Well deserved winners

The inaugural Warren Buffett Cup ended on September 24th with the American team of bridge players clinching the trophy with an impressive late show of strength. Having been behind at one point by 13 championship points, they finished 23 points in the lead, having won all five of the final five rounds, two of them clean sweeps – a genuinely outstanding performance.

The elegant crystal glass trophy was presented to the American team captain Donna Compton at the end of a gala dinner attended by all the players, their supporting teams and scores of local and visiting guests, including Jose Damiani, the President of the World Bridge Federation. Amidst several hours of singing and speeches, an improvised duet by Giorgio Duboin and Jill Meyers stood out, underlining the camaraderie and good feeling between the two opposing teams.

Splendidly organised by the Contract Bridge Association of Ireland, and played for honour rather than money, the challenge match was deemed by everyone that I spoke to as a success. A return challenge match will now take place in Louisville , Kentucky in September 2008, timed once more to coincide with the Ryder Cup of golf, on which this new bridge event has been modelled.

The concept of a challenge match featuring 12 of the best players of both sides of the Atlantic seems to have caught the imagination of bridge enthusiasts around the world. The match was broadcast on Bridge Base Online with commentary in five different languages. Up to 3000 spectators at a time watched the battle unfold online, while the Buffett Cup website attracted an average of 20,000 hits a day. The event has since been written up in several bridge columns, including The Times of London and The Spectator.

Individual performances

The mantle of the most watched player went to Zia Mahmood, the flamboyant and always entertaining member of the US team, playing on this occasion with Roy Welland . The players with the best individual scores over the whole event were Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein (for the USA ) and Giorgio Duboin and Norberto Bocchi (for Europe ).

By universal consent however, the most impressive individual performance was that of Paul Soloway, who completed more than 200 boards in four days, following a tiring transatlantic flight, just a week after coming out of hospital. While he looked a little grey on the first two days, and was observed more than once snatching a nap at the table, the veteran American completed the event with one of the best overall individual records. 

While the undoubted stars of the opening team section of the challenge match were the Italian and Irish pairs, who remained unbeaten in all six of their matches, it was a different story in the concluding individual section of the event. Four of the American players won six of their 11 matches (each one played with a different partner) and one, Jill Meyers, won seven. None of the European players managed more than four wins in this section.

In the end it was their impressive performance in the individual event that carried the Americans to victory. Although all the players were required to play a common simple bidding system in the individual round, based on a strong No Trump and five card majors, the Europeans probably faced the bigger challenge in adapting. The Italians, for example, have rarely played this way, while the system has many features in common with Standard American.

This may explain why there were some strange looking bidding sequences in the final part of the match. It also underlines why, as in golf, head to head challenge matches at bridge are about judgement and temperament, as well as technical skill. Throw in the match-a-board scoring system, which introduces some fascinating tactical dynamics, and you have the makings of an exciting spectator event, which is what the Warren Buffett Cup is intended to be all about.

The challenge match concept

One of the things that the organising committee for the return match will be studying is whether it is possible to simplify the bidding systems even further, with a view to increasing the popular appeal of the challenge match format. Bob Hamman, one of the moving forces behind the competition, is keen to make the challenge match a means of attracting new interest in bridge. A head-to-head match, played with minimal systems anda much simpler scoring system, could be a powerful boost to the game.

One impressive feature of the event was the excellent atmosphere in which the matches were played. Few if any hard words were exchanged all week, either between the teams or within partnerships. The match was played without bidding screens or any of the other measures that were introduced in the 1970s to preserve the integrity of international tournaments. They were unnecessary here. 

For all these reasons, the success of this inaugural competition bodes well for the future of the game. Paul Hackett and the Contract Bridge Association of Ireland deserve enormous credit for getting this new competition off to such an impressive start. Now it is up to the bridge world to capitalise and to take the challenge match idea on to new heights and a permanent place in the sporting calendar.

Jonathan Davis