Background to the Championships
World Youth Championships 2018
First Report Wednesday 8th August
The championships will be held at Li Ze Culture and Sports Palace in the Wujiang District of Suzhou in China from the 8th to the 18th August 2018.
Suzhou [pronounced like ‘sue ‘joe’], is a major city located in the south eastern province of Jiangsu in East China. Suzhou is one of the most prosperous cities in China. Its development has a direct correlation with the growth of the satellite cities across the country. It is situated about 100 km northwest of Shanghai. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the shores of Lake Tai [while I worked for the outboard company Mercury Marine, this is where they built their marine facility on this lake for the wealthy locals]. Administratively, Suzhou is a prefecture-level city with a population of 4.33 million in its city proper. The Wujiang District is the largest of the 5 districts of Suzhou with a population of about 1.3 million.
North westerly winds blowing from Siberia during winter can cause temperatures to fall below freezing at night, while southerly or south westerly winds during the summer [August tends to be the hottest month] can push temperatures above 35 °C.
Format of the Championship
The Championship consists of four Series: Juniors, Girls, Youngsters and Kids. All the Series will be played as a complete round-robin with all teams playing each other: at the end of the round-robin the highest ranked 8 teams in each series will qualify for the knock-out stages.
Timetable
- Wednesday 8th August is the opening ceremony and captains’ meeting
- Thursday 9th to Tuesday 14th August is the qualifying round robin in each section
- Wednesday 15th August is the quarter final in each section
- Thursday 16th August is the semi-final in each section
- Friday 17th and Saturday 18th is the final in each section
- Saturday 18th August is also the closing ceremony.
Australia has representation in the Juniors section only
The Junior section comprises
|
Australia |
Botswana |
Canada |
Chile |
|
China |
China H. K. |
Chinese Taipei |
Colombia |
|
Egypt |
England |
France |
India |
|
Indonesia |
Israel |
Italy |
Netherlands |
|
New Zealand |
Poland |
Singapore |
Sweden |
|
USA1 |
USA2 |
|
|
There are 3 matches per day and 20 round robin rounds to be completed in 5 days. This equates to 15 matches where the complete round robin would be 19 matches. We shall see what happens later in the tournament.
Australia on Thursday, the first day plays –
China first (the current Asian champions)
Singapore second
USA2 third.
Highlights of the first day will be reported tomorrow night.
The Australian team is very experienced and the make up is identical to the previous Junior event at the APBF in Indonesia in April.
The team consists of
Renee Cooper playing with Francesca McGrath
Jamie Thompson playing with Matt Smith
Tomer Libman playing with Andrew Spooner
And the non-playing captain is Mike Doecke
It is a very strong field but our team is experienced beyond their years and we wish them good luck.
Here are some highlights of the individual members of the team.
Renee Cooper was a winner at the Gold Coast this year in the Open field
Jamie Thompson and Matt Smith were winners at the VCC & ANOT this year)
News just recently to hand is that Matt Smith won the prestigious international IBPA award this year for the best played hand by a junior.
Also, awarded earlier this year were Australian awards:
Andrew Reiner Trophy: Matt Smith & Jamie Thompson
This award is granted to the best performed pair in international competition taking account of performance in the events themselves, commitment to preparation and contribution to team success
The choice of the two non-playing captains at the APBF Championships Korea, Matt and Jamie performed consistently throughout the round robin event. They were also successful in winning the Open Swiss Pairs event.
Helman-Klinger Achievement Award: Renee Cooper
This award, worth $400 annually and supplemented with a further $200 from the Friends of Youth Bridge Fund, is presented each year to the Australian Youth Bridge Player whose ability, achievements, sportsmanship, attitude, contribution and commitment during the calendar year are most deserving. Renee has had a few very strong performances in Open competition, including a silver medal at the ANC in the Open Butler Pairs. She is always nice as pie at the table and has put a lot of work into developing her partner Francesca.
Helman-Klinger Masterpoint Award: Renee Cooper
This award, worth $200 annually and supplemented with a further $100 from the Friends of Youth Bridge Fund, is awarded to the Australian Youth Player who earns the most masterpoints in the calendar year in question.
This year Renee won with 144.33 masterpoints (actually Matt Smith won with 301.77 but you can only win this award once). Renee has had some exceptional results in 2017 and is a deserving winner.
Hills-Hurley Trophy: Matt Smith and Jamie Thompson
This trophy, donated by Richard Hills and Steve Hurley, is to encourage talented young bridge players in forming long-standing partnerships and reward successful pairs which have developed a well-organised partnership to harness their full potential.
Ability and achievement
Matt and Jamie won the 2017 APBF Open Swiss Pairs together and were 5th on the SNOT datums together. They have also had their best open results in the last year - Matt reaching the GNOT final, and Jamie winning the VCC and reaching the NZ Teams semi.
Sportsmanship and attitude
Jamie has unfalteringly good manners and ethics. He doesn't gloat nor bags his partner's errors. Jamie is a strong and selfless team player and is becoming a natural leader with a mature attitude and temperament. He is dedicated to partnership bridge, and to fostering sound psychology in himself and his peers. Matt is actively ethical and strives to be as pleasant and respectful to all as he can be. He is also self-motivating.
Contribution and commitment
Matt and Jamie have both proven their commitment to bridge. Jamie's dedication has been acknowledged with the Helman-Klinger award. Matt's dedication borders on obsession! Matt moved from Perth to Sydney to pursue bridge and owns and has read over 250 bridge books. Matt routinely fine-tunes (and re-writes) his and Jamie's methods, and works religiously on his own game. Matt also gets involved with discussions about how to make sure there is a strong youth contingent rising up in the future. They practice online typically four to five nights per week, in stints of often four to five hours. Matt and Jamie both take initiative to seek out knowledge to improve their partnership abilities, and their individual weak spots.
Posted by Mike and Chris on Thursday, 9 August 2018 at 00:30