The 2024 World Bridge Games come to an end.
This article will be updated very regularly so that you can follow the adventures of the members of Team Funbridge as if you were there.
A competition that only takes place every four years
Funbridge represented in three categories!
Day 1: arrival and opening ceremony
Day 2: a good start with four wins!
Day 5: All to play for as round robin nears conclusion
Day 8 : Olivia qualified for the quarter-finals with the Americans!
Day 9: Olivia is heading to the semi-finals!
Day 11 : A tour of the Recoleta Cemetery for Margaux, whilst Sofie plays in the Women’s Pairs
A competition that only takes place every four years
The World Bridge Games take place once every four years. In 2012 they were held in Lille, France and in 2016 in Wrocław, Poland. These are world championships organised by the WBF, but they differ from those held every other summer. In a way, these are Bridge Olympics and a very prestigious competition. This year, they are being held in Buenos Aires.
https://www.voyage-argentine.com/
Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is a city full of energy, where culture, tango and history meet. Known for its unique atmosphere and lively neighbourhoods, it’s a must-see in Latin America.
Each country can field its national teams in four categories: Open, Women, Mixed and Seniors. 35 teams have registered for the Open, the flagship category. There will be 29 teams in the Mixed event, and 24 in the Women and Seniors categories. All the continents have sent teams, although as usual there will be a majority of European teams.
The competition kicks off on Tuesday 22 October and ends on Sunday 3 November. The first week consists of round robins. Knockout matches qualifying for the semifinals and then the final are run during the second week.
Funbridge represented in three categories!
Five members of Team Funbridge will be in Buenos Aires to defend their country’s colours at the World Bridge Games! Olivia will be part of the American Women’s team, Léo and Margaux of the French Open and Women’s teams, and Sofie and Nicolai will be playing together in the Norwegian Mixed team.
For more info about Team Funbridge (its members, the various events in which they have participated, etc.): Team Funbridge is seeking to conquer the world!
Hello, this is Margaux Kurek-Beaulieu from Team Funbridge, writing in from Buenos Aires. I shall be describing the World Bridge Games from the point of view of the French women’s team of which I am a member. 😉
The team is almost the same as the one which played in the European Championships: Anne-Laure Tartarin, Carole Puillet, Marion Canonne, who will not be partnering Donatella Halfon but is teaming up with Mathilde Thuillez this time, Anaïs Leleu and myself. Plus, of course, we are in the hands of our captain Stéphane Garcia, who was quite splendid the last time.
Day 1: arrival and opening ceremony
Having arrived late on Sunday evening, Monday has seen us getting into the Argentinian rhythm and, of course, revising our bidding systems (150 pages for Anaïs and me, against 22 for Anne-Laure and Carole!).
In the evening, we attended the very entertaining opening ceremony where we were treated to a tango demonstration to get us into the swing of things!
Day 2: a good start with four wins!
What better than a huge match to start the competition? We were up against the Norwegians, against whom we lost in the European Championships – we finished as silver medallists, just one victory point behind the gold medallists. We won the match by 2 IMPs, which was a real morale booster!
Here’s an interesting defence found by Carole and Anne-Laure:
The auction:
*1NT forcing
Lead: two of hearts.
A small heart was played from dummy and Carole’s nine won the trick. Carole then played the queen of hearts (from AKQ) to signal an honour in clubs. On this, Anne-Laure played the six (from her remaining 86) to signal also for clubs. Carole took her time to decide whether the six of hearts was a small card, and then calmly played the king of clubs.
If Carole does not play clubs, declarer draws trumps, abandoning the jack-fourth, and runs the diamonds to discard her losing club. With Carole’s club return, the declarer played three rounds of spades and attacked the diamonds hoping that West, holding the master trump, would not ruff on the third round of diamonds, enabling her to discard her losing club.
NB: if, when the queen of hearts was played, Anne-Laure had supplied the eight, this would not reasonably have been a preference for diamonds, because it would be highly unlikely to call for that suit given the diamond strength in dummy, but rather a denial of strength in clubs (neither king nor queen). Carole could then have tried a small club, hoping to see the jack appear opposite and that declarer would mess things up (this last point is rather complicated).
A fine defence to defeat 4 spades!
We followed this with three wins, first against Chile, then against Ireland and Spain, who are not among the strongest teams.
A question of the lead against the Spaniards:
I decided to lead the queen of hearts because it is always a bit irksome to lead from the minors following such an auction. Result: the five cards that gave the declarer her contract were the five cards in the majors – so much for the lead analysis!
North won with the king, took my jack of hearts in the obvious finesse and proceeded to set up the spades.
We ended the first day fourth out of 24 teams, just 3VPs below those in second place.
Sofie and Nicolai, Team Funbridge’s two Norwegians, are currently in second place in the Mixed event, as is Léo in the Open with the French team (the teams in the Open tournament are divided into two groups).
Day 3: really tough matches!
Today we played against 4 teams which are currently in the top 8 in the competition – the Australians against whom we lost by twenty-odd IMPs, then the Chinese and the Dutch (victories by 9 and 30 IMPs respectively), ending against the Swedes (narrow defeat by 4 IMPs).
Overall, we are happy with the day, which we consider to be positive, considering the really tough opponents we faced!
At this stage, the French Open team lies 3rd in their group just 7 victory points behind the leaders and with 13 VPs above the cut for the round of 32. The Seniors are 2nd with 16 VPs above the cut and the Mixed team lies 13th after a difficult start. However, for the moment they are among the qualifiers. As for us, we ended the day 7th in the Women’s tournament, having played one match more than those in 8th place.
For Team Funbridge members, Léo lies 2nd in the Open, Nicolai and Sofie are also 2nd, and Olivia 14th with 7 VPs above the cut, after recovering from the first day with a much better performance today. Good luck to them all!
In the evening, it was out to the restaurant for Ladies’ night (reduction for all-ladies tables). As you can imagine, perfect for our team.
Anaïs counting out the pesos at the table.
Day 4: A real roller-coaster!
Today, we had two losses – against two strong teams, the Poles and the Turks – and two large wins against the Japanese and the South Africans. In the match with the Polish team, I was playing against Anna Zareba and her partner, against whom I have been accustomed to playing in the Girls’ team.
A difficult 3NT – both to make and to defeat:
The auction:
West led the king of diamonds. I had seven top tricks – four spades, two hearts and a diamond. I therefore had to find the missing two tricks. With a favourable 3-3 split of the hearts, I could hope to make my fourth heart, and I could make my king of clubs if the ace were to be onside.
So, I ducked the king and the queen of diamonds, keeping the ace-9 tenace with West still holding 10xx. West switched to the queen of hearts, which I also ducked. My king of clubs is now protected, so I could now test the hearts without losing control. She continued with hearts. I took this in dummy with the ace and East discarded a spade revealing the unfavourable split, West starting with five diamonds and five hearts!
I still had my seven top tricks. To make the contract, I also needed both to win the king of clubs and to be able to put West on lead to have a chance of making my two remaining diamonds. But if I cashed my spades at this point, I would need to find a discard in hand. Clearly, I could neither throw a club, nor a heart nor even a diamond, without endangering the ability to endplay West. So, I chose not to run the spades at this stage and, instead, after the ace of hearts, I played a small club to the king in hand, which won the trick. Now I could breathe a bit more easily!
Only now did I run the spades, discarding the losing club in hand. And West is now without hope! If she discards any red card, mine will be a winner, and if she throws her club (which is what happened), I endplay her by playing a heart to the king and a heart. In this way, I make my two diamonds.
Finding the right defence to beat this contract was not easy at all. To do this, Anna, sitting East, should absolutely rise with the ace of clubs and return another club. I then lack the necessary communication for the endplay because I no longer have a suitable discard on the spade. Not easy, but decipherable given that she knows that partner was 5-5 in the red suits.
Here’s the full deal:
Day 5: All to play for as round robin nears conclusion
After getting the day off to a flying start by beating the USA (15.5 VPs out of 20), we suffered a narrow defeat by New Zealand. We followed that up with a win over Mexico before losing to Italy. However, one board from the match against the Italians is still under review and we stand to gain 10 IMPs if it goes our way, handing us a 2-IMP win.
Photo : Olivia, Team Funbridge’s American representative, who is also competing in the Women’s category
A sound sacrifice by Anne-Laure and Carole:
The French pair found a fine sacrifice in the last deal of the match against Italy. After North’s 1NT opening, Anne-Laure in East decided to overcall 2S (showing five spades and at least a four-card minor), spurred on by her singleton heart, her partner’s initial pass and the vulnerability (green vs red). Knowing that the opponents were likely to have a game on, the aim was to disrupt their bidding and pave the way for a possible sacrifice.
Following the take-out double, Carole raised to 3S based on the nine-card fit. Then, when the opponents bid to 4H and her partner passed rather than doubling, she opted to sacrifice, reasoning that she had no defensive values and the vulnerability was favourable.
4S doubled went down two, equating to -300 instead of -620 for 4H: an 8-IMP swing to France! It is worth noting that 5H goes off because of the diamond ruff.
We are currently 9th out of 24 in the standings. Our aim is to finish in the top four, which brings the bonus of getting to pick your opponents in the round of 32. We are only 13 VPs off fourth place, so the chase is on!
Days 6 and 7: qualification for the Round of 16 for all the French teams and members of Team Funbridge!
After 23 matches of 12 boards, we finished 8th after winning the last match – against the Canadians – by 20 VPs to 0 (the maximum possible), which means that we shall meet the Americans tomorrow in the Round of 16, i.e. the team with Olivia.
Below, the line-ups for the Round of 16, with the Open in blue, the Women in pink, the Seniors in green and the Mixed in orange. These will be played as follows: the winner of match 1 will play the winner of match 2, the winner of which will play the winner of the 3+4 combination, and so on. This will mean that, in each category, the grand finale will be between a team from the top half of the table against a team from the bottom half.
Update from Sofie and Nicolai from the Norwegian Mixed team!
This is Sofie’s account of a board from a match against France in the Mixed event:
“On the opening day of the competition, we faced France in our last match, which was broadcast on the BBO Vugraph. The match felt tightly poised as we went into the final board, in which I picked up a nice 5-5.
I opened 1♠. Both sides were vulnerable, and he did not want to pass, but he also feared I would bid too aggressively if he showed spade support. He therefore opted for 1NT, which would normally deny a fit in my major. I showed a game-forcing hand with 5-5 in the majors after a Gazzilli sequence, and we wound up in 4♠.
A club was led, which was taken by my ace. Needing to avoid losing a trick to the queen of either spades or hearts, I started by cashing the ace and king of spades, on which the queen did not fall. Sticking to my plan, I proceeded to play the ace of hearts, dropping West’s queen. Pleased to see that my contract was guaranteed, I stopped to ponder whether I could safely play for any overtricks. That pause set nerves jangling among some of our fans, as Pierre Schmidt had false-carded from Q10 and they were concerned that I might be tempted to try a heart finesse, but I was committed to ruffing a heart, so there was nothing to worry about. Still, it is always good to keep the kibitzers on the edge of their seats. I ultimately took 10 tricks, making it +620 for us.
The full deal :
We finished a couple of hands before our team-mates, so we were able to follow their fortunes at the end. We were down 8 IMPs going into the final board, meaning that we needed a big swing. The auction began identically at the other table, with West passing and North opening 1♠, after which East passed and South hesitated for a moment. We were gathered outside yelling “pass!” and the French player duly obliged. However, Ranja (the Norwegian player sitting West) had a good diamond suit and, as a passed hand, it was perfectly feasible that she might balance by bidding 2♦, which could have pushed the opponents into game. So, there we were again screaming “pass, pass, pass!”. Fortunately, she too heard our prayers and passed. A score of -170 earned us 10 IMPs, so we ended up winning the match by 2 IMPs.”
Day 8 : Olivia qualified for the quarter-finals with the Americans!
Sadly, it was the Americans who won the battle with the French. It was a deserved win as, overall, they were better on the day, and we wish them all the best in the next round!
Here’s Ollie with an interesting hand against Anne-Laure and Carole:
“I ended up in a delicate 3NT contract in North and received the worst possible lead of the three of diamonds. To preserve my entries in hand to be able to establish the hearts, I took the lead in dummy. I then played a heart to the queen, taken by East with the ace. Anne-Laure continued with a diamond, which I took with the 10 to keep the entry in hand. I followed this with the jack of hearts which Carole, sitting West, took with the king.
On the third round of diamonds I won with the ace, cashed my two winning hearts, and then exited with a club. Anne-Laure took this with the ace and, after cashing her winning diamond, was obliged to play spades, which gave me the queen in dummy and the clubs. An interesting hand and, let’s be honest, a fortunate initial distribution.
Looking at the full hand, West could have beaten the contract by taking the king of hearts on the first round, leaving East with the ace, to play through the ten of diamonds and avoid giving up an extra entry. Another line would have been for West to play clubs when in hand with the king of hearts – but that is impossible to find.”
As for us, the French women’s team will play in the ‘transnational’, which is a sort of consolation competition, in which the teams eliminated from the official tournament join forces with local devotees of international competitions and certain very good players who prefer this particular event.
Day 9: Olivia is heading to the semi-finals!
Unfortunately, in the mixed team event, Norway lost to Poland.
Since Léo and I have been eliminated in the round of 16, Olivia is the only member of Team Funbridge still in the running for the semi-finals!
She and her team-mates beat Hong Kong China 226-92. We really want her to win a medal, which would be a great achievement for her team.
As for us, we are continuing our journey in the Transnational Teams with Carole, Anne-Laure and Anaïs, where we are facing some good teams and playing some interesting deals 😊
A nice defence from Anne-Laure and Carole:
Declarer, like me at the other table, plays in 4H in South.
Lead of the seven of spades, taken by the king, then queen of clubs overtaken by the ace to take a ruffing finesse against the king by playing the jack of clubs and throwing a diamond. King of hearts, which Carole took in West before returning a diamond to the queen, king and ace.
Declarer played back a club, which Carole this time covered with the king, ruffed in the dummy, and then dummy’s jack of hearts taken by Carole’s queen.
Here comes the hardest part of the deal. Carole underled her jack of diamonds, and Anne-Laure was able to win with the ten and have her ruff declarer’s club, which had become a winner, to avoid it being used as a discard. So, they ended up making a spade trick.
As for me, I received the lead of the queen of spades, so I had no difficulty in making +1 after giving up only two hearts, the diamonds going on the clubs.
A high-level competitive deal:
The start of the sequence was the same at both tables:
1H in East, take-out double in South (the distribution makes up for the low number of points), and 4H in West. In North, I said 4S because it is easier to make ten tricks than eleven in a club contract. Pass, Pass, and 5H in West.
I have to make a decision in North, as Anaïs knows absolutely nothing about my hand apart from the fit in spades. I could have made the same bid with the king-sixth in spades and a shortage!
We are not in a forcing situation as I can have a weak hand. This means that if I pass, it could very well end there. This annoys me because I would like to know whether it is better to double 5H or say 5S to win, but I don’t have all the elements to decide!
I ended up saying 5S because I can see very few losers in spades (one heart, or even zero, when the opponents are at the 5-level, and I should try to lose only one trick in the other three suits, which is likely when I suspect the ten-card fit in clubs) and also because our side has very few defensive tricks (one club, one spade or two if we are lucky…).
The full deal:
I played in 5S made since the opponents did not find the ruff in clubs, while on the other side, our team-mates played in 5C doubled made, so the deal still brought us 17 IMPs!
Day 10 : A disastrous defence
All vulnerable, and I am sitting South with the following:
West opened one spade and Anaïs intervened with 2NT showing she holds the minor suits at least 5-5. East then bid four spades. And then, despite my fit in both minors I passed! Our opponents had no difficulty in arriving at six spades.
At the other table, our opponents managed a successful sacrifice in seven diamonds after South’s bid of five diamonds, for a score of 800 against 1430! At the table I did not have the courage, given my lack of points and any top honours. This was clearly unpardonable from me – being vulnerable, my partner also showed a two-suiter in the minors, so she had the points and shape that go with it!
The next time I shall remember that it is always the right thing to defend with this type of hand. Here, it was very difficult for my partner to rebid with her hand without any guarantee of a fit and no knowledge of potential defensive tricks 😊
Here’s the full deal:
Day 11 : A tour of the Recoleta Cemetery for Margaux, whilst Sofie plays in the Women’s Pairs
The Recoleta Cemetery, in the historic centre of Buenos Aires, is famous for its marble mausoleums which line the graveyard’s aisles, and which resemble houses lining the pavement.
It is almost a mandatory tourist attraction, often compared with Père-Lachaise, the celebrated Parisian cemetery, with its varied architecture offering a mixture of Art nouveau, Gothic Revival and Art Deco. The Argentinian actress and politician Eva Perón is among the personalities buried here.
Some news concerning Sofie who will be playing the Women’s Pairs with her mother:
“In Argentina, I am playing the Women’s Pairs World Championships tournament with my mother. We joined the tournament after our team lost in the quarter-finals of the Mixed Teams event. First of all, we played two days in semi-final A, at the same time as the Mixed Pairs, at the end of which we were in the lead. We are now reduced to ten pairs to play the final over two days with 45 boards to be played each day.”
Final results for Team Funbridge: a silver medal for Sofie and a bronze one for Olivia!
After beating China by 30 IMPs, Olivia took third place in the Women’s World Championships. Special mention to the prettiest team on the podium!
Sofie and her mum finished second in final A of the Women’s Pairs with 55.57%, just 2% behind the leaders.
The 2024 World Bridge Games come to an end with good results for Team Funbridge 😊 It was very nice to take part. For my part, we didn’t perform as expected with the French women’s team, but we trained well for the 2025 World Championships and we had a great time visiting Buenos Aires!
Here are some photos of the Teatro Colon and Caminito, a very colourful tourist street:
Let’s support Team Funbridge !
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