Loading ...i don’t get it
What makes the Buffett Cup one of the most exciting tournaments in the world? There are many ingredients. Europe v USA always fires the imagination. The formula, similar in some ways to the Ryder Cup of Golf. The gathering of some of the great players in the world, selected not only on the basis of their bridge ability, but also equally as the players who enhance our wonderful game with … impeccable behavior at the table.
– Paul Hackett
I was surprised to see that the 2008 Buffett Cup is under way in Louisville, KY — though I vaguely recall seeing a photo of the American team in a recent magazine, I can’t say that it registered as an important upcoming event. Was it just my oversight? Tell me, did you know it was coming?
It is unusual, in my experience, to have such a prestigious event receive so little advance publicity. It’s possible I’m just not hanging around the right places, though I don’t think so. I was surprised that BridgeBase is listed as a sponsor, but they’re not even promoting the tournament now that it’s under way — at least they weren’t as of 5 a.m. central time on day two of the event. Maybe the tournament people should speak to my friend Fulvio Fantoni, who knows how to advertise events.
It’s a shame. The US stock market crumbled yesterday, and if I were a reporter of such things I’m quite sure I’d be looking for a reaction from The Man himself. I’d find him in Louisville at “some bridge thing” and if I were good enough at my job to be calling Warren Buffett for a quote, I’d certainly know that Jimmy Cayne was playing bridge when his company went under last summer. I might remember that Bill Gates has more than a passing interest in the game. After a little research I’d even know something about the matches in the late 80s between a team called Corporate America and two other teams, one called Congress and one called House of Commons and by then I’d be well on my way to writing a feature story for my newspaper’s Sunday magazine.
Paul Hackett, Europe’s captain, wrote an interesting newsletter article about the absence of Italians on the European team. It is available here. He says, essentially, that a scheduling conflict is the root cause of the absence of the world’s best players. I have to admit I neither noticed or was bothered by the fact that the Italians are missing.
What did bother me was watching Sabine Auken and Marion Michielsen, the only women on the European team, conduct a tense, thoughtful auction to 1NT. When it was over, the VuGraph operator reported, Sabine asked Marion how they play 1NT, since they’d never discussed it. Want the whole auction? 1S – 1NT. Forcing or no?
Bridge is a partnership game but the Buffett Cup has an individual component — wouldn’t it be better to designate the singles like Sabine and Marion and Hampson and Freeman as players in the individual event and provide them a set of identical system notes? I’d love to watch a match like that, where the game’s top woman, junior world champion, top professional player and brilliant elder statesman compete on behalf of their team in a match during which everybody plays with everybody. Care to rank those four players in the order you think they’d finish an individual?
I don’t get it. A match between the game’s two superpowers (no offense, Asia), drumming up next to no publicity for itself before (or, so far) during the event although it carries the name of the man from whom the entire world would like to hear, missing the Italian superstars, played in part by non-partnerships. How’s this good for bridge?
Leave a Comment