs, J109 of Hearts, etc. In addition, 4 Hearts was going to be easier to make than 5 Clubs and would be worth more.
I let the heart lead come round to the Jack in my hand. I then wanted to establish the Clubs before drawing trumps because I was afraid of a trump reduction from the defence’s Diamonds. I led a Club to the Queen and saw that North dropped the Jack, making me think that the Clubs were 2-2. Then I played a low Spade to my 10 which held, as South did not insert an honour with KQ. So I forced out the Ace of Clubs and prayed that trumps were 3-3. Jackpot, eleven tricks! The bid of 2 Hearts from Finn was clearly inspired. »
« Competitive bidding this time: North decided to pass, Finn opened with 1 Heart and South doubled. We hadn’t really discussed any system for this and so, to simplify matters and to frustrate our opponents, I bid 4 Hearts. North realised that he had a seven-card club suit and bid 5 Clubs. Finn raised to 5 Hearts, followed by Pass, Pass and North decided to double. Pass, Pass and, having promised Alessandro that I would redouble today, I considered this to be the ideal opportunity 🙂
So I redouble, everyone passes, and Finn amasses twelve tricks without any difficulty, ruffing two Clubs in dummy and abandoning one Spade to the opposition. For once in a BAM tournament, redoubling was extremely useful because, at the other table, our opponents were one of the only pairs to have found and made the contract of 6 Hearts. 980 points for them against 1200 for us! (Without the redouble, 5 Hearts doubled +1 gives 750 points only, which would have meant we lose the hand!) »
Evening #3: Despite the fact that bridge players are not allowed to keep their conventions under their hats we decided to throw convention to the wind!
Knowing that we could sleep late the next morning, we all went to the karaoke and hat evening, wearing some really exotic hats!
Day #4: Exploring the town and the first place for Léo and Margaux in the Mixed Pairs!
With the tournament not starting until 8pm, we had plenty of time to appreciate the charms of the centre of Pula. Pula is a treasure trove of ancient Roman ruins with the Pula Arena, the Temple of Augustus, the Arch of the Sergii, etc.
Mixed Pairs related by Margaux
8pm, time to concentrate on the Mixed Pairs! The pairs: Andrea-Finn, Federica and Sibrand van Oosten, Sofie and her partner Pato, with Léo as my partner, playing together for the first time. We had Sofie and Pato as our very first opponents and, later, we would come across our merry talisman commentator.
The first place for Léo and Margaux!
Despite my enormous howler at the very first hand we managed to come first out of 109 pairs! Andrea and Finn started extremely well with 66% after 22 hands, but unfortunately, this was followed by two tables at 10%, which sadly cost them a place on the podium.
Day #5 : Team Red, Team Yellow and the submarine technique.
Today, the main Teams event got under way. 81 teams were playing, with Funbridge supplying two: Team Red with Fede/Ale and Margaux/Sofie, and Team Yellow featuring Finn/Andrea and Léo/Andreas.
Team Red made a great start with a comfortable win, but then suffered a series of difficulties for the rest of the day. Team Yellow went in the opposite direction and tried the submarine technique, very effective in Swiss Teams events (losing the first few matches involuntarily in order to play against weaker opposition later).
Tomorrow, Team Yellow will play in semi-final A and Team Red will try to finish in the top two in semi-final B in order to be kept in the competition.
A hand very well played by Léo, explained by partner Andreas:
« Léo found himself declarer in a contract of 3♣ in East and received the lead of the Jack of Spades. He took this with his King and played the Ace of Clubs. With the King dropping from South the distribution of this suit was clear. He then played a Spade for the 10, the Queen and the Ace, setting up dummy’s 9. North returned a Heart which Léo took with the Ace.
He then played the Jack of Hearts putting South on lead. South played a Diamond for North’s Ace who returned another Diamond. Léo won, eschewing the finesse, and again put South on lead by playing another Diamond. South was then obliged to lead Hearts in ruff and discard.
Léo ruffed in dummy and, when North discarded, he under-ruffed (!) with a Club in hand. He then cashed the 9 of Spades. Then the 10 of Clubs also won. With two remaining cards in the suit, North, holding J4, is held in Léo’s Q8 tenace.
9 tricks for Léo who really played all four hands! »
Day #6 – End of the Swiss Teams event
A quick recap of the previous two days in glorious weather.
Today was the final day of the Team Championship in Pula. The top 8 teams qualified for final A. It was a very fun and competitive tournament, but unfortunately none of the teams made it through to final A.
Days 7 & 8 : The Open Pairs brings the festival to a close
Nicolai Hieberg-Evenstad, alias “Nic”, did not join Team Funbridge in Pula because he was playing in the Norwegian National Pairs final, for which one qualifies through one’s region or via another national event. Nicolai qualified by winning last year’s Junior Pairs, and was therefore playing – over three days – with his junior partner Markus Lund.
After 105 boards out of 159, they are in the lead, with almost 2 percentage points more than their closest rivals. Here in Pula we are right behind Nicolai, and sincerely hope he wins!
Meanwhile, this time our four pairs were playing in the Open Pairs over two days, with six sessions of ten boards. Our teams were: Federica playing again with Alessandro, Sofie playing with Finn for the first time, and two Franco-Swedish pairings with Andrea-Léo and Andreas-Margaux.
The grand slam made and described by Andreas
“After a slight misunderstanding, Margaux and I arrived at 7NT which I played as South. West led the 4 of Hearts (as 4th highest). I had several options. It seemed natural to win with the Ace of Hearts and to play the King of Diamonds, followed by a small Diamond to the Ace, Queen, Jack, etc. But if the Diamonds break 5-1, I would not have sufficient entries to dummy to cash all the spades that would be necessary (in any case, the suit would be blocked even if the finesse of the Queen worked). I therefore decided to play a Diamond to the Ace, followed by a second Diamond to the King.”
Andreas playing 7NT.
“This enabled me to be in the right hand if the Diamond split was unfavourable. Fortunately, the Diamonds were just 3-3. So I cashed Ace, King and Queen of Clubs and ran the Diamonds. Position with 4 cards left:
At this stage, I crossed to the King of Spades, cashed the King of Hearts and led a Spade, with East playing low. I was now fairly sure about the split of the suit and so took the finesse of the Queen to make the contract.
There were several possibilities for a squeeze but, in this type of situation, one’s feeling at the table is crucial. Basing my choice on the opponents’ playing tempo and their discards, the finesse in Spades seemed to me to be the best option.”
Finally, the four pairs from Team Funbridge finished 48th, 49th, 89th and 102nd out of 198 pairs.
Thus, the festival has come to an end, and we learn that Nicolai has gone on to win the Norwegian Pairs! We are all truly delighted for him.
An award for Team Funbridge
In addition, at the awards ceremony, the festival presented us a with a cup to thank Funbridge for sending its players to take part in the 2024 edition of the event.
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