National Pairs Championship winners presented with prizes

The prize giving of the National Pairs Championship sponsored by Marsovin was held at the Union Club.

The winners, Svetlana Roukhliada and Bjarni Kristjansson, were presented by the president of the Malta Bridge Association Joan Consiglio, with the trophy, a cheque, and wine.

Second placed Albert Sacco and Marie Farrugia were presented with a cheque and wine as were the third-place winners, Anna Vella and Yvonne Muscat Inglott.

February is a quiet month bridge wise. The normal bridge activities are held at the clubs but there were no competitions in this month.

A group of Irish bridge players played on two occasions at the Malta Bridge Club. This is always a very welcome evening as competing against foreign bridge players always adds to the enjoyment of the game. They enjoyed their evenings very much and thought the standard was quote ‘pretty high.’

This month’s International Bridge Press Association Magazine devoted an article to the decline of bridge in the States, but not in Europe.

It is actually gaining popularity in China and Australia, but the decline is evident in South America, Africa and the near East. The aging population in the bridge world is usually given as the reason as is also the cost of running championships and tournaments which is sometimes prohibitive.

It was suggested, in this article, that bridge should be taught in schools. It already is taught in some schools in Italy and Holland.

The articles stresses that this aim of introducing it to schools should be paramount to all the NBOs.

This is already taking place in China, where there are 24 million school children learning this mind sport. It has not really caught on in Europe.

One of the reasons, and I may add in Malta too, is, that bridge is still thought to be a gambling game rather than a mind sport. There is a very strong appeal by the IBPA to change this attitude and to try to implement teaching bridge at schools.

On the International scene the Prestigious Invitational Cavendish Tournament was held in Monaco. This is a very old prestigious Tournament, in 2012 the tournament finally moved from Las Vegas to Monaco.

The prize money can amount to €100,000. When you consider what other sports, namely tennis and golf, award their winners it doesn’t seem too big a sum!

This year’s pairs winners were Diyan Danailov and Jerry Stamatov from Bulgaria. I know Jerry and I am very pleased for him.

The teams event was won by Zia Mamhood’s team. Zia is one of the world’s greatest bridge players ever. Zia has played in Malta and actually came for our very 1st Bridge Festival held in Malta in the 90s. The other members of his team were Vincent Demuy, John Hurd and Steve Weinstein.

The Sigma Pairs competition comes to its end on the first Monday of March. The first place seems secured by Nathalie Marlin and Graham Penney, barring any big surprises they should win. Second and third is still in the offing. Who knows? Maybe some surprise there!!