THE 20th NEC BRIDGE FESTIVAL
Hosted by Japan Contract Bridge League
Supported by NEC Corporation
February 10 – February 15, 2015
At Pacifico Yokohama, Yokohama City, Japan
Official Site Teams and Players Results Daily Bulletins
Saturday 14th 2015
Hackett Victorious in the 2015 NEC Cup
Team Hackett (Jason Hackett, Brian Senior, John Holland, Gunnar Hallberg) had been running through the field here for four days straight. They qualified first in the Swiss more than 14 VP ahead of second, they won their quarter-final match by a score of 94-17, and as if that wasn’t enough they beat up on their semi-final opponents to the tune of 78-5. Could anyone have thought that the final would be any different? Especially since they were playing the team that had qualified last for the KOs (less than 1 VP ahead of the next team), that had won their quarter-final match by 89-45 but their semi-final match only by 67-54.
Who would have thought the final would be so close? Who? The Junior Editor, that’s who! He predicted a close match and indeed the event hung on the final deal, where Justin Hackett had to find a critical shift at trick two to give his partner a ruff or those last place qualifiers, England/Netherlands (David Bakhshi, David Gold, Ricco van Prooijen, Louk Verhees), would
have been the champions. Well, Jason found the right shift and the rest is history, but the runners-up were no slouches and they thrilled the VuGraph audience.
| Team | Seg. 1 | Seg. 2 | Seg. 3 | Seg. 4 | Penalty | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hackett | * 36 | * 12 | * 34 | * 42 | 124.00 | |
| England/Netherlands | 13 | 42 | 25 | 35 | 115.00 |
The king is dead. Long live the king! Team Russia was back, going for an NEC three-peat. They led 46-8 at the half. This was a done deal, right? Wrong!
Team England/Netherlands (David Bakhshi, David Gold, Ricco van Prooijen, Louk Verhees) staged a comeback for the ages, outscoring Russia 59-8 in the second half for the right to meet top qualifier Hackett (Jason Hackett, Brian Senior, John Holland, Gunnar Hallberg) in today’s NEC Cup final.
Team Hackett has been cutting through this year’s NEC Cup field like a warm knife through butter. They won the first half of their semi-final match by a score of 78-5 over England Hinden, last year’s runner-up, at which point Hinden withdrew.
So it’s England/Netherlands versus Hackett in today’s NEC Cup final. Good luck to the two finalists and congratulations to all the other qualifiers who gave us such a rousing day of playoff bridge yesterday.
Todos los equipos y sus jugadores: