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COVID-19: An update for District 19 membership from the Board of Directors

JP Weber News, Tournaments

The District 19 Board of Directors is doing its best to navigate the challenges and uncertainties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Board members are monitoring developments in policies and guidance from national, regional and local government authorities in Canada and US, and the ACBL.  We review, discuss and evaluate implications and plans for D19-sponsored events going forward.  We will keep D19 membership apprised of developments as they take place.  Please see below an update on upcoming events:

D19 Burnaby Regional (April 6-12, 2020) – Notice of cancellation of this tournament was provided to D19 membership via email on March 17, 2020.

D19 Grand National Teams (GNT) Finals – The D19 GNT Finals scheduled for April 18 & 19 at the Vancouver Bridge Centre are cancelled.  The D19 Board is exploring recovery plans for this event.  The ACBL Board of Directors has re-scheduled the North American GNT Finals from NABC Montreal in July to NABC Tampa this fall.  (ACBL will be establishing the dates of the GNT Finals to be held at Tampa.)  Districts are now given until October 1, 2020 to hold their district GNT Finals.  The D19 Board is exploring the alternatives of running this event face-2-face, as it has been, or online.  More information on plans for D19 GNT Finals will be announced when it becomes available.

D19 Penticton Regional (June 15-21, 2020) – At present, this tournament is still “on.”  Financial and other considerations bearing on the decision whether to proceed with the tournament are under review.  The D19 Board will further discuss the situation during its telephonic board meeting the week of April 21.  We expect to make a final decision about Penticton no later than May 1.

ACBL’s North American NAP Finals – Last fall’s 2019 D19 NAP Finals qualified pairs for ACBL’s North American NAP Finals that were to have been held at the cancelled NABC Columbus.  To recover the North American NAP Finals, the ACBL Board of Directors has decided that the event will take place at NABC Montreal in July.  (ACBL will be establishing the dates of the NAP Finals to be held at Montreal.)  If NABC Montreal were to be cancelled, the event would then be down streamed to NABC Tampa and run on dates not to conflict with the GNT Finals to be held at Tampa.  The D19 NAP Coordinator will continue to coordinate plans with pairs who qualified last fall for the North American NAP Finals.

We regret the impacts this situation is having on clubs, units and players.  We will continue to look and plan ahead in pursuit of the best available plans under the circumstances.

Thank you for your understanding,

D19 Board of Directors

Living in interesting times

JP Weber News, Tournaments

Here’s a message to all members from Chris Cookson, District 19’s president:

“The District 19 board will be meeting online on April 21 and we hope to be in a position to make a decision about the fate of the Penticton Regional. In the meantime, I urge the membership to plan on going, assume it’s on, but not make any non-refundable deposits on accommodation or transportation.

Next week, we will be reviewing the fate of the GNTs (scheduled for April 18-19 in Vancouver) and will be informing all members of our decision via email.”

Embarrassment of riches

JP Weber Tournaments

Welcome to October!

This month, you have the opportunity to participate in not only one, but two D19 Regionals.

The Tri-Cities Regional runs from October 21 to 27. It’s being held in  Pasco, Wa,  some 200 miles SE of Seattle. Follow this link for complete information on the tournament.

A week later, October 28 to November 3,  it’s time for the Whistler Regional, in BC, about 1.5 hours driving distance northward from Vancouver, BC. Go to our D19 Tournaments page for the flyer. More details will become available as the tournament draws near.

2019 NAP National Finals

JP Weber News, Tournaments

The Flight C pairs highlighted D19’s representation at the North American Pairs (NAP) National Finals played at NABC Memphis on March 30 and 31.

Of the 88 Flight C pairs who entered the two-day event from across the ACBL, all four D19 pairs qualified on Saturday for the two-session final on Sunday.

Three of the four D19 pairs finished in the top 16 overall in the event, an amazing show of strength of Flight C pairs in D19.

Finishing 16th overall in the NAP Flight C National Finals — and becoming Life Masters in the process —Mark McWiggins and Craig Von Land, from Issaquah and Seattle, WA respectively

 

Finishing 12th overall in the NAP Flight C National Finals, Morris Chen and Qiang Hua, both of Surrey, BC

 

Finishing 13th overall in the NAP Flight C National Finals, the Souza brothers Felipe and Guilherme, both of Bellevue, WA

D19 GNT Flight C Team is Runner Up at NABC Atlanta!

JP Weber Tournaments

This evening, Sunday July 29, the D19 GNT Flight C team of Jordan Tessarolo, Marc Furnemont, Ryley Breiddal and Jan Soutar played in the GNT Finals at NABC Atlanta, finishing second in the event.

They had an incredible run through the five-day event — a day-long qualifying round, round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. It is a grueling and challenging event.

Jan, Jordan and Marc are from Unit 431 in Victoria. Ryley, formerly of Victoria, now lives in Vancouver (Unit 430).

Congratulations, Jordan, Marc, Ryley and Jan!

Ryley, Marc, Jan and Jordan (l to r)

Marc, when he wasn’t busy playing, found time to chronicle the team’s progress. Read his captivating two-part account below:

We played 8 matches on Wednesday against representatives of the other Districts, to try and qualify as one of the 16 Teams for the knockout stage.

We finished the 4 afternoon matches (against Alabama, California, NY and New Jersey) 2-1-1 and we were nicely above the cut, thanx to a blitz in the 4th set.

As expected, things got tighter in the evening (two small losses and a good win against Minnesota, Colorado, and Michigan). Even though we suffered the worst loss of the day in our 4th set against the team from Ohio (losing by 22 in just 7 boards to a very nice and friendly couple), we qualified in 9th place, and awaited the draw to see who we would play in the round of 16.

Our opponents, drawn by lots, were the 5th ranked team from Ohio we had just finished losing badly to in the last round. However, we felt confident, as we thought the two hands we lost 21 points on were more aberrations then being outclassed, and we thought we had a good chance.

We played 2 rounds of 13 boards in the afternoon, winning the first one by 7 and the second one by 16.In the evening, things got interesting when we lost most of our lead in the 3rd session, losing by 16 on a definitely “pushy” slam going down 1 and allowing our opponents to make 4 Spades doubled.
The final set was a see-saw battle, where I didn’t bid an easily makeable slam, and where Ryley and I allowed them to make 3 Clubs doubled vulnerable, but we also had our share of nice results and Jordan and Jan played a steady round, and we won the last set 39-32 to move on to the round of 8.

After a brief tour of the room where we will play today, in order to learn about playing with screens,
we headed for a few celebratory drinks and tried to sleep.

Today, we play against a Team from Florida.

The four of us would like to sincerely thank the amazing bridge community … and our respective spouses. Your moral and financial support, your words of encouragement and advice, and your teachings over the years, are a great part of our success so far.

Marc Furnemont, Friday morning, July 27

Before a quick update on our team’s perambulations, we have been following the results of our good friend Mike Roche, who is playing in the Pairs top flight with John Carruthers from Ontario. In this world class field of over 170 pairs, Mike and John are having a superb tournament and are in 7th place after 3 days ! Go get them, Mike.

On Friday, we played a team from Jacksonville, Florida. Things started rather slowly, with our team losing by 13 in the first quarter but gaining back 1 before the dinner break. Jim McAvoy, texted me these words of encouragement: “Your opponents are one disaster away from losing”. Well, our team certainly cranked things up in the evening, played pretty good bridge, and won the last two sets by a combined total of 59 points. What a birthday present for Jordan 😉

After that, having exceeded our realistic expectations for the tournament and having celebrated a wee bit (couldn’t fall asleep in until after 3 AM), we had to go back for “one last day”, knowing that whatever happened in the semis, we would have good memories and stories to tell.

The team we faced on Saturday was from Oregon and, just like the day before, we trailed by 15 after the first set. Then Ryley and I bid a very nice slam and pushed to a game that our opponents didn’t find, and those two boards gave us a 2nd quarter win by 25 and a 10 point lead at the break. The fist set of the evening finished on a high / low note. Ryley and I had a misunderstanding in the auction but somehow survived. YES ! win by 12 and a more comfortable lead before the final set. Not so fast ! The other team calls the Director, points out that, because of the (unintentionally) incorrect information we gave them during the auction, the score should be adjusted. The ruling came back half an hour later, in favour of the opponents, and, just like that, our lead had evaporated. I had a hard time re-focusing after that, and tried to not think about the complexities of the (fair) ruling. We were down by 12 with just 3 boards to go when fireworks started. I doubled a 6 diamond slam holding only the ace of clubs and 4 tiny trumps, but Ryley had bid and, surely, surely, he had “stuff”. After an uninspired lead that almost gave the opponents a chance to make it, they finished down 3, while Jordan and Jan “stole” a heart contract at their table. On the penultimate board, in spite of our normally aggressive bidding, Ryley and I stopped in 4 spades (making 5) while the other table bid 6, going down 1. All of a sudden, with one board to go, after playing for almost 9 hours, we were leading by 2 tiny points. That last board was all about defence, as both teams were in the same contract. Ryley and I found the perfect defence to beat the contract, while Jordan was able to induce the other team to make a mistake on defense and make his contract. Win by 14 and an UNBELIEVABLE trip to the Final against a young team from California …

Marc Furnemont, Sunday morning, July 29