{"id":105034,"date":"2025-01-08T13:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T12:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funbridge.com\/blog\/?p=105034"},"modified":"2025-01-08T16:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T15:06:12","slug":"us-u26-team-trials-finn-vs-olivia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funbridge.com\/blog\/en\/us-u26-team-trials-finn-vs-olivia\/","title":{"rendered":"US U26 Team Trials: Finn vs Olivia!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olivia, a member of Team Funbridge, introduces the competition<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A board from Olivia in the Round Robin<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two swing hands from Finn’s perspective<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A beautiful combining chances<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finn qualified to represent the United States as USA1!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fight to join the Junior team continues for Olivia<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making your own luck!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A very positive outcome for the new USA2 team<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Olivia, a member of Team Funbridge, introduces the competition<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I recently had the pleasure of playing in the US Junior trials with Stella Wan in the Under 26 category.<\/strong> Our team (Cornelius Duffie-Jacob Freeman, Richard Jeng-Brent Xiao) was stacked with great players and awesome people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This was an exciting reunion for Stella and me because she was my first-ever bridge partner. We played together for a few months when I was around 10 and she was 15. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once, an opponent thought Stella was my mother<\/strong>, which started a 9 year long inside joke. Here is a picture of Stella and me after winning our first tournament
together!<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Fast forward 9 years to the Junior trials. Before the games started, there was a training camp for all of the Juniors competing in the trials.<\/strong> This was thanks to expert players volunteering their time as mentors and countless hours of preparation from the organisers, particularly Amber Lin. My favourite lesson focused on \u201cmaking your own luck\u201d<\/strong>. The idea is to make your opponents’ decisions more difficult so that they make more errors. This idea stuck with me through the tournament, and it will come up in a hand I share in this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the training camp ended, we jumped right into a one-and-a-half-day round-robin with nine teams. The top four teams would qualify for the USA1 bracket, with the next four making the USA2 bracket and the last finisher being eliminated.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This selection takes place every two years, and Finn Kolesnik (a member of Team Funbridge) has always won it. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, his team consists of Harrison Luba, Bruce Zhu, Michael Hu, Ethan Wood, and his partner, Michael Xu.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A board from Olivia in the Round Robin<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I loved this board from the round robin:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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