July 29th 2013:
Last year, the prestigious Cavendish Invitational was played for the first time in Monaco. The cavendish moved from Las Vegas because of an agreement between Bridge World Productions and the Monaco Bridge Federation. This year’s tournament will be made again in Monaco from 21 to 25 October 2013.
Jean-Charles Allavena, President of the Monaco Bridge Federation, has brought us a letter of invitation which tells us an interesting novelty: the Cavendish Ladies Category.
Dear friends of South America,
Given the tremendous success of the inaugural Monaco Cavendish, we have decided to hold the Cavendish here again this year. Last year’s event had 20 teams and 58 pairs. This year we are going to hold the event on the 21-25 of October . The 21-22 will be the Teams event and the 23-25 will be the Pairs event. We envision that all the stars that came out for the inaugural tournament will come back again and we hope to attract some additional people as well.
After some discussions on how to “improve” or enlarge this event, the idea of a “Ladies Cavendish” was proposed. Initially the thought was to plan this event concurrent with the open event for 2014 but we are trying to see if their would be sufficient interest to hold the event in 2013. We aim to make this a a wonderful experience for all the participants but as all new endeavors have “growing pains”, your participation and feedback is required to turn this into a truly great annual event.
We propose the following format:
* A selected group will receive an invitation to play in this years inaugural Cavendish. Mostly partnerships will be invited but certain ladies will be invited to play with partner of their choice.
* It will be played concurrent with the open event (3 days, roughly 50 boards a day) and you are of course invited to play the open team event first.
* The entry fee will be significantly less than for the open event: the fee will be 750 Euros per pair, the minimum auction amount will be 2000. (The open event is 1500 and 5000). Around 90% of collected amounts will be paid back through players pool and auction pool.
We believe that we need at least 18-20 pairs for this event to be enjoyable to all and would like your feedback right away so we can plan accordingly.
We aim to have 20 pairs registered by September 1st to hold the event, and if not we will not do it and wait until 2014 to hold this event.
If you have any suggestions on the project or of people who should be extended invitation to this event who have not been, please feel free to contact us with these names (or to forward this mail directly).
Please feel free to contact me with any information you might need or question you have. You also may contact Jessica Piafsky (jessicapiafsky@gmail.com) or approach Jessica in Atlanta during the NABC next week, she will be there for the entire time.
Thanks for your answers, comments, intention.. and we look forward to seeing all of you in Monaco in October.
Jean-Charles Allavena
Fed Bridge Monaco