Ron SCHWARTZ, Israel. WBF Record.
The Monaco Cavendish Pairs tournament, which finished two weeks ago, was won by Lotan Fisher (22) and Ron Schwartz (25) from Israel. They finished with 481.15 international match points, 63.55 ahead of Philippe Cronier and Jean-Christophe Quantin from France, with Agustin Madala from Italy and Zia Mahmood from the United States another 90.31 further back, in third.
Ron Schwarz and Lotan Fisher dominated the race, staying ahead since the very first board of the qualification stage to the last board of the Final.
The winning Israeli couple was bought by Angelini & Company + Versace for 25.000 euro. The two Roman «owners» of the couple have therefore won about 157,000 euro (minus the 25,000 spent on the purchase of the pair). One of the pair members Lotan Fisher has a column (worth reading) in NewInBridge where he wrote about his Cavendish experience: After the auction quite a few people bought a stake in Versace’s investment. In fact I succeeded to buy ten percent back, Ron not. (Watch the Fisher-Schwartz auction Click Here)
So CsbNews.org decided to ask the other partnership member, Ron Schwartz (25) about his own experience in the event:
1) When and why did you decide to play the Monaco-Cavendish?
During European bridge championship in Dublin (representing Israel) we heard about the Cavendish coming to Europe and we started to talk with Pierre Zimmermann who helped us a lot to come as a team of young players and of course playing the pairs too.
2) First qualifying session … how did you live it? I think that you could follow the results at the end of each table, how did you feel round per round?
There were 58 pairs and the field was extremely strong including most of the top players all around. Our first hope was to qualify to the Final A (top 12 pairs) and we knew that it will be a hard task, we tried to play our best and get some luck together. From round to round we started to feel stronger and confident and we tried not to look so much on the results per round because we knew that the tournament was long.
3) As the sessions passed. Did you feel pressure? How did you handle the pressure of being first from the beginning? How did you feel physically? How did you handle the body issue?
Our first day (2 sessions) was almost perfect with bidding most of the slams and getting some gifts from opponents- it gave us a lot of confident to go through. Being first from the beginning is always dangerous, but on the other hand it made us even more focus. We had a lot of pressure in the final because the gap got very small but we tried to stay cool and concentrate doing our best. Physically we are always ready and prepared to play high level bridge in short period of time.
5) Did you feel as the winners at some point? If so, what was that that convinced you?
We know from our experience that bridge is a game you must play until the last card. So we didn’t feel as the winners until the last round of 2 boards finished.
6) The board you liked the most? And the board you are still complaining about?
Hard to tell because there was a lot of nice boards but I remember a really bad feeling after I led the 7 of spade from AKJ753 against 3NT (playing against Fantoni-Nunes) and dummy was Q6, luckily declarer played Spade back (trying to figure some squezze play) and I took quickly my 5 tricks for down 1, actually the declarer could have made his contract with the causal play of Diamond finesse because clubs were divided 3-3.
7) Which partnerships impressed you most? Because of the way they played? Their attitude? or? which did you found most difficult?
There were really a lot of strong pairs so I can’t point on 1 or 2.
8) Can you tell us your experience and what did you feel when you realized you won a lot of money playing bridge?
My experience from this tournament is really amazing and of course the money prize in the players pool is really big for a bridge tournament, unfortunately I didn’t took any percentage on me in the auction pool but still I am not complaining.
9) Comments about the event …or whatever you want to add
The Cavendish tournament was first time in Monaco and it was really great, the place is beautiful and amazing and the atmosphere is really exciting, the hosts: Jean Charles Allavena and Pierre Zimmermann was just perfect and it made Monaco the capital of the world bridge. I am glad that the next Cavendish will be also in Monaco- it can be a really nice tradition!
10) What do you think about the next Mind Games in Prague, are you considering to play professionally there? http://csbnews.org/prague-mind-sports-festival/ What do you think about this kind of events? Are you planning to participate in this kind of events?
I am sure I will participate but I don’t know exactly for now.
11) Do you think that Bridge can walk the pokers road? What do bridge needs to do that?
Bridge is not as popular as poker and I hope there will be more tournaments like this in the future that can help to promote the bridge but still bridge will always go other road than poker- they are just different.