Levin-Weinstein led the final session up until the penultimate board when a disaster by Stewart-Woolsey opponents swung approximately 200 IMPS and the victory of the 2011 Cavendish Invitational Pairs.
BAND’s picks finished 2nd, 7th and 8th…Not a bad take for three days. It was brutal, however, to watch the last round disaster!
Now for the closing party…sleep and prepare for the 2011 United States Team Trials!
The Cavendish Invitational Pairs (CIP) began Friday morning at 10:30am Vegas time with 36 pairs playing 35 rounds of 4 boards over 5 sessions. With $614,000 in the auction pool, the top prize this year pays $146,000! If you are interested in the auction pool – what pairs went for and who bought them follow this link: http://cavendish.bridgewinners.com/auctions-awards.
Now for a little explaination of the primary auction and then the secondary market. Prior to the Back Tie Auction, there is a pre-auction at which each of the competiting pairs cards are placed on a bulletin board. Potential buyers place their bids on the cards until the auction period ends. This year, the pre-auction ended on Thursday at 4pm.
Thursday evening, the live auction included pairs which were bid on during the pre-auction and the remainder of the pairs were deamed to have bought themselves. This year, there were 26 pairs in the live auction. The evening began with an hour of open bar (and dinner) to get the bidders “feeling good” before the live auction period began.
This year, there was a slight scare at the beginning of the auction when Pierre Zimmerman fell ill. Those of you who took a look at the Auction pool will notice that he is a BIG bidder! Luckily, he took a few minutes of fresh air and was back in action about three pairs into the evening.
Chris and I bought the highest pair and previous winners of the last 3 our of 4 years – Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein who went for 48,000. Now before you guys have a heart attack – we don’t own 100% of the pair even thought we bought them in the auction. The pair themselves has a right to purchase up to 40% of themselves back. The remainder of the pair we save back the percentage we want to keep and sell the rest to the active bidders in the auction. This year we kept 20% .
The secondary market is fun in that you can go around and buy smaller percentages of the pairs you want without buying the entire pair during the live auction. The key, however, is that you must own a pair to trade percentages to other bidders for the pairs you want. Otherwise, you might get left out in the cold.
In the secondary market this year, we bought percentages of the following pairs: Eric Greco & Geoff Hampson, Geir Helgemo & Tor Helness, Michel Bessis & Thomas Bessis, Josef Piekarek & Alex Smirnov and Chris Compton & Mike Passell.
The overalls pay 10 places. At the end of Day 1 (2 of 5 sessions), we have two pairs sitting in first and second position with a third pair just outside the paying spot in 12th position. Look for a few of our others pairs to creep into position during play on Saturday. I will keep you posted here. You can also visit http://cavendish.bridgewinners.com/2011-session-information for up-to-date scores or watch live action at www.bridgebaseonline.com.
These are all world class players – luck (good will – you guys cheering) make the difference!
The 2011 Cavendish Invitational has begun! Breakfast by the pool started the day off right for the eight teams competing in the 2011 John Roberts Teams Prize Pool. It was a sunny day and the players and fans were full of anticipation as they enjoyed their locks on a bagel, omlets, patries, juices and coffee – LOTS of the latter! With all of the time zone differences of the players – there were a lot of sleepy eyes at breakfast! Luckily for most of them, with the game time at 10:30am, there was plenty of time for the caffine to kick in!
Heading into today, the field consisted of 10 teams which was going to be a perfect movement – 9 rounds of 9 boards – and every team played one another. Unfortunately, two of the teams originally signed up had to cancel last minute leaving only 8 teams to compete for this years money prizes. They teams will still be playing 9 rounds of 9 boards but the format will be a bit different. The first seven matches will be played in round robin format – meaning all of the teams will play each other. Then for matches 8 and 9, the format will change to a swiss. Teams 1 and 2 will play, teams 3 and 4 will play and so on and so forth.
As I write this entry, the results of Match 1 are posted at http://cavendish.bridgewinners.com/2011-session-information. The results will continue to be posted there at the end of each match of the John Roberts Teams.
Daily Bulletins ay be found at http://cavendish.bridgewinners.com/daily-bulletin.
You my also follow live action at www.bridgebaseonline.com
Check in regularly starting on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 for an insider’s view of the 2011 Cavendish Invitational. Bridge Base Online vugraph will be shown on BAND’s big screens throughout the tournament while you play!
The Team event starts Wednesday at 12pm Dallas time. It consists of 9 matches over a span of one and a half days ending mid afternoon on Thursay. In this event, Chris will be playing with Jeff Meckstroth as his partner and teammates Dave Caprera & Clem Jackson. Look for this team to be in the $$$!
The Pair event starts Friday at 12pm Dallas time. This is a three-day event with lots of boards and plenty of action! Chris is playing with one of his favorite world-class partners, Mike Passell – and they plan on taking no prisoners!
The pairs will be auctioned off in a live calcuta on Thursday evening. I will post the $$ amounts and owners of the pairs at the end of the auction. I will also post BAND’s picks so you know who to cheer for while you watch! Final standings will be determined around 2:30pm on Sunday.
When the tournament begins, I will post daily reports of the behind the scenes action so be sure to check back starting on Wednesday, May 4th!
The 2011 Vanderbelt Finals will feature the Grue Team vs. the Fleisher Team. Both teams took care of their opponents in fine fashion – with no close calls in the final few boards. The Grue team includes Curtis Cheek who is still dealing with his bout with swine flu. He is playing like his old self and showing no mercy on his opponents. His has lots of people cheering for him to show the bridge world that he is BACK to play - including yours truly.
The Fleisher Team qualified to represent the US in the 2011 Bermuda Bowl in last year’s United States Team Trials and they are showing that their Bermuda Bowl qualification was no accident. The Final match-up should be one to watch! Kick off time is 10am Dallas Time.
Meanwhile in the Two-Day Open Swiss, Chris’ team is in second place heading into the final day. With a little luck and some great play – Team Sonsini is positioned to finish in the money. My team qualified for the second day of the Two-Day Women’s Swiss and also has chances to win it all.
Time for sleep – See you tomorrow!
Well, it looked like Team Nickell was going to survive to see another day with 9 boards to go in the Round of 8 – but it wasn’t meant to be. The wheels fell off and it wasn’t even close at the end. It was a good run, however, and Team Nickell still has their beye to the Round of 16 in the United States Team Trials.
Congratualations to Fleisher, Diamond, Kang and Grue – The Final Four! Interestingly, Diamond is the only top four seed to make it to the Round of Four. For all of you Nickell fans – thanks for the support! I will let you know when the Team Trials begin in May so we can carry Team Nickell to the USA II so we can defend the Bermuda Bowl in October!
No time to stop cheering, however. Now that Nickell is out of the running – I will be cheering for the Grue Team which includes Joe Grue, New York NY; Leslie Amoils, Toronto ON; Ishmael Delmonte, New South Wales Australia; Curtis Cheek, Las Vegas NV; David Bakhshi, London England. One team member in particular, is worth cheering for – Curtis Cheek. He was the player that got swine flu from Sao Paulo and was in a coma for three months in a Brazilian hospital. He has recovered for the most part but he lost parts of his hands and feet. For a while, they thought his short term memory had been affected but now here he is in the Final Four showing the world that he can still play this game! The rest of the guys on the team are nice too!
I will be on BBO watching along with all of you tomorrow! Be sure to drop in on a game tomorrow at BAND and follow along with the play on the big screen TVs! Wear a creative Scarf/Tie for the chance to win a club game with Donna! Can’t wait to see the pictures!
See you tomorrow…
Another exciting day in the 2011 Vanderbilt Cup! Top seeded Monaco Z fell to the original 17 seed Team Deutsch who now takes over the top seed and are favorites over their opponents in the Round of 8. Chris’s team fell to the Number 4 Seed Cayne – Out gunned and out matched…it was a great run for Team Sonsini who debuted in her first BIG team event in Louisville. I am sure we will see more of her (and Chris) in future tournaments.
If you are wondering why I am writing the blog at 2am…our match just finished a while ago and after the team debriefing I starting writing this blog. For those of you who watched the Nickell – O’Rourke match on BBO – wow what a match. I have definitely aged dramatically since the match started this morning. When the final board scored - Team Nickell won by 1 (event though the score shows 3) but one imp is enough to survive to play in the Round of 8! We received more good news at the end of the match as well – in adding our seeding points for the United States Team Trials by winning today’s match, we now have a beye to the Round of 16 in the Team trials in May. As you may remember, if Team Nickell wins a beye to the Round of 8 in the team trials if they win the match tomorrow…we need all of you to watch the vugraph show at BAND or go online at BBO and cheer for Team Nickell!
Two other matches are being decided in committee – which means there was a director’s ruling and a committee of players are deciding the fate of four teams. I am going to sleep and will find out the results of those matches in tomorrow’s bulletin. For those who can’t wait for tomorrow night’s blog…go to Brackets or Results.
See you online tomorrow!
WOW! What an exciting Round of 32…Sweet 16 coming up! Of the 16 matches – we saw five upsets (which means a lower seeded team lost their seed to a higher seeded team. One of these upsets included the Sonsini Team (Chris’s team) which was the 20th seed and they won their match taking over the 13th seed. Team Sonsini faces a tough match in the Sweet 16 Round facing the Cayne Team which includes four italians (not my italians, thank goodness – but none the less, four italians. Team Sonsini is clearly the underdog in this match but the team is playing “in the zone” so perhaps we will see another upset on Thursday.
On a personal note – congratulations to Barbara Sonsini for going over 4000 masterpoints with her win in the Round of 32 (she won 50 masterpoints).
The Nickell Team (my team) strolled through the Round of 32 playing their opponents around in circles. The boys have been warming up in these early matches and are playing in form as they enter the Sweet 16 Round. Our draw tomorrow is the O’Rourke Team which is a formidable Sweet 16 Team but as long as our guys take care of business…it should be an academic match.
You can watch both of these matches along with the other 6 matches of the day on Bridge Base Online or check in on the Quarter Scores on BridgeWinners.com. The vugraph matches will be shown on BAND’s big screen TVS – so wear your green, join the fun and cheer for Team Nickell and Team Sonsini!
Team Rosters Bracket Sheet Quarter Results
With the Round of 64 all said and done, the Nickell Team advances to the Round of 32 to face the 34th seeded team of Jacek Jerzy Kalita, Warsaw Poland; Krzysztof Kotorowicz, Bialystok 15 Poland; Nicolas L’Ecuyer, Montreal QC; Vincent Demuy, Laval QC; David Grainger, Bend OR; Ron Zambonini, Nepean ON. Obviously, we are the clear favorite but anything can happen over a 64 board match.
The Round of 32 will be broadcasted on BBO starting at 12 NOON Dallas time. The vugraph will be shown throughout the remainder of the week on BAND’s big screen tvs while you play! Follow the play by play with world class commentary underneith the hands.
On a personal note: Chris’ team (Sonsini) also made it through the Round of 64 and faces a fellow Dallasite, Bart Bramely in the Round of 32. The Sonsini Team is the 20 seed while the Bramely Team is a 13th seed. Chris’ team is the favorite – but it will definitely be a close match. Be sure to follow these two matches along with the other Round of 32 matches on Bridge Base Online or at BAND!
See you tomorrow!
