The 18th NEC Bridge Festival & The Yeh Bros Cup

Source: [ilink url=»http://www.jcbl.or.jp/home/English/nec/tabid/662/Default.aspx»]NEC Official Site[/ilink]

The 2013 NEC Cup will be held in conjunction with the 2013 Yeh Bros Cup at Pacifico Yokohama as follows:

  The NEC Cup 16th to 21st April 2013,   The Yeh Bros Cup 22nd to 26th April 2013

This year’s NEC Cup boasts one of its toughest and most impressive international fields, including many of the world’s top players. Stage One features a 12-round, three-day Swiss Teams qualifier with 14-board matches, imps converted to Victory Points using the new 14-Board WBF scale. The top eight teams will qualify for the final knockout phase. The quarter-and semifinals will consist of 32-board matches, while the final will be contested over 64 boards (with the two losing semi-finalists tying for 3/4). On Friday, April 19, the IMP Pairs Yokohama will be followed held on Saturday, April 20th, by the Yokohama Swiss Teams (A, B & C) and on Sunday, April 21, by the Asuka Cup (Open Pairs).

NEC CUP Day 5: Final (Apr. 20th)      Hands & Scores (pdf) (1st / 2nd / 3rd/ 4th)

The Russians have come close to winning the NEC before (Andrey Gromov and Alexander Dubinin lost narrowly in 2005 and 2007) but the long wait for revenge is over. They more than made up for past defeats in one of the most comprehensive victories ever in the NEC. After 48 boards Gromov and Dubinin, playing with Sjoert Brink, Mikhail Krasnosselski and Evgeny Gladysh, annihilated Team Mixed (Reese Milner, Hemant Lall, Sabine Auken, Roy Welland, Jacek Pszczola, Michael Kwiecien) who themselves had been playing like champions to this point in the event. The finals went only 48 boards, Mixed withdrawing after trailing 153-53.
In the last two days of the KO the Russians had conceded less than 1.5 imps per board. Curiously, the match was level towards the end of the first quarter (at 34-34), when the Russians went on a tear. If they can maintain this sort of form, we expect to see them going on to even greater things at the world level, and very soon.

NEC CUP Day 4:

Quater Finals:

NEC CUP Day 3:

NEC CUP Day 2:

At the end of Day Two, the top qualifiers are still all foreign teams led by Mixed (Milner, H Lall, Auken, Welland, Kwiecien, Pszczola) with 115.56 VPs. (At least the scores are starting to look more normal.) About 9 VPs back is perennial NEC contender NEDUK (Bakhshi, Gold, Jansma, van Prooijen) followed about 2 VPs back by USA (Cheek, Grue, J Lall, Del’Monte) and a fraction behind them by Pharon (the Hacketts+Hanlon), yesterday’s leader. Rounding out the top eight are England, NAITO (the only Japanese squad among the present teams in qualifying position), Italy Lavazza and PolUS. 

First 8 teams are:

Rank Team VPs
1 Mixed.. . . . . . . . . . 115.56
2 NEDUK. . . . . . . . . 106.77
3 USA.. . . . . . . . . . . 104.80
4 Pharon.. . . . . . . . . 104.68
5 England. . . . . . . . . 100.88
6 NAITO. . . . . . . . . . 99.41
7 Italy Lavazza. . . . . 98.92
8 PolUS. . . . . . . . . . 95.84

All results Click Here

NEC CUP Day 1:

After the first 4 rounds RR of the three-day Swiss Teams qualifier, in the first position is the Team Pharon (Paul Hackett, Tom Hanlon, Jason Hackett, Justin Hackett), second Team Russia (Andrey Gromov, Evgeny Gladysh, Alexander Dubinin, Mikhail Krasnosselski, Sebastiaan Drijver, Sjoert Brink), and third Australia Youth (Justin Howard, Peter Hollands, Michael Whibley, Liam Milne). [ilink url=»http://www.jcbl.or.jp/Portals/0/html/2013NEC/NECScore.html»] All positions click here[/ilink]

Tournament Details: Hosted by Japan Contract Bridge League, at the Pacifico Yokohama, Yokohama City, Japan

International Participating Teams ( [ilink url=»http://www.jcbl.or.jp/home/English/nec/teams/tabid/1047/Default.aspx»]All the Teams[/ilink] )